Servant of God Luis Cancer

Luis Cáncer de Barbastro or Luis de Cáncer (1500 – 26 June 1549) was a Spanish Dominican priest and pioneer missionary to the New World. He undertook a non-violent approach to converting the American Indians to Christianity, and had significant success in this regard in the Caribbean and later in Guatemala. In 1549, he continued his mission work in Florida, an area already ravaged by previous explorers, and was killed on the shores of Tampa Bay. Since his death, he has been regarded by many as a martyr. Cáncer was born at Barbastro in Aragón in 1500. Luis entered the Dominican order and was inspired like many of his time to go to the New World in an effort to spread Christianity. Fray de Cáncer came to the New World in 1518 and worked successfully for some time among the native peoples of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. He then ventured to the mainland and had particular success in Guatemala. A disciple of the famed Indian protector, Bartolomé de las Casas, Father de Cáncer's efforts were so successful in an area that was known for its bellicose natives, that it was renamed the “Province of True Peace.” He believed that aggression and violence were counter-productive to the spread of the Gospel and that the native peoples needed to be treated with dignity. He had great success in pacifying the Indians whom more violent methods had failed to subdue. He upheld the cause of the natives at an ecclesiastical assembly held in Mexico in 1546. Following his missionary success in Guatemala, Cáncer proposed a peaceful mission to Florida. The peninsula had already been ravaged by the expeditions of Pánfilo Narváez and Hernando de Soto and was regarded as very hostile to the Spanish, and Cáncer argued that further violence would never bring about its conversion to Catholicism and submission. In 1547, King Charles V approved Cáncer's Florida mission.