 | CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY—THE SCENE—THE TIME—THE PERSONS. The damsel of Darien |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY—THE SCENE—THE TIME—THE PERSONS.
“Nothing,” remarks a distinguished modern writer of
our own country, “could be more chivalrous, urbane and
charitable; nothing more pregnant with noble sacrifices of
passion and interest, with magnanimous instances of forgiveness
of injuries, and noble contests of generosity, than
the transactions of the Spanish discoverers of America with
each other:—” he adds—“it was with the Indians alone
that they were vindictive, blood-thirsty, and implacable.”
In other words, when dealing with their equals—with those
who could strike hard and avenge,—they forbore offence
and injury; to the feeble and unoffending, alone, they
were cruel and unforgiving. Such being the case, according
to the writer's own showing, the eulogium upon
their chivalry, charity, and urbanity, is in very doubtful
propriety, coming from the lips of a Christian historian;
and our charity would be as singularly misplaced as his,
were we to suffer its utterance unquestioned. But the
alleged characteristics of these Spanish adventurers in regard
to their dealings with each other, are any thing but
true, according to our readings of history; and with all
deference to the urbane and usually excellent authority referred
to, we must be permitted, in this place, to record
our dissent from his conclusions. It will not diminish,
perhaps, but rather elevate the character of these discoverers,
to show that their transactions with each other were, with
a few generous exceptions, distinguished by a baseness and
their treatment of the Indians:—that nearly every departure
from their usual faithlessness of conduct, was induced by
fear, by favour, or the hope of ultimate reward;—that, devouring
the Indians for their treasure, they scrupled not to
exhibit a like rapacity towards their own comrades, in its
attainment, or upon its division; and that, in short, a more
inhuman, faithless, blood-thirsty and unmitigated gang of
savages never yet dishonoured the name of man or debased
his nature. The very volume which contains the eulogy
upon which we comment—Irving's “Companions of Columbus,”—a
misnomer, by the way, since none of them
were, or could be, properly speaking, his companions—
abounds in testimonies which refute and falsify it. The
history of these “companions” is a history of crime and
perfidy from the beginning; of professions made without
sincerity, and pledges violated without scruple; of crimes
committed without hesitation, and, seemingly, without remorse;
of frauds perpetrated upon the confiding, and injuries
inflicted without number upon the defenceless; and
these, too, not in their dealings merely with the natives,
for these they only destroyed, but in their intercourse with
their own comrades; with those countrymen to whom
nature and a common interest should have bound them, to
the fullest extent of their best abilities and strongest sympathies;
but whom they did not scruple to plunder and
abuse, at the instance of motives the most mercenary and
dishonourable. With but a few, and those not very remarkable
exceptions, all the doings of this “ocean chivalry”
are obnoxious to these reproaches. It is enough, in
proof, to instance the fortunes of Cortes, Ojeda, Ponce de
Leon, Balboa, Nienesa, Pizarro, Almagro, and the “great
admiral” himself; most of them hostile to each other, and
all of them victims to the slavish, selfish hates and festering
jealousies, the base avarice, and scarcely less base ambition
of the followers whom they led to wealth, and victory,
and fame. Like most fanatics, who are generally the
creatures of vexing and variable moods, rather than of principle
and a just desire for renown, none of them, with the
single exception of Columbus, seem to have been above
the force of circumstances, which moved them hourly, as
easily to a disregard of right, as to a fearlessness of danger.
At such periods they invariably proved themselves indifferent
affection, to all the laws of God: a mere blood-thirsty soldiery,
drunk with the frequent indulgence of a morbid appetite,
and as utterly indifferent, in their frenzy, to their
sworn fellowships as to the common cause. Of the whole
chivalry of this period and nation, but little that is favourable
can be said. That they were brave and fearless, daring
and elastic, cannot be denied. But here eulogium must
cease. From the bigot monarch upon the throne, to the
lowest soldier serving under his banner, they seem all to
have been without faith. The sovereign had no scruple,
when interest moved him and occasion served, to break the
pledges which he might not so easily evade; and the morals
of his people furnished no reproachful commentary upon
the laxity of his own. Let us but once close our eyes
upon the bold deeds and uncalculating courage of these
warriors, and the picture of their performances becomes
one loaded with infamy and shame. The mind revolts
from the loathsome spectacle of perfidy and brute-baseness
which every where remains; and it is even a relief, though
but a momentary one, once more to look upon the scene of
strife, and forget, as we are but too apt to do, in the gallant
passage of arms, the meanness and the malice of him who
delights us with his froward valour, and astounds us with
admiration of his skill and strength. The relief is but
transient, however, and the next moment reveals to us a reenactment
of the sin and the shame, from which the bravest
and the boldest among them could not long maintain the
“whiteness of their souls.”
