Seeing a battle plan taking shape in Caonabó’s mind, I whispered to Chief Guacanagarí, “Do not fear. We will put our men to work for them for the day. But tonight as they sleep …”
Chief Guacanagarí motioned that he did not want to hear any more. We had neither his blessing nor his disapproval.
“We must do this,” I whispered to him, “so that Quisqueya can live, so my Higuamota can marry one of your young sons.”
And having nearly as many wives as Behechio, he had many young sons from which my Higuamota could choose.
Leaving Chief Guacanagarí behind, Caonabó signaled for the pale men to follow us up a trail to the mountains. The pale men motioned for a large group of Marién people to follow us as well. Caonabó kept saying the word tuob to the pale men. And as we marched up a trail toward the mountains, I felt as though I was suddenly journeying to an uncertain place. All around us, burial plots had been dug up, bones thrown aside, and golden objects removed from sacred soil. Nearby, a pregnant woman lay dead, her still bulging belly leaning slightly away from her body. Corpses were strewn all along our path, heads separated from bodies. The body of one dead child was leaning against a post, as if he had been carefully hooked there.
Each step was agonizing as we walked past the high wooden dwelling built from the salvaged pieces of the pale men’s wrecked ship. It was almost as large as one of our plazas, but more narrow. Knowing that Marién people were probably forced to build it pained me even more.
As we walked past the dwelling, the pale men called for others inside to join them. We were now a large group, heading for the mountains, looking for the gold that might soothe them, until dark.
LATER
We spent the day bent over in the scalding sun, panning and mining for gold. It was difficult work and many of our people fell into the river, too weary to continue. They were quickly replaced by some Mariéns whom the pale men called forward. Manicaotex knew where gold could be found and he led the pale men to it. Our fighters worked arduously, turning over rocks in rivers and digging craters in the sides of the mountains to find a pile as tall and as wide as one of these men.
As they worked in the hot sun looking for gold, I wondered if our people were not tiring themselves too much. Would we be able to fight later?
STILL LATER
As the sun set and it became too dark to look for gold, our fighters were at last permitted to gather some food to eat. Rather than food, Caonabó and Manicaotex and I commanded them to collect hot peppers, which we would use in our attacks on the settlement.
By the time the moon surfaced, we had also collected rocks and pieces of dry wood with which to begin a fire. The pale men were lazy, and once the Marién workers had moved all the gold we had collected to their dwelling, they gathered there, drinking the corn wine and the food the Marién women brought them. Soon the torches faded and they fell asleep.
We waited for the torches in Chief Guacanagarí’s house to fade, too. We had not returned to see him, for we did not want to endanger whatever promises he had made to the pale men’s supreme leader concerning their protection. Still, after dark, even though Manicaotex’s land warriors had not yet arrived, many of Chief Guacanagarí’s men surfaced in the plaza, with spears and sharpened stones for our attack.
We had to move quickly, ordering a charge toward the pale men’s settlement. The true gods of our ancestors were certainly with us, for we all acted swiftly and as though we were one being, different limbs of one body.
Some of our men wrapped hot peppers in dried banana leaves, set them aflame, and threw them into the pale men’s quarters. In spite of the peppered smoke, many of our men also leaped inside and bravely battled against the lightning rods with stones and spears. I could not see Caonabó for some time, but watched as many of the pale men stepped out in the moonlight with bloody heads, leaned forward, and fell to the ground. Woefully, many Marién women, who were in the dwelling, lost their lives as well. I saw Manicaotex carry several of them out, only to lay them on the ground to die. Many of our men were lost, too, with large holes dug into their bodies by the lightning rods or deep wounds carved by sharp, long knives. I had my chance to wrap my fingers around the neck of one young invader as he stumbled toward one of the dying women I was cradling in my arms, but my heart softened and I kept to my task, which at that moment was to help this woman die.
Soon, the pale men’s entire settlement was ablaze, and in the glare of that light I saw Caonabó and Manicaotex running to me.
