Francisco de Chicora

Francisco de Chicora is the baptismal name given to a Native American kidnapped in 1521, along with seventy others, from near the mouth of the Pee Dee River by Spanish explorer Francisco Gordillo and slave trader Pedro de Quexos, based in Santo Domingo and the first Europeans to reach the area.

From analysis of the account by Peter Martyr, court chronicler, the ethnographer John R. Swanton believed that Chicora was from a Catawban group.

In Hispaniola, where he and the other captives are taken, Chicora learns Spanish, iss baptized a Catholic, and works for Lucas Vasquez de Ayllón, a colonial official.

Most of the Catawba die within two years.

Accompanying Ayllón to Spain, de Chicora meets with the chronicler Peter Martyr and tells him much about his people.

Martyr combines this information with accounts by explorers and records it as the "Testimony of Francisco de Chicora," published with his seventh Decade in 1525.

In 1526 Chicora accompanies Ayllón on a major expedition to North America with six hundred colonists.

After they strike land at the Santee River and the party goes ashore, Chicora escapes and returns to his people.

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