1495: La Isabela
Caonabo
Detached, aloof, the prisoner sits at the entrance of Christopher Columbus's house. He has iron shackles on his ankles, and handcuffs trap his wrists.
Caonabo was the one who burned to ashes the Navidad Fort that the admiral had built when he discovered the island of Haiti. He burned the fort and killed its occupants. And not only them: In these two long years he has castigated with arrows any Spaniard he came across in Cibao, his mountain territory, for their hunting of gold and people.
Alonso de Ojeda, veteran of wars against the Moors, paid him a visit on the pretext of peace. He invited him to mount his horse, and put on him these handcuffs of burnished metal that tie his hands, saying that they were jewels worn by the monarchs of Castile in their balls and festivities.
Now Chief Caonabo spends his days sitting beside the door, his eyes fixed on the tongue of light that invades the earth floor at dawn and slowly retreats in the evening. He doesn't move an eyelash when Columbus comes around. On the other hand, when Ojeda appears, he manages to stand up and bow to the only man who has defeated him.
excerpt: From Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire, 1982. Source: pg. 50. Voices of a People's History, by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove (Seven Stories Press, 2004).
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