After working with success among the Tíguez on the Rio Grande for some time, Fr. De Padilla's zeal urged him to afford other tribes an opportunity of knowing and serving Christ. Accompanied by Da Campo, Lucas, Sebastian, and the two Mexican Indians, he set out for the north-east. When the little party reached the plains, they encountered a band of savages, who attacked them and slew Fr. De Padilla as he calmly knelt in prayer. The savages threw the body into a pit. The date and locality of his martyrdom are uncertain, Fr. Vetancurt in his Menologio assigning 30 November, 1544. Some believe he perished in eastern Colorado or western Kansas, but this is conjecture. The story believed in New Mexico , that his body was discovered by Pueblo Indians, brought to Isleta, interred beneath the sanctuary of the church, and that it rises and falls at stated periods is a myth. The remains of the Franciscan buried there are doubtless those of Fr. Juan José de Padilla, who died a peaceful death there two centuries later. Fr. De la Cruz and Brother de Ubeda were likewise put to death at the instigation of Indian sorcerers at the missions on the Rio Grande.
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