After mass, Mendaña, in the name of His Majesty, took formal possession of all four of the islands of the southeastern Marquesas. He walked about in the fields, planting seeds as a ritual act. Then he and Doña Isabel went back to stay aboard ship. But the Campmaster and all the soldiers remained on shore.
Soon the men began to quarrel among themselves and with the natives. When the aroused Marquesans threw stones and lances in self-defense, the soldiers chased them into the hills with their women and children. The Spaniards then took over the village and fortified it. A few bold natives skirmished with the troops, but when they saw how little harm their missiles did, and how easily they were killed by the bullets of the Christians, they tried to make peace.
They brought fruits and other offerings to the soldiers, and by signs asked when the Spaniards would go away, so that they could move back into their homes. Each native picked out one Christian as his special comrade—a chummy custom that Melville later noted among the Marquesans—and would sit with him and try to talk, asking the Spanish names of the sun and the stars and the palm trees and everything else in sight.
The Spaniards learned that these natives lived together in big houses formed of wooden posts interwoven with cane and roofed with leaves. They had canoes seating thirty or forty men, and in them went to other islands far away. One of the natives, seeing a Negro on the ship, pointed toward the south and made signs to say that in that direction there were many people like the Negro, who used arrows, and the Marquesans went south in canoes to fight these black people.
The climate in these islands was healthful, and the natives fed well on pigs and chickens and fish. The mainstay of their diet was an amazing food, part fruit, part vegetable, and in the Quirós narrative we find the first description of the breadfruit, so vital to the economy of the South Pacific: “The trees … yield a fruit which becomes the size of a boy’s head. Its color, when it is ripe, is a bright green, and when unripe it is very green. The rind has crossed grooves like a pineapple; its shape is not quite round, being rather more narrow at the end than at the base. From the stem grows a stalk reaching to the middle of the fruit, with a sheath of tissue. It has no core or pips, or anything inedible except the skin, and that is thin. All the rest is a mass of sapless pulp when ripe, not so much when green. They eat much of it in all sorts of ways, and it is so palatable that they call it ‘white food.’ It is a wholesome fruit and of much importance. The leaves of the tree are large, and deeply cleft, like those of the papaya.”
One day eleven natives came out to the ships in canoes and offered coconuts for trade. When they got within range the soldiers wantonly fired into them and chased them back to the beach. The bodies of three who had been abandoned were taken on shore and mutilated. Then the Campmaster hung them on trees as a warning, so that the natives might be terrified by seeing the wide gashes of swords and the ugly wounds of the bullets. At night the natives took the hanged bodies away.
As one instance of the bloodthirsty treatment of the natives by the soldiers, Quirós mentions that a soldier had an arquebus in his hut, and a friend of his came in, loaded it and pointed it at some visiting natives. The man took the weapon away from his friend and asked him what he was going to do with so much diligence. The friend said that his diligence was to kill people, because he liked to kill. “What harm have these natives done you,” asked the man, “that you should be so cruel? It is not valorous to show yourself a lion among lambs. If you do not know what a foul and sinful thing it is to murder a body which contains a soul, it is high time you learned.” But other soldiers were not so kindhearted, and shot the natives down for fun, since they found pleasure in testing their skill on moving targets. The most that can be said of such behavior is that it set the pattern for all subsequent European visitors to these tragic islands, which explains why, today, one native survives where in 1595 there were fifty. During the two weeks the fleet stayed in the Marquesas, at least two hundred natives were murdered for sport.
Mendaña was impressed by the Marquesas and wanted to leave thirty men and their wives to colonize these lovely islands, but the soldiers complained and he gave up the idea. Thereafter, until Captain James Cook rediscovered the Marquesas in 1774, no white men visited this group for a hundred and eighty years; but when they returned, the natives still retained memories of the horrors perpetrated by their first white visitors.
