Spanish Jesuit missionaries land in present-day Virginia to establish the short-lived Ajacán Mission.

Ajacán Mission

1570 Spanish Jesuit mission in pre-colonial Virginia; massacred by natives in 1571

The Ajacán Mission was a Spanish attempt in 1570 to establish a Jesuit mission in the vicinity of the Virginia Peninsula to bring Christianity to the Virginia Native Americans. The effort to found St. Mary's Mission predated the founding of the English settlement at Jamestown,…