CHAPTER VI.

SUBJUGATION OF JAMAICA BY THE SPANIARDS IN THE YEAR 1494.-ITS CONDITION FROM THAT PERIOD UNTIL IT WAS CAPTURED BY THE BRITISH FORCES IN 1655.

We have traced the eventful progress of Columbus to the moment when he discovered Jamaica: a

A.D. 1494. distant view of whose lofty blue mountains he first obtained, on the morning of the 3d of May 1494, from the offing of a deep bay called by him Puerto Grande (now Puerto de St. Pedro) on the coast of Cuba. The Indian fishermen, who accompanied him, gave him to understand that the land he saw was called "Xaymaca;" a word implying, according to the received opinion of historians, an overflowing abundance of rivers: and therefore not, in that exclusive sense, at all applicable to this Island.

In the rise of human speech, a method must have been wanted, and sought, and found, of discriminating first between familiar persons, and then between common objects: for in every language the invention of proper names must have had the earliest origin. The primitive choice of every word must also have had a cause, and meaning: each name must have been derived from some accident or allusion, or quality of the object, mind, or body: and

the truth of this observation is attested by the Ancient World, from India to Spain; and by the New, from the lakes of Canada, to the mountains of Chili; where the titles of the savage chieftains announced their personal qualifications, their wisdom in the council, or their valour in the field.

We must therefore suppose that the word Xaymaca would probably denote the most obvious qualities of the land to which these Indian savages pointed: and so in fact it did; for in the speech of Florida, chabaian signified water, and makia, wood*. The compound sound would approach to Chab-makia ; and, harmonized to the Spanish ear, would be Chamakia, or some such indistinct union of these two significant expressions, denoting a land covered with wood, and therefore watered by shaded rivulets, or, in other words, fertile. Nor is this conclusion unsupported by example; for in the 10th chap. 7th verse Deuteronomy, Ιεταβαπα is said to be γην χειμάρρον idátov, "a land of rivers of waters"; an expression ὑδάτων, familiar to the children of Israel as signifying fruitful abundance. Moses made use of the same words when he promised to bring them to the land of plenty: and the γην χειμάῤῥον υδάτων aptly brought to their recollection the contrast between the land of Egypt, which was but periodically watered by a single river, and the promised territory which should be refreshed by abundant springs, and mountain showers.

Lescarbot, 16. c. 6.

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Now this characteristic fertility of Jamaica was particularly noted by Columbus; who concurred with the Indians in distinguishing it, at first sight, from all the islands he had ever met with, as the most fertile. The same name might, it is true, have been applied in the same rude speech to any other luxuriant land, without assigning to it the literal meaning of abounding in springs," which Jamaica in fact does not. And so we find it was applied in a case which puts it beyond a doubt that such was not its simple or exclusive signification: for, according to the testimony of Ferdinand Columbus, Antigua, an island little less fertile than Jamaica, though without a single spring of water*, was called Xaymaca by its native Charaibes. This circumstance might seem to prove an affinity between the Indian and Charaibean languages: but it is more probable that Columbus obtained the name of Antigua from the same Indians who continued with him, and had applied it to Jamaica, and who would have applied the same expression to any other fertile land they saw. Indeed, it appears that the Indian language possessed few definite or proper names; for when Columbus first visited the shores of Cuba, the natives called the island by that name: but on his next voyage thither, they called it Bayatiquirit.

* See Note XXXI.

† Hist. Gen. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 19. A late author gives to America one thousand two hundred and sixty four languages.

May 3,

Approaching the shore in a south-west

1494. course from the eastern point of Cuba, he named the headland he first encountered, Santa Maria, from the name of his first ship. The numerous canoes which came off to meet him, gave Columbus the first intelligence that Jamaica was thickly inhabited: but some boats, which he would have sent in to obtain soundings in what is now called Port Maria, met with a large body of armed Indians, who seemed determined to oppose a landing. With no better success they attempted to effect their purpose of taking possession of the island in another harbour, which he called Ora Cabeca; and annoyed by such barbarity, several cannon, or arbalêtes, were discharged. The Indians, seeing some of their companions fall, became less daring; conciliation was the consequence, presents were interchanged, and the country was formally added to the acquisitions of the Spanish crown. Remaining amongst the astonished natives for the space of ten days, on the 18th the discoverers coasted along in a westerly direction; but a baffling wind obliged the admiral to stand across to Cuba; when he resolved upon ascertaining whether that large tract of country were an island, or a part of that continent which he was seeking.

On the 22d of the following month, while still cruising in boisterous weather, he again approached the shores of Jamaica from Cape de la Cruz in Cuba.

Then it was, that, according to Oldmixon, he gave to the island the name of St. Jago *, which that author says it has since retained in Jamaica, the augmentative of James. That he bestowed the appellation, might probably be the case; for St. Jago was the patron of Spain, and therefore very likely to have lent his name to the discovered land: especially as it was the war-cry of the Spaniards, who, being here, for the first time, opposed in their landing, had doubtless used it; but that it was retained in the shape of any Anglicism, is a gross mistake. Acosta called it Jamaycque, and Benzo, Jamaica, nearly a century before it was thought of by any English adventu

rers.

Aug. 20,

Columbus now again coasted along in the same direction as before: but a heavy swell forbad his landing. He ascertained, however, pretty accurately, the dimensions of the Isle, which he could not have effected had he not doubled the west end of it, and beat to windward along the south side. As it was on the 22nd of June that he made the land somewhere about Rio Bueno, and not until the 1494. 20th of August that he reached San Miguel, now Cape Tiburon, it is very probable that during this interval of thirty-nine days, on which all historians are silent, he was employed in this survey; for he observes that, the weather continuing stormy, he cruised first in a westerly direction; when, other winds arising, he resolved to steer eastward, towards *See Note XXXII.

VOL. I.

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