Encounters Unforeseen- 1492 Retold

by Andrew Rowen

  On a Sunday, Cristóbal asked his page Pedro to gather the Cubans aboard the Santa María to be taught the Lord’s Prayer. Bakako and Yutowa could recite it already, and Cristóbal felt it was time to teach Bakako the meaning. Pedro gathered the Indians to sit on the main deck, where a small cross portraying the crucifixion was set on a table before them, along with Cristóbal’s own small statuette of the Virgin. Cristóbal asked for a volunteer among the crew to lead the instruction, and an older sailor was honored to do so. Cristóbal climbed to the stern deck to watch, together with his servants and the Crown representatives, as dark thunderheads marched west in the sky.

  The sailor pronounced in Castilian that there was one God, the Lord, and gazed and pointed to Heaven. He explained the Lord had a son, Christ, and pointed to his image upon the small cross, which depicted blood oozing from wounds on his hands, ankles, and chest. The sailor concluded that Christ was the son of God born of the Virgin Mary, and he raised the statuette of the Virgin holding the baby Jesus. He glanced at Cristóbal to ascertain whether more should be said, and Cristóbal thanked him.

  The Cubans grimly studied the cemí of the human being, frightened that it foretold their future. It depicted a man almost naked, more like themselves than their captors. His forlorn countenance and wounds were ominous, and it was obvious he was dying. Their captors’ invocation of it portended doom.

  Bakako studied the cemís carefully, having observed them in Admiral’s cabin and heard Admiral invoking them. Bakako remembered Yúcahu and Attabeira and puzzled whether Admiral’s spirits were as kindly and helpful.

  Cristóbal and the sovereigns’ representatives were impressed by the apparent eagerness of the Indians to understand. Cristóbal’s servant Juan pretended to listen, as he knew Cristóbal expected his devotion.

  Cristóbal addressed Pedro and Bakako from the stern deck. “Now, together, teach these Indians the Lord’s Prayer, as Christ taught upon the mountain to his disciples. Speak slowly. I will explain.”

  The two youths began slowly in Castilian. “Our father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

  Cristóbal interrupted, addressing all the Indians, but particularly Bakako. “There is one and only one true God.”

  Bakako understood that false but hid any reaction. The youths continued. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

  Cristóbal spoke directly to Bakako. “Christ died on the cross for men’s sins. He rose on the third day to instruct his eleven apostles to teach all nations his Word. Christ will return to his kingdom on earth a second time. The world will then end, and Christ will reign on earth, which will be transformed into Heaven.”

  Bakako was confused whether the Christ spirit was friendly or vengeful. He couldn’t understand how the spirit revealed guidance or helped its worshipper navigate life. The youths continued. “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

  Cristóbal continued to gaze directly at Bakako. “Follow the Lord’s word, and the Lord shall provide for you. If you forgive men their trespasses, the Lord will forgive your own.”

  Bakako guessed that Christ provided bread to those who honored him. He recalled Mother and Father teaching him to honor Yúcahu for the cazabi they ate. The youths finished. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

  Cristóbal paused on the concepts involved—leadership and deliverance, temptation and evil—and simplified. “Follow the Lord and do good.”

  Bakako concealed astonishment that his captor thought himself good. Bakako gazed at the cemí of the bloody man, nearly as naked as Lucayans, and trembled to consider how powerful it might be, either for good or evil.

  When the lesson finished, the crew met for the Sabbath’s hymn and prayer. They sang “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” a ship’s boy recited a psalm, and Pedro and Bakako led the crew in the Lord’s Prayer. The Cubans were comforted by the areíto, which sounded beneficent and merciful, but understood nothing of its meaning. Cristóbal and the sovereigns’ representatives perceived that the Indians appeared ready to accept the Lord as their one true God.

  That night, Bakako and Yutowa whispered late into the moonlight, debating if the “Christians” worshipped their Christ as an ancestor and whether Christ had been sacrificed in a ritual, with or without his consent, or simply murdered by others. They were confounded. Not only might the pale men also be spirits, but their spirit Christ was also a man who couldn’t be killed permanently.

