United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The sixth day came Guacanagari, and sat in the room and talked sorrowfully. Caonabo, Gwarionex, Behechio, Cotubanama, said, "Were these or were these not gods, yet would they fight!" The Admiral said, "The Future is the god. But there are burrs on his skirt!" Guacanagari at last would depart. He stood beside the bed and the silver-haired great cacique from heaven.
"The fleet, senor, was a day away when the hurricane burst. Half the ships were split, lost, sunken! The others, broken, returned to us. One only went on to Spain. The gold ships are lost. Only, they say, the gold that pertains to you, goes on safely on that one to Cadiz. Gwarionex the Indian is drowned, and Bobadilla and Roldan are drowned."
One saw in fancy Bobadilla and Roldan and Gwarionex and the much gold, including that piece of virgin ore weighing five thousand castellanos. Fifteen ships preparing for Spain, and San Domingo, of which the Adelantado had laid first stone, and a strange, green, sunset sky.
In some places we saw clay pots and bowls. They wove their cotton, though not very skillfully. They crushed their maize in hand mills. We found caciques and butios, and heard of their main cacique, Gwarionex. But he did not come to meet us; they said he had gone on a visit to Caonabo in Cibao.
But the Viceroy meant to send him to Spain trophy and show, and to be made, if it could be, Christian. IT did not end the war. For a fortnight we thought that it had done so. Then came loud tidings. Caonabo's wife, Anacaona, had put on the lioness. With her was Caonabo's brother Manicoatex and her own brother Behechio, cacique of Xaragua. There was a new confederacy, Gwarionex again was with it.
There it was determined to capture, if possible, Caonabo, withdrawing him so from the confederacy. The confederacy might then go to pieces. In the meantime use every effort to detach from it Gwarionex who after Guacanagari was our nearest great cacique. Send a well-guarded, placating embassy to him and to Cotubanama. Try kindness, kindness everywhere, kind words and good deeds!
Invited to go, in fact, though with no other harsh treatment. One of the ships would be packed with Indian rebels, Gwarionex among them. Chained, all these. The notable thing about the fleet, after all that, was the gold that was going! A treasure fleet! Bobadilla had gathered gold for the crown. He was taking, they said, a sultan's ransom.
The Admiral put forth a lean, knotted, powerful hand and laid it on the brown, slim, untoiled hand. "I wish peace," he said. "My brother Bartholomew and I will do what we can do to gain it. Good peace, true peace!" Without the room, I asked the cacique about Guarin. He was gone, he said, to the mountains. He would not stay with Guacanagari, and he would not go to Caonabo or Gwarionex.
Torres took that and took gold and strange plants, and also six hundred Indian captives to be sold for slaves. War went on in Hispaniola, but not for long. We had horses and bloodhounds and men in armor, trained in the long Moorish strife. There was a battle in the Vega that ended as it must end. Behechio and Anacaona fled to the high mountains. Manicoatex and Gwarionex sued for peace.
Word Of The Day