The Earthly Paradise Revisited - 2

The Earthly Paradise Revisited - 2

 

Little by little the dismal story was elicited from the natives, who became less timid when

they saw that the Spaniards meant them no harm. It seemed that Columbus had no sooner

gone away than the colonists began to abandon themselves to every kind of excess. While

the echo of the Admiral's wise counsels was yet in their ears they began to disobey his

orders. Honest work they had no intention of doing, and although Diego Arana, their

commander, did his best to keep order, and although one or two of the others were

faithful to him and to Columbus, their authority was utterly insufficient to check the

lawless folly of the rest. Instead of searching for gold mines, they possessed themselves

by force of every ounce of gold they could steal or seize from the natives, treating them

with both cruelty and contempt. More brutal excesses followed as a matter of course.

Guacanagari, in his kindly indulgence and generosity, had allowed them to take three

native wives apiece, although he himself and his people were content with one. But of

course the Spaniards had thrown off all restraint, however mild, and ran amok among the

native inhabitants, seizing their wives and seducing their daughters. Upon this naturally

followed dissensions among themselves, jealousy coming hot upon the heels of unlawful

possession; and, in the words of Irving, "the natives beheld with astonishment the beings

whom they had worshipped as descended from the skies abandoned to the grossest of

earthly passions and raging against each other with worse than brutal ferocity."

Upon their strifes and dissensions followed another breach of the Admiral's wise

regulations; they no longer cared to remain together in the fort, but split up into groups

and went off with their women into the woods, reverting to a savagery beside which the

gentle existence of the natives was high civilisation. There were squabbles and fights in

which one or two of the Spaniards were killed; and Pedro Gutierrez and Rodrigo de

Escovedo, whom Columbus had appointed as lieutenants to Arana, headed a faction of

revolt against his authority, and took themselves off with nine other Spaniards and a great

number of women. They had heard a great deal about the mines of Cibao, and they

decided to go in search of them and secure their treasures for themselves. They went

inland into a territory which was under the rule of King Caonabo, a very fierce Carib who

was not a native of Espanola, but had come there as an adventurer and remained as a

conqueror. Although he resented the intrusion of the Spaniards into the island he would

not have dared to come and attack them there if they had obeyed the Admiral's orders and

remained in the territory of Guacanagari; but when they came into his own country he

had them in a trap, and it was easy for him to fall upon those foolish swaggering

Spaniards and put them to death. He then decided to go and take the fort.

He formed an alliance with the neighbouring king, Mayreni, whose province was in the

west of the island. Getting together a force of warriors these two kings marched rapidly

and stealthily through the, forest for several days until they arrived at its northern border.

They came in the dead of night to the neighbourhood of La Navidad, where the

inhabitants of the fortress, some ten in number, were fast asleep. Fast asleep were the

remaining dozen or so of the Spaniards who were living in houses or huts in the

neighbourhood; fast asleep also the gentle natives, not dreaming of troubles from any

quarter but that close at hand. The sweet silence of the tropical night was suddenly

broken by frightful yells as Caonabo and his warriors rushed the fortress and butchered

the inhabitants, setting fire to it and to the houses round about. As their flimsy huts burst

into flames the surprised Spaniards rushed out, only to be fallen upon by the infuriated

blacks. Eight of the Spaniards rushed naked into the sea and were drowned; the rest were

butchered. Guacanagari manfully came to their assistance and with his own followers

fought throughout the night; but his were a gentle and unwarlike people, and they were

easily routed. The King himself was badly wounded in the thigh, but Caonabo's principal

object seems to have been the destruction of the Spaniards, and when that was completed

he and his warriors, laden with the spoils, retired.

Thus Columbus, walking on the shore with his native interpreter, or sitting in his cabin

listening with knitted brow to the accounts of the islanders, learns of the complete and

utter failure of his first hopes. It has come to this. These are the real first-fruits of his

glorious conquest and discovery. The New World has served but as a virgin field for the

Old Adam. He who had sought to bring light and life to these happy islanders had

brought darkness and death; they had innocently clasped the sword he had extended to

them and cut themselves. The Christian occupation of the New World had opened with

vice, cruelty, and destruction; the veil of innocence had been rent in twain, and could

never be mended or joined again. And the Earthly Paradise in which life had gone so

happily, of which sun and shower had been the true rulers, and the green sprouting

harvests the only riches, had been turned into a shambles by the introduction of human

rule and civilised standards of wealth. Gold first and then women, things beautiful and

innocent in the happy native condition of the islands, had been the means of the

disintegration and death of this first colony. These are serious considerations for any

coloniser; solemn considerations for a discoverer who is only on the verge and beginning

of his empire-making; mournful considerations for Christopher as he surveys the

blackened ruins of the fort, or stands bare-headed by the grass-covered graves.

There seemed to be a certain hesitancy on the part of Guacanagari to present himself; for

though he kept announcing his intention of coming to visit the Admiral he did not come.

A couple of days after the discovery of the remains, however, he sent a message to

Columbus begging him to come and see him, which the Admiral accordingly did,

accompanied by a formal retinue and carrying with him the usual presents. Guacanagari

was in bed sure enough complaining of a wounded leg, and he told the story of the

settlement very much as Columbus had already heard it from the other natives. He

pointed to his own wounded leg as a sign that he had been loyal and faithful to his

friendly promises; but when the leg was examined by the surgeon in order that it might be

dressed no wound could be discovered, and it was obvious to Doctor Chanca that the skin

had not been broken. This seemed odd; Friar Buil was so convinced that the whole story

was a deception that he wished the Admiral to execute Guacanagari on the spot.

Columbus, although he was puzzled, was by no means convinced that Guacanagari had

been unfaithful to him, and decided to do nothing for the present. He invited the cacique

to come on board the flagship; which he did, being greatly interested by some of the

Carib prisoners, notably a handsome woman, named by the Spaniards Dofia Catalina,

with whom he held a long conversation.