On August 5, 1595, Mendaña’s small fleet headed once more for the Solomons. But for a whole month no land was to be found except some dangerous reefs that almost took the bottoms off the ships. The Campmaster continued to wrangle with everyone and to wield his cane, trying to run the flagship as if it were a besieged garrison in Flanders.
Among the company the grumbling increased. Many said they despaired of ever finding land in this deadly ocean, which might well be empty all the way to Great Tartary. Others said that Mendaña had obviously forgotten where the isles of Solomon might be found, or else the sea had risen and covered them. Still others said that Mendaña, in order to earn the right to be made a marquis, would let them all starve on these waters, or make them go to the bottom and fish for those pearls he gabbled about. Pilot Quirós knew that the ships had already passed far to the west of the longitude given him by the Governor as that of the Solomons, but he assured the complainers that he would navigate as well as he could, for he did not intend to lose his own life.
The consort ship Santa Isabel had by this time grown so short of firewood for the galley that the crew was burning the upper spars of the vessel, and was short of water as well. Captain Lope de Vega came to the flagship and pleaded for twenty jars of water, but Mendaña could not believe he was so short, and refused to give him any from the remaining supply of four hundred jars. Captain de Vega was worried also because without ballast the consort could not sail well. As it turned out, he had good cause to worry.
On September 7 the lookout on Mendaña’s flagship sighted a mass of dark smoke dead ahead. The two smaller ships were dispatched to explore cautiously, and at nine that night those on the flagship briefly glimpsed Captain de Vega’s Santa Isabel standing out from a thick curtain of smoke reaching to the horizon. The night was passed in praying God to send the daylight, but at dawn there was no sign of the Santa Isabel.
For many days—and at intervals later—the expedition sought this lost ship, but she had disappeared and nobody was ever to see her again. With a hundred and eighty souls aboard, the vessel vanished into the bosom of the Pacific. Doña Isabel’s sister Mariana, who still lived on the flagship and was thus a widow before she was a wife, mourned for her lost Captain Lope de Vega, and blamed herself for not having shared his fate.
Now, 1085 leagues from Peru, the expedition at last sighted land, a perfect cone-shaped mountain rising from the ocean. It was the active volcano of Tinakula, rising three thousand feet and spouting out great flames and sparks, more than enough for ten ordinary volcanoes. The mountain thundered in its bowels, and from it came an immense cloud of smoke that blanketed the world. At this fearful sight, Mendaña ordered all the soldiers to be confessed, and to set the example he himself confessed to the Vicar in public.
Soon the ships neared an island south of the volcano. It was roughly rectangular, about twenty-five by fifteen miles. On all sides but the western, densely wooded volcanic slopes rose to a height of 1800 feet.
On September 7, fifty small canoes came out to the ships. The people in them were very black, not at all like the Polynesians of the Marquesas. They wore shocks of frizzy hair, which was often caked in lime and urine to dye it yellow or red. They were completely naked. All were tattooed with lines blacker than their skin; they had designs on their faces as well as their bodies. They wore many necklaces of very small beads of bone and fish teeth, and plates of mother-of-pearl hanging from various parts of their bodies. They carried bows and arrows, darts with three rows of barbs, and heavy wooden swords.
When the Governor saw their dark color he again jumped to the conclusion
that at last he had reached the Solomons. But this forbidding and inhospitable group, which he named Santa Cruz, was still about 240 miles east of the southern Solomons. He tried to speak to the natives in the language he had learned nearly thirty years before, but they did not respond, and in fact Mendaña never did attain an understanding of these formidable savages.
The natives in the canoes would not come aboard the ship but, incited by a tall old man, fired off many arrows which whistled harmlessly through the sails and rigging. In return the soldiers discharged a volley from their arquebuses. Some of the black men were killed, many others were wounded, and all fled to shore in great terror, to hide among the trees. In the tradition of this fleet a new-found people had once more been greeted with a volley of bullets.
