Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [124]
The rampage grew in intensity, and, it seemed to Christian eyes, yielded a miracle amid the mayhem. “Those rebels ran to the place where they had hidden the images and broken them to pieces. Several days later the owner of the field went to dig up some yams (which are roots that look like turnips or radishes), and in the place where the images had been buried two or three yams had grown together in the shape of a cross.” Incredibly, “This cross was found by the mother of Guarionex—the worst woman I ever knew in those parts,” yet “she found it a miracle, saying to the governor of the fort of Concepción, ‘God caused this wonder to appear in the place where the images were found, for reasons known only to Himself.’” At least it was comforting to imagine that she did.
Father Pané offered sobering advice to Columbus: “This island has great need of men who will punish those Indian lords who will not let their people receive instruction in the Holy Catholic Faith, for those people cannot stand up to their lords.” Toughened and wearied by experience, the priest set aside his humility to insist, “I speak with authority, for I have worn myself out in seeking to learn the truth about this matter.”
But for the moment, Columbus appeared to have succeeded in his mission against all odds, if his mission consisted only of conquest. Ferdinand claimed that his father “reduced the Indians to such obedience and tranquility that they all promised to pay tribute to the Catholic Sovereigns every three months, as follows: In the Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person fourteen years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk’s bell of gold dust; all others were to pay twenty-five pounds of cotton.”
Such were the terms of the Pax Columbiana.
Still adhering to their hunger strike, the Indians were starving to death. “If they survive this famine,” Columbus euphemistically noted in October 1495, “I hope in Our Lord I can maintain this agreement with them and earn not a little profit.” He ordered his men to conduct a census “cacique by cacique,” and complained, “no more than a quarter of them could be found because everyone had scattered to the mountains, into unpopulated areas in search of roots to feed the people.” Each surviving Indian who delivered a tribute to the Spanish authorities received a “brass or copper token, which he must wear about his neck as proof that he made his payment; any Indian found without such a token was to be punished.”
All the while, the Spaniards seethed with resentment. Some had already returned to Spain with Antonio de Torres to spread tales about the callous Admiral of the Ocean Sea. His two brothers, rushing to his side, had only managed to make things worse with their brutal approach to Indian relations. He feared that the longer he was away from the court, the more his rivals would poison the minds of his Sovereigns against him. On his first voyage he had departed in relative obscurity and returned as a hero; on this, his second voyage, he had departed as a hero, but had every reason to believe that he would return in disgrace unless he pleaded his case before the Sovereigns.
Conditions at La Isabela were so chaotic that it took a long time—nearly six months—to ready a ship to bear the Admiral of the Ocean Sea to Castile. She was named, fittingly, India, a caravel made of three ships destroyed by a violent Caribbean hurricane, said by Peter Martyr to have occurred in June 1495, and for which the Indians blamed the presence of the Spaniards, who had upset the elements. The only other ship in the little convoy was Santa Clara, in which Columbus owned a half share.
The two caravels were designed to carry about twenty-five people