They
Were Likewise Confirmed In This Circumstance By James Miruelo, A Pilot,
Who Happened To Be There With A Boat From Hispaniola.
Having ranged
backwards and forewards to the 23d of September, and refitted their ships,
Juan Ponce de Leon sent
One of his ships, commanded by Juan Perez de
Ortubia, with Antonio de Alaminos as pilot, with orders to examine the
island of Bimini, in which the Indians reported there was a spring which
made old people young again. Twenty days afterwards, Juan Ponce returned
to Porto Rico, and not long afterwards the ship returned there which he
had sent to Bimini, but without discovering the famous spring. Ortubia
reported that the island was large, and pleasantly diversified with hills,
plains, and meadows, having many rivers and delightful groves[2].
Besides his main design of making discoveries, which all Spaniards then
aspired to, Ponce was eager to find out the spring of Bimini, and a
certain river in Florida, both of which were affirmed by the Indians of
Cuba to have the property of turning old people young by bathing in their
waters. Some time before the arrival of the Spaniards, many Indians were
so thoroughly convinced of the reality of such a river, that they went
over to Florida, where they built a town, and their descendants still
continue there. This report prevailed so universally among the caciques in
these parts, that there was not a brook in all Florida, nay scarcely a
lake or puddle, that they had not bathed in; and some still ignorantly
persist in believing that this virtue resides in the river now called
Jordan, at Cape Santa Helena, forgetting that the Spaniards first gave
it this name in 1520, when they discovered the country of Chicora.
Though this voyage of Ponce de Leon turned out to no account to him, it
gave him encouragement to go to court to seek a reward for the countries
he had discovered, which he believed to be all islands, and not the
continent, as it afterwards turned out. Yet his voyage was beneficial, on
account of the route soon afterwards found out, by which the ships returned
to Spain through the Bahama channel, which was first accomplished by the
pilot Antonio de Alaminos, formerly mentioned. For the better
understanding this voyage of Juan Ponce, it must be understood that there
are three different groups in the archipelago of the Lucayos. The first is
composed of the Bahama islands, giving name to the channel where the
currents are most impetuous. The second is called los Organos; and the
third los Martyres, which are next the shore of los Tortugas to the
westwards; which last being all sand, cannot be seen at any distance,
wherefore many ships have perished on them, and all along the coasts of
the Bahama channel and the Tortugas islands. Havanna in the island of Cuba
is to the southwards, and Florida to the northward, and between these are
all the before mentioned islands, of Organos, Bahamas, Martyres, and
Tortugas. Between Havanna and los Martyres, there is a channel with a
violent current, twenty leagues over at the narrowest; and it is fourteen
leagues from los Martyres to Florida. Between certain islands to the
eastwards, and the widest part of this passage to the westwards, is forty
leagues, with many shoals and deep channels; but there is no way in this
direction for ships or brigantines, only for canoes. The passage from the
Havanna, for Spain is along the Bahama channel, between the Havanna the
Martyres, the Lucayos, and Cape Canaveral; and the giving occasion to this
discovery was the great merit of Ponce de Leon, for which he was well
rewarded in Spain.
[1] The account of this voyage is often contradictory, and almost always
unintelligible. In this instance, De Leon is made, with a southern
course, to increase his latitude almost nine degrees to the north. - E.
[2] This account of the island of Bimini is perfectly ridiculous, as its
whole extent does not exceed twenty miles in length, and not exceeding
one mile broad; it is one of the smallest of the Bahama or Lucayo
islands, and the largest of them cannot possibly contain any stream of
water beyond the size of a brook. - E.
SECTION X.
The Martyrdom of two Dominican Friars on the coast of Venezuela, through
the Avarice of the Spaniards.
There happened about this time a very singular and melancholy event, which
I find recorded in many Spanish historians, which shews to what a height
corruption had grown in so short a time among the Spanish settlements in
the West Indies. Reports had reached Spain of the harsh and cruel manner
in which the natives were treated by the Spaniards, being distributed
among the proprietors of land as if they had been cattle. This moved some
religious men of the Dominican order to go over to the new world, to try
what progress they could make in converting the Indians by spiritual means
only. Three of these fathers landed in the island of Porto Rico, where one
of them fell sick and was unable to proceed. The other two procured a
vessel to carry them over to the main, where they were landed at no great
distance from the Indian town which Hojeda and Vespucius had seen in their
first voyage, standing in the water, and which therefore they had named
Venezuela or little Venice. The fathers found the natives at this place
very docile and tractable, and were in a fair way of making them converts
to the Christian religion; when unluckily a Spanish pirate, whose only
employment was to steal Indians to sell them as slaves to the colonists,
anchored on the coast. The poor natives, confident of being well treated
by Christians, went freely on board along with their cacique, and the
pirate immediately weighed anchor, and made all sail for Hispaniola,
carrying them all away into slavery. This naturally raised a great ferment
among the remaining natives, who were on the point of sacrificing the two
Dominicans to their resentment, when another Spanish ship arrived in the
harbour, commanded by a man of honour.
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