WHO WERE THE INHABITANTS OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS AT THE TIME OF COLUMBUS' ARRIVAL?

Mauricio E. Escardo

The only basis for my present study and analysis are the available his­torical sources from the end of the fifteenth-century to the end of the first half of the sixteenth-century. It is only in that light that I will try to give an answer to the question proposed here.

There is no doubt that most of the documents of that period use the word CARIBE. The first time such a people was mentioned was in Columbus' Journal of the First Voyage. From then on, they are frequently mentioned using the terms Calinago, Calino, Camballi, Caniba, etc. which was corrupted by Columbus and other writers to Cannibales and Caríbales and later on to Caribes (Caribs)(1).

What was meant by these or similar words was a race of fierce people, dif­ficult, if not impossible, to conquer, who raided the other islands using poison­ous arrows in order to capture their inhabitants. Moreover, the term connoted a group of people who ate human flesh and in whose regions gold, or at least guanin was to be found (2).

After reading all the available documents it became clear to me that the writers of the first half of the sixteenth-century never attempted to make a clear ethnic distinction between the so-called Caribes and the other Indios. In fact, if they had any or all of the above mentioned traits, they were called Caribes and treated as such, otherwise they were considered Indios. It is interesting to note that this distinction was made quite explicitly by Cuneo and Coma (3). In addi­tion, Peter Martyr gives us a good explanation of the meaning and use of the word Caribe when he says that, according to the sources he mentioned before, "the people of these parts are caribes or caníbales, eaters of human flesh". He goes on to say that "the caribs possess a vast extension of land, bigger than Europe. It is known that they go hunting people going over many islands in canoes, in the same way that some other people go to the forests and woods to kill deers and boars. Caribe, In all the languages of those countries, means to be stronger than the others. And the same Is for Caribes, and nobody in these islands uses this word without fear. They are also called caribes after the caribaba region, in the eastern part of Uraba, from where this fierce kind of people disseminated into vast places. Occasionally they have destroyed the Spanish forces, killing them... They are extremely fast, they throw their poisonous arrows with great accuracy; and as fast as the wind, they come and go with their armed bows" (4).

Similar remarks and assertions could be found in Oviedo who says that "most of the islands are populated by 'arrow-thrower' Indians (indios flecheros), called caribes, which in the language of the Indians means fierce and daring. They shoot with arrows containing such a noxious and infected herb that they are fatal...These 'arrow-thrower' Indians who shoot with poison, eat human flesh" (5).

Moreover, according to Herrera "the islands lying east from the island of Puerto Rico towards the Continent were called los Caníbales because of the many caribs, eaters of human flesh, that inhabited them; and according to the inter­pretation in their own language, caníbal means brave or courageous man, because they were considered as such by the other Indians" (6).

Based on these and similar remarks that are frequently found in the works

246 WHO WERE THE INHABITANTS OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

considered we can easily see that the interpretation and use of the word Caribe was much wider than the one commonly accepted today.

As we know, modern writers nowadays clearly establish the distinction be­tween CARIBS and ISLAND CARIBS, the former name making reference to the people of a particular ethnic group who stayed in the South American Continent, especially in Surinam and Guyana while the latter is applied to those same Indians who, as Rouse says, "came into the West Indies no more than a century before the arrival of Columbus" and who at the time of Discovery "had succeeded in conquering all the Lesser Antilles...exterminating the Arawak men who formerly lived there... taking their wives as slaves" and "conducting raids upon the Arawak of the Greater Antil­les..." (7). According to Rouse, the best material on the Island Caribs comes from the missionaries and other observers who had contact with them between 1650 and 1700, when the Lesser Antilles were first settled (8).

We are faced with a simple problem and that is the problem of distinguish­ing the meaning and use of the word Caribe when talking about the inhabitants of the islands and of the Continent surrounding the Caribbean Sea. If we use the word Caribe or "Carib" meaning the "Island Carib", as explained before, we re­strict ourselves to a specific ethnic group with a specific origin, regardless of its attitude towards the conquistadores. But if we use the word with a wider mean­ing, the one used by the Spanish chroniclers, then we will include not only the "Island Caribs", but many other Indians, probably of completely different ethnic groups and origins, who were "fierce and daring", faced the Spaniards in their conquest, and defended themselves and their lands against the aggression. (See Chart at the end of footnotes).

