“Why do you say Felipillo is a savage? Sure, he likes to eat with his hands, and he doesn’t speak perfect Castilian, but there is nothing cruel or barbaric about him. Father Dominguez told me savages drink human blood and sacrifice children to their gods. Felipillo has never done anything like that. And neither have his people.”

Pedro de las Casas looks at his son Bartolomé and isn’t quite sure what to say. He knows that Felipillo is a Taino, and the Tainos don’t engage in human sacrifice or the ritual drinking of blood. They seem to be such a peaceful people, Pedro thinks, that they probably only have a word for war because the sanguinary Caribs made it a habit to attack them.

“Let’s say they are very primitive,” Pedro de las Casas opines in a solemn voice. “Like you say, they don’t even eat with forks and knives. And the vast majority of them don’t worship the One True God. You should also know that many Taino men and unmarried women go naked, like Adam and Eve before the fall. They live promiscuously, like the jungle animals, the beasts and the monkeys. We Spaniards have a God-given obligation to civilize them and bring them to the Christ.”

By then, Bartolomé was already a very religious adolescent, known not only for his religious devotion but also for his charity, tending to the poor, the hungry and the leper. He thought it was important to convert the natives from the Indies to Catholicism, but he was convinced that they should not be forced to be baptized but only become Christians after being taught to yearn for Jesus through example and instruction.

“Does civilizing them mean you have to take them away from their parents?” asked Bartolomé. “Felipillo tells me he deeply misses them, more than you can imagine. And he longs for the company of his sixteen brothers and his three sisters too. Why have you removed him from his family? What terrible thing has he done for you to enslave him?”

“We didn’t bring the Tainos to Spain from Hispaniola to punish them. And it’s not like we’re making Felipillo work in the mines. He’s just your servant. You’re at the right age to have a valet, responsible for your clothes and appearance. Many Castilian men have the same job so there’s no reason to complain.”

“I think he should be in school like all the other boys his age. He’s a little younger than me and should not have to work for anyone. His Spanish is better than that of Jacques Mornard, the son of the French consul. And Felipillo is ever so curious. Our marvelous architecture fascinates him, especially the Alcazar palace with its Mudejar and Gothic styles, and the.Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See. The simplest things enchant him too, even the stagecoaches and the horses on the cobblestone streets of Seville. He tells me that when he first saw a man on a horse, he thought it was a single animal and it terrified him. But now he loves to ride on horses. I think he would profit from going to school. And I don’t need a valet at the age of sixteen. I can just as easily get dressed by myself.”

“There are hierarchies even in Heaven,” responds Pedro de las Casas. “The Tainos are an inferior, uncivilized people. It is only right and just that they render service to the European, just like the blacks from Africa.”

“Why?” asks Bartolomé. “Why should any man be a slave to another? Didn’t God create all men to be free?”

“I’m not a theologian, Bartolomé. Suffice it to say that to educate Felipillo would do him a great harm. How can I put it? It would create expectations in his mind that could never be realized. It would create an impassable breach between himself and his Taino brothers. And at the same time giving him an education would not make him an equal to the Spaniard.”

“I frankly don’t understand why you brought Felipillo and the other Tainos from the Indies to Spain. If they can never share in the prosperity of the European, why rip them away from the liberty of their lands? Did you know that Felipillo says that on his island his father Guacanagari was a Cristobal Colón¹ and an Almirante²? He thinks those words are Spanish for the leader of a people. I now realize Felipillo is the son of one of the most powerful kings of Hispaniola living in comfort with a dozen concubines. Under the circumstances, to force the boy to come to Spain to be displayed as a curiosity was an act of unimaginable cruelty.”

“We brought the men from the Indies to Castile in order for Queen Isabel and King Fernando to see what we had discovered on our voyage. We have discovered a new world, full of wonders. We also brought some blue guacamayas, white macaws, huge turkeys, green parrots, capuchin monkeys, and some fruits so sweet and delicious no European could ever have imagined them.”

“Human beings are not fruits or guacamayas. You don’t even let them get dressed like Europeans, just a loincloth like they wore on their island, just so you can parade them about town like circus freaks. No, I don’t think that God is pleased at all, the way you exhibit men like show horses and treat them no better than animals.”

“Well, if you feel so strongly about it, we can take Felipillo back to Hispaniola on our next voyage to the Indies with the Almirante. I was hoping you could go with me. You can’t even imagine how wondrous the Indies are.”

“When will the next expedition to the Indies take place?”

“It will probably happen in around eighteen months, maybe when you’re about eighteen.”

“Well, in the meantime I insist Felipillo get educated. He’s far too intelligent to lead a life of servitude. After all, he’s learned rudimentary Spanish in just three years, the time you spent in Hispaniola. If you don’t put him in a school, I’ll teach him the basics myself – Castilian, religion, mathematics, maybe a little Latin.”

“What will he do with an education once he’s back in his island village?”

“You see Felipillo like chattel,” responded Bartolomé. “I see him as a human being, an equal sanctified by the grace of God. Maybe once he’s educated, he’ll be a true leader to his people. After all, his father is what Felipillo calls a cacique and a great king. Maybe Felipillo will be a learned cacique himself. He’ll be able to teach his people to live like Christian men and women, teach them Spanish too. I don’t mind telling you that at this stage in his life his understanding of God is very deficient. He’s been baptized, but he doesn’t comprehend the enormity of that decision. That’s all the more reason to put him in a school led by the Jesuits or the Dominicans. He’s not all that different from the other boys, just a bit more dark-skinned like some Andalusians or gypsies.”

“All right, Bartolomé, but I think you’re making a grave mistake. Felipillo will never feel at home in a school full of blonde and fair-skinned boys.”

“I think he’ll fit right in. At that age, children haven’t yet been taught how to hate or even to see the differences between people. They don’t even know what a Taino is. And Felipillo is so funny they’ll soon delight to have him in their presence.”