I lowered the girl onto the grass and grabbed Caonabó’s hand and held it as strongly as I could. The flames were now leaping up to the sky. Many of Chief Guacanagarí’s men looked stunned, but satisfied. There were only two pale men left, the sickly ones at Chief Guacanagarí’s doorstep, who were near death, anyway.
“We must go now,” Caonabó shouted to Manicaotex and our fighters. We started running for the beach, where we had anchored our canoes. Our men hastily followed us, their footsteps as loud as thunder. Reaching the beach, we quickly climbed into our canoes. Our retreat was swift, and soon Marién was behind us.
FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 4
Caonabó, Manicaotex, and I did not speak very much on the journey back to Maguana. We were all too startled by what we had seen and done. It was only when the sun came up that I noticed a large cut on Caonabó’s arm. One of the pale men had sliced him with a knife. We were without a healer, so Manicaotex had to treat him. All we had in abundance was seawater, which our all fighters used to treat their wounds.
HALF MOON, DAY 5
We approached Maguana with some trepidation. Would more pale men be there? Were our people their prisoners? From the beach, all seemed calm. But the calm of the seas and the stillness of the wind could be deceiving.
We marched toward our home with our fighters closely behind us, ready to fight again if we had to. But thankfully, we did not have to fight. Maguana was as it has always been, green and lush and tranquil.
Higuamota was brought to us soon after we arrived. I ran to her and scooped her up in my arms, watching her awaken with a smile. Caonabó and I took turns embracing her and thanking Simihena for looking after her. Manicaotex will be staying with us until those of his fighters who went to Marién by land return.
HALF MOON, DAY 7
Even as we wait with Manicaotex to hear from his fighters, we sent word to Behechio of our victory in Marién. What great joy it gives me to hold Higuamota in my arms again, to sit with Caonabó and Manicaotex and share a tranquil meal, to carve a symbol with Simihena to place in the temple to thank our ancestors for watching over us, to see Marahay cooking her pepper pot again. Only now can I think of how closely we had all come to losing our lives.
FULL MOON, DAY 13
No word yet from Behechio or from Manicaotex’s fighters. Did they face more danger? Have they been defeated? And what of Xaraguá?
FULL MOON, DAY 15
No word also from Chief Guacanagarí. I thought he would have sent a messenger to reproach or praise us. I pray that if there are remaining able-bodied pale men in Marién, they will not exact revenge on him for our actions, for it is all too clear that these invaders were no different than the Kalinas, who would destroy us all, if they could. Maybe we will encounter these pale creatures again, but we will continue to combat them, just as we are slowly learning to combat the Kalinas. For we have no choice. Our people’s survival depends on it.
LAST QUARTER MOON, DAY 19
We have word from Manicaotex’s men. They returned by land, stopping in Maguá, Higüey, Xaraguá then Maguana to be certain that there were no pale men left in our regions. (The two sick ones that Chief Guacanagarí’s daughter was looking after died of the mysterious illness that had covered their bodies in sores.) Behechio and Chief Cotubanamá of Higüey sent us cages of beautiful birds — eagles, falcons, hawks, geese, and doves — to honor our victory. We are triumphant! At least for now.
Before Manicaotex left us to return to Maguana, we had a feas
t to thank the gods for our victory. Caonabó and Manicaotex played mock battles along with our fighters. We had ball games both in daylight and at night. We danced, sang ballads, and recited several tales. However, the longest tale of all was mine. It was an account of our season of war. This tale was long not because I described every detail of the battle but because I also spoke of the days that came before it.
Sitting in the plaza, with Caonabó at my side and Higuamota in my arms, I told of the day of my marriage to Caonabó, of my arrival in Maguana, and of the birth of my daughter. I also told of the Night Marchers and the frog children and of Mácocael and our ancestors from the caves. I told such a lengthy tale because I did not want our battle with the pale men to become the only story our people would ever recite from now on. For we had other stories, too, happy as well as sad ones. Our encounter with the pale men was only a small piece of that story. Surely an important piece, but not the most important.