The distinction that we are able to make today was not a distinction that could have been made by the Spanish conquistadores. They came to the Indies with a clear double purpose, that is to achieve the conversion of these people to the Catholic Faith and to conquer and settle their lands for the Royal Crown, making out of them a good source of revenue. It was easy in the beginning, when Columbus found "gentle, peaceful and very simple people" (9). But Columbus knew about the existence of other people who were not so gentle, peaceful and simple. And he had them in mind, as a source of revenue, when in his Letter To The Sovereigns, "done on board the caravel off the Canary Islands, on 15th of February, year 1493" giv­ing an account of the First Voyage, he says among other things, the following:

"In conclusion, to speak only of that which has been accomplished on this Voyage, which was so hasty, Their Highnesses can see that I shall give them as much gold as they need...and slaves, as many as they shall order to be shipped and who will be from the idolaters" (10).

Gold and slaves were two good sources of revenue, and that is what the "Caribs" could provide. It is interesting to read the will of Christopher Colum­bus and see that in the beginning of it he lists among his many prowesses and dis­coveries, the fact that he "discovered many islands inhabited by cannibals" (11).

All of this gives us an insight into why the Spanish Sovereigns as well as the conquistadores were so eager and prone to determine which lands were inhabited by the "Caribs" in its widest sense, and which ones were not. And it is interest­ing to see in those "Declarations" and testimonies establishing which lands were those of the "Caribs", the inclusion in them of islands and regions that later on were clearly determined not to be inhabited by Caribs or Islands Caribs in the sense of the word used today.

Clear examples of this point can be found in the writings of Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Las Casas, Enciso, Herrera and in other documents.

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Peter Martyr considers as a Caribe region the northern and northwestern part of Colombia to the gulf of Urabá (Darien), including the island named Fuerte (12). He calls this region the "caraimara region with excellent ports like Car­tagena and the other called Santa Marta". And he ends by saying that "they (led­ro Arias and Américo Vespuccio) claim that the inhabitants of those regions have their origin in the caribs or cannibals and that is the reason why they are so fierce and cruel" and he adds that "when our men came to them they were repelled several times by their hostilities, and when our men tried to land they were bad­ly received" (13).

Oviedo affirms that all or most of the islands from Hispaniola to the Mainland are "inhabited by the indios flecheros, called caribes". And apparently he includes in this group the island of Boriquen (Puerto Rico) (14).

Moreover, the same Oviedo also includes portions of the Mainland as being lands of the Caribes, when giving a detailed account of the trip made by Pedra-rias Davila in 1514, in which expedition Oviedo took part as a chronicler. In that account he says that "the King ordered Pedrarias that, without changing his route to the Darien, if possible, he should go to certain islands and ports of the Caribes, such as Sancta Cruz and Gaira, and Cartagena, and Caramari and Codego, and the islands of Arenas and Fuerte that were declared as slaves long before, be­cause they eat human flesh in all these islands and ports already mentioned, and because of the damage they had done to the Christians and to the other Indians, servants of the King" (15).

When on December 30, 1503, a Royal Order signed by the Queen granting "permission to anyone going under Her orders to the islands and the Mainland to take as prisoners the said 'caníbales', and carry them to any place, and sell them or take any other advantage of them, without incurring any penalty, provided that they did so in resisting them", the places specifically mentioned were "the is­lands of San Bernardo, Isla Fuerte and Barú and the ports of Cartagena, Santa Mar­ta and others" (16).

On December 23, 1511, King Ferdinand signed a Royal Letter Patent author­izing the taking as slaves, of the Caribs of Trinidad and the other islands (17). Of course, a few months before, the King had signed another Letter Patent, addres­sed to Diego Colon, then Viceroy and Governor of Hispaniola, ordering him that "before everything the Caribs of the island of Sáncta Cruz should be destroyed, as it was agreed upon, and in the case this was not done at the time of the arrival of this letter, you shall see that it is done" (18).

In the Archives of the Indies in Simancas, there is a brief of a letter addressed to the King by the Officers and Judges (supposedly of Hispaniola) and dated September 6, 1515. The second paragraph reads as follows: "They say that the most suitable people brought from the Continent (de Tierra) are the Caribs. Very few of them die and they are people good for many things, although they are difficult to keep, because they escape in their canoes" (19).

In 1525, the Bishop of Osma, Fray Garcia Loaysa, President of the Council of the Indies, asked Fray Ortiz to testify before the Council on the reasons why the Indians should be kept as slaves. And Fray Ortiz made a detailed explanation "about the people of the Mainland (Tierrafirme), that were caribes" (20).