***

It did not take long for Felipillo to become perfectly fluent in the Spanish language during his period at the Jesuit academy, to such an extent that he soon became known as a storyteller, loved not only by his fellow students but by the priests as well. He got into the habit of telling fantastic stories from his native lands to his classmates who listened in rapt absorption:  men literally petrified and turned into rocks because they dared to look into the sun or took a girl before she bled; a wild woman with long dark hair and upside-down feet who seduced men only to impale them on a wooden stake; a tribe of dwarves with claws like birds and a penchant for stealing virgins; child-sucking witches who tried to take infant souls at night while their parents were making love; sorcerers with the ability to turn people into animals, plants, fish and birds to protect them from all evil; a woman who laid eggs like a hen and gave birth to crows; savage men who ran around naked, using grunt-like sounds as their only language, who moved in groups at night to steal crops from the peasants; married women who walked backward to meet their secret lovers to protect themselves from being discovered; cruel and violent beings that transformed themselves into animals such as dogs or inanimate objects such as tree trunks to prey upon the unsuspecting villagers; the souls of dead children which came back to life like fireflies to watch over their loved ones… and on and on and on. Felipillo’s capacity to tell stories was inexhaustible and so was the interest of his listeners. At first, Father Toribio tried to dissuade Felipillo from telling his stories, but eventually he concluded they were harmless imaginations. The Taino boy was taking great strides in his Catechism course and would soon realize that there is no such thing as magic and no basis for the animist traditions of his people. He would learn that the only supernatural beings are those recognized by the Holy Catholic Church – the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, saints, angels and demons.

Felipillo’s capacity to tell stories was only matched by his capacity to laugh. None of the Jesuits nor his fellow students ever realized that sometimes the apparently joyful boy was beset by a deep melancholy, a yearning to return to the island where he had left so many things behind: the festivals every harvest season; the sacred dances in honor of sundry deities; the ballgames called batu played on a court called a batey; the performance of staged warfare among the natives of the island; the itinerant storytellers who imparted lessons about the Tainos’ cosmology and provenance and were like living history books. Now Felipillo dressed like a Spaniard, his hair no longer combed down toward the forehead, his face never painted in red and black, but he did not forget the place called Hispaniola by the Europeans.

Felipillo also turned out to be a notorious prankster, mostly at the expense of his fellow students but sometimes at the expense of the patient Father Toribio, too. One time, Felipillo thought it would be funny to put salt in Father Toribio’s daily café con leche.³ When the poor priest began to drink it, he fairly retched and spat out the salty drink onto his cassock, leading all the students in the class to uproarious laughter. Father Toribio took it in stride and laughed as well. “Felipillo, Felipillo,” he cried out in a mirthful tone, “you’re a scoundrel and an aborigine. Who could expect different conduct from you? But I know you meant it for fun, and I won’t reprimand you. As a punishment, you’ll have to finish drinking this delicious café con leche.”

On another occasion, Felipillo pushed the envelope fairly hard, risking expulsion but doing it anyway since he thought it would be hilarious. Pedro de las Casas had brought various earthenware artifacts from his voyage to the Indies with Christopher Columbus, including a statuette of a couple in the throes of sexual love. Felipillo thought it would be immensely funny to put the Taino figure on Father Toribio’s chair. Sure enough, Father Toribio found the small sculpture and didn’t think it was the least bit funny even as it brought his students to giggle with delight. That rascal Felipillo could do anything!

“This time you’ve gone too far, you mischievous little aborigine, and you should probably be expelled for trying to scandalize a priest with figures inciting men to thoughts of concupiscence.”

The priest saw Felipillo avert his eyes and lower his head in shame as he ceased to laugh. Then the priest looked at the boy and gently smiled. Father Toribio loved Felipillo too, loved him in part for his sauciness.

 “But I suppose,” Father Toribio continued in a soft voice, “this is the artwork of your people and I do not condemn it. Greek and Roman sculptures also depict nude figures, and we house them in museums. The figures from your island are no more sinful than theirs, just the product of a people that has not yet learned the importance of modesty. As an act of contrition, Felipillo, I want you to recite five hundred memorares. And please send all these figures to the museum where they belong. I don’t think they should be destroyed as other priests suggest, for they help us understand your people, although I don’t know if many of my Jesuit superiors would agree.”

In March of 1498, Bartolomé announced to Felipillo that the three of them – Felipillo, Bartolomé and his father Pedro – would set sail for the New World from the port of Sanlucar in the month of May. Felipillo didn’t quite understand why Bartolomé and others referred to his island as the New World. It was Europe that was new to him. But he delighted in the news. Little did he understand that when he returned to Hispaniola, it would literally be a “new world,” but not in the way he had originally understood the term.

***

In May 1498, six ships set sail to the Indies from Sanlucar, Spain, three of them commanded by Christopher Columbus and three by Nicolás de Ovando, recently designated the new Governor of Hispaniola by the Catholic kings. Pedro de las Casas, as well as his son Bartolomé and Felipillo, were on the caravan of ships commanded by Ovando, with Hispaniola as their destination. The convoy led by Christopher Columbus was destined for the island of Xaragua. Felipillo couldn’t wait to see his family again: his father whose face was always painted with the colors announcing he was the powerful cacique of the island kingdom, his lovely young mother who had always tended to him with love and discipline, his sixteen brothers each with different mothers, and his three sisters who were probably at the right age for marriage given that by now they probably had experienced their first blood.

As they were getting close to Hispaniola, the Spaniards saw a man on a hollowed tree trunk used as a canoe loaded with fish, his face painted with red, black and yellow stripes. Nobody could have guessed that the simple vessel was a harbinger of calamity. Goveror Ovando took a small boat with Felipillo on it and approached the fisherman to ask for news about the island. The Taino on the canoe didn’t realize the Spanish Governor had no idea what was happening on Hispaniola. He couldn’t guess that Ovando didn’t even have an inkling that the Indians and the Spaniards on the island were at war. Felipillo served as the interpreter but soon felt a deep displeasure in even that small role helping the Spaniards who were apparently at war with his own people. The more he learned about what was happening on Hispaniola, the more distraught and bitter he became.

“Please don’t hurt me with your guns and crossbows,” the Taino pleaded in a high-pitched voice. He had copper-colored skin, high cheekbones and coarse black hair. “I’m not armed,” he explained. “All I have are my fishing nets.”

 “Why would we hurt you, you wretched fool?” the Governor retorted. “We’ve just arrived from faraway Spain and were wondering how the Spaniards have been doing. Have they already finished building the church at Santo Domingo?”

