I have heard many stories of the thigh-eating Kwaib, how they ate our Taíno people, how they took our women. But in all of my childhood, only once did a strange canoe sail our Guanahaní waters, paddled by two men who would have kidnapped a woman. They were discovered in the act, paddled away, and were caught within one day by our fishermen. I know of other such incidents, some more violent, among our Caribbean peoples. And, of course, I have witnessed how some of our own caciques attacked others of our peoples, both here and in Cuba, usually in disputes over fishing and planting grounds. But even the worst of those fights I only saw at the urging and the service of the Castilians. The Taíno caciques seldom went to war against each other anymore by the time the Castilians came. No, all of our hatreds are as a drop in the ocean of Castilian cruelty. Suffering is what they like; even their God-man, who spoke with them as another human—what they adore is his bleeding heart; in their most sacred ceremony, they drink his blood, again and again, even the young children. Truly, the Christians find salvation in the spilling of blood. They did today to that poor boy what they have done many times. Tonight, as I write, Jiqui’s body grease is in my nostrils. I can see yet how his life oozed out of him and hissed on the fire. The Castilians are taking all the fat, from the rivers and mines, from the land, and from our very bodies.
September 1, 1532
Forty-seven. Pressing “the Indian cause” could get Enriquillo killed.
Much before the light of morning, I found the monk in our chapel. I knelt next to him and knew that we shared great disgust. In the darkness, brightened faintly by a faint moon, the events of the afternoon seemed a horrible dream. We prayed together for the soul of poor Jiqui, for him and for the many others. I prayed too for my jimaguas, my twin boys, that they always be happy and fresh-feeling Taíno, here or in the Spirit World. Done with my prayer, I felt like walking, wanting to work a kink out of my leg. The good friar stayed with me, walking behind me, staring blankly, and thumbing the pressed-rose beads of a big rosary that dangled from his right hand.
Morning found us facing the ocean, catching the breeze of the outgoing tide. We stood on the promontory that overlooks the coastal road. Mornings like this one, facing the ocean, palm trees, fruit trees all around, the gentility of our Caribbean islands reveals its imprint on my people. The sea wind speaks to me. It blows me soft kisses from the mother waters; it whispers the hopes of past generations. This wind that parts on my face, cupping my ears, blasting against my chest, my thighs, I can say to this wind, “Treat me well; make me well; carry away my pains, carry away my aches.” This wind that came today will do that for me.
I caught my calm; the world once again returned me to myself. I could see the good friar struggling with his pain. His horror stays within and his fury consumes him. He is a good man but the wind speaks not to him, so on his knees he says his Ave Marias and his Pater Nosters in a strong and steady murmur. The way he closed his eyes and prayed I could tell he knew not how to talk to the sun, which was appearing strong from the sea at our left. I do not know how to pray without acknowledging the sun, the moon, the four creator winds of the earth, the mother waters. But I have always seen in the priests and monks that they pray through the image of Jesus Christ on the cross, or through a face of the Virgin Mary, in statue or painting. Also, they like to pray indoors, inside the church. Even today, as we moved our service outside, with the sun and sea, with the wind at our faces, he prays to the image of Christ in his mind, nothing else. I have noticed this in all the Christians: they seek not the world in their prayer, but the man-god on the cross.
Walking back to the convent, Las Casas announced his vehement commitment to destroying the Spanish conquistador circles, to achieve the complete renunciation of the encomienda system. He was very forthright and spoke for most of the way. “The time is ripe to line up the pressure,” he kept saying. “It is the moment.”
His vehemence bothered me. As he leaves soon for the court, I felt again the need to reaffirm the importance of the peace negotiation with Enriquillo.
“This work with Enriquillo must be precise,” I said. “His concern is for the safety of his mountain groups.”
