880 



VELA8C0 VENANGO 



[B. A. E. 



mission, San Francisco, Cal. — Taylor in 

 Cal. Farmer, Oct. 18, 1861. 



Velasco, Luis de. The brother of a chief 

 of a Virginia district known to the Span- 

 iards as Axacan (q. v.), on a stream 

 flowing into Chesapeake bay. Spanish 

 navigators, in company, perhaps, with 

 some Dominican monks, had visited the 

 country in 1559-60 and carried the boy 

 to Mexico, where the viceroy, Don Luis 

 de Velasco, caused him to be baptized and 

 gave him his name. In 1566, while in 

 Havana, Don Luis accompanied a party 

 of 30 Spanish soldiers under a captain, 

 and two Dominicans, to his home country, 

 where it was planned to establish a mis- 

 sion; but the venture proving a failure, 

 themonksand the Indian sailed for Spain. 

 At court he so ingratiated himself into the 

 good will of King Philip II that he lived 

 at the royal expense during all his stay, 

 when he returned to Havana with some 

 Dominican missionaries who had em- 

 barked for Florida. The Florida mission 

 having been abandoned, Don Luis, in his 

 apparent zeal to convert his countrymen, 

 joined the Jesuits under Father Segura on 

 their departure for Florida in 1570. On 

 August 5 Father Segura and 8 other 

 Jesuits, together with the Indian, sailed 

 for Chesapeake bay, reaching on Sept. 10 

 the province of Axacan, where they 

 entered a river and landed. So impover- 

 ished was the country that the vessel was 

 sent back with a message appealing for 

 the relief of the destitution of the Indians 

 in the following spring. On the depart- 

 ure of the vessel the fathers moved to 

 another stream, 2 leagues distant, near a 

 settlement governed by a younger brother 

 of Don Luis, where a hut and a chapel 

 were erected and where the Indian 

 served as interpreter for some time, when 

 he abandoned the missionaries under 

 pretense of preparing for their reception 

 at another village. Early in Feb. 1571, 

 a messenger was sent by the missionaries 

 to induce Don Luis to return. He re- 

 ceived them with a great show of friend- 

 ship and promised to return on the follow- 

 ing day, but the same night the Indians, 

 led by Luis, overtook the little party and 

 murdered them. On Feb. 8, the remain- 

 der of the missionary band at their settle- 

 ment were disarmed of their hatchets by 

 a ruse, when the Indians fell upon and 

 killed all except a little boy, Alonso, who 

 was rescued by Menendez later in the year 

 when he visited Axacan to wreak ven- 

 geance on the natives for the murders they 

 had committed. Consult Lowery, Span- 

 ish Settlements— Florida, 1562-1574, 1905, 

 and authorities therein cited; Murray, 

 Lives Cath. Heroes, 1896; French, Hist. 

 Coll. La., n. s., ii, 230, 1875; Shea (1) 

 in Beach, Ind. Miscel., 1877, (2) in Cath. 

 World, Mar. 1875, (3) Cath. Missions, 



1855, (4) Cath. Church in Col. Days, 1886; 

 Brown, (1) First Republic in Amer., 

 1898; (2) Genesis of U. S., 1890. _ (j. m.) 



Venaambakaia. A band or division of 

 the Pomo, formerly living near the Rus- 

 sian settlement of Ross, in Sonoma co., 

 Cal. — Powell in Cont. N. A. Ethnol., iii, 

 493, 1877. 



Venados (Span. pi. ' deer ' ) . One of the 

 tribes mentioned by Fray Bartolom^ Gar- 

 cia as speaking the language of his Man- 

 ual (1760). This tribe was either quite 

 widely distributed or else the name was 

 applied to several distinct bands, all evi- 

 dently Coahuiltecan. In 1731 San Juan 

 Capistrano mission was founded in Texas 

 for the "Benados" and Toloujad, (Tiloja), 

 and the Benado chief was made first ' 'gov- 

 ernor" of the mission (Test, de Asientode 

 Misiones, MS., 1731, in Gen. Land Off., 

 Austin, Texas). In 1737 they deserted 

 the mission (doc. in Lamar Papers, 1737, 

 MS.). After 1757 large numbers of them 

 were gathered at the Camargo mission, 

 on the Rio Grande, and they were still 

 living there as late as 1809 (Baptismal 

 records in the parish church of Camargo, 

 examined in 1907). Some time in the 

 18th century some of the tribe were at 

 the Vizarron mission in northern Mexico 

 (Portillo,Apuntes, 323, 1888). (h.e.b.) 

 Benados. — Test, de Asiento, 1731, op. cit. 



Venango. A former Seneca settlement at 

 the mouth of French cr., in Venango co.. 

 Pa., at the site of the present Franklin. 

 According to the deposition of Stephen 

 Coffen (1754) it was "called by the In- 

 dians Ganagarah'hare, on the Banks of 

 Belle Riviere, where the River o Boeff 

 empties into it " (Arch. Pa., 2d s., vi, 

 184, 1877). The place was later occupied 

 by a mixed population of Seneca, Dela- 

 wares, Shawnee, Wyandot, Ottawa, and 

 other tribes allied with the French. The 

 place first came into notice when the 

 French agent Joncaire visited the Indians 

 in 1753, in advance of the French expedi- 

 tion. He distributed presents to the In- 

 dians about the region, and expelled the 

 English traders. John Fraser, who had 

 been at the place for several years, selling 

 goods and acting as a gunsmith, wrote to 

 the Pennsylvania Council explaining that 

 the French were building a fort "at Cas- 

 eoago up French creek," the reference 

 being to the French fort at Le Banif , now 

 Waterford, Pa. No French fort was built 

 at Cussewago. Many writers are in error 

 in locating the French fort at this place, 

 and in callingthelocality where the French 

 fort was built Cussewago. Shippen, in a 

 letter concerning the matter, says: "We- 

 ningo is the name of an Indian Town on 

 Ohio, where Mr. Freser has had a Gun- 

 smith Shop for many years; it is situate 

 eighty Miles up the "same River beyond 

 the Log's Town Casewago is Twenty 



