Zaraguá

Yaquimó gradually became the advisor of his people. It was he whom everyone trusted and considered the only one who could give them a drop of hope. At thirty years of age, he had turned into the spiritual father of all the tribes of the island, as everyone thought he was the only one who understood the Spaniards’ souls. He had survived his father’s death, his sister’s rape and the white plague, for this reason, it was thought that his life had been preserved so he could help his brothers. Even the most respected caciques came to him in search of suggestions; they wanted him to solve their dilemmas, but he suffered and, every time he listened to their sorrows, a deep anguish enveloped him.

Yaquimó aged fast; his body, although young, harbored the spirit of an eighty-year-old man. He had lost his youthfulness because of his permanent suffering and constant absorption of the natives’ penury. His tears reached his heart and upset his spirit; he was constantly in torment, unable to prevent the evil that threatened the men and women of his race.

His world had changed quickly; suddenly, everything was different. News of the atrocities happening on his island reached his ears every day. There was no peace in his life, even the sun reminded him of the flames from the bonfires where the bodies of his brothers had ended up, incinerated by the invaders. Day and night he recalled the tremendous oppression in his chest, when seventy thousand souls had drunk the iñak and gone to Coyabo, to meet with the spirits of their forefathers. Even though he was leagues away from where all this had happened, he had felt the Parcae carrying the dead on its back. He knew the death of his foster brothers and sisters –although, voluntary- had been caused by the white men, who destroyed everything in their way. As time went by, the shudder that had run across his body dried up his tears forever and depressed his spirit for the rest of his existence.

The invaders did not respect men, women, children or animals. All of them were treated with the same brutality; they were all considered dispensable, inferior creatures without any rights at all. Yaquimó thought that, perhaps, the Spaniards believed that the Indians did not suffer; otherwise, it was inconceivable that a human being could cause so much evil, knowing to what extent bodies and spirits suffered. With great sorrow, he listened to the report of how they had imprisoned the captives, whipped and loaded them on the huge ships. He found out they had been taken to faraway lands, where they would be sold as slaves. He heard the story of how his cousin Kiboa and Wara Kuku had been accused of robbery, and not content with having offended them so, they had also been arrested, prosecuted and sentenced, first, to be tortured, then, to die at the stake.

Yaquimó felt their torment and desperation as though he himself were going through it; he was now sure that he would never understand human nature. After finding out how the aliens had schemed and carried out Caonabo’s capture, he realized that the natives could not possibly believe the foreigners’ words; they cheated and lied impudently. In addition to being more powerful, they did not play fair: the natives’ fight was against the odds. He was informed of Caonabo’s torture and subsequent death, of Anacaona, his widow’s, mourning and subsequent flight to her brother Behechio’s lands.

After Guacanagari’s death, Caonabo’s murder and Kiboa’s imprisonment, the Arauacos were left without leadership and guidance. The Spaniards thought that the best way to dominate the natives was by humiliating, submitting and destroying their caciques. But they did not take into account that, on doing so, they were also destroying the social and political structure that kept them under control. Thus, there was no one left to continue with agricultural, public health and community development. When they eliminated the leaders, they essentially eliminated social organization itself; they had executed the most important elements of their society, the ones who managed and created sources of production. So when the Spaniards destroyed the natives’ economic self-sufficiency, they also compromised their own well-being. There was a lack of food, there were no more tributes and their servants disappeared. The cotton plantations stopped yielding, the corn and yucca fields were destroyed, so their basic sustenance was completely lost. Famine, epidemics and new diseases spread quickly; both natives and white men started to perish.

Yaquimó soon noticed that, every time he looked at the sea, new and bigger caravels were arriving, with more outlanders, carrying supplies meant only for their own use, and huge animals that grazed freely on their sown lands. For this reason, he summoned another Great Council. The bonfire that had illuminated them and maintained their vitality had disappeared, communication with the spirits had ended, the future was uncertain and he wanted to know what his brothers had in mind. The chieftains started to arrive, one by one. The men who, until not long ago, had been the proud masters of their lands, showed up humbly, without retinues, sailing in the dark of the night, hiding from the invaders and from themselves.