The tale which follows will be found to illustrate some
of these opinions. Its hero was one of the most gallant
and great among the discoverers:—a man no less thoughtful
than valorous; having all the virtues, and but very few,
and those in small degree, of the vices of his comrades:
one who led his companions to fame and victory—who
won the greatest advantages in the New World, next to
Columbus; and perished through the ingratitude of his
sovereign and the miserable baseness of his fellows. With
far greater merits, his fate was, nevertheless, the fate of all
of those who shared his companion's, and served under
the same sway. It was, and must be, the fate of all who
toil in behalf of a time which has just enough of ambition
to foster envy into rankness, and too little of gratitude to be
such a period? What should be the people controlled by
such dominion? What but the heartless tyranny that destroys
where it cannot enslave, until, consuming itself with
its own conquests, it lies a mere wreck upon the world's
bosom, like the mammoth relies of our own forests, the remains
of a monster which a world has failed to feed.
The reader is now requested to recall to his recollection
the history of Spanish discovery and adventure, about the
year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and nine, a
period particularly fruitful of events in the invasion and
discovery of the then but recently found continent. At this
time, dazzled with the idea of finding the Aurea Chersonesus
of the ancients, and of drawing gold from mines
which had supplied the treasures of Solomon the Magnificent,
and crowned Jerusalem with the ineffable glories of
the temple, King Ferdinand projected the conquest of the
hostile shores of Veragua. To find adventurers sufficiently
numerous and bold for such peril was not a difficult task, at
a time when so many thousand valiant men, trained to battle
in the conquest of the Moors, pined in inactivity, and
wasted for lack of employment. To discover leaders
equal to such an enterprise, was a far less easy matter.
It is not certain, indeed, that the monarch ever found them.
There were always candidates enough from whom to
choose, but real merit stands aloof on most of these occasions;
and even where it desires, under the spur of an
honourable ambition, to serve and to adventure, the lot of
the great and the brave who had gone forth on these paths
of peril had been too uniformly disastrous, and was too
universally known, not of itself, to discourage many who,
conscious of like merits, were not without their just apprehensions
of like treatment. The “admiral” was dead, and
many of the valiant and trusty men who had been trained
by him were dead likewise, or had been set aside in the
scuffle which necessarily followed every addition to the
number of those aspirants for royal favour, who thronged
around the steps of authority. The avarice and judgment
of Ferdinand were continually at issue in the selection of
those whom he designed to serve him; and it was now his
policy to find, for the proposed adventure, such as could
combine with the necessary qualities of mind and education
the credit to procure the means without drawing upon
the Jew clothesman predominated in his nature, and it was
no less his desire, always, to obtain it as a great bargain.
From among the numerous adventurers who clamoured for
commissions and employment, he found two who seemed
to meet his wishes in every respect. The first and most
distinguished of these warriors was Alonzo de Ojeda, a
brave, rash, headstrong cavalier, who had a faith in his
sword, which he yielded to scarcely any other influence.
He is described as small of stature, but well made; of great
strength and wonderful activity; a fearless horseman, dexterous
with every weapon, and noted in combat for extraordinary
adroitness. These martial qualities, however admirable,
were somewhat impaired by a rashness of temper which
led him into a thousand unnecessary risks, involved him in
frequent difficulties, and served to diminish the value, in
great part, of his heroic achievements.
The other warrior chosen by Ferdinand to lead in the
conquest of Veragua, was Diego de Nienesa, an accomplished
gentleman, of noble birth, and one who had been
long accustomed to high station in Spain. Like Ojeda, he
was also of small stature, and like him, equally remarkable
for the symmetry, strength, and activity of his person.
He too, was master of his weapon—of all weapons
—and had the additional merit of being skilled in all those
graceful exercises of chivalry, which, if not so absolutely
necessary to the actual business of war, certainly contribute,
in no small degree, to set off and distinguish the warrior in
the eyes of those who look only upon its pageantries. He
was noted for his vigour and address in jousts and tilting-matches,
was unsurpassed in feats of horsemanship, and—
an accomplishment not less attractive among his admirers,
—a most capital musician. With little of the rashness of
Ojeda, he, perhaps, lacked something of that tenacious and
constant resolution which, in the other, looked like obstinacy.
In most respects they were no unequal rivals, and
Ferdinand, having chosen them to represent his arms in
the savage regions of Veragua, did well to bestow upon
them equal titles, and to divide that country between them.
Their governments lay along the Isthmus of Darien, the
boundary-line passing through the Gulf of Uraba. The
eastern part extending to Cape de la Vela, was given to
Ojeda, and called New Andalusia; the western, including
to Nienesa. The island of Jamaica, as a place of
supplies, was given to them in common. Ojeda, who was
poor and without resources himself, was provided with
means by a sturdy seaman named Juan de la Cosa, who
had formed an attachment for him, and freely gave him all
his little earnings, gleaned from former voyages; besides
bestowing upon him what was far more valuable, his personal
help, for he was a good soldier and able pilot. His
fleet consisted of but three vessels, the whole of which
carried little more than two hundred men. That of
Nienesa was far more imposing. He set forth from Spain
for Santo Domingo, where both fleets were appointed to
rendezvous, with six stout vessels; and the rival governors,
helped on by mutually favouring winds, reached the island
at the same time. The reader may imagine for himself the
buz and confusion, the stir and strife, so like to follow, in
a small community, the sudden appearance of two rival
chieftains such as we have described; both highly popular,
and each seeking, by exercise of all his qualifications, to
win the favour of the multitude, and increase, thereby, the
resources in men and money of his little armament, to
which, in both cases, much was still wanting to render
them fit for the daring enterprises for which they were designed.