“One of the Spaniards forcibly took Guacanagari’s wife as his own without the great cacique’s consent even though she had become the cacique’s wife in a legitimate Catholic marriage. And the Taino leader responded by slashing the Spaniard’s throat. If you don’t want to hear the rest of this, just tell me so.”

“No, go on,” Commanded Ovando said as his boat bounced on the waves.

“Guacanagari would have gladly shared any of his concubines with the Spaniard, but not his legitimate wife. Soon Guacanagari’s eldest son was dead – the Spaniards tortured him before killing him with a garrote as a way to punish Guacanagari – and the Taino people responded with all their might, burning down the dwellings of the white man, forbidding their use of Indian concubines, shooting the foreigners with the Indians’ poisoned arrows. The Spaniards responded in kind, with the full force of their horses, muskets and cannons. The whole island is steeped in blood. And the killing isn’t over. Neither side wants peace and neither side has yet prevailed. The Spaniards have great advantage in weaponry, but the natives have far greater numbers.”

“So those stupid Indians started a war against the mighty men from Spain because a single woman was taken as a lover and a single man was punished to avenge an act of murder?” queried the incredulous Ovando.

“No, my lordship, it wasn’t because of a single act. That rape of the king’s wife and the killing of his son was when the Spaniards finally went too far. Rapes have been taking place left and right on Hispaniola. The queen still cries when she remembers the brutal act, how she put her nails into the man’s flesh and begged to be left alone, only to be struck fiercely in the face by the white man until she complied.”

At that moment, Felipillo felt he couldn’t continue with his work as an interpreter. He’d just learned that his mother was raped, and his eldest brother was strangled by a garrote. And he started weeping bitterly. Ovando flew into a rage and demanded he stop crying, all the while muttering obscenities. He thought that Felipillo was crying in solidarity with his people, and Ovando would have none of it. He demanded that Felipillo ask the Taino fisherman what he meant by suggesting the rape of Guacanagari’s wife and the killing of her son were tipping points.

“It’s like when you put so much water in a jug that it overflows,” responded the Taino fisherman through his toothless mouth. “The Spaniards have treated the natives from our islands with a habitual cruelty, and the rape of the cacique’s wife was one step too far, one drop too many. The white man has engaged in one outrage upon another, enslaving thousands of our men and sending them to distant lands. Many of our women, even some girls before the first blood, have been treated like whores by the Spaniards, with no respect for Christian decency. Suffice it to say most of us were resigned to our fates as vassals of the white man, but Guacanagari said, ‘no longer.’ And I could go on, but it might offend you.”

“Go ahead,” directed Ovando. “Let me know all about your supposed grievances.”

The Taino man began a lengthy discourse on the horrors visited upon the Tainos by the white man.

“Indians were hanged, burnt alive, drawn and quartered, all for no reason or a reason which did not make any sense. Children were split in half by swords, pregnant women were disemboweled. The white men made sport of killing natives, placing wagers on who could decapitate a man more quickly. Your priests preached peace while your soldiers everywhere sowed the seeds of war, taking advantage of the natives’ peaceful nature until Guacanagari king of the Tainos of Marien rose in arms. You should know that when the foreigners first arrived, Guacanagari treated them like kings and there was no limit to his generosity towards them. He even allowed them to take one of his sons to their country beyond the seas on their last voyage. They responded to his kindness, dare I say his love, with terror.”

The Taino fisherman realized he was being dangerously honest and perhaps more prolix than he should be, but he could not contain his rage, boiling over just like that of his leader the cacique Guacanagari.

“I should smite you right now for your insolence,” said Ovando. “How dare you accuse the Christians of such unspeakable atrocities when all they are trying to do is spread the Catholic faith in the land of the infidel? The Almirante left the Spaniards on your island to protect you from the bloodthirsty cannibalistic Caribs, those who eat your children, and this is the way you choose to repay him?”

“You asked me a question, and I answered it to the best of my ability,” said the Taino fisherman in an even voice. “There were about five hundred fifty white men on the island after your leader the Almirante left. Many have been executed at the orders of our king Guacanagari, and most of the survivors are holed up in the fortress at la Isabela. I had nothing to do with it as I am not a warrior but a fisherman. May I go on my way, your lordship?”

“Yes, you can go back to Hispaniola so that you can tell your fellow infidels that a fleet of a thousand well-armed soldiers have arrived from Spain to bring justice to the island. Tell them that for every Spaniard you kill, we shall hang a hundred Indians. There are three ships full of Christian men ready to invade the island. If you don’t submit, you shall be committing collective suicide. Your bows and arrows are no match to our muskets, crossbows, and cannons as you well know. To us, your javelins are the equivalent of children’s toys.”

“Nor are our bodies a match for the diseases you bring from beyond the sea,” pronounced the fisherman as he prepared to paddle his way back to the island. He knew he was in danger of offending his Spanish interlocutor, maybe risking his life with his accusatory words, but found that in light of everything he didn’t care.

“And it’s not collective suicide that you’re promising,” he continued. “We have already experienced that as thousands upon thousands of our men and women have taken their own lives to avoid being slaves of the white man. Some have jumped off cliffs, some have starved themselves to death, others have taken the bitter poison. But what you’re doing is predicting collective murder. That is what has been happening in our islands ever since the arrival of the Almirante. The white man has brought nothing but death, nothing but illness, nothing but the sword. All you have given us are a few worthless colored beads and bells which you exchanged for our gold, something you prize more than the God to whom you supposedly pray. We also realize that the Almirante has brought common criminals to our island from Spain, men who had been put in prison for their dastardly conduct in your own land. They have proved no less vicious on our islands.”

“You insolent creature,” the Governor retorted with a genocidal fury. “How dare you attack Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea? If any abuses happened, they were committed by rebellious Spanish sailors without the Almirante’s supervision or control. Go back and tell your men to send your leader Guacanagari back to us in a canoe so he can be judged and hanged according to the laws of God. Wasn’t Guacanagari the man accused of murdering all the forty Spaniards left at the outpost at La Navidad by the Almirante in 1493? Unless you bring him now, prepare for your people to be banished from the earth. We shall massacre you in untold numbers.”

