Book: Christopher Columbus, Volume 4
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Filson Young >> Christopher Columbus, Volume 4
The Admiral was now anxious to get back to La Navidad, and discover the
condition of the colony which he had left behind him there. He therefore
sailed from Guadaloupe on November 20th and steered to the north-west.
His captive islanders told him that the mainland lay to the south; and if
he had listened to them and sailed south he would have probably landed on
the coast of South America in a fortnight. He shaped his course instead
to the north-west, passing many islands, but not pausing until the 14th,
when he reached the island named by him Santa Cruz. He found more Caribs
here, and his men had a brush with them, one of the crew being wounded by
a poisoned arrow of which he died in a few days. The Carib Chiefs were
captured and put in irons. They sailed again and passed a group of
islets which Columbus named after Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand
Virgins; discovered Porto Rico also, in one of the beautiful harbours of
which they anchored and stayed for two days. Sailing now to the west
they made land again on the 22nd of November; and coasting along it they
soon sighted the mountain of Monte Christi, and Columbus recognised that
he was on the north coast of Espanola.
CHAPTER VII
THE EARTHLY PARADISE REVISITED
On the 25th November 1493, Columbus once more dropped his anchor in the
harbour of Monte Christi, and a party was sent ashore to prospect for a
site suitable for the new town which he intended to build, for he was not
satisfied with the situation of La Navidad. There was a large river
close by; and while the party was surveying the land they came suddenly
upon two dead bodies lying by the river-side, one with a rope round its
neck and the other with a rope round its feet. The bodies were too much
decomposed to be recognisable; nevertheless to the party rambling about
in the sunshine and stillness of that green place the discovery was a
very gruesome one. They may have thought much, but they said little.
They returned to the ship, and resumed their search on the next day, when
they found two more corpses, one of which was seen to have a large
quantity of beard. As all the natives were beardless this was a very
significant and unpleasant discovery, and the explorers returned at once
and reported what they had seen to Columbus. He thereupon set sail for
La Navidad, but the navigation off that part of the coast was necessarily
slow because of the number of the shoals and banks, on one of which the
Admiral's ship had been lost the year before; and the short voyage
occupied three days.
They arrived at La Navidad late on the evening of the 27th--too late to
make it advisable to land. Some natives came out in a canoe, rowed round
the Admiral's ship, stopped and looked at it, and then rowed away again.
When the fleet had anchored Columbus ordered two guns to be fired; but
there was no response except from the echoes that went rattling among the
islands, and from the frightened birds that rose screaming and circling
from the shore. No guns and no signal fires; no sign of human habitation
whatever; and no sound out of the weird darkness except the lap of the
water and the call of the birds . . . . The night passed in anxiety
and depression, and in a certain degree of nervous tension, which was
relieved at two or three o'clock in the morning by the sound of paddles
and the looming of a canoe through the dusky starlight. Native voices
were heard from the canoe asking in a loud voice for the Admiral; and
when the visitors had been directed to the Marigalante they refused to go
on board until Columbus himself had spoken to them, and they had seen by
the light of a lantern that it was the Admiral himself. The chief of
them was a cousin of Guacanagari, who said that the King was ill of a
wound in his leg, or that he would certainly have come himself to welcome
the Admiral. The Spaniards? Yes, they were well, said the young chief;
or rather, he added ominously, those that remained were well, but some
had died of illness, and some had been killed in quarrels that had arisen
among them. He added that the province had been invaded by two
neighbouring kings who had burned many of the native houses. This news,
although grave, was a relief from the dreadful uncertainty that had
prevailed in the early part of the night, and the Admiral's company,
somewhat consoled, took a little sleep.
In the morning a party was sent ashore to La Navidad. Not a boat was in
sight, nor any native canoes; the harbour was silent and deserted. When
the party had landed and gone up to the place where the fort had been
built they found no fort there; only the blackened and charred remains of
a fort. The whole thing had been burned level with the ground, and amid
the blackened ruins they found pieces of rag and clothing. The natives,
instead of coming to greet them, lurked guiltily behind trees, and when
they were seen fled away into the woods. All this was very disquieting
indeed, and in significant contrast to their behaviour of the year
before. The party from the ship threw buttons and beads and bells to the
retiring natives in order to try and induce them to come forward, but
only four approached, one of whom was a relation of Guacanagari. These
four consented to go into the boat and to be rowed out to the ship.
