The Life of Columbus Part 9

Caonabo, not daunted by the fate of Guatignana, still continued to molest St. Thomas. The admiral accordingly sallied out with two hundred men against this cacique. On the broad plains of the Vega Real the Spaniards found an immense number of Indians collected together, amounting, it is said, to one hundred thousand men. The admiral divided his forces into two bands, giving the command of one to his brother Bartholomew, and leading the other himself; and when the brothers made an attack upon the Indians at the same time from different quarters, this numerous host was at once and utterly put to flight. In speaking of such a defeat, the modern reader must not be lavish of the words "cowardly," "pusillanimous," and the like, until, at least, he has well considered what it is to expose naked bodies to firearms, to the charge of steel-clad men on horseback, and to the clinging ferocity of bloodhounds.

SLAUGHRTER OF NATIVES.

A "horrible carnage" ensued upon the flight of the Indians. Many of them, less fortunate, perhaps, than those who were slain, being taken alive, were condemned to slavery. Caonabo, however, who was besieging the fortress of St. Thomas at the time of the battle on the Vega Real, remained untaken. The admiral resolved to secure the person of this cacique by treachery; and sent Ojeda (who afterwards became a conspicuous actor in the sad drama of conquest and depopulation in the West Indies) to cajole Caonabo into coming to a friendly meeting. There are some curious instructions of Columbus's to Margarite in 1494, respecting a plot to take this formidable Caonabo. They are as thoroughly base and treacherous as can well be imagined. This time the admiral's plan was completely successful.

CUNNING CAPTURE OF INDIAN CHIEF.

The story which was current in the colonies, of the manner in which Ojeda captured the resolute Indian chief, is this. Ojeda carried with him gyves and manacles, the latter of the kind called by the Spaniards, somewhat satirically, esposas (wives), and all made of bra.s.s or steel, finely wrought, and highly polished. The metals of Spain were prized by the Indians in the same way that the gold of the Indies was by the Spaniards.

Moreover, amongst the Indians, there was a strange rumour of talking bra.s.s, that arose from their listening to the church bell at Isabella, which, summoning the Spaniards to ma.s.s, was thought by the simple Indians to converse with them. Indeed the natives of Hispaniola held the Spanish metals in such estimation that they applied to them an Indian word, Turey, which seems to have signified anything that descends from heaven. When, therefore, Ojeda brought these ornaments to Caonabo, and told him they were Biscayan Turey, and that they were a great present from the admiral, and that he would show him how to put them on, and that when they were put on Caonabo should set himself on Ojeda's horse and be shown to his admiring subjects, as, Ojeda said, the kings of Spain were wont to show themselves to theirs, the incautious Indian is said to have fallen entirely into the trap. Going with Ojeda, accompanied by only a small escort, to a river a short distance from his main encampment. Caonabo, after performing ablutions, suffered the crafty young Spaniard to put the heaven-descended fetters on him, and to set him upon the horse. Ojeda himself got up behind the Indian prince, and then whirling a few times round, like a pigeon before it takes its determined flight, making the followers of Caonabo imagine that this was but display, (they all the while keeping at a respectful distance from the horse, an animal they much dreaded,) he darted off for Isabella, and after great fatigues, now keeping to the main track, now traversing the woods in order to evade pursuit, brought Caonabo bound into the presence of Columbus. The unfortunate cacique was afterwards sent to Spain [He died on the voyage, however.] to be judged there; and his forces were presently put to flight by a troop of Spaniards under the command of this same Ojeda. Some were killed; some taken prisoners; some fled to the forests and the mountains; some yielded, "offering themselves to the service of the Christians, if they would allow them to live in their own ways."

GOLD TRIBUTE IMPOSED.

Never, perhaps, were little skirmishes, for such they were on the part of the Spaniards, of greater permanent importance than those above narrated, which took place in the early part of the year 1495. They must be looked upon as the origin in the Indies of slavery, va.s.salage, and the system of repartimientos. We have seen that the admiral, after his first victory, sent off four ships with slaves to Spain. He now took occasion to impose a tribute upon the whole population of Hispaniola. It was thus arranged.

Every Indian above fourteen years old, who was in the provinces of the mines, or near to these provinces, was to pay every three months a little bellful of gold; all other persons in the island were to pay at the same time an arroba of cotton for each person. Certain bra.s.s or copper tokens were made--different ones for each tribute time--and were given to the Indians when they paid tribute and these tokens, being worn about their necks, were to show who had paid tribute.

REMARKABLE INDIAN SCHEME.