Fray Bartolomé de las Casas tells us at the end of his Historia de las In­dias how some of the determinations were or could be corrected. While he was in Spain fighting for the cause of the Indians, the Council of the Indies, acting up­on reports which described the natives of Trinidad as cannibals, ordered that war should be made upon them. Las Casas denied the charge and contrived that the Li­centiate Rodrigo de Figueroa should be authorized to first investigate and then

248 WHO WERE THE INHABITANTS OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

report on this matter before hostilities began (21). Figueroa's report was entir ly favorable to the natives of Trinidad, among whom he found no cannibalism (22) and therefore no caribs.

No doubt, this declaration made by Figueroa influenced Martín Fernáncez di Enciso when he published his Summa de Geografía in Seville in 1519. In it, Encisi clearly excludes Trinidad from the Carib islands (23).

In spite of all this, we find that in 1547 "the carib Indians of the wind­ward islands were still molesting the island of Hispaniola, Jamaica and the coast of the Continent and even more the island of San Juan...Having received complaint: from the inhabitants of the island of San Juan de Puerto Rico, to the effect that many carib Indians were coming from the islands of Trinidad, Guadalupe, Dominica, Santa Cruz, Matinino and other islands, causing great damage, the King, in spite of the previous laws, authorized the people of the island of San Juan to make war against them, reducing them into slavery, as enemies..." (24).

In 1530, the Royal Order decreeing the prohibition of the enslavement of the Indians was issued, and Herrera comments that "this was a Holy Order whereby an infinite number of abuses could have been avoided had this order been estab­lished from the beginning, especially in Cubagua, Santa Marta and Margarita where invaluable damages were done running through the Continent and carrying into cap­tivity people without making any distinction between the good and the bad ones" (25).

The same Herrera devotes the first volume of his work to a "Description oJ the West Indies" and in Chapter VII he mentions all the places that were consider­ed as caníbales, first in a general way and then in particular, listing as caníba­les among others Sta. Cruz, las Vírgenes, Virgen Gorda, Anegada, all the Lesser Antilles, Trinidad, Tabago (sic), Margarita, Cubagua and the other small islands (26).

Herrera's description and determination of the Carib places is confirmed by the Royal Chronicler Juan López de Velazco, when, in 1575, he made a "Demarca­tion and Division of the Indies". And he lists all "the islands east of the is­land of San Juan, all the way to the Mainland, as being formerly called Caníba­les, because of the many caribs that inhabited them" including the islands of Sta, Cruz, las Vírgenes, Trinidad, Tobago, Margarita, Cubagua, Tortuga, etc. (27).

With all these documents quoted so far (and some other similar ones) in front of us, we came to a twofold conclusion: The first amounts to a confirmatioi of what we said in the beginning; that is, that the name Caribe was not used in any of the sources referred to with an ethnic connotation, but in a wider sense, meaning a "daring and fierce people", "enemies of the Royal Crown and its sub­jects" and "eaters of human flesh". And the second conclusion is that, though "Island Caribs" (related in their origin to the "Caribs" living in the South Ame­rican Continent - Guyana and Surinam), inhabited some of the Windward and Leeward islands, some other islands and regions of the Continent were inhabited by fierce courageous people who resisted the Spaniards in their conquest. Among the is­lands inhabited by these fierce and daring people we would like to mention the is' lands of St. Croix and the other Virgins, Trinidad, Margarita, Cubagua, Arenas, Fuerte, San Bernardo, Bartî, etc. and among the regions of the South American Con­tinent, the port of La Guaira, the north and northwestern part of Colombia - Car­tagena, Santa Marta, etc. - and the eastern part of Panama' - Urabá or Darieñ -should be mentioned. The inhabitants of these places were called "Caribs", though in the strict sense of the word they were not caribs.

The persistence of the name Caribe is an interesting phenomenon. We know now for sure that the northern part of Colombia from Santa Marta to the gulf of

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Uraba (Darien) was never inhabited by Carib Indians, in the strict sense of the word described before. Nevertheless, we know that Peter Martyr and other chroni­clers have insisted that the Caribs had their origin in that region and that all those ports of the continent were Carib. And to my surprise, while recently in Colombia, I heard on the radio the tune of a once popular porro from Cartagena singing: CalamarJ, Calamarf, tribu caribe..., making reference with pride, to the fierce and daring Indians of that region.

It may be interesting to observe that the island of Trinidad was first of­ficially declared not to be Carib and later on again declared to be Carib because its inhabitants "were still molesting the islands of Hispaniola and San Juan". And today we know for sure that the island of Trinidad was never inhabited by "Is­land Caribs", as described before.

