WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE.
Although the temptation and tendency was to exaggerate, to make the New World conquest equal or superior to any Old World achievement; although assertions were at the first not open to contradiction, and the sailors and soldiers of those times, returned from foreign parts, were no more celebrated for telling the truth than those of our own day, yet in the main and as a whole the writings of the Spaniards earliest in America are unquestionably true. Most of the several phases of error and misstatement are easily enough detected, the events described being either impossible or opposed to preponderant and superior evidence. For example, when Las Casas, who was conscientious and in the main correct, asserts that Manicaotex opposed Columbus at the head of 100,000 warriors in Española, we may safely put it down as exaggeration simply from our general knowledge, gained from other sources, of the aboriginal population of these islands and the adjoining continent. Here was a multitude of witnesses, European and American, whose verbal or written statements were usually subordinate to substantial facts, unknown to each other, and giving their evidence at widely different times and places. Often the conquerors fell out and fought each other to the death, writing to Spain lengthy epistles of vindication and vilification, many of which have been preserved; so that where one extolled himself and his achievements, there were a dozen to pull him down. Thus from a mass of contradictory statements, on either side of which the less penetrating are apt to linger, to the patient and laborious investigator unfold the clearest truths. He who habitually practises deceit is sure somewhere to expose himself; and the taking of evidence does not proceed far before the examiner can tell the witness more than he himself knows or remembers of the scenes through which he has passed. The native witnesses, living at the time of the Conquest and subsequently, were likewise naturally inclined unduly to magnify the glories of their ancestors and of their nation; yet to verify their statements they point to the monuments and material remains then and now existing, to manuscripts, huge piles of which it was the infamous boast of the fanatical conquerors to have burned, but of which enough have been preserved to authenticate all the more important parts of their stories; they also refer to tradition, which is worth as much, and no more, than that of other nations.
Blank assertions similar to those advanced against the New World chroniclers might with equal reason and effect be brought forward to overthrow the early records of any nation. Christ and Confucius may be denied, Homer and Shakespeare, but that does not prove they never lived. That Columbus made his seamen swear that no doubt Cuba was Zipangu, does not prove that there was in those days no Japan. Because Drake's chaplain chose to tell the most monstrous and wilful falsehoods respecting the climate, metals, and inhabitants of California; because Cook, Meares, and Vancouver sailed by the mouth of the Columbia, superciliously scourging those who had spoken of it, this does not prove the non-existence of Marin County, or of the River of the West. In such ways as these neither the truth of the one statement nor the falsity of the other is established. But, as I have observed, before us is abundant evidence, palpable and incontestable, that the early writings on America are for the most part true; and if, in the following pages, it does not clearly appear which are true and which false, then has the author signally failed in his effort. I do not in the least fear the overthrow of the general veracity of these writers until there come against them enemies more powerful with more powerful weapons than any that have yet appeared. How senselessly speculative their reasonings! Because the natives of the present day cannot tell who or whence were the authors of the carvings, or the builders of the structures upon whose ruins they have gazed since childhood, these works must forsooth have been done by foreign visitors. Europeans now and then may have found their way to America, but I find no evidence of such visits before the time of Columbus except by the Northmen; no one knows of such, nor can know until more light appears. The material relics, I fancy, will always prove a stumbling-block to those who would reject American aboriginal civilization.
That different conquerors, teachers, and travellers of various creeds and nationalities, in various pursuits, in different lands and at various times, together with native testimony, hieroglyphic writings, and traditions, to say nothing of carvings in stone and other monumental remains, should all combine, with satanic inspiration, to perpetrate upon the world one grand and overwhelming fraud is so preposterously ridiculous that the marvel is how there could be found, outside the walls of a lunatic asylum, a single individual with cool impudence enough to ask men to believe it. And yet there are several such, and they find believers. So charmed by the sound of their own voice are these captious cavillers, that they apparently do not deem it possible for such things to exist in this enlightened age as pedantic ignorance and literary fanaticism, of which they are bright examples. They do not seem to know that the petty and puerile theories which they would pass upon the simple as startling conceptions, original with themselves, are as old as the knowledge of the continent. They do not consider that before taking the first step toward proving origin, migration, or kinship by analogy, they must first dispose of the universal relationship of man, the oneness of human nature, human needs, and human aspirations, and then show how men first came upon this earth, and which was land and which water then and since. But those who thus array themselves against American aboriginal civilization and the early Spanish writers on the New World do not pretend to offer counter evidence, or to refute with reason; they rely chiefly on flat contradiction. I have yet to find among them all any approach to reasonable propositions or logical argument. They have nothing on which to base argument, neither fact nor plausible supposition. Their hypotheses are as chimerical as their deductions are false. They would have the world exercise a far more irrational credulity in accepting their hollow negations, than in believing every word of the most mendacious chronicler. And when they come to deny the presence of a native civilization upon the Mexican table-land, they betray lamentable ignorance both of the facts of history and of the nature of civilization.
