Athena Review Image Archive ™
Map of the Shipwreck of Valdivia (1511)
Probable route of 1511 Valdivia shipwreck and landing of survivors around Cozumel.
An
accidental Spanish landing in Yucatán occurred after a 1511 shipwreck,
during the voyage of Enciso y Valdivia. In the Spring of that year
Valdivia had sailed from Darién in Panama to Santo Domingo. The ship
broke up on reefs near Jamaica, and the few survivors drifted in an
open boat to the eastern shore of Yucatan, where they were either
killed or enslaved by Maya caciques or nobles.
Two survivors,
Gonzalo Guerrero and Geronimo Aguilar, remained alive when Cortés
reached Yucatán in 1519. Aguilar, a former priest who had been made a
slave to a Maya cacique, was rescued by Cortés and became an
interpretor, playing a key role in subsequent events. Guerrero,
meanwhile, who had married a Mayan wife, remained in his Yucatec
village.
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