Caribbean (17 page)

“I’m told you were exceptional,” Ocampo said with a slight bow. “And now about the other criteria of a good viceroy?”

“Did he extend the king’s landholdings? He certainly did. Did he subdue the rebellious natives and bring order where chaos had been? He did, he did. And most important of all, I think, he was always attentive to bringing Christianity to them. Yes, that was foremost in his mind, for he often reminded me: ‘Pérez, Queen Isabella personally begged me to make sure that the natives became Christian, and that I’ve done.’ ”

“So if I accept your testimony, the Great Admiral was a success in things that mattered, not so in certain minor concerns?”

“Exactly what I intended to convey.”

Ocampo received his most intriguing testimony during an evening
party at the governor’s house when a woman guest with a hoarse voice and a gleaming eye led him aside into a hallway where no one could overhear, and confided: “I wonder if you’re missing the most important point of all, Excellency.”

“I’m not an excellency, ma’am. Just an honest scholar trying to do his best.”

“Where I’m concerned, anyone who comes with your powers from the king is an excellency. Now, what I want to remind you of is something that the others may be too delicate to speak of, but did you know that Cristóbal Colón was a Jew?”

No, Ocampo did not know, and he was offended by the intimation, but the woman continued in her confidential, raspy whisper: “Yes, unquestionably a Jew. A
converso
. Made a false show of converting to Christianity but continued to practice the Jewish rituals, and if you and I reported him to the Inquisition, he’d be burned at the stake.”

“Ma’am, I find it impossible to believe that a man who has been so amiably accepted at court …”

“The court! It’s infested with Jews, and many of them ought to be burned, too.”

Striving to discover how this woman had penetrated the secret of Colón’s Jewishness, he asked her various questions there in the hallway, but she always retreated to her first justification, that “everyone knows his ugly secret.” But later, when questioning through the town, Ocampo learned that only this woman and a few other malcontents mentioned anything of Colón’s supposed Jewishness, and even though he remembered the king’s determination to stamp out the Jewish religion wherever it appeared in his realms, he now concluded that there was no substance to the charge against Colón.

Ocampo’s attitude was that of most sensible educated Spanish gentlemen of the time: He respected those Jews who, recognizing the superiority of Christianity, had converted to that faith, and he welcomed them without reserve to the core of Spanish life; he had extended his friendship to converts many times in the years since the great expulsion of the Jews in 1492. But he was repelled by those Jews who made a public gesture of converting but who then continued to practice their ugly rites in secret; they were beyond the pale and deserved the harsh treatment the Inquisition handed them. He had attended several big public burnings in Sevilla and had seen God’s hand in them.

He was therefore pleased to hear reassurance from many islanders that whereas there were many things wrong with Cristóbal Colón, principally that he and his brothers were Italians, it was good to know he wasn’t also Jewish, and one afternoon he gave his scribes forthright instructions: “We will say nothing in our report regarding the scandalous rumors that the viceroy was a secret Jew, still practicing and warranting the attention of the Inquisition.” And no notes on that delicate subject were transcribed.

But there was another matter regarding Colón which involved a question of somewhat similar moral gravity for which Ocampo was quite unprepared. It was presented to him by a most unusual visitor who came unannounced to his office, a young priest of twenty-six named Father Gaspar, a nervous sort of fellow, with stringy hair, a bad complexion and fidgety hands, whose awkward behavior betrayed the fact that he knew he was stepping outside his field of responsibility. But there he was, sitting in the witness chair, showing every indication of staying there until he had said his piece: “With your permission, Excellency …”

As always, Ocampo declined that title: “I’m like you, Father, a worker in the vineyard.” The disclaimer reassured the young priest, and he said with a rush of words: “Sir, everyone is aware by now of what you’re doing, and what I have to relate is important in the completion of your portrait of the Great Admiral.”

“That’s well said, Father. Very aptly phrased. That’s what I’m trying to do, paint a portrait of the viceroy as he conducted his important office on this island.” Leaning forward, he added: “So what are the brush strokes you think I might have missed?”

“The natives.”

“You mean the Indians?” Ocampo asked.

“Indians, if you wish, Excellency.”

“It’s not important,” Ocampo said as he leaned back.

The priest continued: “We in the church have been told that a principal mission, especially insofar as Queen Isabella of sacred memory was concerned, of any Spanish activity in our New World is the conversion of Indians to Christianity …”

“No higher mission on earth, Father. Why do you raise the subject?”

“Because the admiral did not try to convert the Indians …”

“That’s not true, young man, and I hope you’ll withdraw such an accusation. Everyone tells me how devout Colón was and how assiduous
in bringing Indian souls to Christ. The testimony’s unanimous.”

“Not from members of the church,” the young man said stoutly, and when Ocampo started to reprimand him again, the priest astonished him by interrupting: “Please let me finish my statement.” The
licenciado
, slowly awakening to the fact that he had a rather difficult situation on his hands, nodded to the young man as if the latter were a cardinal: “Please continue.”

“I was saying that Colón was supposed to convert the Indians but instead he slaughtered them.”

“An appalling statement.”

“I have made bold to bring before you the figures which none of your other people would dare even to discuss.” And the young priest unwrapped a silken cloth tied at the corners and brought forth a carefully prepared summary of what had happened to the Taino Indians
^*3
in the years since Admiral Colón’s arrival in 1492. And he proceeded to recite the dismal figures: “In 1492 this island seems to have had about three hundred thousand Tainos.”