Columbus then spoke to them through his interpreter; and they admitted
what had been only too obvious to the party that went ashore--that the
Spaniards were all dead, and that not one of the garrison remained. It
seemed that two neighbouring kings, Caonabo and Mayreni, had made an
attack upon the fort, burned the buildings, and killed and wounded most
of the defenders; and that Guacanagari, who had been fighting on their
behalf, had also been wounded and been obliged to retire. The natives
offered to go and fetch Guacanagari himself, and departed with that
object.
In the greatest anxiety the Admiral and his company passed that day and
night waiting for the King to come. Early the next morning Columbus
himself went ashore and visited the spot where the settlement had been.
There he found destruction whole and complete, with nothing but a few
rags of clothing as an evidence that the place had ever been inhabited by
human beings. As Guacanagari did not appear some of the Spaniards began
to suspect that he had had a hand in the matter, and proposed immediate
reprisal; but Columbus, believing still in the man who had "loved him so
much that it was wonderful" did not take this view, and his belief in
Guacanagari's loyalty was confirmed by the discovery that his own
dwelling had also been burned down.
Columbus set some of his party searching in the ditch of the fort in case
any treasure should have been buried there, as he had ordered it should
be in event of danger, and while this was going on he walked along the
coast for a few miles to visit a spot which he thought might be suitable
for the new settlement. At a distance of a mile or two he found a
village of seven or eight huts from which the inhabitants fled at his
approach, carrying such of their goods as were portable, and leaving the
rest hidden in the grass. Here were found several things that had
belonged to the Spaniards and which were not likely to have been
bartered; new Moorish mantles, stockings, bolts of cloth, and one of the
Admiral's lost anchors; other articles also, among them a dead man's head
wrapped up with great care in a small basket. Shaking their own living
heads, Columbus and his party returned. Suddenly they came on some
suspicious-looking mounds of earth over which new grass was growing. An
examination of these showed them to be the graves of eleven of the
Spaniards, the remains of the clothing being quite sufficient to identify
them. Doctor Chanca, who examined them, thought that they had not been
dead two months. Speculation came to an end in the face of this eloquent
certainty; there were the dead bodies of some of the colonists; and the
voyagers knelt round with bare heads while the bodies were replaced in
the grave and the ceremony of Christian burial performed over them.
Little by little the dismal story was elicited from the natives, who
became less timid when they saw that the Spaniards meant them no harm.
It seemed that Columbus had no sooner gone away than the colonists began
to abandon themselves to every kind of excess. While the echo of the
Admiral's wise counsels was yet in their ears they began to disobey his
orders. Honest work they had no intention of doing, and although Diego
Arana, their commander, did his best to keep order, and although one or
two of the others were faithful to him and to Columbus, their authority
was utterly insufficient to check the lawless folly of the rest. Instead
of searching for gold mines, they possessed themselves by force of every
ounce of gold they could steal or seize from the natives, treating them
with both cruelty and contempt. More brutal excesses followed as a
matter of course. Guacanagari, in his kindly indulgence and generosity,
had allowed them to take three native wives apiece, although he himself
and his people were content with one. But of course the Spaniards had
thrown off all restraint, however mild, and ran amok among the native
inhabitants, seizing their wives and seducing their daughters. Upon this
naturally followed dissensions among themselves, jealousy coming hot upon
the heels of unlawful possession; and, in the words of Irving, "the
natives beheld with astonishment the beings whom they had worshipped as
descended from the skies abandoned to the grossest of earthly passions
and raging against each other with worse than brutal ferocity."
Upon their strifes and dissensions followed another breach of the
Admiral's wise regulations; they no longer cared to remain together in
the fort, but split up into groups and went off with their women into the
woods, reverting to a savagery beside which the gentle existence of the
natives was high civilisation. There were squabbles and fights in which
one or two of the Spaniards were killed; and Pedro Gutierrez and Rodrigo
de Escovedo, whom Columbus had appointed as lieutenants to Arana, headed
a faction of revolt against his authority, and took themselves off with
nine other Spaniards and a great number of women. They had heard a great
deal about the mines of Cibao, and they decided to go in search of them
and secure their treasures for themselves. They went inland into a
territory which was under the rule of King Caonabo, a very fierce Carib
who was not a native of Espanola, but had come there as an adventurer and
remained as a conqueror. Although he resented the intrusion of the
Spaniards into the island he would not have dared to come and attack them
there if they had obeyed the Admiral's orders and remained in the
territory of Guacanagari; but when they came into his own country he had
them in a trap, and it was easy for him to fall upon those foolish
swaggering Spaniards and put them to death. He then decided to go and
take the fort.
