Forty-one. Even closer to the admiral.
Don Christopherens was quiet and dignified in his personal habits but sharp and severe in his judgments. Everything about him was steeped in his Catholic faith and devotion. The day’s prayers, from the morning Salve Regina to the vespers and its Ave Maria, he led or watched over with intense attention. He missed nothing about a religious service, how it was done, who was respectful, penitent, or devout. Once, I saw a man laugh quietly during a Mass. Next day, he was worked mercilessly until he dropped and then set in the filthy bilboes of the ship for a fortnight. Don Christopherens was somber in correcting waywardness among Christian men and would always turn them over to the worst elements among the marshal’s enforcers for severe punishments.
Those days of his first voyage to our sea, as I knew the admiral, he never changed his mind about anything. He was easy to follow and obey. Much beyond the other covered men, Don Christopherens gathered into himself a mystical force that seemed to carry him. All the early Castilian captains were hardheaded and single-minded and would strike out at long distances; they were tough and mean and powerful. But one had to see the admiral in his long mantle on deck in a misty evening to also see his goeiz, his personal spirit, surrounding him. Even his keenness for gold, which later turned to virulence and sinrazón, was during those days a detached inquiry, something investigated but not coveted. At least, that was his style. Often he delighted in odd little things, like cakes of wax, the smells of particular woods, or the counting of each and every number of flocks of parrots or doves, such as the ones that can blacken out the sun of our islands for days sometimes.
More than a guaxeri, our word for the common independent man, even among the totally uncommon covered men, he was Guamíquina, principal man, the flaming hair who commanded everything, spirit driven by spirit. I would look at him standing among his officers and think: spirit man, what wonders you must behold. Take me to your spirit lands, take me to your shining cities of gold. I want to see, I want to hear and smell your world. This, as we sailed to the island of Santo Domingo for the first time. It didn’t yet touch me how the disturbance of my people had already begun. The repercussions were slight yet compared to my wonder. And I was clever, too, easily adept at projecting devotion at his Mass. His crucifix I revered and learned to genuflect before. I quickly learned the Ave Maria, with Rodrigo’s tutoring. One afternoon, standing at the admiral’s side, I joined the singing. He touched my shoulder proudly, for all the men on ship to see, and next morning he gave me a long shirt to wear. A few times, with the shirt hanging to my knees (as did his cape on him), I found myself standing on the poop deck, in the posture and position of the admiral, watching the horizon. I could feel the shape and power of his spirit at those times, a “greeting of goeizs,” as the old people would say, calming a longing in my own soul.
August 29, 1532
Forty-two. The good friar returns from La Plata.
Father Las Casas came in last night. He rode my Cariblanca back to me, having sent young Silverio by ship with several letters to the mainland. The letters were to his Dominican friends in Mexico, who have appealed to the king on behalf of Enriquillo. The good friar is a hurricane of activity, his mind raging. I could tell by the state of my poor Cariblanca, girth swollen and head hanging low to the ground as he dismounted in the convent stable. “We must talk,” he said, shouldering his own pack. “The final campaign begins.”
Forty-three. Preparations for his trip to court in Spain.
In my room, by candlelight, the good friar discoursed on his strategy to move court and king on Enriquillo’s behalf. It was hours before he stopped reviewing the arguments and only then did he wonder about the message in my letter, “Something about a young boy,” he said.
I reminded him about the Massacre of Anacaona’s Banquet, how I carried the young Enriquillo. He smiled. Father Las Casas seldom smiles. “God bless you, my son. You did save his life.”
But when I told him about the messengers Enriquillo had sent me, he was peeved. “I spent two months trying to contact him! Why did he not answer me?”
I said that Enriquillo could not afford too many contacts.
“Enrique is too independent,” he said. “He must work with our groups. We must work together.”
Father Las Casas reviewed his strategy. A friendly cardinal has the ear of the emperor king, who might consent to settle with Enriquillo. Las Casas feels now is the time to go and present the evidence of the encomienda’s horrible results and call to the king to settle the injustice once and for all.
“But I have to know what he is going to do,” Las Casas complained. “Enriquillo must follow the required steps.”