“How can anyone state a fact like that?”

“Church records. Our priests went everywhere. Four years later, in 1496, the population—and this figure we know for sure, because as a very young priest I helped assemble it—the population had dropped by a third to two hundred thousand.”

“What do you mean by the word
dropped
? Who dropped what?”

“I mean senseless slaughter.” The ugly word struck the placid witness room like the explosion of a carelessly piled sack of black powder, and Ocampo was singed. From this moment forward, the interview took on entirely different dimensions, with young Father Gaspar assuming the role of accuser and Ocampo that of the Great Admiral’s defender.

The
licenciado
coughed, adjusted uneasily in his chair, and asked: “Now what do you mean by the words senseless slaughter?”

Undaunted, the priest said: “Unnecessary, barbarous killing.” And Ocampo snapped: “But if our frontiers had to be protected, certainly the viceroy had every right to defend the king’s lands?”

“Were they the king’s?” Father Gaspar asked with an almost boyish simplicity. “The Tainos had occupied them for centuries.”

The question was difficult, and Ocampo knew it, but he had strong and reassuring doctrine to fall back upon: “The pope has decreed that all savages who know not God or the salvation of Jesus Christ are to be civilized by us and brought into the safety and sanctity of the church.”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here, and the others, and we labor mightily to achieve that salvation.”

“And so did Colón. Everyone says so.”

“Not those of us who work in true conversion.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“Conversion of men’s souls. The bringing of light to dark places so that even the Indians can know the love of Jesus Christ.”

“Isn’t that what we all work toward? Isn’t that the mission of Spain in the New World?”

Father Gaspar, only twenty-seven that year, made bold to smile at this idealistic version of Spanish goals: “I would rather say that our mission in the New World is fourfold: finding new lands, conquering them, finding gold, and Christianizing the savages, in that exact order. The hundred thousand Indians missing in this first four violent years were needlessly slaughtered under the orders of Admiral Colón.”

Profoundly agitated, Licenciado Ocampo rose from his heavily ornamented chair, strode about the room, and returned to stand over the priest: “I cannot accept that word
needlessly
. Surely Colón chastised the Indians for their own good.” He stopped abruptly, realizing the essential foolishness of that statement, and as a man of good sense he altered his argument: “I mean, weren’t the savages threatening our settlement?”

Father Gaspar broke into a nervous laugh: “Excellency, did your ship stop at Dominica on the way here? Did the sailors tell you of how those fierce Carib Indians, cannibals all, killed every Spaniard who tried to land on their island? That’s what the word
savage
means. Our Tainos are not like that at all. They fled the Caribs. Gentlest people in the islands. At no time did Colón have any excuse for destroying them.”

“Now just a minute, Father. I’ve sat here for days listening to how your gentle Indians killed every one of the thirty-nine men Colón left at La Navidad in 1493. And how they killed so many of our men at Isabela in those bad years around 1496. Don’t tell me that your precious Indians were gentle—”

To Ocampo’s astonishment, the young priest broke in unceremoniously to make a point he deemed so relevant it could not wait: “But your men stole their food, for one thing. Their women, for another.”

Ocampo recalled that memorable phrase of the sailor Céspedes reporting what his friend from Cádiz had said: “Maybe we’ll take the women we need from the natives …” but he said: “I would hope that self-respecting Spanish men would not have—”

But again the fiery young priest interrupted: “Let me complete my figures. Last year, in 1508, we took another census, this time very accurate, seventy-eight thousand Tainos left. Down from three hundred thousand only a few years ago. Soon, at the rate we’re going, there will probably be less than a thousand.”
^*4

“I cannot accept those figures,” Ocampo said, and suddenly Father Gaspar became all humility: “Excellency, forgive me. I’ve been most rude and I’m ashamed. But you’re preparing an important document and the truth really must be respected.”

“Thank you, young man. I shall pray that what you’ve been telling me isn’t the truth.”

“With your permission, Excellency. Could I recite the details of an incident, a typical one, I believe? I served as chaplain to an expeditionary force sent out from this capital and I was a witness to it myself.”

“Proceed,” and the
licenciado
, a somewhat chastened man, leaned forward once more to hear what this ardent young fellow had to say, for what he’d heard so far was certainly disturbing but also curiously convincing:

The
licenciado
had listened to this narrative with close attention, then sent for local officials, whom he questioned on the spot with Father Gaspar listening: “Was there an expedition against Xaraguá Province?” Yes. “Did Governor Ovando lead it?” He did. “Were many caciques slain?” There had to be. “Was a beautiful lady cacique burned alive?” That was the order, but this good priest here signaled to me and two others to strangle her, which we did.

Ocampo sat silent for some moments, forefingers propping his chin as he tried to visualize what had happened, but then he coughed and leaned forward as if to say: Now let’s get to the facts in this case. “Tell me, Father Gaspar, are you one of those who hold that black men and Indians have souls?”

“I am.”

“What justification for such belief have you heard?”

“That all men who live are human, all equal in God’s love and the care of Jesus.”

“Even savage Indians who know not God … or Jesus?”

“Jesus instructed us to teach them the truth, show them the light, so they could know.”