REDISCOVERING COLUMBUS, V:
Under Indian Eyes by Peter Stanford ground, embracing it with tears of joy fort he immeasu rable At daw n the 1ittl e fl eet headed in fo r the shore. Helms were put up and eager hands grabbed dew-fuiTed halyards to ho ist mercy of hav ing reached it, the Adm iral arose and gave thi s square fo resai ls and then lateen mizzens, which had been island the name San Salvador." stowed whil e the ships kept their offing under close-haul ed A crowd oflndi ans gathered ro und and jo ined in the rejoic ing. mai nsail s after sighting land in the moonlight at 2 AM. Braces They were apparentl y considered by the Europeans to be part were tugged to haul yards aro und for the downwind run six of the ceremon y-the first, perh aps, of many misunderstandm iles to the low, sandy land before them. ings to come, based on the nati ve people's seeming to agree We've lost track of what thi s land was, except that it was an with vigorously asserted E uro pean assumptions. T he absurisland in the outer Bahamas. The lead ing cand idates are dity of words being ex pected to convey understand ings and Watling's Island (Samuel Eli ot Mori son's cho ice, now re- ag reements where there were no wo rds in common persisted named San Salvador on the presumption that it is, in fact, among the new arri vals. Indeed , the idea of Indi ans hav ing Co lumbus's San Salvador) and Samana Cay, just over 60 the ir own picture of things seems to have been a long time m iles to the southeast. While these and other possibilities keep breaki ng through to the European consciousness. For some some very able minds engaged in de bate, it seems enough fo r Europeans, clearl y, the breakth ro ugh never came. Co lumbus knew better th an thi s. To him the Indi ans were us to know that it was one of the sand y chain spreading south ward fro m off Florida almost to Puerto Rico, like a peopl e, always. Despite hi s crimes again st the Indi ans-and scouting fl eet di sposed to catch intrude rs from overseas before they were recognized as crimes at the time, notably by hi s they hit upon mainl and America or the inner reaches of the admirer and one-time shipmate, Las Casas-he never wavered in be liev ing thatthey had theirow n immortal souls, the ir Caribbean Sea. These particul ar intruders had been wise to stand off during own ways of doing things and the ir own aspirations. the dark hours and then come in by dayli ght. In the ir advenIn these initi al encounters, Columbu s was charmed by the tures among the islands, they were to find that most of the Indi ans' open fri endliness and simple manners. " In order that islands had outl ying reefs of sharp coral, fi t to tear out a ship 's we might w in good fr iendship ," he wrote, " because I knew that bottom if she stumbl ed upon them. T he remarkably cl ear water they were a people who could better be freed and converted to made it poss ible to spot these underwater hazards, but onl y in our holy fa ith by love than by fo rce, I gave to some of them red day li ght-a lesson that was to be brutall y underlined later in caps and to some glass beads, which they hung on their necks, their expl oration of the islands. and many other things of slight value, in which they took much For now, the voyagers sk irted the reefs, which Columbus pleas ure; they remained so much our fr iends it was a mardescribed as surrounding the who le of the island , and ran vel ... " And , they came back and "gave everyth ing they had, aro und to the leeward (downw ind) side, where the sea was with good wi 11." That everything, he noted, was not very much. calm and there was no danger of being set ashore, unless the He noted again and aga in how handsome these peopl e wind changed and began to blow strongly fro m the oppos ite were: "very well made, of ve ry handsome bodies and very direction. Here they bro ught to and anchored off a beach. good faces ... eyes very handsome and not small ... no be ll y, T he smell of land must have been intox icating to these but ve ry well built." He noted the ir color, " not at all bl ack, but sailors, after their long days and anxious ni ghts at sea, the ir the color of the Canary Islanders," which, he sa id , was to be doubts, the ir land sightings along the way that turned out not expected since they were on the same latitude as Ferro in the to be land after all. Co lum bus notes the greenness of things Canaries-which is approx imate ly true. ashore, the "green and grac ious trees, diffe rent fro m ours, He was, from very earl y on, aware of the ir ex istence as a covered by fl owers and fruits of marvell ous fl avo rs, many peopl e in another important dimension: They had a hi story. In types of fow l and small birds that sing with great sweetness." hi s entry fo r th at first day as hore, whi ch may have been wri tten Later generations of intruders cut down the great hard wood a littl e later, he said: fo rests, and intensive sugar cane culti vation impoveri shed the " I saw some who had marks of wo und s on the ir bodies, and so il on these islands; but latter-day archaeology has recovered made signs to them to as k what it was, and they showed me the bones of fo rest birds fro m islands th at today are utterl y how peopl e of other islands which are near came there and denuded and barren. wi shed to capture them, and they defended themselves. And , of course, the islands had people. The Taino peopl e, And I believed and now believe that people do come here from the mainl and to take them as slaves." a branch of the Arawak fa mily of peoples, inh abited all the islands Co lumbus saw on thi s firs t transatlantic journey. Co lumbu s pi ctured the mainl and as being China. O n later Ev identl y they began gathering on the shore as Columbus, voyages he was to meet the Caribs in islands furth er south and aboard the high-charged Santa Maria, prepared to go as hore in east, who were systematicall y raiding the Tainos in the epoch the ship 's main boat. F itting together the Las Casas and when he happened on the scene. Ferdinand Columbu s acco unts (both based on Columbu s's But throughout thi s first voyage, he persisted in his beli ef lost journal), Mori son g ives thi s picture of the Europeans' that China, or perhaps Japan, was just aro und the corner. There he ex pected to find advanced c iv ilizati ons of great wealthlanding and first encounter with the nati ves: "Presentl y they saw naked people, and the Admiral went go ld-roofed houses in Japan, sa id the usuall y re li able Marco ashore in the armed ship 's boat with the royal standard Polo-and ships larger than any buil t in Euro pe at thi s time di spl ayed. So did the captains of the Pinta and Nina, Martin (which was true). As latter-day hi storians laugh themselves Alonso Pinzon and Vicente Yanez, hi s brother, in their sill y over thi s erro r, let us ordinary mortals rememberboats, with the banners of the Expedition , on which were pl ease-that advanced European cartographers, wo rk ing with depicted a green cross with an F [Ferdinand] and a Y the best avail abl e know ledge, continued to show Chin a and [Isabell a] on the other, and over each his or her crown . And , Japan near the islands Co lumbus sailed among for years after all having rendered thanks to Our Lord kneeling on the thi s and other voyages to thi s part of the worl d. 12
SEA HI STO RY 58, SU MM E R 199 1