Christopher Columbus (1440-1506)

by W. L. Alden

The cacique was laid in the bottom of a boat, and pretended to suffer so much pain that the officer in charge of the boat loosened his bonds. Quibian thereupon jumped overboard and, as it was now night, escaped safely to land; while the Spaniards believed that he had been drowned.

The danger of an attack by the savages being thus, in the opinion of the Admiral, at an end, he prepared to depart for Spain. The water on the bar at the mouth of the river was so low that the ships could not pass over it without being lightened. Their stores were therefore disembarked, and after getting into deep water the ships were anchored and the stores were brought back to them in boats.

When the fleet was nearly ready to sail, Columbus sent Diego Tristan and eleven men ashore to obtain water. As they neared the settlement, they saw a horde of savages rush out of the jungle and attack the colonists. The savages were led by Quibian, who, being a heathen and a barbarian, imagined that he had more right to his wives and children than the Spaniards had. Tristan was an excellent old sailor, who held that it was the first duty of man to obey orders. He had been sent for water and not for blood, and accordingly he never thought of interfering in the fight, but rowed steadily up the river in search of fresh water. The Spaniards fought bravely, and repulsed the attack of the natives; but the latter, instead of appreciating Tristan’s fidelity to duty, fell upon him and killed him and his whole party, with the exception of one man, who fled to the settlement with his sanguinary story.

The Spaniards were now convinced that they had no more use for Central America, and rushed to the ship that lay in the river, determined to return to Spain with the Admiral. The ship, however, could not be got over the bar, and the terrified colonists consented to listen to the Adelentado’s advice, and to attempt to fortify the settlement. They went on shore again, and threw up barricades—which, as every one knows who is familiar with French politics, consist of boxes, paving-stones, omnibuses, news-stands, and other heterogeneous articles piled together.

The barricades were better than nothing as defensive works, but they were miserably weak. Eleven Spaniards had been killed and several more wounded, including Don Bartholomew, and as the savages vastly outnumbered them, the prospect that any of the colonists would escape was extremely small.

Columbus could not understand why Tristan did not return. He knew that Tristan was a faithful and obedient man, and that there was no rum to be had at the settlement, so that he finally began to fear that the natives had been acting in a disorderly way. This fear was increased by the conduct of Quibian’s wives and children, who were on board one of the vessels. During the night after Tristan’s departure these hasty and ill-bred prisoners began to commit suicide by hanging themselves or by jumping overboard, and continued this recreation so persistently that by morning not one of them was left. If women and children could do such an uncivil thing as this, it was only too probable that the men of the same race were capable of creating riot and bloodshed ashore.

There was only one available small boat at the command of the Admiral, and the sea on the bar was so heavy when the disappearance of the Quibian family was discovered that Columbus did not dare to send the boat ashore. Fortunately, one of the pilots, Pedro Ledesma, offered to swim ashore if the boat would carry him part of the way. His offer was of course accepted, and when the boat was a short distance from the shore Ledesma sprang overboard and successfully swam through the boiling surf. He returned in a short time, bringing the news that the colonists were in immediate danger of being massacred.

Unless the sea should go down, Columbus could give no assistance to the men on shore, and there was no prospect that the sea would go down.

Most men in the position of the Admiral would have been at a loss what to do, but Columbus was a man of uncommon resources. He promptly had a vision. A voice spoke to him in the best Scriptural style, and assured him that everything was all right; that the colonists would be saved, and that no one need feel any uneasiness. It is probable that this was the voice of a sainted and remote ancestor of the late William H. Seward, and it filled the Admiral with confidence—which confidence it is possible was shared by the sailors when the story of the vision was told to them. The voice proved to be a veracious one, for the next morning there was a dead calm, and the colonists, with all their portable property, were safely rafted on board the ships, which immediately set sail for San Domingo in order to refit.

It was now the end of April, but the weather declined to improve. Probably Columbus, like a skilful commander, made his men draw lots with a view to pilgrimages, and encouraged them to vow to attend church in their shirts; but there is no mention of these manœuvres in the Admiral’s log. The ships were nearly eaten up by the teredo and could with difficulty be kept afloat. One was abandoned, and the crew taken on board the other two. These reached the islands lying south of Cuba which Columbus had discovered on his second voyage, where they were detained nearly a week by violent storms. When the voyage was resumed the head-winds promptly resumed also, and finally, with his ships leaking like sieves out of repair, and his provisions nearly exhausted, Columbus bore up for Jamaica, which he reached on the 23d of June. The next day he entered the harbor of Port Santa Gloria, where his decrepit vessels were run ashore to keep them from sinking, and were firmly lashed together.