Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [202]
Fieschi wished to return to Columbus, as arranged, to report their safe arrival on Hispaniola, but his traveling companions, both Europeans and Indians, were “exhausted and ill from their labors and from drinking sea water,” and refused to accompany him, “for the Christians regarded themselves as having been delivered from the whale’s belly, their three days and nights corresponding to those of the prophet Jonah.”
But Méndez had a different idea. Despite suffering from “quartan ague,” an archaic term for malaria, he led his men inland “over wretched paths and rugged mountains” to the western province of Xaraguá, formerly the refuge of Roldán and his rebels, where Nicolás de Ovando busied himself putting down another Indian rebellion. The cold-blooded governor feigned delight when these emissaries from Columbus appeared from nowhere, and in keeping with his anti-Columbian agenda, delayed giving the exhausted travelers permission to trek the seventy leagues to Santo Domingo.
During the seven months they were detained at Xaraguá, Méndez witnessed the governor’s cruelty. “He burned or hanged eighty-four ruling caciques,” including Anacaona, “the greatest chieftain of the island, who is obeyed and served by all the others.” She was also known as a composer of areítos, or narrative poems, and had been considered friendly to the Spaniards. At a feast in her honor organized by eight caciques, to which Ovando was invited, he set fire to the meetinghouse, arrested her and other Indian leaders, and executed all of them. Most were shot; Anacaona died by hanging. She was thirty-nine years old. Her husband, Caonabó, had been captured by Alonso de Ojeda, and died at sea en route to Spain. Even the Spaniards were appalled by Ovando’s brutality toward friendly Indians, but there was little they could do about it.
When the governor finally considered the pacification of Xaraguá complete, the indefatigable Méndez got permission to go on foot to the capital, all but forbidden to the Admiral himself. There he drew on Columbus’s “funds and resources” to buy and equip a caravel. “None had come for more than a year,” Méndez recalled, “but thanks be to God three arrived during my stay, one of which I bought and loaded with provisions: bread, wine, meat, hogs, sheep, fruit,” all now available, for a price, in this remote outpost of the Spanish empire.
He supervised provisioning the caravel for the voyage, and dispatched her to Jamaica in late May 1504, so that the Admiral “and all his men might come in it to Santo Domingo and from there return to Castile.” Méndez went ahead with two ships “to give the King and Queen an account of all that had happened on that voyage.” There would be much to tell.
At about this time, in Spain, Queen Isabella fell seriously ill at Medina del Campo, a city known for its trade fairs, a little more than twenty miles from Valladolid. “The doctors have lost all hope for her health,” wrote Peter Martyr in despair. “The illness spread throughout her veins and slowly the dropsy became apparent. A fever never abandoned her, penetrating her to the core. Day and night she had an insatiable thirst, while the sight of food gave her nausea. The mortal tumor grew fast between her skin and flesh.”
As her strength ebbed and her thoughts turned to eternity, she cut back drastically on official business coming before her.
As for Columbus and “all his companions,” having spent an entire year marooned in a lush, obscure, and troubled paradise on Jamaica, they “were highly delighted with the ship’s arrival.” When Méndez and Columbus later renewed their friendship in Spain and recalled the rescue, “His Lordship told me that in all his life he had never known so joyful a day, since he never expected to leave Jamaica