Another case in point was the island of Borinquen (San Juan - Puerto Rico). It was considered Carib in the beginning and listed as such in some docu­ments. Later on, when the Spaniards conquered and settled the island, the remain­ing Indians of that island were no longer considered Carib. And there can be no doubt that any serious author today would affirm that the island of Puerto Rico was ever inhabited by "Island Caribs".

Can we apply the same criterion to the island of St. Croix and to the oth­er Virgin Islands? I do not see why not.

One thing is certain and that is that the Spaniards never showed a great interest in settling in any one of the Virgin Islands, at least during the fif­teenth and sixteenth-centuries. What was the reason for that attitude? Probably their lack of interest in settlement was due in part to the fact that they had little hope of finding gold there, and in part also to the smallness of each one of the islands when compared to Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola or Puerto Rico. But the most apparent deterrent was perhaps the resistance on the part of the inhabitants of St. Croix.

Whatever happened to the inhabitants of the Virgin Islands because of this attitude on the part of the Spaniards is a point that I intend to consider in an­other study. At present, however, I would like to give all the available reasons and considerations needed to establish what the inhabitants of St. Croix and the other Virgin Islands at the time of Columbus' arrival were not as well as my con­clusions about what they were.

In responding to the first question it might be worth noting that the is­land of St. Croix in particular and the other Virgin Islands in general were de­clared to be Carib by the Spaniards from the beginning of the Conquest, and were considered as such ever since. Dr. Chanca, Cuneo, Coma, Peter Martyr and Oliva, are very explicit in calling the Indians of the island of St. Croix "Caribs". Moreover, while Cuneo, Coma, Peter Martyr and, of course, Oliva simply affirm that the natives of the Virgins were Caribs without giving any reasons for it, Dr. Chanca gives us the reason for naming them so when he submits that the people of these islands were also of the Caribs, "as we already knew it from the account of the women whom we had brought with us" (28).

And I submit that the Indian women said that they were Caniba, using this or a similar word, meaning exactly that they were a fierce and daring and coura­geous people, as it was confirmed in the Spaniards' encounter with them in St. Croix. They could never have meant that they were of the same ethnic group as the people of Guadalupe, who were "Island Caribs" originating from the South American Continent.

On the other hand, I would also like to add that the Indians in St. Croix fought in a "daring" way against the Spaniards because they were defending their

250 WHO WERE THE INHABITANTS OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

own territory and their own people. When they saw the Spaniards thaking some of their women and boys, the Indians defended them and fought in order to liberate them.

It is very interesting to see that Ferdinand Columbus and Las Casas, ujing as a source of their narrative the lost account of Columbus' Journal of the Second Voyage, do not mention that the Indians of St. Croix were Caribs, for it was they who had indicated that one or some of the fighting boys were castrated. Granted, moreover, that they had been castrated by the "Island Caribs" of other islands, was it not likely that they had escaped and were now defending their own territory and their own people? It is remarkable, at any rate, that even the castrated boys were fighting in a daring way against the Spaniards.

If we compare this coming of Columbus' men to St. Croix with their coming and stay for six days at Guadalupe, we see a great difference. The "Island Carib" Indians in Guadalupe did not offer any resistance; those Indians did not fight the Spaniards and they let them take from them their captives, as we can see from the account of Dr. Chanca and from the similar accounts made by Ferdinand and Las Casas (29).

Columbus himself was well aware of the reasons why some Indians were hos­tile not because they were Caribs, but because they were attacked. As Las Casas says in his brief account of the Journal of the Third Voyage: "He commanded them that wherever they put in and disembarked to refresh themselves they should pro­cure what they needed by barter; and that for a triffle which they might give to the Indians, although these were Caníbales who were said to eat human flesh, they could obtain from them what they wanted, and the Indians would give them all they had; but if they proceeded by force, the Indians would hide their stuff and be hostile" (30).

Another interesting point to be added is that as soon as they disembarked in Guadalupe, the Spaniards noticed immediately the human bones in the houses. As Dr. Chanca puts it: "There we found a great quantity of men's bones and skulls hung up about the houses like vessels to hold things...In one house a neck of a man was found cooking in a pot" (31).

Nothing of this sort was found in St. Croix (where "some of the men who went in the boat landed and proceeded by land to a village, from which the people had already gone into hiding" (32)) or in any other one of the Virgin Islands.