Yes, I want our victory over the pale men to be a tale that will inspire us when we have other battles to fight, one that reminds us that, like the Kalinas, we are a strong and powerful people. I do want it to be a story whose veracity the young ones will ask me to confirm when I am an old woman, a story that my Higuamota will tell and retell to her own children. But I do not want it to become the only story we ever have to share with one another. It cannot be. It must not be.
Unfortunately, this was not the last that Anacaona saw of the Spanish invaders. A few months later, in November 1493, their supreme leader, Christopher Columbus, returned from Spain with seventeen ships, 1700 men, ammunition, hunting dogs, and horses. In revenge for the attack on Columbus’s settlement in Chief Guacanagarí’s territory — a settlement the Spaniards had named La Navidad (The Nativity), since it was established on Christmas Day — Chief Caonabó was captured by Columbus’s men. Caonabó’s brother Manicaotex brought together thousands of fighters from all over the island in an effort to rescue him, but Manicaotex and his warriors were overcome by the Spanish. Defeated, Manicaotex was also captured and placed on board the same ship as his brother, a ship that was to bring them to Europe, where their fate would be decided by the king and queen of Spain. The ship capsized at sea, during what is believed to have been Caonabó and Manicaotex’s last valiant battle. Everyone on board, including the brothers, perished.
After her husband’s death, a sad yet resolute Anacaona returned with her daughter to Xaraguá to rule with her brother Behechio. When Behechio died, she became the sole ruler of Xaraguá, one of the last remaining and most powerful Taíno leaders on the island. However, the fact that the Spaniards had managed to capture two of the island’s most capable warriors intimidated the other caciques and cacicas, including Anacaona, into following Columbus’s brutal new order, which demanded a quarterly tariff of a “large bell” full of gold and twenty-five pounds of cotton from every Taíno over fourteen years old. To make sure that this tariff was paid, Columbus established a system of forced labor in which Taínos were made to work on cotton and tobacco plantations and in gold mines. Overworked and malnourished, and often flogged and tortured, the Taínos succumbed to starvation as well as such European diseases as smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, influenza, and measles. Others burned down their villages, fled to the mountains, or killed themselves.
To quell the last remaining sparks of resistance, Columbus’s men carried out regular raids, capturing and killing hundreds of Taíno fighters. In 1503, the new Spanish governor, Nicholas Ovando, requested a meeting with Anacaona. At the feast, to which the beautiful Anacaona is reported to have arrived covered only in flowers, Ovando ordered his men to kill the more than eighty Taínos she had assembled to greet him. These Taínos were either shot, clubbed to death, or set on fire. Because of her high standing, Anacaona was spared a fiery or bloody end. Instead she was hanged at twenty-nine years old.
Anacaona’s death was the final blow to the upper echelon of Taíno society. Anacaona’s nephew, Guarocuyá, also known as Cacique Henri, survived and retreated to the mountains, where he would continue to fight the Spanish decades after her death. It is not known what became of Anacaona’s daughter.
In the Taíno language, the word Taíno means “noble and good,” which is exactly how the Taínos were regarded, by themselves and others. It is estimated that there were 200,000 Taínos on Quisqueya — the island is now more commonly called Hispaniola — before Columbus arrived in 1492. Fifty years later, there were only a few hundred.
Before they were abruptly “discovered” by Columbus, the Taínos lived quietly in a primarily agricultural society. Their land was extremely fertile, covered with flowing rivers and lush, bountiful fruit trees. Their skies were full of birds, among them eagles, hawks, and geese. At night they trembled at the sounds of bats and owls fluttering about, for they considered them bad omens.
There were several societal groups to which a Taíno could belong, among them the naborías, or servant class; the nitaínos, subchiefs or regional leaders and, at the very top, the caciques, or supreme rulers. Because Taíno society was matriarchal, one could only inherit a ruling position through a female relative, the way Anacaona’s uncle, for example, inherited his rule from her grandmother.
