Doña Maria Melendez was a Timucuan Cacica, or Chieftainess, who governed over the village of Nombre de Dios just north of St. Augustine.
Timucuans of Doña Maria’s generation were born during the 1560’s and reached adulthood in the 1580’s, which was when missionary efforts in St. Augustine realized their first successes. The mission to convert the indigenous Floridians was aided by the cooperation of the Timucuan Caciques, or Chiefs, many of whom quickly recognized the advantages of Spanish alliance.
Doña Maria was a Christian, and her mother, who had been the ruling Chief of Nombre de Dios before her, was one of the very early Timucua converts to Christianity. Some say that Doña María was the daughter of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés—conquistador, founder of St. Augustine, first Governor of La Florida, and Protector of the Holy Catholic Church. For this reason, she might have been given the pejorative nickname “La Bastarda.” Doña Maria married a Spanish soldier named Clemente de Vernal, and he lived with her and their children at Nombre de Dios.
By 1606 she had become the ruler of the Timucuan tribes extending along the coast between St. Augustine and approximately Cumberland Island, Georgia, possibly through Spanish intervention.
Despite my best efforts to discover the end to this powerful woman’s story, there is apparently no further record of what happened to Doña María
Leave a Reply