On the other hand, we see that the Indians of St. Croix were on good terms with the Indians of Boriquén (Puerto Rico). Peter Martyr gives us a very interest­ing incident, in the following quotation: "We have already said in the First Dec­ade that the Indians used to call this island Burichena. The Governor of this is­land was a man by the name of Cristobal, son of a Portuguese, Count of Camina. He was killed by the cannibals of the neighboring islands with all the Christians, except the Bishop and his relatives, who leaving the temple and their possessions took refuge in a safe place...Soon will these Caribs pay for their deeds: they will be attacked. And I say this because a few months after having committed that horrible crime, returning from the neighboring island of Santa Cruz, they killed our friend the cacique and all his family, and ate them, totally destroying the village. The reason for this was that the said cacique had violated the right of hospitality with seven caribs, masters in building canoes, who had stayed there to build some of them. And this is so because the island of San Juan have bigger trees to build those monoxilos, than their island called Sancta Cruz...Still re­maining in the island these caribs...when asked why they had destroyed the village where the cacique and his family were, they answered that they had destroyed the village, and eaten the cacique and cut into pieces his family, in order to avenge

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their seven workers. And they added that they were keeping the bones of the peo­ple killed to bring them to the wives and children of the seven workers, so they could see that the bodies of their husbands and parents were not lying without re­venge. And they showed to our people the bundles of bones..." (33).

The relationship and intercourse between the inhabitants of the island of St. Croix and the other Virgin Islands with the inhabitants of the island of Bo-riquen is also clearly indicated by Herrera in a Chapter entitled: "Of the war that Ponce de Leon conducted in the island of San Juan de Puerto Rico, and how the native Indians called the Caribs in to help them" (34). After narrating several incidents between the Spaniards and the native Indians, Herrera says that the In­dians of the island of San Juan, willing to continue the fight against the Span­iards, and being in extreme need and desperation, called the Caribs of the neigh­boring islands to help them. And they did come in such a number that in the land of the Cacique Agüeybaná there were more than five thousand together (35).

I know that all these reasons are not absolutely convincing in defending the point I am trying to make; that is, that the inhabitants of St. Croix and the other Virgin Islands, as well as the inhabitants of San Juan de Puerto Rico, Trini­dad and northern Colombia were not "Island Caribs" in the strict sense of the word. Nevertheless, a thorough analysis of all the historical documents at hand clearly indicates that the inhabitants of St. Croix and the other Virgin Islands, as well as of the other places mentioned before, were "fierce and daring", "courageous people" who defended themselves and their own territory and who attacked other people with a sense of justice (almost never understood by the Spaniards). The documents also clearly show that because of the traits found in the Indian popula­tion, the inhabitants of those islands were called Caribes and officially desig­nated by that name. Incidentally, it is an established fact that a particular kind of crab in the Dominican Republic is still popularly called cangrejo caribe today. Interestingly enough, the so-called carib crab is the type of crab that does not run away from you, but attacks and faces you and defends himself and his territory.

Now, to conclude that the inhabitants of St. Croix and the other Virgin Is­lands were ethnically Caribs, that is "Island Caribs", just because they were called and officially declared by the Spaniards to be Caribes, meaning "fierce, courageous and daring people", would be logically unfair. And, of course, it would also be unfair to draw the opposite conclusion, that they were not "Island Caribs". But a closer analysis and study of the historical documents at hand shows a fair preponderance of evidence in favor of the opinion that the inhabitants of these is­lands were not ethnically Caribs, that is "Island Caribs", in spite of the fact that they were called Caribes. By "fair preponderance" of evidence I mean "such a superiority of evidence on one side that the fact of its outweighing the evidence on the other side can be perceived if the whole evidence is fairly considered" (36).

We cannot lose sight of the fact that in these lines I have restricted my­self to the historical evidence left by the Spanish conquistadores and chroniclers of the period extending between the end of the fifteenth-century and the end of the first half of the sixteenth-century. On the other hand, I am perfectly aware that there is another kind of evidence which could confirm or reject my position. And here I am making reference to the archaeological evidence found in the Virgin Islands. It is not within the scope of this study to analyse and evaluate this evidence. All I can say is that recent studies and conclusions seem to favor my position (37).

Having discussed at length my views about the first of the two points in-

252 WHO WERE THE INHABITANTS OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

dicated before, that is, that the inhabitants of St. Croix and the other Virgin Is­lands at the time of Columbus' arrival were not "Island Caribs", the second point —involving the question, "Who were they?"—remains to be briefly discussed.

My contention here is that if they were not on one hand "peaceful and gen­tle people" they did not fully belong to the Indians found by Columbus in the Ba­hamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Híspanlola and perhaps the western part of Puerto Rico. And if, on the other hand, they did not belong ethnically to the "Island Caribs", who were at that time in full settlement in the Lesser Antilles, then we are forced to accept that they belonged to another ethnic group whose origins are unknown today.