“You’ve already done so,” responded the Taino man. “But I shall convey your message to the cacique Guacanagari.”

Felipillo looked at Ovando with eyes full of fear and trepidation.

***

Bartolomé had never expected that his grand adventure – his first trip to the wondrous and fabled Indies – would begin with a catastrophe. Governor Ovando announced to everyone on the ship that they would have to fight their way back onto Hispaniola as the heathens had taken control of the island and were holding nearly four hundred Spaniards captive in a fortress. The problem was that the fortress was built of wood, said Ovando, and could easily be torched by the merciless savages as soon as the Spaniards began their siege of Hispaniola. Before Ovando decided what to do, however, the sailors saw a solitary canoe moving in their direction. On it was a single Taino, probably coming to sue for peace. Felipillo was once again enlisted as an interpreter. The young boy was reluctant to aid the Spaniards in any manner but figured that perhaps he could avoid a bloodbath of cataclysmic proportions through his mediation. So, he and Governor Ovando got on a rowboat and met the Indian messenger on the open seas.

“He says he comes with a proposal to end the war,” Felipillo said to Ovando.

“And how does he prepare to do so?”

“They’ll free the Spanish prisoners on one condition, that the white man immediately depart from the island and never come this way again.”

“That’s not much of a concession,” replied Ovando. “These lands belong to the Catholic King and Queen of Spain. Tell him that I have a counteroffer. We shall grant clemency to all the Tainos involved in the rebellion and punish the caciques other than Guacanagari only with exile. Guacanagari shall be executed according to the traditions of the Taino people.”

“We won’t accept that,” said the Taino messenger. “We’d rather die than continue to be the slaves of the cruel invader.”

“Then prepare for massive punishment,” warned Ovando before he instructed Felipillo to paddle their small craft back toward the caravel.

When Bartolomé learned about the Taino man’s proposal, he could not understand why Governor Ovando had dismissed it out of hand. After all, the island of Hispaniola belonged to the Tainos. If the Spaniards had overstayed their welcome, let alone mistreated and abused the natives in the way reported by the fisherman, the Tainos had every right to demand the Spaniards immediately abandon their island. By what God-given right could the Iberians refuse to do so? The Tainos were not animals to be bought and sold, thought Bartolomé, they were human beings with a divine right to self-determination and the control of their own lands. They had every right to continue their dominion over an island which had been theirs for centuries, if not millennia. What possible rationale – either in canon law or natural law – could be given for taking away their rights to Hispaniola by the force of arms?

At some point, Ovando announced that three of the five Taino interpreters on the Spanish caravels would be beheaded even before the battle began. One of the surviving Tainos would be tasked with going to Hispaniola with the heads of the other three as a warning to the natives on the island. The fifth would be spared from execution in order to continue to work as an interpreter. But first he would have to swear allegiance to King Fernando and Queen Isabel of Spain as the legitimate rulers of all the newly discovered islands – especially Hispaniola – and agree to join in war against the Tainos, using a harquebus against them if necessary. Felipillo could not accept the offer. He would willingly continue to work as an interpreter – perhaps he could somehow broker peace among the warring factions – but he could never agree to hunt down men and women he considered to be his brethren. In fact, he still had brothers and sisters of his own blood on the island, to say nothing of his parents. If he had to be garroted or decapitated for not accepting Ovando’s offer, so be it. Still, he cried as Bartolomé wrapped his arms around him. The Indies were certainly a new world now that the Spaniards controlled them. He remembered an old Taino saying. Things are owned by those who name them. The Almirante had been busy giving new names to all the many islands he supposedly “discovered” and now claimed to own by divine right.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be beheaded,” said Ovando to Felipillo, “given that you are not loyal to the Catholic monarchs but only to your own murderous people.”

The astonished Bartolomé adamantly protested.

“It is deeply against the Catholic faith – and barbaric as well – to mete out the punishment of death against a baptized Catholic for no reason other than to make a macabre point. Felipillo was not involved in the murder of the Spaniards of Hispaniola. And he belongs to me. You have no right to take my property away from me against my consent. Felipillo is a talented interpreter, educated by the Jesuits of Spain, and he is worth a great quantity of money. If you summarily execute him in violation of God’s Commandments, I shall bring it up with Queen Isabel as soon as we return to Spain. She cares deeply about the natives’ welfare as you well know. The Almirante himself has almost lost his position as a result of allegations he abused the Indians.”

“All right,” replied Ovando. “It’s not very important to me either way. But I want to go forward with the beheading of the three others no matter what you say. La letra entra con sangre.⁴ The Tainos will not cease their criminal activities unless violence is met by violence.”

***

When Bartolomé had to make a final decision as to whether or not to fight against the Tainos on behalf of the Spanish Crown, it was the greatest dilemma of his young life. More than a thousand natives had jumped onto their canoes and paddled furiously toward Ovando’s three caravels, their torches looking like tiny fireflies in the distance, with the obvious purpose of attacking and repelling the Europeans. By then, the Spaniards aboard the ships no longer had food or water, and it was impossible to retreat lest the crew end up dying of thirst. Nor did Ovando want to be blamed for losing the island of Hispaniola. Given the circumstances, Ovando realized they had to fight against the onslaught of Indians no matter what. So, he ordered his men to shoot at the incoming natives as they approached on their canoes.  There were so many Indians coming that the Spaniards feared their muskets would be no match for the seemingly infinite number of flame-tipped arrows shot at them by the Tainos. That is when Ovando handed a musket to Bartolomé and directed him to begin shooting at what Ovando called the “homicidal” Indians. Every Catholic on the Spanish ships was expected to do the same under penalty of death. Even the Franciscan priests on board were instructed to participate.

“I’m not sure,” said the eighteen-year-old Bartolomé with an expression of discomfort, “that I want to get involved in an unjustifiable act of war. I didn’t come to the Indies to kill Indians but to learn to live with them in peace and teach them the Catholic faith. The forced occupation of Hispaniola is not justified in the eyes of God. In fact, it makes a mockery of the Christian religion. There is no possible excuse for coming to the islands to enslave the native men and debauch their women. The Tainos don’t owe anything to us just because they have been ‘discovered.’ You should just accept the Tainos’ offer of peace. Have them liberate the captives, give us a little food and water, and then we immediately depart. There is always a path to peace for men enlightened by the One True God.”

