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1492-12-17

A cacique drives back a canoe of forty men from Tortuga

Haitian

… In the evening a canoe came there from the Isla de la Tortuga with a good 40 men, and as it reached the beach all the people of the town, who were gathered together, sat down as a sign of peace, and some of those of the canoe, and nearly all, went ashore. The Cacique alone rose and with words that seemed to be threats made them go back to the canoe and threw water at them, and took stones from the beach and threw them into the water, and after all of them with great obedience had placed themselves and embarked in the canoe, he took a stone and put it in the hand of my constable so that he should throw it at them, whom I had sent ashore, and the notary and others, to see whether they brought anything of profit, and the constable would not throw at them. There that cacique showed much that he took the Admiral’s side. The canoe left at once, and after it had gone they told the Admiral that on Tortuga there was more gold than on the Isla Española, because it is nearer to Baneque. …

Source  ·  p. p. 244 Bartolomé de Las Casas, Diario del primer viaje (Las Casas’s abstract of Columbus’s log), in Navarrete, Colección de los viages y descubrimientos, t. I (1825), p. p. 244