Encounters Unforeseen- 1492 Retold

by Andrew Rowen

  Española’s inhabitants continued to flee at each encounter, precluding trading for gold or locating its source. Frustrated, Cristóbal ordered sailors to capture an inhabitant to whom he could confer courtesies and gifts to demonstrate good intentions, and they chased some locals through the forest to seize a young woman wearing only a gold nosepiece and nagua. She shrieked and struggled in terror as they hauled her into the launch and rowed toward the Santa María, petrified she was to be raped and enslaved or eaten by unknown Caribes or the vessel itself. The sailors’ lust was aroused by her nakedness, and they groped her privates under the guise of restraining her, ripping off her nagua as she resisted. But they crudely understood to withhold from raping or beating her, as Cristóbal’s intent was to treat her as an invited guest to be made an ambassador for him among her own people.

  The woman was hauled to stand trembling before Cristóbal. He asked Bakako to comfort her, and she was shocked to behold a boy with olive skin standing naked as herself. Her panic and wailing gradually subsided as she resigned herself to learn her fate.

  Bakako spoke softly in Taíno. “What’s your name?”

  With supreme effort, the woman gathered herself and responded. “Bawana.”

  “Bawana, don’t be scared. You won’t be harmed. I’m Bakako. These men have come from the heavens in peace.” He sought her confidence. “Bawana, these men don’t understand our speech. You can speak freely with me.”

  Bawana doubted. “Where are you from?”

  “Guanahaní, to the north. I’m helping these men find gold. They are good and won’t harm you.” Bakako pointed to Admiral. “This man is Admiral, and he is their cacique. He will give you gifts.”

  “Why are you with them?”

  “They seek gold.” Bakako searched for a credible explanation that would not terrify the woman. “When they find it, I’ll be returned to Guanahaní.” He wondered how sincere he appeared.

  “Daka tiyawo [I am friend],” Cristóbal said, greeting the woman in Taíno. He reverted to Castilian. “I have come on behalf of King Fernando and Queen Isabel of Castile in peace.” He touched the gold piece in her nose. “I want to trade for your people’s gold.”

  Bakako translated. “They have come from the heavens in peace. They’ll give your people gifts from the heavens in return for gold.”

  Cristóbal asked Rodrigo Sánchez for a glass bead necklace and then advanced to the woman and gently placed it about her neck. He smiled and stood back, studying her reaction. He remembered Beatriz, Diego, and little Fernando in Córdoba and reflected that the woman appeared closer in age to Diego or Bakako than Beatriz.

  Bakako explained. “That’s for you—a necklace from the heavens.”

  Cristóbal requested that Sánchez retrieve a shirt intended for trade at the Grand Khan’s court and that Bakako dress the woman.

  “Here’s cloth to wear,” Bakako said. “These men view covering one’s body as good, and you should understand that they give it to please you, and for no other reason. It’s not a trick, and it won’t harm you to wear it, at least to show them you’ve received it.”

  Bawana submitted to donning the shirt, embarrassed to conceal her beauty and apprehensive she exhibited a shame she did not feel.

  Cristóbal directed that Bawana be given a tour of the Santa María and offered food and water. She met and spoke with the Cuban women, who related that they had been held captive by the pale beings for a month and still did not understand their fate. They warned her that the pale beings’ lust and evil intent were obvious, and, while they had not been raped or molested, it was simply because the cacique Admiral prohibited misconduct so he could trade for gold. After Bawana appeared to have calmed, Cristóbal ordered Bakako and sailors to restore her to her village. To her surprise, they released her ashore clothed but unharmed.

  The next morning, Cristóbal directed Bakako to escort armed sailors to learn if the woman had convinced her people it was safe to meet. Bakako winced in despair, utterly perplexed by his predicament. He was the captive of pale men from the heavens who had dispatched him against his will as their own ambassador to a village of Caniba, who otherwise—but for the pale men’s presence—would eat or enslave him.

  As he approached the village, Bakako saw the inhabitants preparing to flee. Trembling, he asked the sailors to halt while he approached alone. He shouted in Taíno.

