You Are No Salazar

By Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle

Near Villa de Sotomayor, now Aguada, Puerto Rico, 1511

Pedrito padded along the path waving a stick from side to side sweeping the spider webs — and hopefully the spiders — away. No matter how often he explored the trails between the settlement and the native village along the Culebrinas River, the spider webs were back. At home, in Salamanca, the forest trails were clear. Spiders knew their place.

But there were no indios in Salamanca. No naked men showing off their splendid painted bodies as they raced around the ball courts, no naked women tending gardens or cooking over open fires in front of their straw-thatched huts. He was 16 and had never seen anyone naked before. The Spaniards, even in the tropical heat of the Sotomayor settlement, never disrobed, not even to sleep. This was a new world.

Pedrito struggled but he was no match for the Taíno who seized him. Aymamón, the cacique, had the boy stripped and tied to a post. The men of the tribe filed by to examine the pale-skinned creature who had hair the color of sand on his head and between his legs. “Let the game begin and the winner kill the boy. You will see that the strangers bleed, the strangers die,” he said.

An indio who had been treated kindly by Pedro Juárez, the boy’s father, slipped away to warn the man of the danger to his son. Juárez enlisted Captain Diego Salazar, the commander of the settlement, who grabbed his sword and shield and, racing through the jungle, reached the village while the game was still underway. He cut Pedrito’s bonds and attacked. His fine Toledo steel, his armor, his courage and his strength prevailed and countless Indians were killed or wounded, until the horde receded. Even Aymamón was injured by the fearless stranger. Salazar returned triumphantly to the settlement with the boy.

Upon the dawn, the chief sent for Salazar. Pedrito begged him not to go, but the proud Castilian would not let the natives think he feared them. He walked bravely into the village, on a path lined by men he had wounded and women whose mates he had killed.

The cacique was both pleased and impressed. He rose and greeted the fearsome Castilian like a brother. “This, truly, is a man of great courage,” Aymamón said in the Taíno language. For a moment the warriors were silent, then they began to chant his name, “Salazar, Salazar.”

From that time forward and long after Salazar fell, the Taínos, who held courage in the greatest esteem, would confront the invaders with these words: “We are not afraid of you; you are no Salazar.”

Author’s note:

This is the second in a series of stories about the “encounter of two worlds,” the genocide of the Taínos of Borikén (modern Puerto Rico) by the invading Spaniards in the 16th century. This tale is my flash fiction (500 words) take on an incident cited in the earliest chronicles.