“Dogs of War”
The stone carvings on the walls of UF’s oldest dormitory tell a 500-year-old story of love and hate out of Florida’s violent past.
((( ménage à trois )))
dave hogerty
THE
MYSTERIOUS
MURPHREE
STONES
Story and Pictures By Dave Hogerty
Alligator Staff
Stained, pitted and worn by more than 75 years of Florida weather, the concrete faces on the walls of the Murphree Area dormitories continue to silently watch over the college life passing below them.
On the archway between Thomas and Sledd halls, two faces out of Florida’s loving and violent past are preserved. Juan Ortiz, a Spanish sailor, and Mucozo, an Indian chief, weren’t much older than most UF students when they lived near Gainesville 450 years ago. But filled with war, torture, and starvation, their lives were far different than those of the college students who live there today.
When the Murphree dormitory was being built in 1905, architect William A. Edwards asked an artist to fill the arches over the entrances to the courtyard with historic scenes of Florida. On the arch between Thomas and Sledd, the artist chose to depict the bloody years of Ortiz and Mucozo, whose relationship, including an Indian Princess, eventually brought peace to Florida.
Juan Ortiz was 18 years old in 1529 when the ship on which he was a mate landed near Tampa Bay. He was part of search for a Spanish expedition that on the West Coast, and was lost two years earlier.
The leader of the expedition was a ruthless man named Naravez, who was leading his second voyage to The New World. On his first, Naravez had terrorized the native peoples in Mexico and Peru … raping, pillaging, and killing anything standing in the way of Spain’s insatiable lust for gold.
But three months later, when Naravez missed his supply ship, he found himself friendless in a hostile land.
In a hopeless effort to reach safety, Naravez sailed his 600-man crew north along the gulf coast on barges they had made of Cypress trees that were abundant just inside the coastal jungle. But storms, starvation, and hostile natives killed Naravez and all but four members of his crew. The rescue party heard the story from the survivors when they were found in Mexico.
Now on the west coast of Florida, Ortiz and the search expedition found only an angry, horribly scarred Indian chief named Hirrihgua, whose face was without a nose.
Two years earleir, Hirrihgua encountered Naravez, and was quickly overpowered by the Spanish soldiers. Naravez claimed Hirrigua’s land for Spain, and had the chief’s nose cut off, and forced him to watch as his mother was fed to a pack of Spanish war dogs.
Ortiz and the soldiers in the harbor were the first Spaniards Hirrigua had seen since the brutal attack, and he angrily vowed to capture and burn every man on the ship.
Sensing the Indians’ hostility, the Spanish captain sent only tour men ashore – Ortiz and three others. He soon realized his suspicion was justified when Ortiz and the others were made prisoners, instead of guests.
The captain of Ortiz’ ship, not wanting to risk the rest ot his crew, put to sea, leaving Ortiz and the other three at Hirrigua’s mercy.
One-by one, the men were forced to run back and torth across an open field until they were killed by arrows shot at them by village warriors, armed with seven-foot oak bows.
Ortiz prepared himself for death looking at his three friends scattered dead on the blood moistened tield, stone-edged arrows protruding from their bodies.
But just before he was ordered to run, Hirrihgua’s wife and two daughters protested on behalf of Ortiz. His wife said the young man should not be held responsible for his commander’s brutality.
Hirrihgua reluctantly complied with the family’s wish. Ortiz was spared, but many times during the next year and a half, he’d envy his dead sea-mates.
Ortiz became Hirrigua’s slave, and the chief took sadistic pleasure in seeing the young boy suffer. He was beaten, starved, and forced to run continuously, sunrise to sunset, on the same field where he had watched his friends die.
Ortiz endured Hirrihgua’s wrath but the chief was angered further by the strength and will of the young Spaniard. Having enough, Hirrihgua announced that Ortiz was to be roasted alive at the village’s next feast.
On the coming of that day, Ortiz was stretched out and tied to a wooden grill called a barbacoa (barbeque), which stood three feet above a thick layer of glowing-red coals.
The entire village watched and listened to Ortiz scream in agony, as the heat slowly rose, and his skin began to sear. Again the chief’s women protested, this time more passionately. They scolded Hirrihgua for his being so cruel, and they demanded he show mercy.
Once again Ortiz had been spared by the women, but not before his back was covered with orange-sized, blood-filled blisters. Now, like the chief’s face, Ortiz’ back would be a reminder of the hatred between the Spanish and Native Floridians.
Enduring their chief’s vindictiveness, Ortiz had won the respect of much of the Tribe, who honored him for his extraordinary act of survival.
Later, he was nearly worshipped atter killing a lion and saving the remains of an Indian child who had died recently.
Indian legend told that the killing of a lion brought a person closer to the gods and gave him superhuman power.
With the image of his mother and the dogs still vivid in his mind, there was no way Hirrihgua could bear to see a young white man gain so much respect in his own village. He brought his family together and explained that despite his love for them and respect for their strong wish to see Ortiz live, his painful, memories were stronger and would continue to be as long as the Spaniard was alive. He then demanded his family’s silence at the next feast, when Ortiz was to be shot with arrows and die as his friends had more than a year earlier.
Feeling for her father, but also seeing the injustice in killing the young Spaniard, Hirrihigua’s eldest daughter arranged tor Ortiz to escape and seek retuge at a nearby village led by a chiet named Mucozo.
Mucozo, a strong man himselt, welcomed Ortiz and was shocked by his stories of torture. Alter listening com-passionately. Mucozo embraced Ortiz and kissed him on the tace as a sign of peace.
Hirrighua became aware that the Spaniard had fled north to Mucozo and demanded that he be returned. But Mucozo refused, unwilling to let his Christian triend sutter as he had in the past. Ortiz lived in Mucozo’s village for nearly eight years, until Hernando DeSoto landed near Tampa Bay.
DeSoto had heard rumors that there might be a Spaniard living with the Indians, and sent soldiers ashore to search for him. Mistaken tor a native, and almost lanced, Ortiz’ European look was finally noticed by a horseman who pulled him onto his mount and delivered him to DeSoto.
Atter hearing Ortiz’ moving story, DeSoto met with Mucozo and initiated a peace, ending the years of bloody conflict between the Spanish and the Indians.
Ortiz and Mucozo were then taken on the DeSoto expedition as interpreters and guides. They traveled north to Tallahassee, into Georgia, Carolina and west to the Mississippi River.
It’s not known exactly where or how, but Ortiz was said to have died tour years later, somewhere between Carolina and the Mississippi. No record of Mucozo’s fate is known to exist.
Their stone faces, however, will continue to survive in the hostile Florida environment where Mucozo and Ortiz had become friends more than 400 years ago.
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The Mysterious Murphree Stones
Mucozo, Ortiz & The Indian Princess …
((( “bermuda triangle” )))
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