  “Please, don’t run. The men who took Bawana didn’t harm her. They gave her gifts of friendship, and they want your friendship. They come from the heavens and will give you gifts from the heavens. They simply want to trade for your gold jewelry and whatever gold you possess. They will treat you as kindly as they did Bawana.”

  The villagers stared at Bakako and, in the distance, the pale, clothed beings from another world. Bakako sensed he could prevail.

  “You all will receive gifts. No one will be harmed. You’ll behold and touch men from the heavens and meet their cacique.”

  More than two thousand villagers soon decided to trust Bakako and return to their village to meet the sailors. Bawana’s husband came to express thanks for her gifts. Bawana then appeared, borne by villagers on their shoulders. Bakako saw she was naked again, but for her gold nosepiece, a nagua, and Admiral’s necklace. The villagers offered the sailors water, cazabi, and fruit, as well as parrots, asking nothing in return, and the sailors gave them trifles. Some villagers placed their hands atop the sailors’ heads to express admiration. But the gold the sailors procured was limited to small pieces of jewelry.

  Cristóbal was pleased with this contact but disappointed with the meager gold obtained, and he concluded the limited gold on Española was imported from elsewhere, probably from mines on Baneque. He remained impressed by the sophistication and civility of the peoples met and convinced that Española was ideal for colonization.

  The Santa María and Niña tacked by moonlight east through the channel between La Española and Tortuga in fierce winds, fortuitously picking up a canoeist traveling in the rough waters mid-channel on the morning of December 16. Cristóbal pacified him with gifts and deposited him like Bawana at a beach on La Española to spread goodwill.

  More than five hundred inhabitants soon filled the beach, and some swam or canoed to the Santa María and freely gave their gold earrings and nose rings to Cristóbal. The inhabitants’ cacique arrived on the beach, accompanied by numerous attendants, and Cristóbal, Bakako, and Diego de Arana took the launch to meet him. Cristóbal found him young—perhaps twenty-one years old—and the most sophisticated ruler he yet had met. Bakako explained that the pale men thought gold could be found on Baneque and the cacique agreed and indicated the route there.

  Cristóbal invited the young ruler and his attendants for a Spanish dinner aboard the Santa María. The cacique carefully tasted morsels of stale hardtack and smoked, dried meat and sipped the Andalusian wine, and then passed them to his nitaínos for their sampling.

  “I have come from Castile in Europe as representative of its King Fernando and Queen Isabel,” Cristóbal said. “They are the greatest Christians sovereigns in Europe and the world.”

  Bakako had heard Admiral speak of his paramount caciques and was convinced of their existence, but he still could not understand where Castile was, although the Cubans were bound for it. He summarized the intent of Admiral’s remark to the extent he understood it. “These men refer to their cacique as Admiral. Admiral says he himself answers to a paramount cacique and a wife cacique. Admiral says he has come from Castile across the water, where the two caciques live.”

  The cacique and his nitaínos were astounded in disbelief. The cacique turned to Bakako. “Are you sure you understand him? His caciques must live in the heavens beyond the horizon. What land is he referring to? How far away?”

  Bakako turned to Admiral and asked the questions on behalf of the cacique, which were the same questions that still mystified him. “Fernando Isabel heavens? Fernando Isabel Castile? Bohío Castile canoa?”

  Cristó
bal was not surprised by the cacique’s questions but that Bakako still was unable to answer them. He had explained to Bakako many times that the Christians did not come from Heaven—as he believed the Indians imagined—but from land across the Ocean Sea. He turned to Bakako.

  “Guanahaní and Bohío are in the Indies. Castile—where King Fernando and Queen Isabel live—is in Europe, across the ocean. Castile is land, not Heaven. Christ the Lord is in Heaven. Fernando and Isabel are on earth.”

  Bakako turned to the cacique and his nitaínos. “Admiral says he comes from Castile, which is another land beyond the horizon. He says he and his caciques live in Castile—a land called Castile.”