The good friar explained that in 1530, after meeting with the Spanish court and the emperor king himself, he had returned from Spain to a place in the mainland called Nicaragua, where he met with and delivered an ultimatum to Pizarro, new governor of the Peruvian lands. It was a royal decree by Emperor King Carlos V declaring the Peruvian Indians his vassals, not subject to slavery. Pizarro was shocked, the good friar said, and now all the colonists, from Peru to Nicaragua to Mexico, were of one mind in wishing death upon Las Casas.
“The good queen tried the same in 1502,” I reminded him. “It made no difference.”
“This king will impose himself, one way or the other. He wants this war here ended.”
“The war, yes, but not the encomienda.”
“Without pushing, nothing moves.”
“At the cost of our young cacique’s head?”
Las Casas grimaced at me in exasperation.
“I can tell you now. Before I came this last time I was under siege all over the mainland. Pizarro told me on his way back to Peru: ‘That is what I came here to do is subjugate Indians, work the mines, and clear the lands. If I put my sword to their throats, it is for that reason, or there is no reason.’ Others said worse. They cursed me as an interloper and have given assassins orders to kill me. But this time it was the new governor of Hispaniola himself, Don Sebastian Ramirez de Fuenleal, who wrote to me from here, asking my involvement in the matter of Enriquillo. He has appointed oidores, or hearing judges. Now I can tell you, because the news of an impending embassy is fully known. Tomorrow, I will go meet with the oidores. We will start to set up the covenant and the particulars of the meeting.”
All this information the good friar gained directly from the newly appointed island governor Sebastian Ramirez de Fuenleal. Word was, he said, King Carlos V would pursue a peace negotiation with Enriquillo. However, Enriquillo must agree to a time and a place, and the terms of his peace offer must be clear. He must give up his weapons and horses and accept a degree of justice against some of his men.
“We have them on the run this time,” Las Casas said. “If the king will capitulate here, with Enrique, who has a pitiful band, think of what the royal proclamations could mean for the mainland. The encomienda could be ended here.”
“I am of your group, Don Bartolomé,” I reminded him. “But in the matter of Enriquillo, we each know our half.”
This much smells: one of the oidores is Juan de Vadillo, a crony and, I think, relative of Pedro de Badillo, the lieutenant governor who had Enriquillo beaten and jailed when he petitioned his court against Valenzuela’s attempted rape of Doña Mencia in 1519. That same Pedro de Badillo later commanded a troop of eighty men against Enriquillo, who trailed them around that hard sierra for two months, picking off Badillo’s soldiers from ambush. They tell that Badillo got so mad he started to hack his own mánsos to death.
I trust not these Vadillos or Badillos who hang in with my old tormentor, Pero Lopez, as well as with the cacique’s old master, Andrés Valenzuela; all of them would relish Enriquillo’s head. Neither do I trust the king. I am certain Enriquillo will be assassinated unless we are very careful. Don Bartolomé would save all Indians but sometimes is a bit careless about just one.
“Our rebel cacique requests a Taíno peace-pact ceremony at the negotiat
ions,” I said. “The way Guarionex used to do them, what we called the opening of hearts or exchange of hearts ceremony.”
“Guarionex of La Vega, who was attacked by Bartolomé Colon around 1498?” Las Casas asked. “Who would remember that?”
I nodded, pointing to my own heart. Suddenly, he smiled kindly, again, a rare sight. Thus he recognizes my participation in the earliest days, prior to his own arrival here in 1502. He remembered that Guarionex was my cacique by law, as I married his sister Ceyba and lived in his village for more than a year prior to his sad demise, more than thirty years ago.
I told the good friar about Enriquillo’s conditions. It also occurred to me that my old friend Rodrigo Gallego, now a captain of the court of Seville, might be assigned to the negotiations. Las Casas agreed to carry my letter to him; then, listening to me more carefully, the good friar nodded on all my suggestions for protecting Enriquillo. He understood that Enriquillo’s life was at stake, that he might be assassinated, even as the king’s ambassador might come to sit with him.
