“‘And to this end,’ he says, ‘so many favorable things conspired, that it cannot be called a disaster, but a great turn of good fortune, for if we had not run aground, we should have kept off without anchoring here, the place being in a large bay inside of two or three shoals. Neither should I otherwise have been induced to leave any men in these parts during the voyage; even if I had, I could not have spared them the needful provisions and materials for their fortification. Many of my crew have solicited me for permission to remain, and I have to-day [Wednesday, the twenty-sixth of December] ordered the construction of a fort, with a tower and a ditch, all to be well built, not that I think such a fortification necessary as a defence against the inhabitants, for I have already stated that with my present crew I could subjugate the whole island, which I believe to be larger than the kingdom of Portugal, and twice as populous, but that I think it prudent, since the territory is at such a distance from our country, and that the natives may understand the genius of the people of your highnesses and what they are able to perform, so that they may be held in obedience by fear as well as by love. For this purpose I have directed that a quantity of timber for the construction of the fort shall be provided, also bread and wine be left to suffice for more than a year, seed for planting, the long-boat of the ship, a calker, a carpenter, a gunner, a cooper, and many other persons of the number of those who have earnestly desired to serve your highnesses, and oblige me by remaining here and searching for the gold mine.’”
The admiral further remarks “that every piece of the ship was saved, for not even so much as a thong, board, or nail was lost, for she was as complete as when she first sailed, except that which was lost by cutting her to get out the casks and merchandise. These were carried on shore and well secured, as has already been mentioned. He adds that he hopes to find, on his return from Castile, a ton of gold collected by those who remained, by trading with the natives, and that they will have succeeded in discovering the mine and the spices, and all these in such quantities that before three years the king and queen may undertake the recovery of the holy sepulchre. ‘For I have before proposed to your highnesses,’ he writes, ‘that the profits of this undertaking should be employed in the conquest of Jerusalem, at which your highnesses smiled and said you were pleased, and had the same inclination.’”
“He left on the island of Española, which the Indians called Bohio, a fort and thirty-nine men, whom he states to have been great friends of King Guacanagari. Over these he placed Diego de Arana, a native of Cordova, Pedro Gutierrez, groom of the king’s wardrobe, and Rodrigo de Escovedo, a native of Seville and nephew of Fray Rodrigo Perez, with all the powers the king and queen had delegated to him. He left them all the goods which had been sent for trafficking, a great quantity, and every thing belonging to the ship which had been wrecked. The goods he directed should be traded away for gold.”
In commemoration of the day of Christ’s nativity, on which his ship was wrecked at this place, he called the settlement Villa de la Navidad (city of the Nativity). He further writes in his journal that “he had heard of another island behind that of Juana, toward the south, in which there was a still greater quantity of gold, and where it was found in grains of the size of a bean.... This island was called by the Indians Yamaye.”[164]
“It was the admiral’s intention to coast farther along the island of Española, which he might have done upon his homeward course, but as he considered that the captains of the two caravels were brothers, namely, Martin Alonso Pinzon and Vicente Yañez, and that they had a party attached to them, and that they and their partisans had manifested considerable haughtiness and avarice, disobeying his commands regardless of the honors he had conferred upon them, which misdemeanors, as well as the treachery of Martin Alonso, in deserting him,[165] he had winked at, without complaining, in order not to throw impediments in the way of the voyage—he thought it best to return home as quickly as possible. He adds that he had many faithful men among his crews, but resolved to overlook for the time the behavior of the refractory ones, and not at such an unfavorable season undertake to punish them.”
On Tuesday, the fifteenth of January, while the caravels were anchored in the bay which he called the Golfo de las Flechas (the Gulf of Arrows), he describes the weapons of the natives. “The bows,” he says, “are equal in size to those of France and England, and the arrows like the javelins used by the inhabitants of the other islands, which are made of the stalks of the cane while it is in seed. They are very straight, about a yard and a half in length, and doubled, with a sharp piece of wood, a span and a half long, at the end. At the point of this some attach a fish’s tooth, but the most of them grass.... The bows of the Indians appear to be made of yew.” The quantity of sea-weed which he found growing in this bay led Columbus to infer that the Indies were near the Canary Islands, not more than four hundred leagues distant.
On Wednesday morning, the sixteenth of January, they set sail from the Golfo de las Flechas, to go to the island of Carib. “After sailing sixty-four miles, as they estimated, the Indians on board signified that the island was to the southeast, when they altered their course, and proceeded in that direction, and after sailing several leagues the wind freshened and blew very favorably for their return to Spain. The crews began to grow despondent at leaving their homeward course, on account of the leaky condition of the vessels, (for there was no remedy for it but the help of God,) and the admiral found himself constrained to change his course again, and steer directly for Spain.”[166]
Columbus, afterward writing to Rafael Sanchez respecting his explorations along the coast of Española, remarks that the island of Española is “greater in circuit than all of Spain, from Colibre in Catalonia, near Perpignan, round the coast of the sea of Spain, along Granada, Portugal, Galicia, and Biscay, to Fuenterabia, at the cape of Biscay.... Each native, as far as I can understand, has one wife, with the exception of the king and princes, who are permitted to have as many as twenty. The women appear to do more work than the men. Whether there exist any such thing here as private property, I have not been able to ascertain. I have seen an individual appointed to distribute to the others, especially food and such things.
“People of an extraordinary description I did not see, neither did I hear of any, except those of the island Caris, which is the second island on the way from Española to India. This island is inhabited by a people who are regarded by their neighbors as exceedingly ferocious. They feed upon human flesh. These people have many kinds of canoes with which they make incursions upon all the islands of India, robbing and plundering wherever they go. Their difference from the others consists in their wearing long hair like that of women, and in using bows and arrows of cane; these last constructed, as I have already related, by fixing a piece of sharpened wood at the larger end. On this account they are considered very ferocious by the other Indians, and are much feared by them.”[167]
Speaking of the pecuniary profits of the voyage Columbus wrote: “I am enabled to promise the acquisition, by a trifling assistance from their majesties, of any quantity of gold, drugs, cotton, and mastic, which last article is found in the island of Scio; also, any quantity of aloe, and as many slaves for the service of the marine as their majesties may need. The same may be said of rhubarb and a great variety of other things which, I have no doubt, will be discovered by those I have left at the fort, as I did not stop at any single place, unless obliged to do so by the weather with the exception of Villa de la Navidad, where we remained some time to build the fort and provide the necessary means for the defence of the place.