The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1901-12-26

and home. The fate of the Pinta
could only be conJectured and the
great news of the discovery Of this
land in the west was not yet known
in Europe. Clearly Columbus must
take the Nina and proceed at once to
Spain and to do SO he must leave a
lnumoerof his sailors on this unfamiliar
isle until help could be returned to
them, and there was the dread of los
ing the worn and strained little caravel
with all on board in some mid-ocean
storm.
When the plan was announced and
d call was made for volunteers to re-
main behind, perhaps never to be
rescued, it was found that majority
Of the men were not only willing to stay
but that they begged for the privilege.
The prospect of life of indolent ease
among the genial natives in the new
found tropical land was very alluring
to these hardy mariners and the diff
iiculty was to find men enough willing
to sail the boat. The wrecked ships
timbers and the forest trees afforded
material for a hastily built block
house, the admiral's guns furnished
the armament, and provisions for
year were stored sway. This work
was rapidly carried forward and on
January 4, 1893, the Nina, carrying
Columbus and twenty-four sailors,
with ten half reluctant Indians, sail
ed away for home, leaving ~ happy
companions on shore.
Hugging the coast for safety Colum-
bus was amazed on the second day to
descry strange sail in little cove.
but on drawing closer he made it out
to be the Pinta, which had reached
the island several days earlier than
the admiral, and Pinzon, makidg
lame excuse for his desertion, yielded
to his superiOr's authority and pro-
ceeded with him to Paios.
The fate of the forty-three Span
iards is one of the mysteries of his
tory. Because of the Christmas wreck
the little settlement, the first plant
ed by Europeans on American soil,
was named La Nayidad, or "Fort
Nativity" and there was no good
reason why it should not have pros
pered. So many able -bodied men in
fertile tropical country, with sup
plies for whole year and on amicable
terms with the natives, ought to have
lived in peace and comfort, but they
were lazy, cruel, ignorant, bigoted,
arrogant and dOmineering, and they
not only quarreled and fought among
themselves but they committed out
RACES upon the Indians, who became
at first suspicious and then hostile,
and the ground was laid for all the
trouble that has since occurred be-
tween the red man and the white.
Had the friendly disposition first
manifested by the Indians toward
Europeans been cultivated instead of
abused there is no reason to suppose
that they would have changed to the
savage and relentless foes they after
wards became.
After dark on the 9th of the Nov
ember following Columbus again
entered the harbor at Fort Nativity.
He had seventeen ships and l, 800 men,
with horses, goats. sheep, pigs, fowls,
blOodhounds, seeds and other supplies
with which to reinforce and extend
the little colony of which he
was very hopeful. Eager to
know if everything was well
on the land he fired gun as he drop
PED anchor, but no answering signal
came from shore an and anxious night
was passed, filled with dismal fore
bodings for the Christmas settlement.
Fastening to the site of the fortress
at early dawn landing party found a
few charred timbers, broken chests
and some small articles scattered
about, and further search disclosed
eleven corpses of white men, not
identifiable, buried in shallow graves
near the spot.
Nothing more was ever found to
suggest the time, cause or nature of
the catastrophe. What became of the
32 Spaniards left unaccounted for can
never be certainly known, but years
later there were tales among the Ind
ians of strange white men living in
the Cibao mountains in the interior.
There was another Indian story to the
effect that a chief named Caonabo,
who afterwards made life SO miserable |
for the later colonists that he was de-
ported and whose wife Anacaona took |
up his hostile work and was hanged to
a tree, became infuriated by the reck-
less depredations of the sailors and re-
taliated, numbering them wherever he