  The next day, Cristóbal, Yutowa, and some armed sailors went exploring up a river in the launch. Cristóbal was impressed that the entire region was cultivated. They climbed a mountain to discover a large village surrounded by crops on a plateau. Its inhabitants fled, but Yutowa beckoned, promising that the Christians were good. Some villagers reappeared. Cristóbal enticed them with trifles, whereupon more reappeared. But gold was not found.

  When the sailors returned to the launch, one of the villagers came to its stern, blocking its departure, and addressed Cristóbal at length. The villager raised his voice, others surrounded the boat, waving their hands and spears and shouting. Cristóbal and his crew were surprised, but not alarmed. Yutowa understood the Cubans intended to kill Admiral and the crew.

  Yutowa paled and trembled, terrified by the immanent prospect of mortal violence—which was entirely beyond his life’s experiences on Guanahaní, or his expectations for human conduct. He grew breathless, paralyzed by the momentous predicament whether to risk his life to save his captor’s. For an instant, he succumbed to fear that his only hope to return to Guanahaní lay with Admiral and Admiral’s survival. If he stood aside to watch Admiral slain, the Cubans might take him as a captive or naboria or simply kill him, as well. If he defended Admiral, the Cubans certainly would kill him. But, in the next moment, a harmony and brotherhood with the Cubans surged defiantly through him—a compassion for their fear of the pale beings trespassing upon their land, a revulsion toward Admiral’s deception and brutality, and a fear that Admiral’s men, although severely outnumbered, would slaughter them.

  Regardless—beyond these conscious, conflicting thoughts and feelings—the Taíno within him abhorred senseless violence, and Yutowa instinctively stepped forward and spoke to the crowd. He pointed to a crossbow, pulled a sword from a sheath, and warned the Cubans that the weapons could kill them all, and the villagers were frightened and retreated upstream. Yutowa gazed to Admiral, expecting kind words, relieved that bloodshed and death had been adverted on both sides, and stunned by his own pivotal urge to intervene.

  To Yutowa’s amazement, Admiral then insisted—yet dismissive of the danger about—that peaceful relations be reestablished to facilitate future colonization and commanded that the launch approach the villagers cautiously. Admiral offered soft words and trifles, and trade ensued peacefully. Yutowa’s fear melted to bewilderment at the slender proximity of tranquility and violence.

  Cristóbal recorded in his journal the Indians were so timid that ten Christians could cause ten thousand Indians to flee. He reflected that Yutowa had trembled like a coward.

  As Cristóbal wrote, Bakako and Yutowa lay together on deck, discussing how Yutowa had saved Admiral’s life. Yutowa was astounded Admiral and his crew had not appreciated their danger. Bakako was astounded Admiral had not thanked Yutowa. Both were astonished with how little regard the pale men held Lucayan and Cuban weaponry. Both believed Yutowa had acted as a Taíno. Both grimly pondered whether Yutowa simply should have stepped aside to watch.

  On the morning of December 5, the Santa María and Niña reached a point where the Cuban shore turned south and then west (Punta de Maisí). Bakako and Yutowa grimly overheard Admiral and Pero Alonso conclude the northeasterly wind again precluded sailing northeast to Baneque and set a course southeast instead (across the Windward Passage), destined for the island the youths feared and called Bohío and its inhabitants called Haiti. Soon, Cristóbal also became disillusioned, as Bohío quickl
y came into sight and he realized Bohío could not be Cipangu—which lay much farther offshore from the Indies’ mainland than Bohío lay from Cuba.

  BARCELONA,

  December 1492

  Isabel and Fernando had departed Grenada with their children over the summer and brought the court to Barcelona for the winter. They received word that Colón’s departure west from Gomera occurred in early September, a surprising delay given his departure from Andalusia in early August. If the Indies were but a few weeks’ sail, he might have arrived there. But it didn’t surprise them to have heard nothing of it. It was still too early for reports, and they had scant expectation he would arrive there anyway. The demands of ruling their kingdoms relegated the voyage to but an infrequent, fleeting afterthought until December 7, 1492, when they forgot about it entirely.