A remarkable proposal was made upon this occasion to the admiral by Guarionex, cacique of the Vega Real, namely, that he would inst.i.tute a huge farm for the growth of corn and the manufacture of bread, stretching from Isabella to St. Domingo (i. e. from sea to sea) which would suffice to maintain all Castile with bread. The cacique would do this on condition that his va.s.sals were not to pay tribute in gold, as they did not know how to collect that. But this proposal was not accepted, because Columbus wished to have tribute in such things as he could send over to Spain.

This tribute is considered to have been a most unreasonable one in point of amount, and Columbus was obliged to modify his demands upon these poor Indians, and in some instances to change the nature of them. It appears that, in 1496, service instead of tribute was demanded of certain Indian villages; and as the villagers were ordered to make (and work) the farms in the Spanish settlements, this may be considered as the beginning of the system of repartimientos, or encomiendas, as they were afterwards called.

VIEWS OF COLUMBUS ON SLAVERY.

We must not, however, suppose that Indian slavery would not have taken place by means of Columbus, even if these uprisings and defeats of the Indians in the course of the year 1495 had never occurred. Very early indeed we see what the admiral's views were with regard to the Indians. In the diary which he kept of his first voyage, on the 14th of October, three days after discovering the New World, he describes a position which he thinks would be a very good one for a fort; and he goes on to say, "I do not think that it (the fort) will be necessary, for this people is very simple in the use of arms (as your highnesses will see from seven of them that I have taken in order to bring them to you, to learn our language and afterwards to take them back); so that when your highnesses command, you can have them all taken to Castille or kept in the island as captives."

Columbus was not an avaricious, nor a cruel man; and certainly he was a very pious one; but early in life he had made voyages along the coast of Africa, and he was accustomed to a slave trade. Moreover, he was anxious to reduce the expenses of these Indian possessions to the Catholic sovereigns, to prove himself in the right as to all he had said respecting the advantages that would flow to Spain from the Indies, and to confute his enemies at Court.

Those who have read the instructions to Columbus given by the Catholic monarchs will naturally be curious to know how the news of the arrival of these vessels laden with slaves, the fruit of the admiral's first victory over the Indians, was received by the Sovereigns, recollecting how tender they had been about slavery before. This, however, was a very different case from the former one. Here were people taken in what would be called rebellion--prisoners of war. Still we find that Ferdinand and Isabella were heedful in their proceedings in this matter. There is a letter of theirs to Bishop Fonseca, who managed Indian affairs, telling him to withhold receiving the money for the sale of these Indians that Torres had brought with him until their Highnesses should be able to inform themselves from men learned in the law, theologians and canonists, whether with a good conscience these Indians could be ordered to be sold or not.

The historian Munoz, who has been indefatigable in his researches amongst the doc.u.ments relating to Spanish America, declares that he cannot find that the point was decided; and if he has failed, we are not likely to discover any direct evidence about the decision. We shall hereafter, however, find something which may enable us to conjecture what the decision practically came to be.

DISTRESS OF NATIVES.

Many of the so-called free Indians in Hispaniola had, perhaps, even a worse fate than that which fell to the lot of their brethren condemned to slavery. These free men, seeing the Spaniards quietly settling down in their island, building houses, and making forts, and no vessels in the harbour of Isabella to take them away, fell into the profoundest sadness, and bethought them of the desperate remedy of attempting to starve the Spaniards out, by not sowing or planting anything. But this is a shallow device, when undertaken on the part of the greater number, in any country, against the smaller. The scheme reacted upon themselves. They had intended to gain a secure though scanty sustenance in the forests and upon the mountains; but though the Spaniards suffered bitterly from famine, they were only driven by it to further pursuit and molestation of the Indians, who died in great numbers, of hunger, sickness, and misery.

SPANISH COMMISSIONER.

About this period there arrived in the Indies from the Court of Spain a Commissioner of Inquiry, his mission being doubtless occasioned by the various complaints made against the admiral by Father Buil, Margarite, and the Spaniards who had returned from Hispaniola. The name of this commissioner was Juan Aguado, and his powers were vouched for by the following letter from the sovereigns:--

"The King and the Queen.

"Cavaliers, Esquires and other persons, who by our command are in the Indies: we send you thither Juan Aguado, our Gentleman of the Chamber, who will speak to you on our part: we command that you give him faith and credence.

"I the King: I the Queen.

"By command of the King and Queen, our Lords.

"HENAND ALVAREZ.

"Madrid, the ninth of April, one thousand four hundred and ninety-five."