“Dieguillo,” he said, and this is the part of this old priest that I truly love. “We are meant for this moment, you and me. We will gather a crew, all our best people and help Enriquillo win his freedom.”
August 31, 1532
Forty-four. Jiqui is captured.
Guamax’s young warrior has been caught. Spanish hounds made short work of the chase and cornered the poor boy yesterday, near a swollen river. His name is Jiqui, same as one of my uncles I left behind at Guanahaní. They have him shackled outside the jail, next to the House of Contracts. His execution is set for two o’clock this afternoon.
Forty-five. The execution of Jiqui.
I write now by candlelight, at the end of a horrible day. This is the Heaven the Castilians have brought us.
After lunch, the good friar and two other monks accompanied me to the square. The heat was intense today. Nevertheless they wore their brown robes and I, too, was dressed, wearing a mánso hat low over my eyes.
Many people were out, including the town ladies and their children. Sailors, soldiers, peons, and town merchants crowded about half of the square. Two local encomienda farms brought all their Indians, more than two hundred men and women. The execution of Jiqui would be a lesson to them. The two groups sat idle for most of the afternoon, a rest day for their tired bodies, waiting for a torment dedicated to their minds.
Santo Domingo is a large town now. Two times ten thousand Spaniards, Indians, African Negroes, and mestizos live here. There are few “free Indians” like myself, but there are some. We are the ones with peculiar histories, given some refuge from the torment of the encomienda by the interest of high officials. In my case, it was Don Diego Colón himself, my namesake and actual son of the admiral, who freed me from all formal servitude in 1522. I am ever thankful to him for the act, which allowed me to recover a measure of my health and no doubt has prolonged my life until now.
The encomienda Indians are pitiful. I walked near to see them fully and recognized not a one from the old days. As always, they were thin, almost all. Several men had open sores from whip lashes and planazos, blows by flat saber. I saw only two children and no old people. They ate cassabe and fruit, packed in among themselves, and many slept in profound stupor before lining up to witness the prisoner’s final torture.
Jiqui stabbed a guard in the leg when he made his getaway. That guard, leg bandaged, sat immediately behind the planted post, next to the jail, as two other guards brought Jiqui to the post. The oidores were out with a rather large group. The bishop was with them.
Everyone was asked to sit, except the farthest out. Oidor Suazo, who is to arrange the Enriquillo negotiations, gestured with his hand, and the sentence was read by the marshal.
“Punishment will be exact,” said the marshal. “The crime was not merely escape. The heathen rebel cut a Christian. And why? So he could go join the devils in the hills. And why? So he could flee to kill and torture other Christians, wherever he may go.”
For this persuasion of mind and for his aggression against an officer of God and king, the young cannibal would be: 1) cut across the back of the calves; 2) set upon by two mastiff dogs; 3) raised up above a fire and slowly roasted until dead.
This happened today. I write it now, only hours afterward, and I will tell it now if I must write all night. I saw the cruelty, one more time, and Las Casas was with me.
There was little in particular about Jiqui. He was young, short in stature, and sinewy. He did not look badly beaten and had treed himself before the dogs got to him. As per the formal Spanish custom, he was fed well before his execution. He was tied chest and face to the thick post, his arms hugging around it, but I could see his face. His eyes scanned the crowd. The post itself was of the xikí tree, a tough wood that will not burn once charred and hardened. Many poor Taínos have hugged that post before, but Jiqui was actually named after his death tree.
The wounded guard, whose name was Carrasco, got to do the cutting. Two men carried his chair to the back of the prisoner, and the marshal gave him a short razor-sharp dagger. Carrasco, a small, thin man with a goat’s beard, held up the dagger and offered the Ave Maria. Then he thanked the marshal and the principal oidor for the privilege. Leaning over, he then poked the boy, Jiqui, in one buttock, getting a piece of the skin and slipping the dagger in a half inch. Jiqui groaned, then Carrasco’s dagger scraped bone and he yelled aloud, “Aiiii!!!”
The crowd gasped, and the soldiers and sailors laughed. Among the guards, several laughed loudly. One yelled to the lined-up Indians, “Hear the devil yelp, you dogs!”