  That morning, an assassin awaited Fernando outside the Casa de Deputacion, where he was hearing grievances and resolving criminal and civil cases of his common subjects. At noon, Fernando finished and, as he descended the casa’s steps to the Plaza of Kings, the assassin crept from behind and attacked with a knife, gashing him deeply in the neck and shoulder. The blade would have penetrated further but for Fernando’s gold neck chain. He fell to the ground, bleeding profusely and likely mortally wounded.

  As the king hemorrhaged, his advisers and subjects mobbed the assailant, stabbing him repeatedly and tearing his limbs to mutilate him, intent on lynching him to death. Fernando fought to retain consciousness, groaning that the assailant’s life be spared for an interrogation to identify conspirators. Fernando was obeyed, and the lynching ceased as advisers carried Fernando inside to be saved by doctors or die.

  Isabel immediately suspected Catalan dissidents or French agents and ordered soldiers to guard the royal family and prepare ships in case evacuation was necessary. She rushed to the bed where Fernando lay and prayed for him, and she ordered Barcelona’s priests to lead her subjects in prayer, as well. Barcelonans assumed with remorse that the assailant was Catalan, and they filled their churches to pray for the king—as well as his and the queen’s mercy.

  Fernando’s condition quickly worsened. Doctors removed cartilage from the wound in a painful operation, and he grew feverish. But he did not lose appreciation of the situation.

  The assailant’s interrogation revealed he was an elderly Catalan peasant who believed himself the rightful king of Aragón and entitled to kill Fernando. The interrogators found him lunatic and that he had acted alone, and Catalans everywhere felt tremendous relief that reprisals were not due. Fernando publicly attributed the wound as punishment for his own sins and recommended leniency.

  The royal council promptly sentenced the assailant to a gruesome public death. The hand that caused the offense was dismembered, the heart and other body parts that assisted the crime were plucked with red-hot pincers, and the onlookers finished the punishment by stoning and burning what remained. It was reported that the queen felt the lunatic deserved mercy and ordered that he be strangled first. Fernando and Isabel were satisfied that the punishment and spectacle were appropriate warning to deter others.

  Isabel nursed her husband for days and contemplated mortality, including her own and others. She was forty-one and Fernando forty. Pope Innocent VIII had died in July and Rodrigo Ponce de León and Enrique Guzmán in August. The abrupt turn in the Lord’s destiny for her and her husband was shocking. The year 1492 had brought the crowning achievements for which they faithfully had served him, the Reconquista’s fulfillment and the expulsion of the Jews. She anguished as to his purpose in their punishment, vexed whether there were important confessions for her to make and restitutions and satisfactions owed others, and wrote Talavera asking that he identify them.

  Fernando’s fever subsided, and he began to recover. Throughout the kingdom, word was disseminated that the devil had sought to end the king’s Christian service and that the Lord had let the act occur to demonstrate the king’s indefatigability.

  X

  HAITI

  UNKNOWN ARRIVES ON HAITI (BOHÍO),

  Late November–Mid-December 1492

  After deserting Colón, the Pinta sailed to Baneque, and Martín’s certitude and ambition were dashed as he beheld an island much as San Salvador—and certainly not Cipangu. There was no port teeming with ships, the inhabitants were as naked and poor as on San Salvador, and the only gold obtained was earrings and nose rings. Sailors chafed that their participation in Martín’s desertion had been for naught.

  Martín soon sailed southeast for Bohío, predicting it would be the Cipangu Colón promised. Progress east was slow, hampered by inclement weather and strong contrary winds, but the Pinta was a nimble sailor and achieved Bohío’s central northern coast in December. There were few harbors sheltered from the winds—none teeming with ships—and the inhabitants fled when the Pinta could anchor and the crew debarked. But Martín’s confidence resurged—Bohío was enormous and, in the absence of Colón and the sovereigns’ representatives, he established that half the gold the Pinta obtained would be his, the remainder split among the crew.