For food, the Taínos farmed their mounds of land, or conucos, where they grew such staples as yucca, maize (corn), sweet potatoes, beans, squash, peanuts, and chili peppers. For their hammocks and their very sparse body coverings, they grew cotton, which they then spun into cloth. They also cultivated tobacco, which was widely used. For meat, they hunted birds, iguanas, snakes, and hutias, a species of small rodent. At sea, they caught fish, manatees, turtles, crabs, oysters, lobsters, and conch. The canoes they used for fishing as well as travel were carved from large tree trunks and were able to carry as many as fifty to a hundred of them. They also used hollowed tree trunks to make their drums, which were among the many musical instruments they possessed. For their large feasts and celebrations, called areitos, they also crafted maracas or gourd rattles. During their celebrations, they would tell stories, sing ballads, perform dances, take part in mock battles, and play a very popular, volleyball-like game called a batey. While playing the ball game, they would wear round protective disks or elbow stones. The elbow stones were among the many beautiful objects they created. Others included mortars and pestles, ceramics, elaborate necklaces, breastplates, and ear and nose rings made from shells, bone beads, and semiprecious stones. The most refined carvers among them — Anacaona was reportedly one of those — crafted ceremonial chairs called duhos as well as religious sculptures and amulets called zemis.
Before Christopher Columbus arrived on the island in 1492, the biggest threat to the Taínos was the island Caribs, or Kalinas, who often raided their villages, killing their men and carrying away their women as part of a practice of bride capture. Though the Caribs were by far the better warriors, the Taínos nevertheless had certain weapons with which to defend themselves. They had spears, bows and poisoned arrows, clubs, and sharpened rocks called cibas. Though most of the Taínos of Hispaniola (now comprised of Haiti and the Dominican Republic) vanished in the Americas’ first genocide, there are many traces left of them today. Remnants of Taíno life include hammocks, barbecue, and tobacco. Among the Taíno words that have made their way into our vocabulary are hurricane, canoe, tuna, and iguana. It is believed that most if not all of Hispaniola’s Taínos were exterminated, but there are groups of people in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba who identify themselves as Taíno. Some have even proven themselves to be legitimate descendants of the Taínos through DNA tests. Before 1492, the island which would later be called Española (little Spain) and Hispaniola, by the Spanish, was interchangeably called Quisqueya, Bohio, and Ayiti by the Taínos. We set this story in Haiti because Xaraguá, the region Anacaona ruled, is believed to have been part of what is now modern Haiti.
ANACAONA, niece of the cacique of Xaraguá, was raised to rule her province. She married Chief Caonabó of Maguana, and left her people
to live in her husband’s land. She was captured by the Spanish in 1493, and hanged.
BEHECHIO, brother of Anacaona, became the cacique of Xaraguá in the early 1490s. He is reported to have had more than thirty wives.
CAONABÓ, husband of Anacaona, was cacique of the province of Maguana. He was captured by the Spanish in 1493, and perished in a Spanish prison ship.
MANICAOTEX, brother of Caonabó, brought thousands of fighters to rescue Caonabó, but he was defeated. He died with his brother.
GUAROCUYÁ, also known as Cacique Henri, was the son of Behechio and the nephew of Anacaona. Raised by Franciscan priests, he battled the Spaniards for more than a decade, long after his aunt and father died.
HIGUAMOTA was the daughter of Anacaona and Caonabó.
COTUBANAMÁ, cacique of Higüey, a southern region of the island. He fought the Spanish colonists for many years to maintain his region’s sovereignty. He was eventually captured and hanged.
GUACANAGARÍ, cacique of Marién, a northern region of the island. He was one of the first to welcome Columbus to Hispaniola. Seeking protection against the Kalinas, who often invaded this area, he offered Columbus a place to build a settlement and became an adviser to the Spanish invaders.
GUARIONEX, cacique of Maguá. His name means Lord of Many People. He died at sea along with Chief Caonabó.
HIGUANAMA, cacica of Higüey before Cotubanamá. She was captured by the Spanish and is believed to have perished at sea with Guarionex and Caonabó.