Columbus came ashore to say farewell to Guacanagarí and instill both “friendship and fear,” directing crewmen to conduct a mock battle between themselves using swords, crossbow, and artillery. They fired a lombard at some plank siding of the Santa María heaped at the beach, and the ball blasted it apart and careened far to sea, awing Guacanagarí’s subjects. The photo below is the beach at Bord de Mer de Limonade, Haiti, where this demonstration likely occurred.
Columbus took with him on the Niña the Guanahanían captives and at least one voluntary representative of Guacanagarí. Letters relating to Columbus’s second voyage indicate that he also took one of the Cuban captives, a male youth he must have perceived as a promising interpreter and guide, who remained enslaved to assist the voyage—ultimately to be baptized by Isabella and Ferdinand in Barcelona.