The Dominica Treasure 1583-1590 It has long been debated whether or not Indians with cannibalistic practices existed because actual accounts describing the ways in which they supposedly “consumed” fellow prisoners are rare.1 Generally known as “Caribes” or Caribs, documents relate the audacity and exploits of these armed natives. Numerous attacks are recorded for Puerto Rico during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century.2 By the late 1560’s the assaults were but vestiges of a once powerful resistance unwilling to subdue to Spanish expansionism. These Indians lived entrenched in the Lesser Antilles where, like in other unconquered localities, the savagery of the terrain lay controlled by the original habitants. Through island-hopping related tribes from South America frequently came to the assistance of the Lesser Antilles communities in an attempt to punish the Spanish aggressor. Such was their mission in 1569 when they fell upon the recently established Spanish colony at Trinidad Island, off Venezuela, where many Spaniards were massacred and the twenty year old son of San Juan’s clergy Juan Ponce de Leon was supposedly dragged away with other settlers. In one of the subsequent assailing voyages to Puerto Rico a previous captive managed to flee in 1583. This escapee was the black women Luisa Navarrete who spent four years of captivity with one of the Dominica tribes. Her account of the perils suffered were told to the island’s Bishop who wrote to the Spanish Crown. “... each year they go to steal by the months of June, July, and August, to the island of Puerto Rico and other parts. In this manner they have captured many Negro slaves and some Spaniards in some haciendas by which fear many lands have been depopulated and two mills that make sugar. They have done and do great harm and have taken some navios of those that head from Santo Domingo to Margarita by having touched the island of Puerto Rico. Among the captives they have taken was a free female Negro named Luisa born in Puerto Rico... whom after being four years captive in the island of Dominica in coming the Indians to steal at that of Puerto Rico they took her with them, from where she escaped, from whom many things were known about the island of Dominica as well as the captives and treasure that there exists.” (AGI, Santo Domingo 172) Papers related to the incident gave an historical insight about the treatment of captured Spaniards; some had gone insane, others lay desolate and roamed naked among the tribesmen. Luisa told of particular cultural practices, such as the customs following the death of a master, whose prisoners or slaves were sacrificed to serve in the next life. She pointed out that whenever the Caribs departed on expeditions, the Spaniards were left stranded on the island with only the native women and children as custodians. Luisa also spoke of the agricultural crops maintained by the natives at such immediate isles like Grenada and Martinique. Concerning cannibalism she stated that the Spanish prisoners no longer constituted part of the native diet because several Indians had died following the consumption of a friar. Incursions were thereafter made upon other tribes capturing Indians for food and bringing whitemen as slaves. Close to thirty Spaniards and 400 Negroes lay about the island having been gathered from Puerto Rico and Trinidad; among them was the son of clergy Juan Ponce de Leon. Clergy Juan Ponce de Leon was speedy informing the king of the matter whom through a Royal decree given at San Lorenzo el Real, dated June 12, 1584, ordered the Real Audiencia de Santo Domingo to gather information from the oldest inhabitants of a way by which Dominica could be taken and whether it was convenient to establish a settlement.3 Stratagems were carefully studied by the Military Junta at Puerto Rico. The governor of Margarita Island proposed that Captain Pedro Gomez could easily transact the release or exchange by using Luisa as an interpreter. Gomez would be aided by some men, parents and friends, of those who had lost members to the tribes. It was also suggested that the Captain General in charge of the regional galleys could stop there for approximately four days and attend the matter. Any captured natives would serve as rowers without major expense. (AGI, Santo Domingo 2280) Luisa also told of a fabulous treasure gathered from various Spanish wreck sites stored within a cave. But which ships had met their fate among the waters of Dominica? According to Captain John Hawkins’ 1565 account, a Spanish vessel was wrecked in 1564 and the Indians captured and ate most of the survivors. (Hakluyt, 1904, X: 25-29) Author John S. Potter Jr. (1972: 137) stated that in 1567 several naos under the command of Adelantado Pedro Menendez de Aviles son were transporting to Spain the gold, silver and pearl consignments from Tierra Firme through the Lesser Antilles archipelago. On board the vessels came three million pesos worth when caught in a hurricane and smashed on the reefs. Survivors who made it ashore were soon captured and eaten by the Carib natives. When the sea calmed, the Indians went out in canoes to the broken ships and extracted just about everything that could be found. Nails and other artifacts were brought back. Spanish treasure, consisting of silver bullion and lots of currency of four and eight real denomination, was extracted too.4 Despite the contradictions concerning the nature of the lost fleet, it is a known fact that many Indian tribes had the habit of gleaning cargo from wrecked ships. For example, when the Frenchmen Rene Laudonniere undertook the ill-fated settling attempt at Florida he reported that “there is found among the savages good quantitie of gold and silver, which is gotten out of the shippes that are lost upon the coast, as I have understood by the savages themselves.”5 Even John Hawkins reported about this practice in the 1565 voyage account when he was near Los Martires, (Florida Keys), where proportedly an Indian king named Cabs had a “... great store of golde and silver, so farre foorth that in a certaine village he had a pit full thereof, which was at the least as high as a man, and as large as a tunne... The greatest part of these riches was had, as they sayd, out of the Spanish shippes, which commonly were cast away in this straight; and the rest by the traffique which this king of Calos had with the other kings of the countrey...”6 Spanish documents described the Dominica treasure as follows: “(1584)... that from lost naos they have stored in a cave three leagues from the sea a quantity of gold and silver worked and to be worked and reals...”7 “(1587)... in the Dominica there were lost might be some twenty years certain naos with which came from the province of Tierra Firme a son of the Adelantado Pedro Menendez (de Aviles) in which were brought more than three million in gold, silver and pearls and that having been killed and eaten the people of the said naos... the said Caribs went in their pirogues to the naos to extract the iron and nails from them; which they appreciate a lot, and in the way took the treasure that they found there and placed it in a cave that is close to the beach where it is said, and certified by some captives that have escaped from the said Indians, is at present still there...”8 “(1587)... there is a cave full of silver bricks and much reals of 4 and of 8 and other merchandise and that the silver pile is so high that a man on horse could not be seen from the other side and asked by the female Negro where they had obtained that silver they said that nearby were lost some navios with a storm and that they killed the people that came ashore swimming and they headed to the navios in search of the nails and iron that by being in the shoals could be extracted...” (AGI, Santo Domingo 155) By 1587, the Crown was still gathering reports and comments. On October 10, 1588 Luisa was once again questioned and stated in a sworn account before the Governor that: “She was captured while at an hacienda located in Humacao about ten years ago by Carib Indians, with another Negro and four men. Taken to Dominica where she was held captive for four years learning the language and customs... and that in the said island she saw lots of silver bars in the manner of bricks. That questioning... the Indians about where they had come from, they responded from a navio that had struck the coast of that island and speaking about this to some of the Christians held captive for a long time... they told her that a navio had arrived to that island with a storm a long time ago and had struck the coast which was loaded with lots of silver for the king and that the said Christians had been in the island when it hit the coast and that some of the people that came in the said ship drowned and others were killed by the Caribs and seven or eight were held captive and distributed throughout the other islands... and since the Indians have suspicions that Christians will fall upon them, they have hidden this treasure in a watering spot or cave that is a league from the sea and inland in other parts... and in this way she had seen lots of gold --she does not know if it came from the said ship-- because in the island of Grenada, that is close by, the said Indians go from Dominica in where they say there is lots of gold of which they have made eagles... and other birds and vermins.”
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 00:29:45 +0000
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