As I have said before, it is not within my present scope to go into other evidence than the one produced by the historical documents of the time. Neverthe­less, let me add that the presence of a different kind of pottery in the Virgin Islands and the eastern part of Puerto Rico, Elenoid style and its derivatives, probably points to the direction of another culture in existence in that area at the time of Columbus' arrival. This culture was definitely not the classic Arawak of the Hi8paniola type, and it was definitely not "Island Carib". Instead, it was a culture which produced "daring and fierce people", with a deep sense of justice, and readiness to defend their rights and oppose as much as they were able to any intrusion of foreign conquerors.

Thus, although the historical documents at hand are insufficient to tell us with certainty who the inhabitants of St. Croix and the other Virgin Islands really were at the time of Columbus' arrival, I do hope that the documents considered have shed some light encouraging us to pursue further studies which might clarify this point.

FOOTNOTES

(1) See Columbus' Journal of the First Voyage, on Friday, 23 November 1492: "... and others who were called Caníbales of whom they seemed to have great fear". Monday, 26 November: "All the people that he has found hitherto he says show tremendous fear of those of Caniba or Camina...and he believes that they came to capture them in their land and houses". Wednesday, 26 December: "The beginning of this was talk about those of Caniba, whom they call Caribes, that they come to capture them..." Wednesday, 2 January and Sunday,13 January 1493: "The Admiral says that in the islands passed they were in great fear of the Carib (in some they call it Caniba, but in Hispaniola Carib), and that it must be an audacious folk, since they go through all these islands and eat the people that they can get". See also Ferdinand Columbus, The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by His Son Ferdinand, Ch. 34 (twice) and Ch. 36. See also Bartolomé de las Casas, Abstract of the Journal of the Third Voyage: "As far as could be understood by signs, they said that there were in that re­gion some islands whereon that gold was to be found in great quantity, but that the people were Cannibals, and the Admiral says that this word Canútales in that place was universally regarded as a cause of enemity" in Morison, Journals and other Documents..., 1963, p. 272. See also pp. 260-261 and p. 274. The word went from CALINO, CAMBALLI, CANIBA and similar words to CANNIBALES, to CANNIBALS (from where comes our word Cannibal) to CARÍBALES to CARIBES (Caribs). So, they were called Cannibales or Caribes because that word meant in their language "fierce and daring". Then due to the fact that they were said to eat

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human flesh, that word "cannibal" or "carib" was used to refer to any one prac­tising "anthropophagia", and with this particular meaning the word was intro­duced into Spanish (caníbal) and into English (cannibal). See chart at the end of footnotes.

(2) See Las Casas, loc, cit. and Historia de las Indias,!, 138 and II, 55; Ferdi­nand, loci cit. and Ch. 47, 48 and 75; Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca, in Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, Colección de los Viajes y Descubrimientos que hicieron por Mar los EspanSles desde fines del siglo XV, 1825, I, pp. 203-206 and 208; Andrés Bernáldez, History of the Catholic Sovereigns, Ch. 131 (English trans­lation in Cecil Jane, Select Documents Illustrating the Four Voyages of Colum­bus, 1930, reprint 1967, vol. I, p. 164); Peter Martyr de Anglería, De Orbe Novo...Decades Octo, First Decade, I, 3 and VIII, 3; Second Decade, I, 2 and VIII;Third Decade, V, 1 and 2; Eighth Decade, VI, 1 and passim; Gonzalo Fer­nandez de Oviedo, Historia General y Natural de las Indias, VI, 9; XXIX, 6 and 11; Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierrafirme del Mar Océano, First Decade, I, 7; Second Décade, X, 5 and passim.

That there was gold in the land of the Caribes, see Las Casas, Abstract of the Journal of the Third Voyage, note (1) supra.

(3) Michèle de Cuneo devotes a whole section of his Letter to the inhabitants of these islands and all through this section he tries to make the distinction between them which basically is the one he establishes when he says: "Never­theless all have one language and all live alike, in appearance like one na­tion of their own, save that the Caribs are more ferocious and more astute men than those Indians. The Caribs whenever they catch these Indians eat them... of this human flesh they are very greedy..." In Raccolta di Documenti e Studi pubblicati dalla R. Commissione Colombiana, III, ii, p. 102 and in Morison, op. cit., p. 219. Guillermo Coma on his part remarks: "These islands are inhabited by Canabilli, a wild, unconquered race which feeds on human flesh. It would be right to call them anthropophagi. They wage inceasing wars against gentle and timid Indians to supply flesh; this is their booty and it is what they hunt. They ravage, despoil, and terrorize the Indians ruthlessly, devouring the unwarlike, but ab­staining from their own people and sparing the Canaballi" In Raccolta...Colom­biana, III, ii, p. 86 and in Morison, op. cit., pp. 233-234. It is interest­ing to notice the distinction made by Coma between Canabilli and the Canaballi. Probably this distinction confirms my remarks made at the end of this paper.

