CHAP.
IV.]
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
31
to the prosperity of the colony, while there was imminent risk of his hostility, from the unbridled excesses of the Spaniards who had been quartered in his dominions. Columbus sent for him, therefore, and explained to him that these excesses had been in violation of his orders, and contrary to his good intentions towards the natives, whom it was his wish in every way to please and benefit. He explained, likewise, that the expedition against Guatiguana was an act of mere individual punishment, not of hos tility against the territories of Guarionex. The cacique was of a quiet and placable disposition, and whatever anger he might have felt was easily soothed. To link him in some degree to the Spanish interest, Columbus prevailed on him to give his daughter in marriage to the Indian interpreter, Diego Colon.* As a stronger precaution against any hostility on the part of the ca cique, and to insure tranquillity in the important region of the Vega, he ordered a fortress to be erected in the midst of his ter ritories, which he named Fort Conception. The easy cacique agreed without hesitation to a measure fraught with ruin to him self, and future slavery to his subjects. The most formidable enemy remained to be disposed of,—Ca onabo. His territories lay in the central and mountainous parts of the island, rendered difficult of access by rugged rocks, entan gled forests, and frequent rivers. To make war upon this subtle and ferocious chieftain, in the depths of his wild woodland terri tory, and among the fastnesses of his mountains, where, at every * P. Martyr, decad. i. lib. iv.
Gio. Battista Spotorno, in his Memoir of
Columbus, has been led into an error by the name of this Indian, and observes that Columbus had a brother named Diego, of whom he seemed to be ashamed, and whom he married to the daughter of an Indian chief.