CHAPTER V.

1493-1506.

THE Spanish sovereigns, in order to obtain the privilege of extending their sway over the islands discovered by Columbus, immediately sent embassadors to Rome to request Pope Alexander VI. to confirm the title of Spain to the recently found lands, for it was then believed that the pope had sole and absolute authority to dispose of all countries inhabited by heathen peoples. Pope Martin V. and his successors had already granted to the crown of Portugal the possession of all the lands it might acquire by right of discovery beyond Cape Bojador toward the East. Pope Alexander VI., to reward the Spaniards for wresting Spain from the Moors, issued a bull, on the fourth of May, 1493, establishing a line of limitation, running from the north to the south pole, distant one hundred leagues west of the Azores and the Cape Verd Islands, giving to Spain all the lands she had discovered or might discover west of it, which had not been acquired by any Christian power before the preceding Christmas, and to Portugal all the territory, on the same conditions, which lay east of it. These territorial concessions of the pope caused the possessions of Spain, in the western hemisphere, to be called the West Indies, and those of Portugal, in the eastern hemisphere, the East Indies. The position of the line of demarkation displeased the Portuguese. To settle the dispute

which it caused, the two countries sent commissioners to Tordesillas, Spain, who agreed, on the seventh of June, 1494, that the position of the line should be changed so that it should pass, north and south, three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verd Islands.

Meanwhile in Spain a fleet of seventeen ships had been fitted out to sail to the Indies in the West. About fifteen hundred Spanish adventurers took passage on the different vessels, which were freighted with agricultural and mining implements, horses, cattle, and stores of various kinds, necessary for planting colonies on the newly-discovered islands. Commanded by Columbus, the fleet weighed anchor in the roadstead of Cadiz, on Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of September, 1493, and thence sailed toward the West India archipelago.

After a voyage of thirty-eight days the fleet reached the island of Dominica. The approach of Columbus to the field of his former explorations is thus described : "On Saturday night, the second of November, the admiral perceiving a great change in the sky and winds, and having observed the heavy rains, and believing that he was near land, ordered most of the sails to be furled, and commanded all to be upon the watch, and not without cause for that same night, at daybreak, land was descried seven leagues to the westward, a high mountainous island, which he called. Dominica (Sunday), because it was discovered on Sunday morning. Shortly afterward he saw another island, northeast of Dominica, and then another, and another after that, more northward. For this blessing which God had been pleased to bestow on them, all the men assembled on deck and sang the Salve Regina,

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and other prayers and hymns very devoutly, giving thanks to God, because in twenty days after departing from Gomera, [one of the Canary Islands,] they had made that land, estimating the distance between them to be between seven hundred and fifty and eight hundred leagues. Finding no convenient harbor in which to anchor on the east side of Dominica, they stood for another island, which the admiral called Marigalante, which was the name of his ship." Thence he proceeded northward " to a large island which he called Santa Maria de Guadalupe, to honor her and the request of the friars of the house of that name, to whom he had made promise to call some island by the name of their monastery. * * * Going ashore in the boat to view a village which they had observed, they found none of the inhabitants in it, the people having fled to the woods, except some children to whose arms they tied some baubles to allure their fathers when they returned. In the houses they found geese like ours, a great number of parrots, with red, green, blue, and white feathers, as large as common. cocks. They also found pumpkins, and a kind of fruit which looked like our green pine-apples, but much larger, and inside full of solid substance like a melon, and much sweeter both in taste and smell, that grew on long stalks like lilies or aloes, wild about the fields. They also saw other kinds of fruit and herbs different from ours; beds of cotton nets (hamacas), bows and arrows, and other things.

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"The next day, which was Tuesday, the fifth of November, the admiral sent two boats ashore to capture some natives who might give him a description of the country, and tell him how far off and in what

'Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo.

cap. xlvi.

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direction Española lay. Each boat brought back a youth. The youths agreed in saying that they were not of that island, but of another called Borriquen, and that the inhabitants of that island of Guadalupe were Caribbees or cannibals, and had taken them prisoners from their own island. Soon after the boats returning to shore, to take up some Christians they had left there, six women were found with them, who had fled from the Caribbees, and came of their own accord aboard the ships. One of the women told them that toward the south there were many islands, some inhabited, others not, which both she and the other women, severally called Giamachi, Cairvaco, Huino, Buriari, Arubeira, Sixibei. But the continent, which they said was very great, both they and the people of Española called Zuanta [Yucatan ?], because in former times canoes had come from that land to barter. * The same women gave them information where the island of Española lay; for though the admiral had inserted it in his sea-chart, yet for his further information he desired to hear what the people of that country said of it. *Then the admiral

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landed and went to some houses, where he saw *** a great deal of cotton, spun and unspun, looms to weave, a great number of men's skulls hung up, and baskets filled with men's bones." *

On his way to the island of Española, Columbus discovered an island which he called San Juan Baptista, but the Indians, Borriquen. On the twelfth of November he arrived off the north coast of Española. On Thursday, the twenty-eighth of the same month, the discoverer with his fleet entered the harbor of the Villa de la Navidad, and found the place burnt and 'Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xlvi, xlvii.

deserted. The next morning the admiral landed, much concerned to see the houses and fort in ashes and nothing left belonging to the Christians except some ragged clothing and similar things as are found in a place plundered and destroyed. Seeing no one to question, the admiral went up a river that was near with some boats. *Having found nothing but some of the clothing of the Christians, he returned to Navidad, where he saw the bodies of eight Christians, and of three other persons in the fields, whom they recognized by their clothing, and they seemed to have been dead about a month. While the Christians were searching for some other tokens or writings of the dead, a brother of the cacique, Guacanagari, came with some Indians to talk with the admiral. These could speak some words of Spanish, and knew the names of all the Christians that had been left there. They related that the latter soon began to quarrel among themselves, and each to take as much gold and as many women as they could obtain. Pedro Gutierrez and Escovedo thereupon killed a person named Diego, and then they and nine others went away with their women to a cacique, whose name was Caunaboa, who was lord of the mines, and he killed them all. Then many days afterward he came with a great number of men to Navidad, where there was only Diego de Arana with ten men, who had remained with him to guard the fort, all the others being dispersed about the island. The cacique, Caunaboa, coming there at night, set fire to the houses where the Christians lived with their women, and the Christians, being frightened, fled to the sea, where eight were drowned, and three died ashore, whose bodies they showed to them. Guacanagari undertook to defend the Christians, but he and