[Footnote 18:  Salazar was able in the dark and the confusion of the attack on the settlement to rally a handful of followers, with whom he cut his way through the Indians and through the jungle to Caparra.]

CHAPTER VI

THE REBELLION (continued)

1511

Salazar’s arrival at Caparra with a handful of wounded and exhausted men revealed to Ponce the danger of his situation.  Ponce knew that it was necessary to strike a bold blow, and although, including the maimed and wounded, he had but 120 men at his disposal, he prepared at once to take the offensive.

Sending a messenger to la Espanola with the news of the insurrection and a demand for reenforcements, which, seeing his strained relations with the Admiral, there was small chance of his obtaining, he proceeded to divide his force in four companies of 30 men to each, and gave command to Miguel del Toro, the future founder of San German, to Louis de Anasco, who later gave his name to a province, to Louis Almanza and to Diego Salazar, whose company was made up exclusively of the maimed and wounded, and therefore called in good-humored jest the company of cripples.

Having learned from his scouts that Guaybana was camped with 5,000 to 6,000 men near the mouth of the river Coayuco in the territory between the Yauco and Jacagua rivers, somewhere in the neighborhood of the city which now bears the conqueror’s name, he marched with great precaution through forest and jungle till he reached the river.  He crossed it during the night and fell upon the Indians with such impetus that they believed their slain enemies to have come to life.  They fled in confusion, leaving 200 dead upon the field.

The force under Ponce’s command was too small to follow up his victory by the persecution of the terror-stricken natives; nor would the exhausted condition of the men have permitted it, so he wisely determined to return to Caparra, cure his wounded soldiers, and await the result of his message to la Espanola.

Oviedo and Navarro, whose narratives of these events are repeated by Abbad, state that the Boriquen Indians, despairing of being able to vanquish the Spaniards, called the Caribs of the neighboring islands to their aid; that the latter arrived in groups to make common cause with them, and that some time after the battle of Coayuco, between Caribs and Boriquenos, 11,000 men had congregated in the Aymaco district.

But Mr. Brau[19] calls attention to the improbability of such a gathering.  “Guaybana,” he says, “had been able, after long preparation, to bring together between 5,000 and 6,000 warriors—­of these 200 had been slain, and an equal number, perhaps, wounded and made prisoners, so that, to make up the number of 11,000, at least as many Caribs as the entire warrior force of Boriquen must have come to the island in the short space of time elapsed since the first battle.  The islands inhabited by the Caribs—­Santa Cruz, San Eustaquio, San Cristobal, and Dominica—­were too distant to furnish so large a contingent in so short a time, and the author we are quoting justly remarks that, admitting that such a feat was possible, they must have had at their disposition a fleet of at least 200 canoes, each capable of holding 20 men, a number which it is not likely they ever possessed.”