He formed an alliance with the neighbouring king, Mayreni, whose province
was in the west of the island. Getting together a force of warriors
these two kings marched rapidly and stealthily through the, forest for
several days until they arrived at its northern border. They came in the
dead of night to the neighbourhood of La Navidad, where the inhabitants
of the fortress, some ten in number, were fast asleep. Fast asleep were
the remaining dozen or so of the Spaniards who were living in houses or
huts in the neighbourhood; fast asleep also the gentle natives, not
dreaming of troubles from any quarter but that close at hand. The sweet
silence of the tropical night was suddenly broken by frightful yells as
Caonabo and his warriors rushed the fortress and butchered the
inhabitants, setting fire to it and to the houses round about. As their
flimsy huts burst into flames the surprised Spaniards rushed out, only to
be fallen upon by the infuriated blacks. Eight of the Spaniards rushed
naked into the sea and were drowned; the rest were butchered.
Guacanagari manfully came to their assistance and with his own followers
fought throughout the night; but his were a gentle and unwarlike people,
and they were easily routed. The King himself was badly wounded in the
thigh, but Caonabo's principal object seems to have been the destruction
of the Spaniards, and when that was completed he and his warriors, laden
with the spoils, retired.
Thus Columbus, walking on the shore with his native interpreter, or
sitting in his cabin listening with knitted brow to the accounts of the
islanders, learns of the complete and utter failure of his first hopes.
It has come to this. These are the real first-fruits of his glorious
conquest and discovery. The New World has served but as a virgin field
for the Old Adam. He who had sought to bring light and life to these
happy islanders had brought darkness and death; they had innocently
clasped the sword he had extended to them and cut themselves. The
Christian occupation of the New World had opened with vice, cruelty, and
destruction; the veil of innocence had been rent in twain, and could
never be mended or joined again. And the Earthly Paradise in which life
had gone so happily, of which sun and shower had been the true rulers,
and the green sprouting harvests the only riches, had been turned into a
shambles by the introduction of human rule and civilised standards of
wealth. Gold first and then women, things beautiful and innocent in the
happy native condition of the islands, had been the means of the
disintegration and death of this first colony. These are serious
considerations for any coloniser; solemn considerations for a discoverer
who is only on the verge and beginning of his empire-making; mournful
considerations for Christopher as he surveys the blackened ruins of the
fort, or stands bare-headed by the grass-covered graves.
There seemed to be a certain hesitancy on the part of Guacanagari to
present himself; for though he kept announcing his intention of coming to
visit the Admiral he did not come. A couple of days after the discovery
of the remains, however, he sent a message to Columbus begging him to
come and see him, which the Admiral accordingly did, accompanied by a
formal retinue and carrying with him the usual presents. Guacanagari was
in bed sure enough complaining of a wounded leg, and he told the story of
the settlement very much as Columbus had already heard it from the other
natives. He pointed to his own wounded leg as a sign that he had been
loyal and faithful to his friendly promises; but when the leg was
examined by the surgeon in order that it might be dressed no wound could
be discovered, and it was obvious to Doctor Chanca that the skin had not
been broken. This seemed odd; Friar Buil was so convinced that the whole
story was a deception that he wished the Admiral to execute Guacanagari
on the spot. Columbus, although he was puzzled, was by no means
convinced that Guacanagari had been unfaithful to him, and decided to do
nothing for the present. He invited the cacique to come on board the
flagship; which he did, being greatly interested by some of the Carib
prisoners, notably a handsome woman, named by the Spaniards Dofia
Catalina, with whom he held a long conversation.
