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1494-03-12

Hidalgos widen the pass path that Columbus names Puerto de los Hidalgos

Haitian

… 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. He did the same in every town, on entering and on leaving, of those he found on the road. That day they went three league and slept at the foot of a rather rough pass, the whole way over level ground. The roads the Indians used were no wider than what we call footpaths, since they have little encumbrance of clothing or of pack trains or carts that would call for wide ones, and they are no wider than the room their feet need. So the Admiral sent certain gentlemen ahead with laboring men, up the mountain, which extends about two good crossbow shots, to widen it with their hoes and mattocks and, where there were trees, to cut them down and clear them. For this reason he named that pass the Puerto de los Hidalgos, the Pass of the Gentlemen.

Source  ·  p. t. II, pp. 28, 29 Bartolomé de Las Casas, Historia de las Indias (t. II) (1875), p. t. II, pp. 28, 29