“Don’t you realize,” responded Ovando fiercely, his eyes blazing, “that Hispaniola rightfully belongs to the Sovereigns of Spain under a God-given right and the pronouncement of the Pope? Under the circumstances, your refusal to defend the Spaniards in their battle with the Tainos is an act of lèse-majesté. I won’t kill you right now, although it would certainly be justified, but you shall be put in shackles until we return to Spain. Once in Seville, you can be tried for your act of treason by the competent authorities. I’m sure the verdict will be death, assuming we are not all killed by the Tainos first. You still have time to change your mind and fight for the Crown. Your scrupulosity is excessive. What do you say?”

“I’ve made my decision,” responded Bartolomé with a taut pride.

Pandemonium soon ensued. The multitudinous Tainos were able to kill hundreds of Spaniards from a distance with their flame-tipped arrows even as far greater numbers of natives were also killed. There was a realistic possibility that the Tainos would come close enough to Ovando’s vessel to board it and massacre the Spanish mariners given the massive number of Taino warriors. A few of Ovando’s fearful men had already sought refuge in the hull of the flagship in order to avoid being felled by the enemy projectiles. The Governor decided he would punish them later. Ovando then placed the shackled Bartolomé near the ship’s stern in the anticipation he would be killed by the Taino arrows and thus help avoid a complicated trial back in Spain. He also wanted to send a signal to any of his men who might be inclined to disobey him or engage in a mutiny. After all, Ovando knew that his sailors had come to the Indies for easy gold and not for a suicidal war. One way or another, Ovando wanted them to understand their punishment for rebellion or disobedience would be death.

At first, the Spaniards protected themselves from the enemy Tainos through their crossbows and massed longbows, which could fire at a distance of over a thousand feet. They also used harquebuses, whose bullets could kill enemies three thousand feet away, much greater distances than those obtained by the Taino arrows. At some point, Ovando ordered the use of very large cannons mounted on wheeled platforms against the Taino enemy and instructed his men to put on chain mail suits of hardened steel that easily deflected the Indians’ arrows. The roaring cannon balls did much to disperse the enemy, many of whom scattered to the four winds.  But there was a contingent of Tainos who breached the flagship and soon engaged in hand-to-hand combat on the very ship that was meant to be a fortress. Bartolomé was in a quandary. He didn’t know what to pray for. If the Tainos succeeded, his throat would soon be cut. If the Spaniards prevailed, the greedy Iberian usurper would have its prize. In the end, he saw how the colonists used their swords to decapitate ten Indian warriors at a time. The Tainos’ lances were not enough to match the efficiency of the Spaniards’ swords nor to penetrate their armor. In the end, the enemy was vanquished, the Spanish proved victorious, the island of Hispaniola belonged to the Catholic monarchs and their lustful, murderous emissaries.

Bartolomé could not cease to pray with a mix of reverence and despair. Nor could he cease to weep. He had not come to the wondrous Indies to witness a holocaust, but he did.

***

Ovando decided to wait until morning to invade Hispaniola. There was a risk that the Tainos would regroup, but Ovando had a hunch they would try to flee instead. Their finest warriors had just been routed, and they could not possibly expect a victory over the Spaniards on Terra Firma. Ovando knew it would be less advantageous to arrive at the island during the night, as the miscreants could attack the colonists with their bows and arrows without being seen. In the morning, by contrast, the Spaniards would see their targets and overwhelm them with their far superior weapons. So, Ovando decided to wait on deck while he pummeled the island relentlessly with his cannons throughout the night, hoping to terrify the Tainos into submission after destroying their simple dwellings. What he discovered upon disembarking onto Hispaniola in the morning shocked him to the core. The entirety of La Isabela was uninhabited except by a few old men enveloped by the dust. The Tainos had incinerated the fortress where the four hundred Spaniards had taken refuge. Not a single white man remained.

Ovando swore revenge.

The next day, he commandeered a group of a hundred men to pursue those he called the “murderous Tainos.” He was sure they had escaped into the jungle region on the mountains beyond La Isabela thinking it would be most difficult for the Spaniards to find them in a rainforest. Once his platoon had been assembled, he approached Felipillo and ordered him to get dressed appropriately for the projected expedition. Felipillo was taken aback. He was being asked to participate in a journey which would only end with the capture of his father Guacanagari as well as his siblings and his mother. All of them would be hanged or decapitated by the furious Ovando. Felipillo knew that mercy from the Governor was impossible, since never in the conquest of the Indies had the natives killed so many white men in a single night. It was an impossible situation, with no easy solution for Felipillo.

“I would like to be excused from such service, my lord,” Felipillo said in perfect Spanish. “I know I am a vassal of the King and Queen of Spain, to whom the Lord has entrusted all the Indies, and I am forever loyal to them. But those men and women you mean to hunt down are members of my own people, to whom I am bound by bonds of blood and kinship. This is no trifling matter, at least the way I see it.”

“I don’t have time to deal with your foolish scruples, Felipillo. I am the Governor of this island now and order you to serve as my interpreter in this very important mission. I’m not asking you to kill anyone, just to obtain information about the whereabouts of Guacanagari and the other caciques from Indians we meet along the road.”

“By serving as your interpreter, my lordship, I would be helping you achieve the slaughter of my own race, something which is inherently inimical to my conscience as a Taino and – dare I say – as a staunch and devoted Catholic.”

 “There is nothing in the Catholic religion which prevents us from meting out a just punishment for those who have committed barbaric and savage murders. Your service as an interpreter is indispensable.”

“Couldn’t you find another?”

 “As you well know, the other interpreters were beheaded on the Santa Cruz, and all the Spaniards who spoke some Arawak⁵ were incinerated by the Tainos soon after we defeated them in legitimate battle. So, it’s either you or nobody. We don’t need to discuss this matter any further, Felipillo. If you refuse to help us capture the rebellious Indians, you shall share in the same fate as theirs. Is that understood? I mean the garrote or the noose. Which would you prefer?”