(4) Peter Martyr, op. cit., Eighth Decade, VI, I.

(5) Oviedo, op. cit., Book II, Ch. 8 and Book IX, Ch. 12.

(6) Herrera, op. cit., I, Ch. VII.

(7) Rouse, in Handbook of South American Indians, 1963, p. 547. See also Jacques Petitjean-Roget,"The Caribs as seen through the Dictionary of the Reverend Father Breton" in Proceedings of the First International Con­gress for the Study of Pre-Columbian Cultures in the Lesser Antilles, Fort-de-France (1961), Martinique, 1963, Part I, p. 43 where he says the following : "With respect to their history, the inhabitants of Dominica reported a certain

254 WHO WERE THE INHABITANTS OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

number of facts to Father Breton who in turn relates them faithfully. The name "Caribs" was given them by the Spaniards. Their name is KALINAGO, the plural of which is KALINAGOIUM. They migrated from the Mainland that is from the north coast of South America where their brothers the CALIBIS still live. They exterminated the ALLOUAGUES or ARAWAKS, who inhabited the islands, at least the men, for they kept the women for their convenience".

(8) Rouse, op. cit., p. 549 where he gives the following list: Bouton (1640), Breton (1877, 1892), Labat (1724, 1931), LaBorde (1704, 1886), DuPuis (1652) and Dutertre (1667-1671).

(9) See Columbus' Journal of the First Voyage, on Friday, 12 October 1492: "They ought to be good servants and of good skill, for I see that they repeat very quickly whatever was said to them. I believe that they would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion".

(10) See Letter of Columbus in Cecil Jane, op. cit., I, 16-17. Morison's commenta­ry on this particular point is that "the slave trade will be legitimate if not in Christians". Cecil Jane on his part notes that "the idea of securing slaves from the Indies appears to have been constantly present in the mind of Columbus: at a later date he elaborated a scheme for the development of a slave trade" and he refers the reader to the Memorandum of Christopher Colum­bus. .. published and translated in the same vol. I of Jane, pp. 88-90. There is also a reference to Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, I, 151.

(11) William Eleroy Curtis, The Authentic Letters of Columbus, 1895, p. 193.

(12) In his Second Decade, Peter Martyr narrates the killing of La Cosa and his seventy companions by some Indians and the expedition made against the In­dians to avenge that killing. A whole town was put on fire and everybody kil­led, and he adds: "They believe that the people of Caramarí have their ori­gins in the caribs, that is, cannibals, who eat human flesh. They found some gold in the ashes. The thirst for gold and land is the moving force that makes our people endure all these labors and dangers". Then Peter Martyr says that Hojeda left towards Urabá, and "proceeded through the island named Fuerte. This island is located in between Urabá and the port of Cartagena, and landing there he knew that it was the country of these cruel cannibals". Op. cit, Second Decade, Book I, Ch. II.

(13) In his Third Decade, Peter Martyr narrates the expedition of Pedro Arias, and how he went from Gomera to Dominica "that is one of the cannibals, eaters of human flesh". From Dominica, Pedro Arias went through Guadalupe, María Ga­lante and other islands, arriving finally at the northwestern part of the South American Continent to the "Caraimara region". Op. cit. , Third Decade, Book V, Ch. I and II. It is interesting to read also Peter Martyr's detailed description of the Caribs in this same Chapter II.

(14) "The 'arrow-throwers' (flecheros) of these islands shoot with poisonous arrows and eat human flesh, except the ones of the island of Boriqueh...Besides the people of these Islands, in many parts of the Mainland they also eat human flesh". Oviedo, op. cit., II, 8. A little further, the same Oviedo says that the indios flecheros live in the islands adjacent to Hispaniola, and that "the

MAURICIO E. ESCARDO 255

main island of these people was the island of Boriquén (now called Sanct Joan) and the other islands near it, such as Guadalupe, Dominica, Matininó and Ci-buqueira (now called Sancta Cruz) and all the other of that region". Op. cit. Ill, 5. When making a description of the island of Borlquen, "called now by the Christians Sanct Joan", Oviedo says among other things: "The people of this island are in no way different from the people of Hispaniola, except that these Indians of Sanct Joan were flecheros and more warlike people". Op. clt. XVI, 1.