Relations between the Admiral and the cacique, although outwardly
cordial, were altogether different from what they had been in, the happy
days after their first meeting; the man seemed to shrink from all the
evidence of Spanish power, and when they proposed to hang a cross round
his neck the native king, much as he loved trinkets and toys, expressed a
horror and fear of this jewel when he learned that it was an emblem of
the Christian faith. He had seen a little too much of the Christian
religion; and Heaven only knows with what terror and depression the
emblem of the cross inspired him. He went ashore; and when a messenger
was sent to search for him a few days afterwards, it was found that he
had moved his whole establishment into the interior of the island. The
beautiful native woman Catalina escaped to shore and disappeared at the
same time; and the two events were connected in the minds of some of the
Spaniards, and held, wrongly as it turned out, to be significant of a
deep plot of native treachery.
The most urgent need was to build the new settlement and lay out a town.
Several small parties were sent out to reconnoitre the coast in both
directions, but none of them found a suitable place; and on December 7th
the whole fleet sailed to the east in the hope of finding a better
position. They were driven by adverse winds into a harbour some thirty
miles to the east of Monte Christi, and when they went ashore they
decided that this was as good a site as any for the new town. There was
about a quarter of a mile of level sandy beach enclosed by headlands on
either side; there was any amount of rock and stones for building, and
there was a natural barrier of hills and mountains a mile or so inland
that would protect a camp from that side.--The soil was very fertile,
the vegetation luxuriant; and the mango swamps a little way inland
drained into a basin or lake which provided an unlimited water supply.
Columbus therefore set about establishing a little town, to which he gave
the name of Isabella. Streets and squares were laid out, and rows of
temporary buildings made of wood and thatched with grass were hastily run
up for the accommodation of the members of the expedition, while the
foundations of three stone buildings were also marked out and the
excavations put in hand. These buildings were the church, the
storehouse, and a residence for Columbus as Governor-General. The stores
were landed, the horses and cattle accommodated ashore, the provisions,
ammunition, and agricultural implements also. Labourers were set to
digging out the foundations of the stone buildings, carpenters to cutting
down trees and running up the light wooden houses that were to serve as
barracks for the present; masons were employed in hewing stones and
building landing-piers; and all the crowd of well-born adventurers were
set to work with their hands, much to their disgust. This was by no
means the life they had imagined, and at the first sign of hard work they
turned sulky and discontented. There was, to be sure, some reason for
their discontent. Things had not quite turned out as Columbus had
promised they should; there was no store of gold, nor any sign of great
desire on the part of the natives to bring any; and to add to their other
troubles, illness began to break out in the camp. The freshly-turned
rank soil had a bad effect on the health of the garrison; the lake, which
had promised to be so pleasant a feature in the new town, gave off
dangerous malarial vapours at night; and among the sufferers from this
trouble was Columbus himself, who endured for some weeks all the pains
and lassitude of the disagreeable fever.
The ships were now empty and ready for the return voyage, and as soon as
Columbus was better he set to work to face the situation. After all his
promises it would never do to send them home empty or in ballast; a cargo
of stones from the new-found Indies would not be well received in Spain.
The natives had told him that somewhere in the island existed the gold
mines of Cibao, and he determined to make an attempt to find these, so
that he could send his ships home laden with a cargo that would be some
indemnity for the heavy cost of the expedition and some compensation for
the bad news he must write with regard to his first settlement. Young
Ojeda was chosen to lead an expedition of fifteen picked men into the
interior; and as the gold mines were said to be in a part of the island
not under the command of Guacanagari, but in the territory of the dreaded
Caonabo, there was no little anxiety felt about the expedition.
Ojeda started in the beginning of January 1494, and marched southwards
through dense forests until, having crossed a mountain range, he came
down into a beautiful and fertile valley, where they were hospitably
received by the natives. They saw plenty of gold in the sand of the
river that watered the valley, which sand the natives had a way of
washing so that the gold was separated from it; and there seemed to be so
much wealth there that Ojeda hurried back to the new city of Isabella to
make his report to Columbus. The effect upon the discontented colonists
was remarkable. Once more everything was right; wealth beyond the dreams
of avarice was at their hand; and all they had to do was to stretch out
their arms and take it. Columbus felt that he need no longer delay the
despatch of twelve of his ships on the homeward voyage. If he had not
got golden cargoes for them, at any rate he had got the next best thing,
which was the certainty of gold; and it did not matter whether it was in
the ships or in his storehouse. He had news to send home at any rate,
and a great variety of things to ask for in return, and he therefore set
about writing his report to the Sovereigns. Other people, as we know,
were writing letters too; the reiterated promise of gold, and the
marvellous anecdotes which these credulous settlers readily believed from
the natives, such as that there was a rock close by out of which gold
would burst if you struck it with a club, raised greed and expectation in
Spain to a fever pitch, and prepared the reaction which followed.