  Guarionex was at home when a messenger arrived on behalf of a local cacique to alert that unknown pale beings had landed at the cacique’s village on the northern coast, borne in a gargantuan sea creature. The cacique wished Guarionex to understand that the beings did not appear to be Caribes but spirits or extraordinarily large dead men, with pale skin wrapped in cloth almost entirely but for their heads, chests, and hands. Confounding the mystery, the beings were accompanied by a Lucayan, who shouted that they came from the heavens beyond the horizon and wished only to trade for gold. The cacique’s subjects had fled, and the beings had then rummaged through his village to loot the bohíos of gold pieces and jewelry. But they had not sought to capture women or girls and, after their pillage, simply returned to their creature and departed east.

  Guarionex respected the judgment that spirits might be involved, not Caribes, and, after conferring with his council, dispatched his son Yomabo with nitaínos and warriors. He instructed Yomabo to kill the beings if Caribes and, if not, to study them and establish a trading relationship if it seemed advantageous, whereupon Guarionex would meet them. Guarionex also sent a messenger to Mayobanex, warning of the strange beings traveling east and cautioning against using force because they likely were spirits, not men. Reverence to achieve their assistance or forbearance might be wise—particularly if they were evil.

  Behecchio and Caonabó soon received word from informants of unknown beings seeking gold and Guarionex’s plans to meet them, and Behecchio quickly dispatched his own embassy of nitaínos to the coast. He urged caution and reminded them that, if the beings sought peaceful trade, the paramount status of Xaraguá should be acknowledged and the trade secured for it. Caonabó appreciated that Haiti’s gold lay principally in the mountains and streams of the Cibao separating Maguana and Magua and, after consulting Anacaona, dispatched nitaínos to meet the beings and identify the opportunities and the dangers presented—including the beings’ intent in visiting Haiti.

  By mid-December, the Pinta anchored in one of the few natural harbors found (Bahía de Luperón, Dominican Republic), a small inlet about ten miles east of the river Bajabonico in territory bordering Marien, Magua, and Ciguayo. Martín observed that the hillsides sloping to the shores of the inlet were fertile and populated, and he dispatched his Guanahanían captive ashore to advise the inhabitants that he and his men came from Heaven in peace to trade for gold. The captive feared the inhabitants were Caniba and was barely comforted by his escort of armed sailors. But the inhabitants fled.

  Undaunted, Martín decided to harbor in the inlet to restock the Pinta and explore, hoping the inhabitants would soon return. A small river provided the inlet fresh water, and Martín named it and the harbor the Río e Puerto de Martín Alonso Pinzón.

  Río e Puerto de Martín Alonso Pinzón, 1592.

  CRISTÓBAL’S FIRST ENCOUNTERS IN MARIEN

  (Mole St. Nicolas to Baie d
e l’Acul, Haiti),

  December 5–22, 1492

  The Santa María and Niña attained the northwestern tip of Bohío before sunset on December 5 and, the following day, explored an enormous bay nestled in a cultivated valley fertile with crops and fruit trees. It was the day of St. Nicholas’s feast, and Cristóbal named the site for the saint. They encountered canoeists who fled. Onshore, the inhabitants fled and fired smoke signals inland to warn of invaders from another world.

  While impressed with the land’s cultivation, Cristóbal wanly admitted to himself that there was no city filled with temples and lost confidence that Bakako and the other captives knew enough—or were honest enough—to lead him to Cipangu rather than back to San Salvador. Cristóbal questioned Bakako about Bohío again.

  Bakako reaffirmed the Caniba lived on Bohío and that they would kill and eat Yutowa and himself if they went ashore. He remained unable to confirm that a Grand Khan lived nearby. He grew increasingly distrustful that Admiral ever intended to return Yutowa and himself home.

  On December 7, the ships sailed east along Bohío’s northern coastline and anchored to harbor for a week in a bay southwest of a large offshore island. Cristóbal named the bay Puerto de la Concepción (Baie de Moustiques), as it was the vigil before the feast of the Virgin’s Conception, and the island Tortuga (Turtle), and commenced Bohío’s exploration.

  In his journal, he compared Bohío’s farmlands, mountains, and valleys to those of Castile and Bohío’s temperate but cool weather to Castile in October. He observed that the fish, plants, and birds were like those of Castile. He decided Bohío was suited to colonization on a grand scale and possessed it on behalf of the sovereigns with the name La Isla Española (the Spanish Island), or simply Española.