The three ships could not find a safe haven, and at night almost drove onto the rocks and coral heads that lined the shore. The soldiers got into a panic, but would not lend a hand in hauling up the anchors. Disdainfully the sailors shouted, “Let the brave Peruvians go below, and may those who do the work get the credit!” They managed to make sail and get the flagship into the open seas, where she heeled over and almost swamped with the waves coming aboard. The incident did little to abate the rivalry between soldiers and sailors.
For two days they floundered offshore, hoping to find a harbor, and at night heard from the shore the noise of music and dancing, the beating of drums and tambourines of hollow wood. Then they found a sheltered anchorage by a village in a bay on the north side of Santa Cruz, a bay which the Governor in gratitude christened Graciosa, the name which it still bears.
Another group of natives, wearing red flowers tucked in their hair and nostrils, came out to visit the ships, and some of them were persuaded to come aboard. Among them was a tawny-skinned, tall man of fine presence, with blue, yellow and red plumes on his head. He came forward and asked by signs who was the leader of the Spaniards.
Mendaña took the chief by the hand and told his name, whereupon the native replied that his was Malope and indicated that he would like to exchange names as a sign of friendship—an old Melanesian custom. Thereafter, when anyone called the chief Malope, he would say no, his name was Mendaña but the leader of the Christians was called Malope.
Mendaña dressed Malope in a linen shirt, and the soldiers gave the other natives some feathers, little bells, glass beads, bits of cotton and even playing cards, all of which they hung around their necks. They also showed the Melanesians some mirrors, and with razors shaved their heads and chins, and with scissors cut their toenails. The black men begged hard to be given these magic tools of metal, the razors and scissors.
Four days later the soldiers went ashore to visit Malope’s village, where crowds of natives greeted them with joy. The soldiers were disappointed with these signs of peace, though; they felt they were growing rusty at their profession and informed their leaders that they wanted to make war instead. The day after this visit, a boat was sent to load water at a stream, and some concealed natives shouted and fired arrows, which wounded three Spaniards. At once Mendaña ordered the Campmaster to land with thirty men and do all the harm they could with fire and sword. The natives stood their ground until five of them were killed, then the rest fled. The Christians cut down some palm trees and burned some huts and canoes before they came back to the ships, bringing three pigs they had captured.
Early next morning the Campmaster returned with forty soldiers to punish the natives further for the attack. The party arrived secretly at the village, surrounded the huts, and set them on fire. Seven natives who were inside defended themselves bravely; six were killed and one, badly wounded, escaped by running.
That afternoon Malope came to the beach and cried out to the Governor, to complain that this punishment was a mistake. He made clear by signs that the houses and canoes that had been burned belonged to him, but that the natives responsible for the attack were bad men, his enemies from the other side of the bay. He went away sadly, but returned on another day and friendship was restored.
One day in a violent explosion the volcano pulverized its rocky top, so that even though the fleet was now ten leagues distant, explosions shook the vessels. Thereafter mighty thundering was heard for days, and dense smoke overarched the sky.
The ships found a better anchorage along the bay, but soon five hundred enemy natives came to the beach and hurled darts and stones at the sailors. They were chased back by a boatload of soldiers led by Doña Isabel’s brother, Captain Lorenzo Barreto. The Captain, although he had no orders to land, followed the natives into the jungle.
The Campmaster, watching from the ship, shouted that the soldiers’ lives should not be risked in this way, and that an officer who disobeyed orders ought to be punished. This remark touched Doña Isabel’s family pride, and she exclaimed that, since Don Lorenzo was her brother, there was no limit to his powers on the military side. But the old Campmaster went ashore with thirty men, caught up with Don Lorenzo and told him he was not fit to be a captain. When Doña Isabel heard of the scolding, her remarks about the Campmaster added to the bad blood that was building on each side.
The Campmaster stayed on shore that night, and next day ordered the soldiers to clear a flat place near a large stream and build a settlement there. At this command most of the unmarried men began eagerly to chop down trees and bring palm branches to thatch the huts they were building.