Carrasco looked up proudly. I could tell he was a nobody among the guards before this. Smiling, he raised the dagger to the guards, then put the point at Jiqui’s anus. Jiqui gasped and the guards began to titter loudly, but the marshal barked at Carrasco to “Stay with the sentence.” Dutifully, Carrasco cut the calves then, two deep slits across each, just under the knees. Blood began to flow. Finished with the calves, Carrasco took a stab at the thick of one calf, and Jiqui yelled again.
I wished he wouldn’t yell. It cut into my heart. Searching the crowd, his eyes came to rest on me. I think he could tell I loved him. He was at the age I remembered my twin sons, how I have pictured them since I lost them. But I emphasize that I love all my Taíno-ti, even the ones who have betrayed me. I would kill anyone of them that threatened my Enriquillo, or the cause of our freedoms, but I still love them for being mine and I hold us all to be victims together.
Carrasco was carried away in his chair as two men with dogs on short leashes approached. Mastiffs of war, they sniffed blood excitedly and lunged for Jiqui’s bloody calves. The handlers held the dogs, up on hind legs, inches away from the calves. I wished to yell my love to the boy but was silent. Next to me, I could tell the good friar was praying. At a signal from the marshal, the mastiffs were allowed close enough to lick the blood with their extended tongues, snarling up on hind feet. At a second signal, they tore in, one on each calf, tearing flesh in sharp bites as Jiqui yelled and yelled and yelled.
The dogs were yanked away when they bit into bone. The two balls of the calves were gone. Two men with hot irons burned into the cavities left by the mastiffs and Jiqui slumped as if dead, but his eyes stayed open. Jiqui was untied and lashed by wrist and ankles to a thick iron bar, which was propped between two Y poles with dry brush gathered underneath. He was washed with water, and as he did move his head, he was made to drink copious amounts of it. Then the fire was started.
All watched intently. Jiqui dangled by hands and feet six feet above the fire. His back blackening slowly, his hair singeing, and the horrible smell hung like a mist throughout the square. The sun grew intensely hot, and you could feel the heat of the fire itself. He groaned for two hours before he expired, but no one left the square. Many Indians, including myself, cried quietly for Jiqui as he burned, and among the women in the slave group I did hear the hummed refrains of our areito song of death, to accompany t
he separation of the goeiz from the body and the birth of the opía. Poor boy. How happy he might have been but for the existence of the Castilians on our lands!
I remember Hatuey, who was burned to death and did not utter a sound. I remember the groups of thirteen burned by Ovando after the Massacre of Anacaona’s Banquet. Ovando, here on this island, and later Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa, in Cuba, burned us in groups of thirteen to celebrate the sacred thirteen of Christ and his twelve apostles.
Father Las Casas himself offered extreme unction to the dying young man. For once, there was no attempt to turn him away, although many in the crowd murmured as they recognized him, and someone did yell, “Leave the heathen his route to hell!” However, no one interfered as the guard himself did not. Suazo, the other oidores, and their group, waited for the termination of the rite and then approached the good friar. All nodded and greeted him, somberly but politely. Suazo invited the friar to walk with him a ways and Las Casas went with him. Following that group, Andrés Valenzuela and Pero Lopez, the former encomenderos of both Enriquillo and I, actually walked together. They stood back and watched as Suazo exchanged words with the good friar and led him away. Lopez’s whole group had mean eyes. Several men in their company stood by Jiqui’s charred cadaver for a while, one actually poking it with a stick.
Forty-six. Cruelty is the province of the covered men.
The Christians, the Castilians, have been so cruel. I say, as a people, they have been very cruel. Never among my people did I ever see that kind of meanness. I admit among the Spanish I have good friends and some of them have been very good to us; but as a group they have imposed themselves violently. Tonight, Jiqui, charred and twisted, lies in the heap of ashes of the fire that consumed him. I curse them all for that. I curse the soldiers for what they will do as they drink their wine and spirits tonight, which is they will piss all over the charred remains and call on their favorite saints to bless their deed.
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