C H A P T E R I I I
BEFORE THE “ DISCOVERY”
WH EN Columbus was preparing for his adventurous
voyages, they were not intended so
much for the discovery of new lands as for the opening
of a new way to the old lands of the East. He
was to seize on the way anything that might belong
to the ‘ ‘ heathen, ” as a preliminary to their conversion,
simply because the heathen were assumed to
have no rights of possession, and not because the
previous existence of the property was unknown.
T h e so-called ‘ ‘ right of discovery,” as superior to
the right of possession, was a peculiar conception of
fifteenth-century Christianity. I t was really the
right to take by force whatever did not already belong
to Christian nations.
A t that time the great American archipelago was
occupied by the people to whom it naturally belonged,
and they were probably about as numerous
as the present peculiarly mixed assortment of inhabitants.
For the most part they were not the
aborigines of the land, but immigrants from the
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coast of South America. There were some remnants
of savage tribes, like the Guanahatabibes of Western
Cuba, whose ancestors are supposed to have come
from; the North American continent; and traces
have been found in caves or in the earth of primeval
[inhabitants who may have been the real autochthone
s. In the mountains of Haiti there are linger-
ling vestiges of myths and legends and of rites and
[superstitions which are believed by some to have
¡come down from prehistoric ages and become
¡mingled with others of African origin.
But before the arrival of the great European navig
a to r , the people consisted almost wholly of two
•races, or branches of the same race, which had made
■their way northward from the valleys of the Esse-
Iquibo and the Orinoco— the Arawaks and the
■Caribs. T hey seem to have been hereditary ene-
Imies, and one was apparently driven before the
■other. The Arawaks were a mild and peaceable
■race, and had occupied the Bahamas and Greater
■Antilles long enough to develop tribal differences
■and variations of language, while the Caribs were
|[a fierce and aggressive people which held full
■possession of the Lesser Antilles, including the
■Virgin group to the east of Puerto Rico. T h e y are
■supposed to have driven the Arawaks from these
■islands, and they sometimes made hostile incursions
■ upon the shores of the great islands to the west and
■were even dreaded among the Bahamas. In these
■marauding expeditions they not only plundered the
■villages of the peaceful Arawaks, but captured their
■young men for slaves, or, as some maintain, for sup