Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
PRE- AND EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE
their departure; and to get the survivor out from there, I went over to the island
every year, and entreated him that we should go, in the best way we could contrive,
in quest of Christians. He put me o every year, saying in the next coming we would
start. At last I got him o, crossing him over the bay, and over four rivers in the coast,
as he could not swim. In this way we went on with some Indians, until coming to a
bay a league in width, and everywhere deep. From the appearance we supposed it to
be that which is called Espiritu Sancto. We met some Indians on the other side of it,
coming to visit ours, who told us that beyond them were three men like us, and gave
their names. We asked for the others, and were told that they were all dead of cold
and hunger; that the Indians farther on, of whom they were, for their diversion had
killed Diego Dorantes, Valdevieso, and Diego de Huelva, because they left one house
for another; and that other Indians, their neighbors with whom Captain Dorantes
now was, had in consequence of a dream, killed Esquivel and Mendez. We asked how
the living were situated, and they answered that they were very ill used, the boys and
some of the Indian men being very idle, out of cruelty gave them many kicks, cus
and blows with sticks; that such was the life they led.
We desired to be informed of the country ahead, and of the subsistence: they
said there was nothing to eat, and that it was thin of people, who suered of cold,
having no skins or other things to cover them. They told us also if we wished to see
those three Christians, two days from that time the Indians who had them would
come to eat walnuts a league from there on the margin of that river; and that we
might know what they told us of the ill usage to be true, they slapped my companion
and beat him with a stick, and I was not left without my portion. Many times they
threw lumps of mud at us, and every day they put their arrows to our hearts, saying
that they were inclined to kill us in the way that they had destroyed our friends. Lope
Oviedo, my comrade, in fear said that he wished to go back with the women of those
who had crossed the bay with us, the men having remained some distance behind.
I contended strongly against his returning, and urged my objections; but in no way
could I keep him. So he went back, and I remained alone with those savages. They
are called Quevenes, and those with whom he returned, Deaguanes.
Chapter XIX
OUR SEPARATION BY THE INDIANS.
When the six months were over, I had to spend with the Christians to put in
execution the plan we had concerted, the Indians went after prickly pears, the place
at which they grew being thirty leagues o and when we approached the point of
ight, those among whom we were, quarreled about a woman. After striking with
sts, heating with sticks and bruising heads in great anger, each took his lodge and
went his way, whence it became necessary that the Christians should also separate,
and in no way could we come together until another year.
In this time I passed a hard life, caused as much by hunger as ill usage. Three
times I was obliged to run from my masters, and each time they went in pursuit and
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