PLOTS TO UNDERMINE AND RUIN THE ADMIRAL

The royal commissioner arrived at Isabella in October, 1495, and his proceedings in the colony, together with the fear of what he might report on his return, quickened the admiral's desire to return to Court, that he might fight his own battles there himself. For the tide of his fortune was turning, and this appeared by several notable signs. Strong as was the confidence which the Sovereigns reposed in him, the representations of Margarite and Buil--the rough soldier and the wily Benedictine--had produced their effect. They complained of the despotic rule of Columbus; of the disregard of distinctions of rank which he had manifested by placing the hidalgoes on the same footing as the common men, as regards work and rations, during the construction of the settlement; and of his mania for discovery, which made him abandon the colony already formed, in the unremunerative search for new countries. The commissioner who was sent to investigate these charges, as well as to report on the condition of the colony, found no difficulty in collecting evidence to substantiate them.

An unsuccessful man is generally persuaded that somebody else has caused his failure. And the "somebody else," in the case of the colonists, was, by universal consent, the foreign sea captain who had deluded Spanish hidalgoes by his wild projects, and had become a grandee under false pretences. The Indians, too, who were glad to lay their miseries at the door of somebody, and who were told that Aguado was the new admiral, and had come to supplant the old one, were not slow to add their quota to the charges against Columbus. To rebut these accusations, as well as to protest against the issue of licences, to private adventurers, to trade in the new countries independently of the admiral (a measure which, in violation of Columbus's charter, had lately been adopted by Fonseca) he quitted Isabella on the 10th of March, 1496, in the "Nina," while Aguado took ship in another caravel. Many of the colonists, who had been rudely awakened from their golden dreams, seized this opportunity of returning to Spain; and the Cacique Caonabo was also on board, probably with a view of impressing upon him an overwhelming conviction of Spanish power, and of the futility of any efforts to resist it.

WRETCHED VOYAGE HOME

The voyage was a miserable one. Contrary winds prevailed until provisions began to run short, and rations were doled out in pittances which grew scantier and scantier until all the admiral's authority was needed to prevent his ravenous shipmates from killing and eating the Caribs who were on board,--in retribution, so ran the grim jest, for their cannibalism. At last, when famine was imminent, after a voyage of three months' duration, the two caravels entered the Bay of Cadiz on the 11th of June, 1496.

RECEPTION AT COURT.

After about a month's delay, Columbus received a summons to proceed to the Court, which was then at Burgos. In the course of his journey thither he adopted the same means of dazzling the eyes of the populace, by the display of gold and the exhibition of his captives, as on his return from his first voyage; but so many unsuccessful colonists had returned, sick at heart and ruined in health, to tell the tale of failure to their countrymen, that this triumphal procession was very unlike the last as regards the welcome accorded by the public. However the Sovereigns seem to have given the admiral a kind reception, and instead of placing him on his defence against the charges which had been brought forward by Father Buil, they listened with sympathy to his story of the difficulties which had beset him, and heard with sanguine satisfaction of the recent discovery of the mines from which it was said that the natives procured most of the gold that had been found in their possession, and which promised an incalculably rich harvest. Presently, in apparent confirmation of this belief, one Pedro Nino, a captain of the admiral's, announced his arrival at Cadiz, with a quant.i.ty of "gold in bars" on board his ship. It was not until great expectations had been raised at Court, and the wildest ideas conceived of the magnitude of this supposed first instalment of the riches of the newly found gold mines, that it turned out that this Nino was merely a miserable maker of jokes, and that the "gold in bars" was only represented by the Indians who composed his cargo, whose present captivity was secured by "bars," and whose future sale was to furnish gold. This absurdity naturally caused Columbus and his friends no slight mortification, and added a fresh weapon to the shafts of ridicule which his enemies wore for ever launching at his extravagant theories and his expensive projects.

CHAPTER VIII.

During the two years that elapsed from the Admiral's leaving Hispaniola in 1496 to his return there in 1498, many things happened on both sides the Atlantic, which need recording. In 1496 we find, that Don Bartholomew Columbus sent to Spain three hundred slaves from Hispaniola. He had previously informed the Sovereigns that certain caciques were killing the Castilians, and their Highnesses had given orders in reply, that all those who should be found guilty should be sent to Spain. If this meant the common Indians as well as the caciques, then it seems probable that the question about selling them with a safe conscience was already decided.

CRIMINALS SENT TO THE INDIES.