“They will be safe,” he said. “I guarantee it. But these negotiations, at this time, also mean everything to the mainland, for Peru, Guatemala and Nicaragua, for Yucatán and Mexico, even for Borikén and Cuba. We must push for everything we can. I insist that if we apply all the pressure now, we can overturn the encomienda.”
Again, his response bothers me, especially throwing in the two islands, which I could tell was an afterthought. His impatience to overturn the whole colonial law continues. No doubt his concentration is stimulated by witnessing the execution of Jiqui. It bothered me that he can claim to guarantee Enriquillo’s safety, as we have just witnessed an execution without hope of influencing the case. I asked him about the attitude of Oidor Suazo and the señores of Santo Domingo. Again, he was casual.
“For one thing, they are loath to finance more military expeditions and even less willing to actually serve on any of them. So they would opt for peace.”
“What they did to that boy yesterday is what they would do to Enriquillo,” I said.
“What they have done many times in many places,” he said.
“But yesterday, condoned by those same authorities, we witnessed…”
“They are butchering in the mainland like that, Dieguillo. Peru, Nicaragua, Yucatán, the Valley of Mexico. Many hangings and burnings, like the early massacres here. No, we must destroy the encomienda, which is the law and the justification.”
The encomienda is what Taíno slavery is called by Spanish law. The encomienda, which started with the early repartimientos, or the giveaways, of Taíno people imposed after the first battles, granted to specific conquistadors the right to use Indians as laborers in the farms and mines, on sea, and anywhere. This followed the admiral’s logic that in return for their labor, the Spanish masters would Christianize the Indians. It was an argument that the queen, who tried to prohibit outright slavery for Indians, could accept.
“Just remember, the encomienda’s promise was to teach us Christianity.”
“Well, it goes back to that savage Ovando,” Las Casas said, seeming to accept my comment. “And he was a man of the church.”
“But the idea goes back to Columbus himself,” I said.
“The admiral reasoned it out, but Ovando formalized its structure.”
“Yes, we gave our freedom and our lands; in return, you gave us the new faith.” I said.
“But, Dieguillo. It is not the Christianity as it is meant to be lived, as our Lord Jesus taught.”
Forty-eight. Las Casas wants to end the encomienda; I want Enriquillo to live.
The good friar needed to discourse, as I had piqued his polemical mind.
I will write down here the good friar’s discourse on the institution of the encomienda. I was impatient to review our plan on Enriquillo, but I like what I learned from the priest, who has, among his many documents and books, the admiral’s ship’s log of the first voyage, letters from Michele de Cúneo and Dr. Alvarez Chanca, on the second voyage, and many court documents detailing the history of the dreadful institution.
Las Casas said: “The admiral had to pay for his excesses in describing the wealth of the Indies. Unable to find sufficient gold, he set about the justification for capturing Indians and selling them as slaves. This is where he clashed with Queen Isabel of Castile.
“When Columbus sent his first Indian slaves to markets in Spain, Queen Isabel denounced the Admiral of the Ocean Sea. ‘These are my vassals,’ she said. ‘Who is Columbus to sell my vassals?’ She ordered the Indians freed, though, truthfully, few of them ever made it back to the islands.
“Nevertheless, the Great Discoverer invoked the rights of war and conquest, justifying imposition of Christian sovereignty over heathen peoples. He continued to capture and send Indians to Iberian markets. As infidel prisoners of war could be sold as slaves, an
y excuse for war was welcome.
“Queen Isabel pressed for the work of evangelization. And in this she was convinced by Columbus and others that the Indians were ‘roamers’ who would avoid Christianity unless secured and held to a place. Thus, as the slave trade back to Spain dwindled, the conquistadors proposed the “burden” of granting upon themselves titles to lands and to the Indians that came with the titled land, in order that the Indians could be properly instructed in the Chistian faith. To recompense the conquistadors for the burden of Christian instruction, the Indians would be made to work, in the farms and in the mines, to support the upkeep of the Castilians in their island and to fill up the coffers of the royal court.”
