Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [95]
Attracted by the industrious Spaniards, Indians gathered in the Cibao, seeking bells and other trinkets as eagerly as the white men sought gold. The Admiral obliged, so long as the Indians brought gold. Some nuggets were so large that Columbus assumed the Indians had melted smaller pieces of gold to form large lumps. Columbus held the nuggets in his hand, as an old Indian man told him there were others as “big as walnuts,” or even bigger. “When I received the two nuggets from this old man,” Columbus wrote, “I was most happy and indicated that they were very nice and gave him a bell. He received it with a sigh of satisfaction expressing greater contentment than someone being given a fine city.” These two nuggets, he said, were as nothing “compared with the others in his land.” The old man stooped and picked up several stones, claiming that he had nuggets of gold that were even larger. “They ranged in size from that of a walnut to a big orange,” Columbus exclaimed in wonder. But matters were not quite that simple.
Believing that he was close to finding greater amounts of gold, the Admiral “sent a young nobleman with a few armed soldiers to explore the [Cibao] region,” wrote Ferdinand. He returned telling fantastic stories of “gold nuggets the size of a man’s head . . . found on a riverbank.” Curiously, Columbus never followed up, preferring to whet the appetite of his Sovereigns for more voyages. He had his excuses prepared—the distance from the Cibao to the ships was too great, he lacked proper gold-mining equipment, the gold would be there when he got back—but, given the overwhelming importance of gold to Columbus and to Spain, his account is deeply suspect. He had indeed found gold, but not the incredible amounts of which he boasted.
Returning to La Isabela on April 1, just before Easter, Columbus discovered that a group of discontented Spaniards had coalesced around the unlikely figure of Bernal Díaz de Pisa, the fleet’s comptroller. In Spain, he had been a constable in the royal court. Now he was a rebel, and he was immediately arrested.
While Díaz de Pisa was confined aboard ship, it emerged that he had fabricated a catalogue of outrageous accusations against the Admiral and concealed it in a buoy marking an anchor. Even Columbus’s harsh critic, Bartolomé de Las Casas, expressed dismay at Díaz’s treachery: “I cannot imagine just how the Admiral could have committed all the crimes and injuries listed in the short space of two months that he had been out there.” Despite Columbus’s intercession, rumors of his cruelty toward his own men spread throughout Castile. “I have read the letters he sent to the king and queen in which he explains that he was obliged by law to hand out the punishments he did,” Las Casas noted, “which is an indication that he did punish some of them,” but the cleric sided with Columbus, for once. “Criminals are always demanding to go unpunished,” he wrote, “and always claim their actions are justified and that it is they who are being victimized.”
By this time, the formerly unified expedition had split into three parts. First, a small delegation of Spaniards painstakingly constructed the fortress known as La Isabela on the northern coast of what is now the Dominican Republic. Second, Columbus and his loyalists searched through the gold mines of Cibao. Along the way, they confronted Indians who were not allied with Guacanagarí and potential mutineers among the crew. Meanwhile, the third and largest contingent returned to Cadiz, under the command of Antonio de Torres.
Giambattista