The History of Cuba, vol. 1

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Miguel Pasamonte was his chief foe. He had been the secretary of Queen Isabella, and had filled important Ambassadorships, but was now the royal treasurer in Hispaniola. He had been one of the bitterest enemies of Christopher Columbus, and had transferred a full measure of hostility to Diego; and it was he who reported to the King in its most unfavorable light Diego's plans for sending Bartholomew Columbus to Cuba. In his hostility to both Christopher and Diego Columbus he was greatly aided and abetted by Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, Bishop of Seville; who had violently quarrelled with Christopher Columbus over the fitting out of his second voyage and who also had transferred his hatred to the Admiral's son.

DIEGO VELASQUEZ

Diego Velasquez was another of the faction hostile to the Columbuses, though at first he had been a friend and companion of the Admiral. It is probable that he had no personal enmity toward Diego Columbus, but joined himself to the other faction through motives not unconnected with personal pecuniary profit. He had gone from Spain to Hispaniola with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage, and had ever since been one of the most efficient administrators in that island and indeed in all the Indies. For a time he was a military leader in campaigns against hostile natives, and afterward he became Lieutenant Governor of the island. He was a man of high ability, of singularly handsome person, of engaging manners, of much popularity, and of abundant force of character for successful leadership and command of men. He was, however, not always scrupulous in his dealings, and it was not to his moral credit that he became the richest man in all the Indies. He was a close friend and partisan of Pasamonte, and associated with him in the same alliance were the royal secretary in Hispaniola, Conchillos, and also the royal accountant, Christopher de Cuellar, who was both the cousin and father-in-law of Velasquez.

Diego Columbus, then, either through policy or through compulsion, appointed Velasquez to be his lieutenant in Cuba, and commissioned him to organize and personally to lead the intended expedition to that island. He also promised that the King would refund whatever private expenditures Velasquez and his companions should make on account of it; a promise which was authorized by the King, but not fulfilled save in the indirect way of empowering the members of the expedition to recoup themselves at the expense of the people of the island; an arrangement decidedly at variance with Ferdinand's former solicitude for good treatment for the natives. Further than that, Diego had little or nothing to do with Cuba, and in a short time Velasquez was known not as Lieutenant but as Governor, as though he were entirely independent of the Viceroy in Hispaniola.

Early in 1511 Velasquez assembled a flotilla of three or four vessels on the northwest coast of Hispaniola, at or near the place where Columbus had landed when he discovered that island and first visited it from Cuba. In the adjacent region he recruited a company of about three hundred men, and with that force set out for the conquest and colonization of Cuba. The precise date of his expedition is not to be ascertained, but it was probably in February or at latest March of that year. The place of his landing in Cuba, however, is known. It was at Baracoa, where also Columbus had landed before him. Following the practice of Columbus and the other explorers he promptly gave the place a new name of his own selection, calling it the City of Our Lady of the Assumption. There he established his seat of government and base of further operations, giving to the place in both civil and ecclesiastical affairs the technical rank and dignity of a city. But, as also frequently happened, the new name was unable to supplant the old one in popular usage; and when, in 1514, the insular capital was transferred to Santiago de Cuba, and in 1522 the cathedral of the diocese was similarly transferred, the new name was permitted to lapse, and the place became again universally known as Baracoa. Despite its vicissitudes of fortune, therefore, and its loss of its former high estate, Baracoa is entitled to the triple distinction of having been the site of the first permanent European settlement in Cuba, of the first civilized government, and of the first cathedral church.

At Baracoa, immediately upon his arrival, Velasquez built a fort, the exact site of which is now matter of conjecture, and various other edifices. These were all constructed of wood, probably of bamboo and thatch, and no trace of them remains to-day. Search was also promptly made for gold, and some seems to have been found in the beds of streams, though in no large quantities, and the attempt to operate mines was soon abandoned. Attention was then turned to further explorations and conquests, and to the quest for gold in other parts of the island.

Still more unfortunate than the failure to find much gold, and largely because of that fruitless quest, was the rise of bitter hostilities between the Spaniards and the natives. This was also a sequel to and in part a consequence of the Spanish administration in Hispaniola and particularly of the part which Velasquez had played therein. Shortly before coming to Cuba, Velasquez had waged several strenuous and probably somewhat ruthless campaigns against the natives of Hispaniola, chiefly in that part of the island which lay nearest to Cuba and in which he recruited his Cuban expedition. His chief opponent there was a native chief named Hatuey, who, finding himself unable to cope with the Spaniards, fled to Cuba with many of his followers and settled in the country near Baracoa. These refugees were of course quick to report to the natives of Cuba the cause of their migration, and to portray the conduct and character of the Spaniards, and of Velasquez personally, in the most unfavorable light. The natural result was to predispose the Cuban natives to regard the Spaniards with distrust and aversion. And when Velasquez himself presently appeared among the very people who had been thus prejudiced against him, trouble inevitably arose.

The leader in the trouble was Hatuey, who had a large following both of his own tribe from Hispaniola and also of Cubans. He had maintained a system of spying and communication through which he kept himself perfectly informed of the doings of Velasquez, whom he considered his chief foe, not only politically but personally, and when he learned that he was coming to Cuba he busied himself with preparations to resist him. He was foremost in spreading among the Cuban natives all manner of evil reports concerning the Spaniards, all of which, whether true or false, found ready credence.