We may now read the account of the New World as Columbus sent it home to
the King and Queen of Spain in the end of January 1494, and as they read
it some weeks later. Their comments, written in the margin of the
original, are printed in italics at the end of each paragraph. It was
drawn up in the form of a memorandum, and entrusted to Antonio de Torres,
who was commanding the return expedition.
"What you, Antonio de Torres, captain of the ship Marigalante and Alcalde
of the City of Isabella, are to say and supplicate on my part to the King
and Queen, our Lords, is as follows:--
"First. Having delivered the letters of credence which you carry
from me for their Highnesses, you will kiss for me their Royal feet
and hands and will recommend me to their Highnesses as to a King and
Queen, my natural Lords, in whose service I desire to end my days:
as you will be able to say this more fully to their Highnesses,
according to what you have seen and known of me.
["Their Highnesses hold him in their favour.]
"Item. Although by the letters I write to their Highnesses, and
also the father Friar Buil and the Treasurer, they will be able to
understand all that has been done here since our arrival, and this
very minutely and extensively: nevertheless, you will say to their
Highnesses on my part, that it has pleased God to give me such
favour in their service, that up to the present time. I do not find
less, nor has less been found in anything than what I wrote and said
and affirmed to their Highnesses in the past: but rather, by the
Grace of God, I hope that it will appear, by works much more clearly
and very soon, because such signs and indications of spices have
been found on the shores of the sea alone, without having gone
inland, that there is reason that very much better results may be
hoped for: and this also may be hoped for in the mines of gold,
because by two persons only who went to investigate, each one on his
own part, without remaining there because there was not many people,
so many rivers have been discovered so filled with gold, that all
who saw it and gathered specimens of it with the hands alone, came
away so pleased and say such things in regard to its abundance, that
I am timid about telling it and writing it to their Highnesses: but
because Gorbalan, who was one of the discoverers, is going yonder,
he will tell what he saw, although another named Hojeda remains
here, a servant of the Duke of Medinaceli, a very discreet youth and
very prudent, who without doubt and without comparison even,
discovered much more according to the memorandum which he brought of
the rivers, saying that there is an incredible quantity in each one
of them for this their Highnesses may give thanks to God, since He
has been so favourable to them in all their affairs.
["Their Highnesses give many thanks to God for this, and
consider as a very signal service all that the Admiral has done
in this matter and is doing: because they know that after God
they are indebted to him for all they have had, and will have
in this affair: and as they are writing him more fully about
this, they refer him to their letter.]
"Item. You will say to their Highnesses, although I already have
written it to them, that I desired greatly to be able to send them a
larger quantity of gold in this fleet, from that which it is hoped
may be gathered here, but the greater part of our people who are
here, have fallen suddenly ill: besides, this fleet cannot remain
here longer, both on account of the great expense it occasions and
because this time is suitable for those persons who are to bring the
things which are greatly needed here, to go and be able to return:
as, if they delay going away from here, those who are to return will
not be able to do so by May: and besides this, if I wished to
undertake to go to the mines or rivers now, with the well people who
are here, both on the sea and in the settlement on land, I would
have many difficulties and even dangers, because in order to go
twenty-three or twenty-four leagues from here where there are
harbours and rivers to cross, and in order to cover such a long
route and reach there at the time which would be necessary to gather
the gold, a large quantity of provisions would have to be carried,
which cannot be carried on the shoulders, nor are there beasts of
burden here which could be used for this purpose: nor are the roads
and passes sufficiently prepared, although I have commenced to get
them in readiness so as to be passable: and also it was very
inconvenient to leave the sick here in an open place, in huts, with
the provisions and supplies which are on land: for although these
Indians may have shown themselves to the discoverers and show
themselves every day, to be very simple and not malicious
nevertheless, as they come here among us each day, it did not appear
that it would be a good idea to risk losing these people and the
supplies. This loss an Indian with a piece of burning wood would be
able to cause by setting fire to the huts, because they are always
going and coming by night and by day: on their account, we have
guards in the camp, while the settlement is open and defenceless.