But the married men felt that they would be happier if they moved the natives out of their houses in the village and took over these ready-made homes for themselves. They went to Mendaña and complained of the Campmaster’s decision, and the Governor grew angry because he had chosen a different site for their town, on a bare point near the entrance to the bay; but the Campmaster insisted that his choice prevail.
Everybody bustled around setting up tents and huts in a spirit of optimism. But this feeling did not last long, because many of the settlers could not help thinking how this place suffered in comparison with the remembered delights and comforts of Lima; and thus, wrote Quirós, the devil began to spread discontent and dissension among the colonists.
It would have been better if the Governor had lived ashore to watch how things were going there; but no house had been built for him and his wife, so they kept their headquarters on the flagship. The Governor commanded that the natives be well treated and their houses and property respected. But many of the colonists said that they had already spent much money to get to this place, and they wanted to start collecting some profit from their venture. Thus Men daña was daily pestered by complaints from all sides, and the discontent grew.
The colonists should have been happy on this island of Santa Cruz, for it provided the elements of a bountiful life for those who were willing to work in peace and harmony. The Melanesian inhabitants, after the initial battles, had become quite happy in their relations with the Spaniards. They laughed all day, brought presents to the Spaniards, tilled gardens and raised pigs and fowls, and caught many fish from their outrigger canoes, hollowed out of a single log. They also showed the colonists how to raise many kinds of bananas and other fruits, and how coconuts and sugar cane could be harvested. They ate breadfruit and a starchy root which they roasted and made into biscuits. They plaited bags and sails and mats from palm leaves, and wove a fabric to be used as cloaks. Compared to other Pacific natives, they were healthy and slept well at night, for no mosquitoes were observed on this island.
The Spaniards ashore got into the habit of demanding food from the natives, and soldiers would raid the villages and return with coconuts and bananas and as many pigs as they could round up. Chief Malope was very helpful and persuaded his natives to come and work at building houses for the Spaniards, so that their own would not be taken from them.
But in what could have been a successful colony, there was constant trouble. The Campmaster was in charge on shore, and he did nothing to put down the grumblings that continually arose, until a petition was circulated secretly by the soldiers, asking tha
t Mendaña take them away and find a better place, or go to the Solomon Islands where the gold and pearls were waiting to be collected.
When Mendaña realized that a pitiful end was inevitable for a project that should have succeeded magnificently, the poor old man began to fail. His health was further damaged by the merciless feud between his wife and the Campmaster, and if a coup de grâce was needed, it was found in the endless bickering which his doddering personality had allowed to grow up in every quarter. However, when the petition was presented he tried to draw himself up in a last gesture of authority and announced that what they had done was nothing less than an act of mutiny. They were founding a city, he said, not trying to reach a spot where an idle man could pick up emeralds, diamonds and rubies from the ground. Great cities were not built in a day, he preached, for some sturdy pioneers always had to construct the foundations.
The soldiers responded to such sentiment most effectively. They simply grabbed an unoffending villager and stabbed him to death, hoping thereby to force the black men into a war that would cut off the food supply, so that the expedition would have to go somewhere else in search of provisions. They reasoned also that if the natives attacked, the Governor would have to send ashore the cannons for defense there, and these could then be turned against the ships.
Other malcontents proposed to make holes with augers in the ships’ bottoms, so that nobody could go back to Peru and report their bad behavior. The soldiers were afraid that the sailors would put to sea and desert them, and to calm their fears the Governor had to take all the ships’ sails and lock them up under guard, where in the excessive heat they began to rot.
The soldiers now forced others to sign their mutinous petition and to promise that, if things degenerated into an open conflict, they would use their guns on the side of the Campmaster and against Mendaña. One soldier boasted in public: “The Campmaster is my fighting cock; everyone is afraid of him. Let us take his side in this war.” Another complained maliciously: “The clothing of Doña Isabel was made to be worn for two years. Must we stay all that time on this lost island? And I have no wife to take by the hand, as Don Alvaro has his wife.”