What the good friar says is true. The conquistador’s argument about settling down the Indians in order to Christianize us was a trick for the queen to accept the repartimientos—the giveaways—of the Taíno population of the island among the early señores. Afterward, all notices received by the court were contradictory and even led to laws to protect my Taíno people, but their enslavement was just as total and brutal as were the assertions to her majesty by the delegates from the islands that everything was kind and good for the Indians. Queen Isabel’s concern for our people was little avail as her health was failing and our islands so far away from her.
After Queen Isabel’s death, in 1504, I say, there was little more to be done at the courts on our behalf. King Ferdinand was disinclined to consider the fate of heathens. Only the good friar and his allies defended our people. And to refute him, many calumnies and half-truths were divulged against us—assertions that we were indolent, could not feed ourselves, that we were idolaters, that we were sodomites, that we had no law. “Beasts that talk,” Las Casas said. “That’s what they called your Indians.”
Las Casas’s review of these events and assertions fueled my anger, bringing forth words and curses, arguments and anecdotes, but by late afternoon, as we took the final uphill trail that would bring us to the rear of the convent, I was again tired of the polemic and history; I wanted to plan for the survival of Enriquillo and his people.
“Father,” I finally said. “The way my people have died, again and again, no one knows better than you and I. But what of the Guarocuya, how can we help him?”
“That is my point,” he responded. “I believe there is room for reform. I believe we can still turn the encomienda around. Through the righteous stand of Enriquillo and our Christian faith, our religious orders are building pressure toward a major investigation…”
“Father, please,” I said. “Enriquillo may want to discuss the encomienda, but it is the last one of his points. I know his strategy. He is most concerned for the fate of his people in the Bahuruku, how to bring the war to an end so he can settle them.”
“You must understand, Dieguillo, that this is already beyond Española. We truly have the orders behind us. In Peru, the encomienda is in a chaos. A new investigation, conducted by the religious…”
“Father!” I said sharply to him. “If we mix up Enriquillo’s needs with the demands of mainland strategies, we may get him killed.”
“That is a precisely Indian problem: thinking too small. Our strategies must cast a wider net.”
“What about Hieronymites, Father, remember that farce of an investigation?” I said. “What about the free Indian communities? What happened to them?”
Immediately, I knew I had hurt him. Those two projects of earlier campaigns are dear to his heart. Their demise, through corruption and greed, is a deep wound in him. I am sorry to do it but there is no other way to get his attention. We walked silently after that, climbing the wooded east side of our convent. Two flocks, one of parrots and one of doves, swarmed together overhead, moving through the trees just ahead of us. As we talked I had not noticed them. But as we settled into our silent walk, slowly the woods surrounded me; I followed the birds, sniffed the lairs of serpents and iguanas, noted trees and plantations of fruit. On the way, too, on a knoll, I saw a guasima tree with two identical trunks, beautiful, with equal branches on both sides, almost perfectly resembling each other. I love our forests; I love this world that speaks to me still.
September 6, 1532
Forty-nine. A message for Catalina Diaz, midwife and friend.
The past several days I worked on the building crew for the convent of La Merced, which is finishing a wing on its church. I learned to swing a hammer years ago, so they always call me for their building sessions. By good fortune, two mánsos who work for Valenzuela were there. Young men of Anacaona’s line, they helped carry planks and ran for things. I shared food with them and they conversed with me in Taíno. They agreed to carry a message from me to Catalina Diaz, an old friend who is Valenzuela’s senior house servant and who has helped her nephew Enriquillo before. My message merely stated that I had some baby powders for her, made from the ground-up cranium of manatí. The young men are to let her know I will be at the town meeting in Santo Domingo scheduled for the fifteenth of September and will have the powder there for her.