Felipillo needed to think on his feet – and fast. The Governor’s order had come so suddenly that he had not prepared a response. He didn’t want to lead Ovando to his father but neither did he wish to be hanged. So, he decided to postpone his decision. There was a remote possibility that they would not find any Indians along the road with useful information about Guacanagari’s whereabouts. And if they found such a person, Felipillo could simply fail to interpret from the Arawak correctly. How could Ovando possibly know if Felipillo said west when a Taino said east? Sure, it would be risky – there was a strong possibility Ovando would realize he was being given a runaround – but Felipillo felt he couldn’t be the architect of his father’s own demise. Leading Ovando to his father would be worse than executing Guacanagari with his own hands, for Ovando would torture the Taino chieftain first.

“All right,” said Felipillo with false conviction. “If you can’t do without my help, your lordship, I shall gladly help you find the enemies of Their Majesties, King Fernando and Queen Isabel of Spain.”

It was difficult for the Spaniards to make their way through the thick foliage, forced to create pathways through the strength of their machetes in the tropical heat. The jungle was so large and dense that they couldn’t find the path – or paths – left behind by the thousand Tainos who had fled from Isabela in a desperate attempt to avoid the white man’s wrath. After several hours roasting in the rainforest, they finally found a solitary woman with a loincloth about her private parts together with an infant. She looked at Felipillo and Ovando with timidity and fearful eyes, inciting Felipillo to compassion. He couldn’t recognize her, though. He thought it was a good sign since it suggested she was not a Taino and perhaps had no idea about the path taken by his father and his people.

“Ask her if she’s from Isabela,” commanded Ovando peremptorily as he fanned his face with his hat.

Felipillo was crestfallen when he heard her response but decided to translate correctly in order to gain the Governor’s confidence.  If she had gotten lost along the way, there was a strong possibility she had no idea where the others went.

“The woman said she comes from Isabela,” stated Felipillo.

“Ask her if she knows where Guacanagari is,” Ovando directed, wiping his bald pate with a handkerchief. The heat was excruciating.

Felipillo held his breath. He hoped she would not say anything with her gestures and was relieved when she said she had no idea where Guacanagari was. Of course, both he and Ovando knew if she was from Isabela, it was likely she would not want to disclose what she knew about Guacanagari’s destination.

Ovando told Felipillo to order the woman to hand over her child. Felipillo well understood what the Governor meant to do. As soon as Ovando held the child, he put a blade at her throat and directed Felipillo to tell the Taino woman that he would kill the child unless she told him where Guacanagari was. The woman didn’t need to wait for Felipillo to translate and started wailing desperately. Felipillo, with composure, told Ovando what she said.

“She swears she has no idea where Guacanagari is. She left Isabela about a week ago, when the battles between the Tainos and the Spaniards began. She was with a group of about ten women who escaped with her and got lost along the way.”

Ovando grimly smiled as if he was contemplating the idea of slitting the child’s throat anyway.

“Don’t do it,” Felipillo cried. “If you do, you’ll have to cut my neck as well. I won’t continue on this expedition if you do anything to hurt that child.”

“I was just jesting,” replied Ovando. “And you know I can’t kill you, don’t you? If I did, how could I ever get to Guacanagari?”

Felipillo suddenly had a flash of insight. What would prevent Ovando from killing him whether or not Guacanagari was found?

***

As soon as Christopher Columbus arrived on the island of Hispaniola, Pedro de las Casas complained that Governor Ovando had put his son in shackles. Pedro had accompanied the Almirante on his second voyage to the Indies. The two men had developed a deep friendship during the perilous journey and during the two years they spent together exploring the Indies and establishing a foothold at Hispaniola.  So, Christopher Columbus immediately directed Ovando to free his eighteen-year-old captive. The Governor bristled at being countermanded, but he recognized the Almirante was in charge. Bartolomé was soon reunited with his father and wept with relief and joy. Bartolomé then turned to the Almirante and told him he should revoke the Governor’s order to execute Guacanagari and ten other caciques along with their families.

“Anything they did was because of longtime abuse. It’s not just that they’re treated like beasts of burden. They’re treated far worse than the Spaniards’ horses, less kindly than dogs.”

Bartolomé soon discovered that Christopher Columbus was no less fierce than Governor Ovando when it came to quashing any rebellion among the natives of the Caribbean.

“I would garrote Guacanagari with my own hands,” announced the Almirante with implacable hostility. “He killed nearly four hundred of my men at the fort of La Isabela and then another fifty when Ovando went on the mission to capture him. Rather than allowing himself to be taken immediately, he preferred to let hundreds of his Tainos die in his defense. The Governor tells me that your own interpreter, the good-natured Felipillo, was among the dead.”

“I have reason to suspect,” interrupted Pedro, “that if Felipillo was killed, it was done at the orders of Governor Ovando. He had previously ordered the Taino boy to be beheaded for failing to participate in the destruction of his native people. I think an investigation is appropriate at this point. No matter what happened to Felipillo, there are probably many witnesses to the crime.”

“That is rank speculation,” objected the Almirante. “But I give my full support to whatever the Governor does to teach a lesson to these aborigenes.”

“The lesson has already been taught,” intervened the flustered Bartolomé. “Nearly five hundred Tainos were massacred in the struggle to take Gucanagari. I’ve received that information from my own guard. And he told me many of the Indians were killed after they had already given up the fight. Go ahead and punish the cacique with death but leave the members of his family alone.”

“I have said what I have said,” the Almirante responded curtly.

By nine in the morning, the main square in the village was full of the captured Tainos. Ovando had brought them back from their jungle refuge and ordered them all to witness the martyrdom of their luckless cacique. That would ensure that the Tainos would never revolt again. Ovando announced that not only Guacanagari and his family members would be killed, but also ten other caciques and their families. The execution was to be an all-day event. Nobody would be spared because of sex or age. To make the punishment worse, Ovando ordered that before any caciques were killed, they would first be forced to see the torture and killing of their entire families. And the last to be killed would be the rebel mastermind Guacanagari in the worst possible method, burnt by the spiraling flame after being dismembered.

Bartolomé told his father that Christopher Columbus and Governor Ovando were inviting the wrath of God. It might be justified to immolate the leader Guacanagari, but there was no possible justification for killing his children or the others.