CHAPTER VII.
SETTLEMENT OF SANTA MARÍA DE LA ANTIGUA DEL DARIEN.
1510-1511.
Francisco Pizarro Abandons San Sebastian—Meets Enciso at Cartagena—He and his Crew Look like Pirates—They are Taken back to San Sebastian—Vasco Nuñez de Balboa—Boards Enciso's Ship in a Cask—Arrives at San Sebastian—The Spaniards Cross to Darien—The River and the Name—Cemaco, Cacique of Darien, Defeated—Founding of the Metropolitan City—Presto, Change! The Hombre del Casco Up, the Bachiller Down—Vasco Nuñez, Alcalde—Nature of the Office—Regidor—Colmenares, in Search of Nicuesa, Arrives at Antigua—He Finds Him in a Pitiable Plight—Antigua Makes Overtures to Nicuesa—Then Rejects Him—And Finally Drives Him Forth to Die—Sad End of Nicuesa.
When Alonso de Ojeda left San Sebastian for Española, he stipulated with Francisco Pizarro, who for the time was commissioned governor, that should neither he himself return, nor the bachiller Enciso arrive within fifty days, the colonists might abandon the post and seek safety or adventure in other parts.
And now the fifty days had passed; wearily and hungrily they had come and gone, with misery an ever present guest; and no one having come, they dismantled the fortress, placed on board the two small brigantines left them the gold they had secured—trust Francisco Pizarro for scenting gold, and getting it—and made ready to embark for Santo Domingo. But though only seventy remained, the vessels could not carry them all; and it was agreed that they should wait awhile, until death reduced their number to the capacity of the boats.
Nor had they long to wait; nor would their grim attendant let them put to sea without him. He had been so long domiciled with them, and had become so useful in settling disputes, adjusting accounts, and the like, that he was one of them, and one, indeed, with all the companies which attempted colonization on these pestilential shores. As they coasted eastward in search of food before steering across for Española, a squall struck the vessels, overturning one of them and sending all on board to swift destruction. Entering with the other the harbor of Cartagena, Pizarro found there the tardy Enciso hunting his colony.
Now the bachiller, beside possessing great learning, was a man of experience, all the way from Spain; a man of keen intelligence and practical sagacity, his wits sharpened by the narrow-minded legal bigotry of a sixteenth-century Spanish lawyer. He must be of exceedingly ready wit who could deceive the bachiller. It was scarcely to be expected a man of his kidney should credit the stories of Ojeda's visit to Santo Domingo, of the deputy governorship, and of the late disaster; though honest Pizarro on this occasion told only the truth, and his companions vouched for it with all the feeble force of their high-keyed husky voices. If Ojeda had gone to Santo Domingo more than fifty or seventy days before, would not the bachiller have seen him there? Indeed, to a less erudite judge than Enciso, a band of robbers on the high seas, with an abundance of gold and no bread, would call up suspicions rather of foul play than honest adventure. And back they must go. The functions of high judge should begin here and now. Was not this Nueva Andalucía? With the horrors of San Sebastian still fresh in their minds, the thought of returning there was repugnant in the extreme, and the poor wretches begged the lawyer to let them go to Española, or join Nicuesa. No. Enciso had staked his whole earthly possessions on the delightful prospect of domination, and these should not escape him. They were just the clay for his fashioning; men for whom the law was made. Whipping out his commission, which at once deposed Pizarro, the bachiller drove them back into their boat, and all embarked for San Sebastian. But scarcely had they turned the Punta de Caribana,[VII-1] when the bachiller's well-stored ship struck upon rocks and broke in pieces, those on board barely escaping with their lives. Thus the worthy bachiller was beggared; the savings from life-long pettifoggings were swept away within the hour. Still his original stock in trade, egotism and arrogance, was left unimpaired.