Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [49]
For the moment, he kept his plan to himself, and the generous gestures resumed the following day, when Guacanagarí tearfully promised Columbus and his men “two very big houses, and would give more if necessary,” along with canoes necessary to handle the ship’s cargo, and sufficient manpower, all “without taking any morsel of bread or anything else.” In his desire to repay and validate their kindness with something, anything, the Admiral resorted to offering more hawk’s bells, and at the sight of these tinkling trinkets, the Indians called out “chuque, chuque” and seemed “on the point of going mad for them.” Columbus was gratified to receive four pieces of gold “as big as the hand” in exchange, he was pleased to note, “for nothing.” The Admiral became merry, “and the king rejoiced much to see the Admiral merry.” That evening, the two leaders dined twice, first aboard Niña, the Spaniard celebrating his deliverance and gratification of his greed, the Indian celebrating his own generosity, and later ashore, where they devoured “yams, rock lobsters, game, and other viands they had, and their bread,” cassava. The Indians exhibited respectable table manners, Columbus was pleased to note, and afterward he cleaned his hands by rubbing them with herbs in the manner of his hosts.
Striding past “groves of trees next to the houses,” the Spaniards found themselves escorted to their guest quarters by “a good thousand people, all naked,” except for Guacanagarí, who, out of respect for his guests, “now wore a shirt and gloves that the Admiral had given him, and over the gloves he made more rejoicing than anything.” They talked of strategic matters, of the Indians’ fierce rivals, the Caribs, who carried bows and arrows reminiscent of the Spaniards’ exotic weapons, but made without iron, and of the way the Caribs captured the Indians at will. At once, “the Admiral said by signs that the Sovereigns of Castile would order the Caribs to be destroyed, and would order them all brought with their hands bound.” To reinforce his show of strength, Columbus ordered a lombard and musket to be fired. The two shots, powered by gunpowder technology unknown to the Indians, shattered the Caribbean calm, and the Indians fell to earth. A little later, they brought Columbus, their protector, a “big mask that had great pieces of gold in the ears and the eyes and in other parts,” together with gold ornaments, which they ceremoniously draped over the Admiral’s head and neck.
Thereafter, the idea of a fortress, once the stuff of daydreams, became Columbus’s mission and obsession. Once he felt a faint puff of destiny urging him on, he submitted to it as if it were a gale. The “great luck” of running into a reef and wrecking the flagship during a Christmas Eve spree became “the predestined will of God,” complete with a purpose that Columbus suddenly divined: “that he might leave the people there” to begin a colony, and to become the catalyst for more voyages to China.
Ruminating on the accident, he made critical revisions to his account. No longer was it caused by the inexperienced hand of the ship’s boy on the tiller at precisely the wrong moment, as Santa María encountered an all-but-invisible reef at night while Columbus slept; now he insisted it was caused by the “treachery of the master and the people . . . in refusing to run out the anchor from the stern to kedge”—that is, haul—“off the ship as the Admiral ordered.” There was no more mention of the hapless boy at the tiller, or Columbus’s fatigue, or the holiday celebrations; “treachery” had taken their place.
If only his orders had been obeyed, “the ship would have been saved.” He laid the blame on the “men of Palos,” the Spanish port where the voyage began, where he failed to receive the “vessels suitable for the voyage” to which he believed himself entitled. The town of Palos, under