“The die is cast,” opined Pedro de las Casas with a funerary expression. “And the Almirante will not budge.”

The first victim brought to the scaffold was a young woman, perhaps seventeen years old, desperately wailing.

“I had nothing to do with burning the fortress or killing any Christians. My father, Guarionex, is a noble cacique, but he is also innocent of the crime for which we’re being punished. Please, in the name of your God, please spare me. I am but a girl.”

“Wasn’t your father among the men who attacked our caravels with your flame-tipped arrows?”

“He might have been, but I had nothing to do with it. I don’t deserve to be hanged. Even the ruthless Caribs don’t resort to killing women. They take them as concubines instead, and yet you call them soulless savages.”

“Do you want to be baptized in the Catholic faith?” asked the impassive Ovando. “Do you want to swear allegiance to the One True God?”

“Does that mean I shall be spared – if I accept your religion?”

“No, you’ll still be hanged,” responded Ovando with a macabre serenity. “But you shall die knowing you shall meet with God in Heaven.”

“Are there Spaniards in Heaven?” asked the girl amid her sobs.

“Absolutely, we the Spaniards are all Catholics.”

“Then I want nothing with your God. If Heaven is full of Spaniards, it’s not a place where I want to go. And I see no reason to revere your God. We lived at peace with our gentle gods. With the Spanish God, we have nothing but tribulations, nothing but mayhem. I detest your religion as do all the Tainos.”

Suddenly Christopher Columbus rose from his seat and roared.

“This woman is blaspheming against the One True God. Her tongue must be cut to teach everyone that the slightest insult against the Lord will be severely punished.”

Ovando was all too happy to oblige.

“Do with me what you will,” said the disconsolate woman as she collapsed onto the ground.

Bartolomé cringed in his seat as the lovely girl was hanged, but there was nothing he could do about it. In the brave new world that was the Indies, power was in the hands of the marauders, those in search of gold and plunder. Religion had become a farce, paid lip service but no more. He prayed a Hail Mary for the soul of the poor girl, realizing that her Spanish masters, rather than bringing her to the Catholic faith, had only succeeded in making her reject it. Given the example set by the rapacious foreigners, thought Bartolomé, it was a miracle that even one native had been converted, but nothing is impossible with God.

The rest of the afternoon was a grisly spectacle as more than forty Tainos were killed, one after the other. Some wept and pleaded, but the vast majority were silently stoic. Even those who violently announced that they were baptized Catholics were not spared. Finally, with all the cadavers of the murdered Tainos still on the ground, it was Guacanagari’s turn. Four guards held him by the shoulders as one of Ovando’s executioners – the Governor didn’t want to get bloodied himself – slowly dismembered him with a sword. Once he was nothing but a bleeding torso, he was set aflame by the heartless Ovando.

“Let everyone realize,” proclaimed the Governor, “that no one can escape the justice of the One True God.”

Christopher Columbus cheered him from a distance. Bartolomé bowed down his head and prayed.

***

Several years later, when Bartolomé had already become a priest and named Protector of the Indians by the Pope, he received an unexpected visitor at his monastery in Seville as he was sitting at his desk with a quill pen, writing about his experiences in the New World. The man who arrived was much older than the last time Bartolomé had seen him, but despite the passage of the years, the man’s face was unmistakable. It was little Felipillo, dressed and coiffed like a Spaniard, in a white linen shirt with a ruff and matching wrist ruffs, over which he had a black doublet with long sleeves. But now there was an unshakeable seriousness about him, something rough and imperturbable, as if he had lost his capacity to laugh.

“I thought that you had died a long time ago,” said Father Bartolomé. “I was sure that Ovando had killed you and then covered up the crime by blaming it on the Tainos.”

“I’m sure that was his intention, but I didn’t give him the opportunity to do so. As soon as I had the chance, I ran for my life and made my way through the dense jungle with Ovando’s men hot on my heels. But I had one unmistakable advantage. I knew the terrain. I was used to traveling through the mountains during my childhood and adolescence. I knew my chances of survival were slim to none if I did not make it to Hispaniola’s southern shore and boarded a vessel to another island.”

“I assume you did just that,” responded Bartolomé.

“I somehow made it to the southern coast and was rescued by a tribe of Caribs who took me to the port at Panama. They have such a bad reputation, known as savages and cannibals, but by then all the Indians of the Caribbean knew the Spaniards were the foe of all. They had received news of the Spanish attack at La Isabela and expected an expedition against their tribe would come soon as well.”

“Where did you find refuge?”

“I enlisted as a sailor with a ship returning from the Indies to Portugal and ended up on the Canary Islands. I quickly found work as a stevedore. But then I was enslaved again and taken to the island of Cuba, where I was forced to work on an encomienda⁶ under the command of a ruthless encomendero.⁷ I assure you that I wasn’t captured by the slave catchers without a fight. I was only trapped when they felled me with a hail of bullets.”

“I myself was an encomendero in Cuba, to my everlasting shame,” said Father Bartolomé. “After the debacle at Hispaniola, I spent several years in the Indies, eventually becoming a priest and participating as a chaplain in Diego de Velazquez’s conquest of Cuba in 1513.”

“I was already enslaved in Havana by that time,” admitted Felipillo as if his fate had been inevitable.

 “I had some misgivings about accompanying the marauders in battle,” continued Father Bartolomé, “but I figured I would make them more humane if I constantly talked to them about the Catholic faith and administered the Sacraments to them, especially Confession. That would be a check on their baser instincts. I fiercely protested the barbarous actions of the Spaniards in the battle at Caonao and was greatly troubled by the carnage which I swear turned the rivers red. That made me think perhaps it had been a mistake to join Velazquez’s forces as their chaplain, but I reassured myself with the knowledge that I had been able to rescue a great number of Tainos from being killed. And for my service in battle, I was given an encomienda in Camaguey.”

“The encomenderos were no better than the Spaniards who arrived at Hispaniola in their quest for gold,” said Felipillo bitterly, as his eyes became watery. “I was turned over to Pedro García, an ill-tempered man who had been a swineherd in Spain and delighted in the power he had in his new role as master of a hundred Indians. He treated us worse than animals, habitually flogging the natives who did not work as hard as he demanded while he lived his life in indolence. On more than one occasion, he hanged an Indian over a trifle. We eventually learned that he had been incarcerated as a common criminal in Spain.”

