Early European explorers typically seized members of the native groups they encountered to take back to Europe where the Indians could learn Spanish, French, or English and serve as interpreters on later voyages. Usually the kidnapped Indians died of disease, starvation, and homesickness, but the few who survived played interesting roles in the colonization of the New World. In the sixteenth century the most famous kidnapped Indian was Don Luis de Velasco, who had been taken by the Spanish from his home among the Algonquians of the Virginia Tidewater in 1560. He was baptized in Mexico City and named after his patron Luis de Velasco. In 1566 he participated in an ill-fated attempt by the Spanish to explore Chesapeake Bay, and in 1570 he persuaded the Jesuit priest Father Segura to undertake a second attempt to missionize the region. Led by Don Luis...