Sketches of the Manners, Customs, and History of the Indians of America.
(Continued from page 119.)
CHAPTER II.
The West Indies continued.—Discovery of Hayti.—Generosity of the Cacique.—Testimony of Columbus in favor with the Indians.—Character of the natives.—Columbus erects a cross.—Indian belief.—Effect of the Spanish invasion.—The Cacique.
Columbus entered a harbor at the western end of the island of Hayti, on the evening of the 6th of December. He gave to the harbor the name of St. Nicholas, which it bears to this day. The inhabitants were frightened at the approach of the ships, and they all fled to the mountains. It was some time before any of the natives could be found. At last three sailors succeeded in overtaking a young and beautiful female, whom they carried to the ships.
She was treated with the greatest kindness, and dismissed finely clothed, and loaded with presents of beads, hawk’s bells, and other pretty baubles. Columbus hoped by this conduct to conciliate the Indians; and he succeeded. The next day, when the Spaniards landed, the natives permitted them to enter their houses, and set before them bread, fish, roots and fruits of various kinds, in the most kind and hospitable manner.
Columbus sailed along the coast, continuing his intercourse with the natives, some of whom had ornaments of gold, which they readily exchanged for the merest trifle of European manufacture. These poor, simple people little thought that to obtain gold these Christians would destroy all the Indians in the islands. No—they believed the Spaniards were more than mortal, and the country from which they came must exist somewhere in the skies.
The generous and kind feelings of the natives were shown to great advantage when Columbus was distressed by the loss of his ship. He was sailing to visit a grand cacique or chieftain named Guacanagari, who resided on the coast to the eastward, when his ship ran aground, and the breakers beating against her, she was entirely wrecked. He immediately sent messengers to inform Guacanagari of this misfortune.
When the cacique heard of the distress of his guest, he was so much afflicted as to shed tears; and never in civilized country were the vaunted rites of hospitality more scrupulously observed than by this uncultivated savage. He assembled his people and sent off all his canoes to the assistance of Columbus, assuring him, at the same time, that everything he possessed was at his service. The effects were landed from the wreck and deposited near the dwelling of the cacique, and a guard set over them, until houses could be prepared, in which they could be stored.
There seemed, however, no disposition among the natives to take advantage of the misfortune of the strangers, or to plunder the treasures thus cast upon their shores, though they must have been inestimable in their eyes. On the contrary, they manifested as deep a concern at the disaster of the Spaniards as if it had happened to themselves, and their only study was, how they could administer relief and consolation.
Columbus was greatly affected by this unexpected goodness. “These people,” said he in his journal, “love their neighbors as themselves; their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied by a smile. There is not in the world a better nation or a better land.”
When the cacique first met with Columbus, the latter appeared dejected, and the good Indian, much moved, again offered Columbus everything he possessed that could be of service to him. He invited him on shore, where a banquet was prepared for his entertainment, consisting of various kinds of fish and fruit. After the feast, Columbus was conducted to the beautiful groves which surrounded the dwelling of the cacique, where upwards of a thousand of the natives were assembled, all perfectly naked, who performed several of their national games and dances.
Thus did this generous Indian try, by every means in his power, to cheer the melancholy of his guest, showing a warmth of sympathy, a delicacy of attention, and an innate dignity and refinement, which could not have been expected from one in his savage state.
He was treated with great deference by his subjects, and conducted himself towards them with a gracious and prince-like majesty.
Three houses were given to the shipwrecked crew for their residence. Here, living on shore, and mingling freely with the natives, they became fascinated by their easy and idle mode of life. They were governed by the caciques with an absolute, but patriarchal and easy rule, and existed in that state of primitive and savage simplicity which some philosophers have fondly pictured as the most enviable on earth.
The following is the opinion of old Peter Martyr: “It is certain that the land among these people (the Indians) is as common as the sun and water, and that ‘mine and thine,’ the seeds of all mischief, have no place with them. They are content with so little, that, in so large a country, they have rather superfluity than scarceness; so that they seem to live in a golden world, without toil, in open gardens, neither entrenched nor shut up by walls or hedges. They deal truly with one another, without laws, or books, or judges.”
In fact, these Indians seemed to be perfectly contented; their few fields, cultivated almost without labor, furnished roots and vegetables; their groves were laden with delicious fruit; and the coast and rivers abounded with fish. Softened by the indulgence of nature, a great part of the day was passed by them in indolent repose. In the evening they danced in their fragrant groves to their national songs, or the rude sound of their silver drums.
Such was the character of the natives of many of the West Indian Islands, when first discovered. Simple and ignorant they were, and indolent also, but then they were kind-hearted, generous, and happy. And their sense of justice, and of the obligations of man to do right, are beautifully set forth in the following story.
Columbus erecting a Cross.
It was a custom with Columbus to erect crosses in all remarkable places, to denote the discovery of the country, and its subjugation to the Catholic faith. He once performed this ceremony on the banks of a river in Cuba. It was on a Sunday morning. The cacique attended, and also a favorite of his, a venerable Indian, fourscore years of age.
While mass was performed in a stately grove, the natives looked on with awe and reverence. When it was ended, the old man made a speech to Columbus in the Indian manner. “I am told,” said he, “that thou hast lately come to these lands with a mighty force, and hast subdued many countries, spreading great fear among the people; but be not vain-glorious.
“According to our belief, the souls of men have two journeys to perform after they have departed from the body: one to a place dismal, foul, and covered with darkness, prepared for such men as have been unjust and cruel to their fellow-men; the other full of delight for such as have promoted peace on earth. If then thou art mortal, and dost expect to die, beware that thou hurt no man wrongfully, neither do harm to those who have done no harm to thee.”