In 1497, two very injudicious edicts were published by the Catholic Sovereigns, upon the advice, as we are told, of Columbus; one, authorizing the judges to transport criminals to the Indies; the other, giving an indulgence to all those who had committed any crime (with certain exceptions, among which heresy, lese majeste, and treason, find a place) to go out at their own expense to Hispaniola, and to serve for a certain time under the orders of the admiral. The remembrance of this advice on his part, might well have shamed Columbus from saying, as he did three years afterwards, in his most emphatic manner, "I swear that numbers of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water from G.o.d or man." It is but fair, however, to mention, that Las Casas, speaking of the colonists who went out under these conditions, says, "I have known some of them in these islands, even of those who had lost their ears, whom I always found sufficiently honest men."

"REPARTIMIENTOS."

In 1497, letters patent were issued from the Sovereigns to the admiral, authorizing him to grant repartimientos of the lands in the Indies to the Spaniards. It is noticeable that in this doc.u.ment there is no mention of Indians, so that they had not come to form portion of a repartimiento at this period. The doc.u.ment in question is of a formal character, expressed in the style of legal doc.u.ments of the present day, by virtue of which the fortunate Spaniard who gets the land is "to have, and to hold, and to possess," and so forth; and is enabled "to sell and to give, and to present, and to traffic with, and to exchange, and to pledge, and to alienate, and to do with it and in it all that he likes or may think good."

While the acts of legislation above narrated, which cannot be said to have been favourable to good government in the Indies, were being framed at the Court of Spain, Don Bartholomew Columbus was doing much in his administration of Hispaniola that led to very mischievous results.

Before the admiral left the island, he had discovered some mines to the southward, and had thought of choosing a port in their vicinity, where he might establish a colony. He had spoken about this in his letters to the Government at home. As he entered the Bay of Cadiz on his return, he met some vessels there, which were bound for Hispaniola, and which contained letters from their Highnesses approving of his suggestion. By these ships, therefore, he sent orders to his brother to make this southern settlement; and the "Adelantado" accordingly proceeded southwards, and fixed upon a port at the entrance or the river Ozama. He sent for artizans from Isabella, and commenced building a fortress, which he called St. Domingo, and which afterwards became the chief port of the island.

XARAGUA PENETRATED; TRIBUTE IMPOSED UPON THE INDIANS.

There was one part of Hispaniola into which the Spaniards had not yet penetrated: it was called Xaragua, and was reigned over by a Cacique named Bohechio, whose sister, Anacaona, the wife of Caonabo, and a noted beauty, seems also to have had much authority in those parts. The Adelantado, after seeing the works at St. Domingo commenced, resolved to enter the kingdom of Xaragua, whither he proceeded at the head of one hundred men.

Arriving at the river Neyba, he found an immense army of Indians drawn up there to oppose his progress. Don Bartholomew made signs to them that his errand was peaceful; and the good-natured Indians accepting his proffers of amity, he was conducted some thirty leagues further to the city of Xaragua, where he was received with processions of dancing and singing women, and feasted magnificently. After having been well entertained by these Indians, the "Adelantado" proceeded to business, and, in plain terms, demanded tribute of them. Bohechio pleaded that there was no gold in his dominions, to which the Adelantado replied that he did not wish to impose tribute upon any people, except of the natural production to be found in their country. It was finally settled that Bohechio should pay tribute in cotton and cazabi-bread. He acceded to this agreement very willingly; and the Adelantado and this cacique parted on the most friendly terms.

Don Bartholomew then returned to Isabella, where he found that about three hundred men had died from disease, and that there was great dearth of provisions. He distributed the sick men in his fortresses, and in the adjacent Indian villages, and afterwards set out on a journey to his new fort of St. Domingo, collecting tribute by the way. In all these rapid and energetic proceedings of the Adelantado, and still more from causes over which he had no control, the Spaniards must have suffered much; and, doubtless, those complaints on their part, which were soon to break out very menacingly, were not unheard at the present time.

If the Spaniards, however, complained of the labours which Don Bartholomew imposed upon them, the Indians complained still more, and far more justly, of the tribute imposed upon them. Several of the minor chiefs, upon this occasion of collecting tribute, complained to the great Cacique Guarionex, and suggested a rising of the Indians. This cacique seems to have been a peaceful, prudent man, and well aware of the power of the Spaniards. But he now consented to place himself at the head of an insurrection, which, however, the lieutenant-governor, soon made aware of it, quelled at once by a battle in which he was victorious over Guarionex, taking him and other princ.i.p.al persons captive. The chief movers of the revolt were put to death; but Guarionex was delivered up to his people, who flocked by thousands to his place of imprisonment, clamouring for his rest.i.tution.