Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [98]
They had divided the island into five kingdoms. The closest at hand was Magua, including La Isabela and the voluptuous Vega Real, ruled by Guarionex. To the northwest, Guacanagarí held sway over Marien. In the east, Guayacoa claimed Higuey, famed for fighters fierce enough to repel Carib invasions. Xaraguá, the island’s largest kingdom, lay to the south, and belonged to Behechio, whose sister, Anacaona, was Caonabó’s wife. On the strength of this alliance, Caonabó claimed a mountain range in central Hispaniola.
Confronting this network of Indian alliances, Ojeda’s small force met with an intimidating show of force. Columbus reported:
There were over 2,000 Indians, all armed with javelins, which they launch from slings much more quickly than from a bow, and all of them were painted black and other colors, with fancy glass beads, mirrors, masks, and mirrors of copper and gold on their heads, letting out frightening cries, as they are wont to do at certain times. One group had planned to wait on the field for the horses and tip them over by jumping on them. . . . They tried to carry out their plan. But it was the horses that ran over them as they stood in their way, and the horses collided with them and killed them.
Columbus considered this turn of events “a miracle of no small importance, that a few Christians could escape a multitude of people sworn to their death.”
Ojeda captured three Indian leaders—a chief and his brother and nephew—and placed them in irons to present to Columbus, waiting impatiently at La Isabela. To add to the spectacle, Ojeda ordered his men to lead another Indian into the midst of his village and “cut off his ears” in retribution for the Indians’ failing to be helpful to the Spaniards when fording a stream. When the other prisoners reached La Isabela, Columbus went even further: he ordered them “to be taken to the main square and publicly beheaded.”
Columbus’s behavior troubled the Spanish no less than his victims. “What wonderful news would now be spread the length and breadth of the land concerning the greatness and goodness of these Christians!” Las Casas exclaimed, thinking of the strategic error caused by Columbus’s edict, as well as history’s verdict on the explorer, which was sure to be harsh.
To Las Casas, the despicable tactics meant that the Indians “had every right to consider” violence against Ojeda—who had cut off the ears of an Indian for shock value—“and the Christians traveling with him.” Columbus should have known better; he should have warned the Indians that he was coming, sent messengers to “notify all the kings and lords of his intended arrival,” to let them know that he was coming “for their benefit,” and to ask permission. And he should have sent “tokens, as he was formally instructed to in the written orders given him by the king and queen.” He should have “extended . . . every courtesy and taken every . . . step, as prescribed in the gentle teachings of the gospel whose minister and messenger he was to assure them that he came in peace and love and to avoid committing any outrage or act that might distress or upset the gentle and innocent.”
This gentle diplomatic prescription was all very well, but the massacre at La Navidad remained fresh in the mind of Columbus and all the other members of his party, for whom the time for sending invitations or asking permission had long passed.
Columbus remained at La Isabela to plan more nautical exploration. To administer Hispaniola while he was searching for the illusory mainland, he appointed a council including his brother Don Diego, Fray Buil, Pedro Fernández Coronel, Alonso Sánchez de Carvajal, and Juan de Luxan, a “gentleman of Madrid of the household of the Catholic Sovereigns.” With the council in place, Columbus was at last ready to explore the coast of Cuba, still unsure about “whether it was an