Tejano History

Mena, Marcos De

Tejanos |

       MENA, MARCOS DE (?–1584). Marcos de Mena, a Dominican lay brother, was the only castaway from the Padre Island Spanish shipwrecks of 1554 to succeed in reaching the Spanish settlement at Pánuco. All the others, save for a sailor who returned to the ships and perhaps thirty who sailed in a ship's boat to Veracruz, perished on the march, most of them slain by Indians. The total number of persons on the ships has been estimated at 300, including five other Dominican friars. An undetermined number drowned before reaching the shore.

 

Full article on the Texas State Historical Association's Handbook of Texas Online

   Courtesy of the Texas State Historical Association.