During the night the ships lay to at sea.  On the 16th the voyage was continued till the afternoon of the 17th, when another island was sighted; the fleet sailed along its southern shore for a whole day.  That night two women and a boy of those who had voluntarily joined the expedition in Sobuqueira, swam ashore, having recognized their home.  On the 19th the fleet anchored in a bay on the western coast, where Columbus landed and took possession in the name of his royal patrons with the same formalities as observed in Marie-Galante, and named the island San Juan Bautista.  Near the landing-place was found a deserted village consisting of a dozen huts of the usual size surrounding a larger one of superior construction; from the village a road or walk, hedged in by trees and plants, led to the sea, “which,” says Munoz,[7] “gave it the aspect of some cacique’s place of seaside recreation.”

After remaining two days in port (November 20th and 21st), and without a single native having shown himself, the fleet lifted anchor on the morning of the 22d, and proceeding on its northwesterly course, reached the bay of Samana, in Espanola, before night, whence, sailing along the coast, the Admiral reached the longed-for port of Navidad on the 25th, only to find that the first act of the bloody drama that was to be enacted in this bright new world had already been performed.

Here we leave Columbus and his companions to play the important roles in the conquest of America assigned to each of them.  The fortunes of the yeoman of humble birth, the former lance-bearer or stirrup-page of the knight commander of Calatrava, already referred to, were destined to become intimately connected with those of the island whose history we will now trace.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 5:  The “Caryophyllus pimienta,” Coll y Toste.]

[Footnote 6:  Navarrete supposes this to have been the fruit of the Manzanilla “hippomane Mancinella,” which produces identical effects.]

[Footnote 7:  Historia del Nuevo Mundo.]

CHAPTER III

PONCE AND CERON

1500-1511

Friar Inigo Abbad, in his History of the Island San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico, gives the story of the discovery in a very short chapter, and terminates it with the words:  “Columbus sailed for Santo Domingo November 22, 1493, and thought no more of the island, which remained forgotten till Juan Ponce returned to explore it in 1508.”

This is not correct.  The island was not forgotten, for Don Jose Julian de Acosta, in his annotations to the Benedictine monk’s history (pp. 21 and 23), quotes a royal decree of March 24, 1505, appointing Vicente Yanez Pinzon Captain and “corregidor” of the island San Juan Bautista and governor of the fort that he was to construct therein.  Pinzon transferred his rights and titles in the appointment to Martin Garcia de Salazar, in company with whom he stocked the island with cattle; but it seems that Boriquen did not offer sufficient scope for the gallant pilot’s ambition, for we find him between the years 1506 and 1508 engaged in seeking new conquests on the continent.