  Bakako looked to the deck, and Cristóbal and the cacique and their respective advisers were silent and crestfallen, frustrated by their mutual inability to communicate. Bakako and the cacique could not decipher where Admiral and his pale beings fit within the world and its history, and the references to Cipangu and the Indies were bewildering. Cristóbal was certain he had arrived at islands offshore of the Indies but believed his inability to decipher the precise location was due to the Indians having different names for places or little knowledge of geography. He briefly succumbed to a frustration vividly echoing that he had felt when unable to make Bishop Talavera’s commissions understand. He reflected that these peoples were clever, but that the inability to converse with them rendered confirming the proximity of the Grand Khan’s court as difficult as convincing the Castilian nobility that the Ocean Sea could be sailed.

  After dinner, the cacique and his nitaínos departed, gratified by the hospitality they had received, regardless of the staleness of the strange food.

  That night, Cristóbal reflected on Española’s future subjugation. He wrote in the journal that the inhabitants were gentle and without religious sect and that the sovereigns would readily make them subjects—as he already considered them—and Christians. He explained he could march over the entire island because its peoples had no skill with arms and were so cowardly that a thousand would flee from three Castilians. He concluded that the inhabitants were fit to be ordered about and made to work, plant, build towns, and everything else required, as well as to be taught Castilian custom and to wear clothes.

  On December 17, Cristóbal, Diego de Arana, and Bakako met a local cacique and his nitaínos on the beach. As they talked, a large canoe arrived from Tortuga and the canoeists debarked to greet Cristóbal. The local cacique grew angry and shouted at the canoeists to go away. He rose to throw water at them and then stones, whereupon the canoeists departed. The cacique sought to demonstrate he held a favored relationship with the pale beings and handed a stone to Diego, but Diego declined to throw it. The cacique promised to bring Cristóbal more gold.

  The young cacique previously hosted for dinner on the Santa María returned to the anchorage on December 18, borne by his subjects upon a litter and bearing a few gold pieces. He and his nitaínos canoed to the Santa María, which was decorated with banners for the feast of the Annunciation of our Lord, and joined Cristóbal in the feast. After exchanging gifts, the two men resumed their prior conversation about Castile and its sovereigns, with Bakako interpreting.

  Cristóbal showed the cacique and Bakako a gold coin depicting King Fernando and Queen Isabel, clothed and crowned. As they studied it, Cristóbal again related that Fernando and Isabel lived on land at Castile, which Bakako translated. Cristóbal asked Escobedo to display the expedition’s banner and explained that the royal coat of arms displayed the sovereigns’ earthly power and the cross the Lord’s Heavenly power. Bakako was unable to understand and merely reiterated that Castile was land.

  Regardless, the cacique was impressed by the banner and construed its significance for his nitaínos, which analysis Bakako did translate for Admiral. “Fernando Isabel powerful send Admiral from heavens no fear.”

  Bakako realized the cacique had not understood Admiral’s remarks, and suddenly his own failure to comprehend his situation burst as a terrible, sinister revelation through his thoughts. He himself had failed to acknowledge or ignored Admiral’s deception for weeks now, ever since the Cubans’ seizure! Admiral was clear on two points, and always had been: Castile was as earthly as the coin, and the Cubans were being taken there. And that’s precisely where he and Yutowa were being taken, too! Admiral had lied to the Guanahaníans from the beginning.

  The cacique disembarked before nightfall and lombards were discharged, delighting everyone, whereupon the cacique vanished into the forest borne by naborias on his litter. Cristóbal deduced in conversation with an elderly nitaíno who lingered that gold could be found on numerous islands located within one hundred leagues and that there was one island that was entirely filled with gold. Cristóbal considered taking the nitaíno captive since he appeared to know the precise sailing directions to these places, but refrained from doing so because the nitaíno was an important counselor of the young ruler. Cristóbal explained in the journal that he now considered the inhabitants of Española the sovereigns’ subjects and that it wasn’t right to offend them.

  On the same day, sailors erected a large cross in the central plaza of a neighboring village. Cristóbal believed the inhabitants prayed to and venerated it.

  On December 20, Cristóbal sailed east along Española’s coast to anchor, in his view, at the greatest harbor he had yet discovered (Baie de l’Acul, Haiti). He named it Mar de Santo Tomás as the day was the vigil of St. Thomas, noting in his journal that the harbor was better than any seen on voyages to England or Guinea. He was moved by the fertility and cultivation of the enormous valley surrounding the bay, the height of the encircling mountains, and the density of the population.