The little but growing city was, at this time,
crowded with people of all sorts and conditions. There
came the lounging but haughty cavalier, thirsting for strife,
to which the long wars with the Moors had but too well
accustomed him; there rolled the vaunting and swelling
seaman, whom the wondrous discoveries of the New
World had filled with hopes and fancies of discoveries still
more wonderful yet in store for the adventurous; there,
sly and insinuating, came the artful lawyer, ever following
the spoil, even as the vulture, urged by the unerring scent,
flies to the desired carrion; and there, restless ever, and
pushing through the crowd, the cunning tradesman, holding
his gaudy wares and foolish toys on high, persuading the
vain and the presumptuous to the miserable barter, in which
they give—the constant trade of vanity—the solid gold of
their possessions for false glares and useless counterfeits.
Such was the motley population of Santo Domingo, not to
speak of the thousand modifications of character, condition,
and employment, which are made of, and which follow
of her possessions, which she gave, in exchange for its
gold, to the New World; and the pander and the pimp, the
profligate and the prostitute, were not wanting to the community,
the mass of whose population was composed of the
worn-out soldier and the wandering seaman. The natives
were also still numerous, but they were daily undergoing
diminution, and cannot well be said to have formed at any
time a portion of the people. Twenty years, the period
which had elapsed from the discovery of Columbus, and
the time when this story begins, had effected a wondrous
and melancholy change in the fortunes of Hispaniola. The
island of Bohio, or of “The Cottages,” as it was called by
the natives, was no longer what it had been ere the coming
of the Spaniards, the abode of happiness. With its nakedness
its peace had departed. Crime soon usurped the
dwelling of contentment, and the simple savages, who, in
that bland and seductive climate, where nature yields her
fruits without exacting the dues of labour, had no wants of
their own, were now fettered to destructive toils, that they
might supply the artificial wants of strangers. A thousand
task-masters were set above them, who directed the labours
of the slave, not with reference to his capacities and customs,
but with regard only to the greedy avarice which
filled their own bosoms. The gentle race which in the oppressive
noonday found shelter beneath the palm, and slept
securely in its shade, was driven from its resting-places
for ever. The symmetrical and slender limbs of the
Haytian, which gentle sports and the exercises of an innocent
play, had made graceful as erect, were now bent and
deformed beneath the weight of unwonted burdens: his
blood mingled like rain with the earth upon whose bosom
he had slept with the happy confidence of the child that
murmurs and sinks on the mother's breast; and the life
which ease had made no less delightful than liberty had
made it confident and proud, was now rendered burdensome
if not hateful, by reason of those cruel toils for which he
saw no purpose, and from which he derived no fruits. His
cottages became the possession of the Spaniard, and, in no
long time, his presence ceased to upbraid the usurper with
that grinding tyranny to which he could offer no resistance.
The conquerors strode over the graves of victims so gentle
in their nature, that they had seldom given them the provocation—so
the sword.
But they did not perish until they had proved to their
invaders the fatal fertility of their island. The gold which
they perished to procure, invited hourly new oppressors.
The pearls which their seas cast up, in a profusion heretofore
unnoted, upon their shores, dazzled the eyes and
warmed the enterprise daily of fresh adventurers. Bohio
groaned with the martial tread of the hidalgo, impatient of
the restraining seas, and lifting an unsheathed blade that
hourly pointed toward the undiscovered countries. Already,
too, had the less adventurous and more wise begun those
more solid labours of civilization which make her stationary.
The simple cane and rush cottages of the Indians were beginning
to give way to the massive habitation of stone;
and the clink of the mason's hammer mingled with the
many and discordant sounds that rang from morn till midnight
through the vast plain of the scattered city. Speculators
had in hand already the sale of favourite lots; public
places were laid out, hills levelled, groves planted, baths of
stone prepared for the luxurious, and the Spanish damsels,
of whom Santo Domingo by this time had her store, already
began to plan those places of delicious retreat, the
fame of which, brought home by the warriors who had conquered
the splendid city of Grenada, had run through
Spain, and wrought a change in the taste of the formal
Spaniard no less sudden than surprising. The poor Indian
looked with wonder upon the growth of a city, the dwellings
of which were cemented with his blood.
| CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY—THE SCENE—THE TIME—THE PERSONS. The damsel of Darien | |