Diary of Alonso de Cárdenas

Diary entry #2

February 28th, 1507

The dim morning light casts a serene glow on our fledgling outpost. I was part of a search party yesterday that was traveling around the coast to map the island, when we found some unknown peoples. They seemed eager to bring us back to their camp.

There, we found a small village, not larger than 1,000. We met a fellow Spaniard, who'd been enslaved by the natives. He managed to be a middleman, communicating between both of us. He told us about surprisingly generous treatment, peacefulness, and simple lives on this island.

They called themselves the Maguá, from down south in Hispaniola. We exchanged gifts, they showed us their crops, and offered some seeds to us, the crew wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as i was. Despite their protests, I invited one of their soldiers to come back to our camp.

They offered to let us have a meal with them. It had some strange fruits, and crops, there was an elongated stick of kernels, some red like the cardinal's robes, some yellow like the sun. It was sweet and earthy, but oddly crunchy. They called it "Mahiz", a name odd to the Spanish tongue. They're surprisingly nice, even their slaves are treated fairly, however, the crew is weary of them.

Hernandez was enraged that they kept a Spaniard as a slave, we had an argument earlier about it. I believe peacefulness could keep balance, but he doesn't seem to think so.

I was trying to reason with him, keeping the natives peaceful would be our best option. They've been nice to us so far, and all we must do is buy him. Their slaves don't live as ours do.

Hernandez, however, is unrelenting in his anger, "A Spaniard shall bow to no one but the crown and god!" He'd retorted. I managed to keep him from fighting them at their camp.

In the peacefulness of this evening, I reflect on the past week, we set 3 houses in a neat row, each a red clay color, we're planning on making paints for them soon though, Mastergunner Giovanni Ricci, has taken charge of that, and we're shaping this place to be a nice home so far.