  While fearful, none of the inhabitants fled and, over the course of two days, Cristóbal and his crews were greeted by a number of local caciques and thousands of their subjects, who freely offered food, water, and gold pieces. Canoeists surrounded the Santa María and Niña and clambered aboard. Cristóbal dispatched sailors to honor caciqual invitations that he couldn’t accommodate. He ordered that trifles be given freely to all in return for their gifts and wrote in his journal that it seemed right to give mutually, particularly since the Indians were now Castilian subjects.

  Cristóbal recognized that word of his arrival and objective had preceded him. News had spread through Marien’s villages that the pale beings were not Caribes, their vessels were not beasts, and they could be met without danger. Villagers still debated whether the beings were spirits or men, and many remained concerned they might be evil.

  Unknown to Cristóbal, Guacanagarí’s scouts had tracked the two ships since their arrival at the Haiti-Tortuga channel, and Guacanagarí had received reports of the various encounters for a number of days. After the ships anchored in Marien’s great bay on December 20, Guacanagarí reviewed the situation with his council, and it resolved that Guacanagarí should investigate the desirability of establishing a favored relationship with the beings. Guacanagarí had learned through informants that Caonabó, Behecchio, and Guarionex were meeting other pale beings to the east, and the council was intrigued that this new arrival provided Marien’s own opportunity.

  On Saturday, December 22, Guacanagarí dispatched a canoe with a principal nitaíno to invite Cristóbal to meet in his village, now named Guarico. He sent as a gift a face mask inlaid with gold and woven to a tightly knit cotton girdle quilted intricately with fish bones. It took time for the invitation to be understood. But Cristóbal soon gathered that Guacanagarí was the paramount cacique of the local area and all of the territory of Española he had just explored. Cristóbal accepted the invitation for the next day, regardless of his aversion to leaving port on a Sunday.

  GUARIONEX’S, CAONABÓ’S, ANACAONA’S, AND BEHECCHIO’S FIRST ENCOUNTERS,

  Mid-December 1492–Early January 1493

  At dusk, Guarionex’s son Yomabo and his nitaínos gazed down the hillside to the small inlet where the enormous, solitary hulk floated in tranquil water. Guarionex ha
d instructed him to study the beings closely—to discern how they behaved among themselves, if they slept or disappeared at night, and whether they consulted spirits if not spirits themselves. Yomabo observed the beings shuffle slowly upon the hulk’s belly, apparently cooking food on a fire lit upon the belly itself and lounging about as would a squad of warriors waiting to eat—far more like men than spirits.

  The beings gathered on the hulk at sunset and sang an areíto, frequently gazing to the sky, and Yomabo assumed it spoke of spirits to whom they worshipped. At nightfall, many lay down on the hulk’s belly, apparently to sleep without hammocks, and Yomabo studied their bodies in the moonlight, which neither rose to the heavens nor disappeared but remained motionless as men. Some of the beings did vanish into the hulk’s belly, and Yomabo guessed they remained inside—but he could not be certain they had not departed. Occasionally, one would rise and chant in the darkness, and Yomabo concluded they frequently sought to confirm their spirits’ alliances. They urinated and defecated into the bay—just like men. At dawn, they sang another areíto. Yomabo then led his nitaínos down to the inlet and arranged for a local cacique to paddle them to the hulk.

  Martín’s captive studied the canoeists and advised that men of authority were approaching, and Martín welcomed them aboard. Yomabo expressed salutations on behalf of Guarionex and offered Martín and crew cazabi, fruit, and water. Martín reciprocated with hawks’ bells and other trifles and gave the visitors a tour of the ship, which astonished them. Yomabo cautiously and respectfully touched Martín’s clothing and pale skin and guessed that—were Martín a man—he was older than Guarionex.

  Yomabo then turned to Martín’s captive and questioned him, in the nature of a polite interrogation. Where were the pale beings from, what did they want, and where were they going? The captive was well versed in the answers given continuously over the past two months.