The Missionary

Sometime in the late 1600s (the exact year is not certain), a Spaniard by the name of José Sanchez Martinez Guadalupe México Éstrada Velázquez left an anonymous port city in Spain, and floated over to New Spain, somewhere in the general vicinity of Venezuela. For continence’s sake, his name is José, because it’s rather an ordeal to type his whole name. José was a missionary. He had been accused by several people of being a Jew, and so took a job as a missionary to the new world in order to bring the light of Christ to the Indians, and also prove he was not a Jew. Coincidentally, most of his accusers actually were Jews, trying to get those damn Catholics off their back by accusing someone else. Not a totally unreasonable (or original) idea. Now back to Venezuela. José was actually having a rather good time there, raping, pillaging, and generally bringing the loving grace of Jesus to the savages. The only reason he hadn’t been skinned alive so far was the large company of rather burly, fearsome conquistadors who seemed to follow him everywhere. They even slept in his tent and watched him go to the bathroom. These guys were watching out for any funny stuff. José didn’t exactly understand what funny stuff was, as he was a rather boring character and without a sense of humour.

The first time the conquistadors left, some funny stuff happened. José was sitting in his tent, thinking of the Virgin Mary and touching himself, when he heard a large amount of clamour from outside. He cussed, crossed himself, then looked out of his tent. A large crowd of Indians was throwing a large picture of Jesus donated by the church into the fire. One might expect a missionary to have a natural impulse to stop such a sacrilegious act, but José was no normal missionary. Instead of taking action, he crawled back into his tent and shivered. He was more scared of the Indians then he was of God.

After a short period of time, the Indians realized that the conquistadors had left their padre in the camp. They then proceeded to knock him out, tie him up, and drag him to their village. These Indians, rather than being enlightened as to the idea of Jesus being our saviour, were rather miffed at the Spaniards, and rightly so. What with the encomienda and the diseases, they had lost half of their tribe already. So, in an act of revenge, they bopped José rather hard on the head with a large stick. They did this right after he had woken up from being knocked out, and so his only memory was of a dark-skinned man swiftly bringing a large stick towards his head. However, this was soon forgotten, along with pretty much everything else he knew, which, in all honesty, was not a lot. Anyhow, he had no idea that he was Spanish, or that he was a missionary, or even that he was José Sanchez Martinez Guadalupe México Éstrada Velázquez. He had suffered a terrible concussion as a result of prior bop to the head, and this had resulted in a powerful amnesia. José, still being rather stupid, and even more so now, however, assumed he was one of the Indians. Remarkably, he could still speak Spanish rather fluently, and conjugate all of his verbs correctly, even the irregulars. The Indians knew Spanish also, and, realizing that this man could be useful, adopted him in. Later on, they would manage to kill the conquistadors, a Herculean feat by all standards, but that is irrelevant to the story.

The Indians taught José their customs and language, and like most stupid people, José was an extremely good follower, and caught on very fast. They even gave him a new name, Saquilla, which meant, roughly, “dirty foreigner asshole”. The Indians told him that it meant, “honored one”. They were good liars, and great salesmen. They sold Saquilla the idea of driving those bastard Spanish out of their homeland. In time, Saquilla became the greatest revolutionary Indian leader, mostly functioning off his one talent, the ability to stare at something for an extremely long time. All important historians agree that this is the truth. All the rest of them thought it was hilarious, and were therefore deemed unimportant.

After a defeat by the new conquistadors shipped in from Spain, Saquilla and his men had taken to hiding in the jungle, a hard task, seeing as the jungle was rather small. He invented the ingenious style of guerilla warfare, destroying the Spaniards. But they just kept on coming. It seemed Spain was fighting a war of attrition. Eventually, Saquilla’s army consisted of Saquilla, and thirteen Indians in loincloths, with small clubs.

Saquilla was captured and sent to Spain, were he was hanged for being a Jew.