(15) Oviedo, op. cit, XXIX, 6. See also the description of the trip in the remain­der of the same chapter, where there are interesting things about the indios flecheros and their poisonous arrows. In the description of the trip, Oviedo says that they decided to go to Santa Marta in the coast of the Continent and then to Cartagena and Codego and to the islands of Baru and Fuerte, but that they decided not to go to Sancta Cruz because it was too far and off their route.

(16) See Navarrete, op. cit., Il, p. 414; see also Herrera, op. cit., First Decade, Book VI, Ch. X.

(17) Colección de Documentos Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y Colonización (Organización) de las (Antiguas) Posesiones Españolas en América y Oceania, sacados en su mayor parte del Real Archivo de Indias. Primera Serie, Madrid, 1864-1884, 42 vols. (Henceforth referred to as CD.1.1), vol. 32, pp. 304-309. See also the Royal Decree of Juana La Loca of July 3, 1512 in Colección de Documentos Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y Organización de las Antiguas Posesiones Españolas de Ultramar. Segunda Serie, Madrid, 1890-1932, 25 vols. (CD.I.II), vol. 5, pp. 258-264.

(18) CD.1.1, vol. 32, p. 261.

(19) CD.1.1, vol. 36, p. 412.

(20) Francisco López de Gomara, Historia General de las Indias, Ch. 217. See also Herrera, op. cit. Third Decade, Book VIII, Ch. X.

(21) Las Casas, op. clt. Ill, 104. See also Francis A. McNutt, Bartholomew de las Casas, 1909, p. 113.

(22) CD.1.1, vol. 11, p. 231: "Declaration made by the Licentiate Rodrigo de Figueroa, Judge in residence, Member of the High Court in Santo Domingo, stat­ing that all the islands not Inhabited by Christians, except the islands of Trinidad, Lucayos, Barbudos, Gigantes and Margarita, are islands of barbarian Carib Indians, Year of 1520". See also Oviedo, op. cit., Book VI, Ch. 9 and Herrera, op. cit., Second Decade, Book X, Ch. V.

(23) Enciso, Summa de Geografía, Seville, 1519. Edition 1974, p. 253.

(24) Herrera, op. cit., Eighth Decade, Book IV, Ch. XIII.

256 WHO WERE THE INHABITANTS OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

(25) Herrera, op. cit., Fourth Decade, Book VII, Ch. V.

(26) Herrera, op. cit., Vol. I, Ch. VII.

(27) CD.1.1, vol. 15, pp. 432-435.

(28) Dr. Chanca, in Navarrete, op. cit., I, p. 206.

(29) Dr. Chanca, in Navarrete, op. cit., I, pp. 201-206; Ferdinand Columbus, op. cit., Ch. 47 and Las Casas, op. cit., I, 84.

(30) Las Casas, op. cit., I, 127.

(31) Dr. Chanca, in Navarrete, op. cit., I, pp. 203 and 205.

(32) Dr. Chanca, in Navarrete, op. cit., I, p. 206.

(33) Peter Martyr, op. cit., Second Decade, Book VIII.

(34) Herrera, op. cit., First Decade, Book VIII, Ch. XIII.

(35) Ibid.

(36) Bryan v. Railroad Co., 63 Iowa 464; 19 N.W. 295. City Bank's Appeal, 54 Conn. 274; 7 A. 548.

(37) See Ripley P. Bullen, "The Archaeology of Grenada, West Indies, and the Spread of Ceramic People in the Antilles" in Proceedings of the Third International Congress for the Study of Pre-Columbian Cultures of the Lesser Antilles, Grenada, 1969. See also Ripley P. Bullen, "Culture Changes, Radiocarbon Dates, and Trade in the Antilles". Paper presented at the 41st International Congress of Americanists, Session 3B, Mexico City, Mexico, 1974.

MAURICIO F.. ESCARDO 257

CALINO

CALINAGO 4

CANABILLI 4

CANABALLI 4

CAMBALLI 4

CANIBA 4

CANÍBALES (Cannibals) 4

CARÍBALES

i CARIBES (Caribs)

in a wide sense: fierce, daring, courageous people...

. . . somet imes "anthropophagi"

INDIOS

in the S.A. continent (Surinam and Guyana):

in a strict sense: "CARIBS" (as an ethnic group)

settlers in the lesser Antilles:

¡Peaceful, gentle people... "ISLAND CARIBS"