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Updated: May 25, 2025
Next day when Columbus sent to Guacanagari to demand their return, the king and his whole village had disappeared. It would appear that this simple savage had grown into a far shrewder person than his European host since that Christmas night when the Santa Maria ran aground. La Navidad having disappeared, the next concern was to found another settlement.
These were Caunabo, Guacanagari, Behechico, and Gaurionex; each of whom commanded over seventy or eighty inferior lords or caciques.
Columbus did not believe in this intervention of the cacique, but, resolving to dissimulate, he welcomed Guacanagari kindly when he came on board the next day; the cacique accepted an image of the Virgin, suspending it on his bosom. He appeared astonished at the sight of the horses which they showed him, these animals having been hitherto quite unknown to himself and his companions.
The northeastern part, named Marien, was under the rule of Guacanagari, whose headquarters were near the abandoned La Navidad. The remaining eastern part of the island, called Higuay, was under a chief named Cotabanama. The western province was Xaragua, governed by one Behechio, whose sister, Anacaona, was the wife of Caonabo.
We began to comprehend that "heaven" was a word of many levels, and that they ascribed to it everything that they chose to consider good and that was manifestly out of the range of their experience. In his turn the Admiral was ready for all that Guacanagari could tell him. "Gold?" His eyes were upon the Indian's necklet. Removing it, the cacique laid it in the god's hand.
But Columbus was unable to transact business himself, and James was manifestly of little use; the action was natural enough. In the early days of his convalescence he had another pleasant experience, in the shape of a visit from Guacanagari, who came to express his concern at the Admiral's illness, and to tell him the story of what had been going on in his absence.
All these rulers were more or less embittered by the outrages and cruelties of the Spaniards, and all agreed to join with Caonabo except Guacanagari.
The Quibian does not like intruders, though he likes their hawks' bells well enough; he is not quite so innocent as poor Guacanagari and the rest of them were; he knows that gold is a thing coveted by people to whom it does not belong, and that trouble follows in its train.
The admiral therefore went to the ships side to hear what they had to say, and then two men from the canoe went up with two marks of gold, which they presented with many compliments to the admiral as from the cacique Guacanagari.
We were twelve Spaniards in La Navidad. We rested friends with Guarico, though now they held us to be nothing more than demigods. And indeed by now we were ragged! Then, in a night, it came. Guacanagari again appeared. It had reached him from up the river that Caonabo was making pact with the cacique of Marien and that the two meant to proceed against us.
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