“Yes, I figured that out myself,” said Father Bartolomé. “Initially I did not have any qualms over running my encomienda with the help of local Indians. I treated them fairly, after all, and I was certainly not mercilessly exploiting them, nor did I subject any of them to the cruel and inhumane punishments to which the Tainos of Hispaniola became accustomed ever since the ‘discovery’ of the Indies.”

“You were the exception to the rule,” replied Felipillo.

“Yes, I learned that quickly,” responded Father Bartolomé. “Within three months of my arrival at Camaguey, I learned of the abuses committed by the other encomenderos of Cuba and concluded that the institution was inherently unjust. I discovered that the encomienda was the cruelest example of tyranny. The Indians were formally designated as slaves within the system and had no rights as human beings. This conviction became more ingrained in me after I was excommunicated for running an encomienda by Bishop Rodríguez of Havana who said it was a mortal sin to do so. I was somewhat reluctant to leave the slaves of my encomienda as I figured they would receive worse treatment under another encomendero. Still, I couldn’t preach against the encomienda if I was an encomendero myself.”

“I killed my encomendero,” Felipillo wryly observed. “I confessed my sin many years ago, but frankly I fear it may not be a valid Confession, as I feel no remorse over my crime. Encomendero García was an adulterer and a sodomite who did not hesitate to use any Indian of either gender to satisfy his lust, especially when he was drunk, which happened often. He owned us, after all. Do you understand what it means to be owned by such a man? I had to flee and the only way to do so was to take his life.”

There was a grim fatalism in Felipillo that Father Bartolomé had never seen before. There was nothing left of the teenage jokester now, nor of the innocent boy when he first arrived in Spain, just a man with too many scars like all the few remaining Tainos. Gone was the lively voice with which he spoke as an adolescent, gone was the optimism of his youth in Spain. And yet he had managed to survive through sheer grit for so many years.

“I’m sure the Lord in His Mercy has forgiven you,” said Father Bartolomé gravely. “That is one of the worst aspects of the slave trade in general and the encomienda in particular. The system often forces the natives to commit unspeakable acts in their acute despair. I have spent the last twenty years of my life fighting the encomienda with mixed results. At some point, I persuaded King Fernando to abolish the encomienda system, but the encomenderos of Cuba and Hispaniola fiercely protested and the law became a dead letter. Now I am writing a book entitled "A Very Short Description of the Destruction of the Indies," meant for King Carlos to read. Do you realize what has happened to the Tainos of Hispaniola since our days on the island? They are virtually disappearing. When I first arrived, approximately a million souls lived in Hispaniola. By 1510, that number dwindled to thirty thousand. And I’m sure that by now there are no more than a few thousand Tainos left on Hispaniola, all because of the actions of the so-called Christians in their relentless demand for gold. What had once been Paradise on earth is now Purgatory at best, except there are far fewer people in Hispaniola than in Purgatory. The Indians have been ravaged by exhaustion, murder, work in dangerous mines, collective suicide and disease. But tell me, Felipillo, how did you manage to find yourself in Spain today?”

“I sought refuge with a group of runaway cimarrones – escaped African slaves – who congregated on the Sierra Maestra far away from the Spanish soldiers and encomenderos.  I lived on the mountains of Cuba for years, learning to live like the most primitive of aborigenes, eating whatever fruit I found in the forest, hunting for wild boar with a bow and arrow, sleeping wherever the night found me. We were avid for food, avid for women, avid for a good night’s sleep. And yet, remarkably, we were able to survive in the bush for over a dozen years. At some point, we ran into an itinerant Dominican priest who felt compassion for us. He was a small, grizzled man whom you would never think would be a rebel in any way. And yet he hid us in his monastery – he had been helping African and Taino slaves escape from Cuba for years – and he told us that there were many libertos in Spain, that is, freed slaves. If we made it to Spain, he told us, we could live in liberty as long as we were baptized Christians. The problem was getting there.”

 “I may know that man,” replied Father Bartolomé. “There were many Spanish priests helping slaves escape from the Spanish Indies, but none as fiercely determined as Father Evaristo Buendía. And I do remember him as a tiny, grizzled priest.”

“Yes, that’s the man,” affirmed Felipillo. “He was no more than five feet tall.”

“So, he got you false papers,” guessed Father Bartolomé.

“That was the plan, but I had misgivings about it. I had my experience in the Canary Islands where I had been put in shackles shortly after my arrival. But the priest somehow obtained documentation proving that all of us – fourteen blacks and myself – belonged to the Dominican order. All of us found ourselves at the port of Havana. There were such tumultuous crowds at the Malecón that there was no danger that anybody would recognize us after so many years in hiding nor any reason for the authorities to doubt the papers provided by Father Buendía were anything but authentic. As you well know, there are priests who are also encomenderos, so there was nothing unusual about a priest taking a group of slaves back to Mother Spain. I have now spent five years on the peninsula – I was given a job at the Dominican monastery in Barcelona – but although I came to Seville several times looking for you, I was never able to find you.”

“I’ve spent years crisscrossing the Atlantic,” responded Father Bartolomé. “I’ve made more voyages to the Indies than the Almirante himself, always trying to humanize the treatment of the doomed natives of the Indies. But it’s been a tough struggle, Felipillo. The encomenderos are fierce in their defense of their prerogatives. When I was bishop of Chiapas, I excommunicated every encomendero and denied last rites to any owner of an encomienda unless he first freed all his indigenous slaves. I don’t need to tell you that the response of the Church hierarchy was less than pleased with what I had been doing and promptly directed me to cease punishing the encomenderos. Despite my efforts, the encomienda system has spread throughout the Spanish Indies, to far-flung places like Mexico and Venezuela. The Indians continue to be enslaved and the African is treated even worse. I’ve heard that the Portuguese tyrannize their African slaves in Brazil with a barbarity exceeding even that of the Spaniards. And there is no end in sight.”

“No end in sight,” assented Felipillo. “The original inhabitants of the Indies will be destroyed. There will come a day when there are no Tainos on Hispaniola, just the descendants of the white overlords and their African slaves.”