When this speech was explained to Columbus by his interpreter, he was greatly moved, and rejoiced to hear this doctrine of the future state of the soul, having supposed that no belief of the kind existed among the inhabitants of these countries. He assured the old man that he had been sent by his sovereigns, to teach them the true religion, to protect them from harm, and to subdue their enemies the Caribs.
Alas! for the simple Indians who believed such professions. Columbus, no doubt, was sincere, but the adventurers who accompanied him, and the tyrants who followed him, cared only for riches for themselves. They ground down the poor, harmless red men beneath a harsh system of labor, obliging them to furnish, month by month, so much gold. This gold was found in fine grains, and it was a severe task to search the mountain pebbles and the sands of the plains for the shining dust.
Then the islands, after they were seized upon by the Christians, were parcelled out among the leaders, and the Indians were compelled to be their slaves. No wonder “deep despair fell upon the natives. Weak and indolent by nature, and brought up in the untasked idleness of their soft climate and their fruitful groves, death itself seemed preferable to a life of toil and anxiety.
“The pleasant life of the island was at an end; the dream in the shade by day; the slumber during the noontide heat by the fountain, or under the spreading palm; and the song, and the dance, and the game in the mellow evening, when summoned to their simple amusements by the rude Indian drum.
“They spoke of the times that were past, before the white men had introduced sorrow, and slavery, and weary labor among them; and their songs were mournful, and their dances slow.
“They had flattered themselves, for a time, that the visit of the strangers would be but temporary, and that, spreading their ample sails, their ships would waft them back to their home in the sky. In their simplicity, they had frequently inquired of the Spaniards when they intended to return to Turey, or the heavens. But when all such hope was at an end, they became desperate, and resorted to a forlorn and terrible alternative.”
They knew the Spaniards depended chiefly on the supplies raised in the islands for a subsistence; and these poor Indians endeavored to produce a famine. For this purpose they destroyed their fields of maize, stripped the trees of their fruit, pulled up the yuca and other roots, and then fled to the mountains.
The Spaniards were reduced to much distress, but were partially relieved by supplies from Spain. To revenge themselves on the Indians, they pursued them to their mountain retreats, hunted them from one dreary fastness to another, like wild beasts, until thousands perished in dens and caverns, of famine and sickness, and the survivors, yielding themselves up in despair, submitted to the yoke of slavery. But they did not long bear the burden of life under their civilized masters. In 1504, only twelve years after the discovery of Hayti, when Columbus visited it, (under the administration of Ovando,) he thus wrote to his sovereigns: “Since I left the island, six parts out of seven of the natives are dead, all through ill-treatment and inhumanity; some by the sword, others by blows and cruel usage, or by hunger.”
No wonder these oppressed Indians considered the Christians the incarnation of all evil. Their feelings were often expressed in a manner that must have touched the heart of a real Christian, if there was such a one among their oppressors.
When Velasquez set out to conquer Cuba, he had only three hundred men; and these were thought sufficient to subdue an island above seven hundred miles in length, and filled with inhabitants. From this circumstance we may understand how naturally mild and unwarlike was the character of the Indians. Indeed, they offered no opposition to the Spaniards, except in one district. Hatney, a cacique who had fled from Hayti, had taken possession of the eastern extremity of Cuba. He stood upon the defensive, and endeavored to drive the Spaniards back to their ships. He was soon defeated and taken prisoner.
Velasquez considered him as a slave who had taken arms against his master, and condemned him to the flames. When Hatney was tied to the stake, a friar came forward, and told him that if he would embrace the Christian faith, he should be immediately, on his death, admitted into heaven.
“Are there any Spaniards,” says Hatney, after some pause, “in that region of bliss you describe?”
“Yes,” replied the monk, “but only such as are worthy and good.”
“The best of them,” returned the indignant Indian, “have neither worth nor goodness; I will not go to a place where I may meet with one of that cruel race.”
(To be continued.)
Something Wonderful.
The thing to which we refer is a seed. How wonderful that an acorn should contain within it a little plant, capable of growing up into an enormous oak, which will produce other acorns, capable of growing into other oaks, and so on forever! and yet there are seeds not one hundredth part as big as an acorn, which produce trees almost, if not quite, as large as an oak.
Or think of a grain of wheat. It is just as useful for food as if it contained nothing but a little flour mixed with a little bran. In fact, when it is ground there is nothing else to be seen; but beside these it contains a little plant, too small to be made out by common sight.
When one of these grains or seeds is put into moist earth, it begins to suck in water, which softens it and makes it swell. The little plant inside begins to grow, and in a few days a small, delicate root peeps out from one end of the seed. The seed may be lying on its side, or with the root end uppermost; but the little root, whether it comes out at the top or bottom of the seed, immediately turns downward, and grows in that direction.
Soon after, a little white shoot comes out at the other end, which turns upwards, and becomes green as soon as it gets into air and light; and thus we have a little plant.
In the mean time, the seed itself spoils and decays; or, as St. Paul calls it, dies. The flour changes into a kind of gummy sugar, which is sucked up by the young plant as its first nourishment; the husk shrivels and rots, and the plant grows up until it becomes a thousand times as large as the seed. At last it produces many other seeds, just as wonderful as that from which it grew.
In all the works of man, there is nothing like this. A watch is a remarkable invention, and a man would be set down as mad who should think it should be made by chance. But how much more wonderful would a watch be, if it could make other watches like itself! Yet a seed does this; and every cornfield in harvest-time contains millions of seeds, each of which is far more wonderful than the best watch.
The reason is, that men make watches, but God makes seeds. It is true that the skill by which men make watches comes from God, and should be acknowledged as his gift; but the more wonderful power by which a seed is made, he keeps in his own hands, that we may know that we have a Maker and a Master in heaven, and may serve him with reverence and godly fear.