Catalina Diaz is a midwife, one of the old-timers who still remembers many of our cures. Even the Spanish ladies go to her with their ailments. She uses the manatí cranium powder in a broth to strengthen the women after childbirth. However, my message was cryptic. With Catalina, whom I have known for more than thirty years, I use the term baby when refering to Enriquillo. I mean to ask Catalina to be my ear in the Valenzuela household, so she might learn what those vile minds plot against her nephew. Two of Catalina’s daughters also serve the household. All three of these women conduct themselves humbly and piously, seldom talking, so that their señores hardly know them to understand and speak the Spanish language, but they do. Among them they are bound to hear most of the talk in the house of Valenzuela.
Fifty. A note for later writing.
Rereading my conversation with the good friar, I note my reference to the mission of the Hieronymites and also to his project to set up free Indian communities. I will explain both of these events as they come up in my recollections. I brought them up to him to remind him how his ideas have failed in the past, at other times when he was stronger and hoped for total solutions to our people’s misery.
September 15, 1532
Fifty-one. Reminding Las Casas of Enriquillo’s first cause
I write this in the late evening. Tonight the grand men of Santo Domingo met at the House of Contracts. The fifteen major sugar cane plantations were represented. The large cattlemen were also there, even Bishop Bastidas, reputed to have more than twenty thousand head of cattle in ranches from here to the Bahuruku.
I met the good friar at the convent gate. More than a dozen monks were already congregated, and we started to walk down together. I paired off with Las Casas. “Will you be speaking tonight?” I asked in his ear. “Yes,” he answered.
“Speak please of Enriquillo’s cause.”
“Of course, I intend to.”
“He has always wanted peace, to live in harmony,” I said. “He has kept his Catholic sacraments, even in the mountains, fasting his Fridays and even hearing Mass whenever possible.”
“Do not worry, Dieguillo, we will speak of the cacique’s character and of the justice of his cause. But you tell me: will Enriquillo come to a parley? Can I hold his promise in my hand that he will come in? “
“Enriquillo trusts you, Father,” I said. “But can he forget the parley at Anacaona’s, Ovando’s dirty trick? We must remember, Father, how each of the major caciques, one by one, were tricked and killed.”
“I will be there to guarantee Enriquillo’s safety.”
“And your safety. Who would guarantee that?”
He shook his head. Las Casas is totally fearless. Always ready for martyrdom, he is not quite impressed by arguments about safety. But for a chief like Enriquillo, this is preeminent. His first loyalty as cacique is precisely for the safe settling of the dispute and the accommodation of his people in their own community.
“It is compl
icated to guarantee the safety of our people on the Bahuruku. You know they will try to kill him.”
“What brutes they would show themselves to be!”
“Yes, and our young cacique would be dead.”
We walked. To impress him again I told him, as we neared the House of Contracts: “While you speak, I will try to find out when they intend to kill him.”
He vacillated a step and turned to me, as if awakened abruptly. “Strength, Father,” I reassured him. “I am praying for your success.”
Fifty-two. The townsmen have reasons for peace.
The House of Contracts is a two-story building. It has a large meeting hall that was crowded with more than eighty people. On the platform, the oidores, with Judge Suazo at the head and Vadillo to his right, looked over the hall. Some thirty or forty servants waited on the street, verandas, and stairways of the large government building, half of them mánso Indians, half of them Negro Africans. More than twenty of the permanent guard milled about outside, interspersed but not mixing with the servant group. Only four, led by a lieutenant, had stand-up duty, two inside and two outside. The commander of the permanent guard was inside also, sitting in a second row on the platform, behind Suazo.
When Las Casas came up to the door, the lieutenant quickly saluted him and kissed his ring. Immediately, the good friar was ushered toward the raised platform and seated next to the vicar and bishop. All greeted each other graciously, though not a one of them respect the other. Las Casas took his seat, and I could see his face through the window as he lowered his friar’s hood to the shoulders. Then the various señores came in and many, almost all, approached Father Las Casas, offering polite greetings. I found this completely remarkable because to a man they all hate him deeply, as he has harassed their persons and insulted their endeavors many times.
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