Santo Domingo | Page 4

water near its coast. After stopping in a harbor which he called Puerto de Paz, Port of Peace, because of the harmony which prevailed at the meetings with the natives, Columbus continued in an easterly direction, but adverse winds compelled him to put into the bay of Santo Tomas, to-day bay of l'Acul, where the cordial intercourse with the natives was renewed. Here he received an embassy from the chief of the district, Guacanagari, inviting him to visit the cacique's residence, further along the coast, and bringing him as presents a wampum belt artistically worked and a wooden mask with eyes, tongue and nose of gold.
To accept the invitation Columbus set sail on the morning of December 24. In the evening when the admiral had retired the helmsman committed the indiscretion of confiding the helm to a ship's boy. About midnight when off Cape Haitien, near their destination, the vessel was caught in a current and swept upon a sandbank where she began to keel over. During the confusion which followed, Columbus had the mainmast chopped down but all efforts to right the ship were in vain, and Columbus and the crew were obliged to take refuge on the little Ni?a.
As soon as Guacanagari received news of the disaster he sent large canoes filled with men to help the strangers transport their stores to the shore. The relations between the Spaniards and the Indians became most cordial, especially as the Spaniards were gratified to obtain much gold in exchange for articles of insignificant value, owing to which circumstances and to the natural advantages of the location, Columbus determined to build a fort with the wreckage of his vessel. The fort was on a hill east of the site of the present town of Cape Haitien. Columbus gave it the name of La Navidad because he had entered the bay on Christmas day, and leaving thirty-nine men as colonists set out on the Ni?a on January 4, 1493, on his return trip to Spain.
Near the great yellow promontory on the north of the island, to which Columbus gave the name it still retains of Monte Cristi, the Pinta, which had deserted the other vessels off Cuba, was sighted. Columbus having heard the excuses of the Pinta's captain, took no action with respect to the latter's delinquency, but set about exploring a large river in the vicinity to which he gave the name of Rio de Oro and which to-day is called the Yaque. Continuing the journey along the coast of the island the vessels rounded the giant promontory of Cape Cabron and that of Samana and entered the great bay of Samana which Columbus at first took to be an arm of the sea. Here it was that the first armed encounter between sons of the old world and the new took place. The Indians set upon the Spaniards when they landed but were quickly driven to flight, one of their number being severely wounded. On the following day, however, a more pleasant meeting took place and presents were exchanged. On January 16 the two vessels set sail for Spain.
The immense excitement produced in Spain by the discoveries of Columbus made the preparation of another expedition an easy matter, and on September 25, 1493, the admiral again set out from Spain, this time with sixteen ships and some 1300 men. After touching at several of the Leeward Islands and Porto Rico, the fleet sighted the Samana peninsula on November 22, 1493, and three days later arrived at Monte Cristi. Here the finding of two corpses of Spaniards filled the members of the expedition with grave apprehensions, which proved justified when two days later they arrived at La Navidad and found the fort completely destroyed, the Indian village burnt to the ground, and the whole neighborhood silent and desolate.
Guacanagari was found at a village further inland and according to his story and that of other Indians, a number of Spaniards had succumbed to disease, others were killed in brawls among themselves and the remainder died at the hands of the inland caciques Caonabo and Guarionex and their warriors, who attacked and destroyed both the fort and the village of Guacanagari. At the same time it was stated that the Spaniards had made themselves hateful to the natives by their domineering disposition and their lewdness and covetousness. The finding in some of the native huts of objects that had belonged to the colonists, as well as other suspicious circumstances, caused Father Boil and other companions of Columbus to doubt the chief's story and insist that sanguinary vengeance be taken. Columbus, however, affected to be satisfied with the explanation given and determined to take no further action, but to seek a new location for the colony. From this time forward discord divided not only