Columbus leaves Isabela to Don Diego and marches out with trumpets

To return to the matter: once he had put the five ships in safe keeping, and left the charge of the government to don Diego, his brother, with persons to advise and help him in it, he chose the greater part of the people, those in the best health that he judged there were, on foot and on horseback, together with laborers, masons, carpenters and other craftsmen, with the tools and instruments needed both to try to take out gold and to build some strong house where the Christians could defend themselves if the Indians attempted anything. He left la Isabela with all his Christian people and with some Indians of the village that was near la Isabela, on Wednesday, the 12th of March 1494. To put fear in the land, and to show that if the Indians attempted anything the Christians were powerful enough to hurt and harm them, at the departure from la Isabela he ordered the people to march out in the form of war, with banners unfurled and with their trumpets, and perhaps firing harquebuses, at which the Indians must have been greatly astonished. …