SANTO CERRO & LA VEGA VIEJA

The First Major European/Indian Battle
Origin of the Legend of the Virgin de las Mercedes, the Island’s Patroness
The Founding of Concepción de la Vega
--by Dr. Lynne Guitar
Dr. Lynne Guitar's Resume
Ph.D. History & Anthropology, Vanderbilt University

On March 14, 1495, Admiral/Governor/Viceroy Christopher Columbus and 200 armored Spanish infantrymen, 20 armored horsemen, and an uncounted number of Taínos (Cacique Guacanagarí’s men ), arrived at the site known today as Santo Cerro (“Holy Hill”). They had left the settlement of La Isabela on the north coast and marched through the Pass of the Hidalgos en route to the main cacicazgo of Guarionex, in the heart of the mountainous, gold-bearing Cibao. How long the march took is not mentioned in any of the surviving records. The Indians in the group probably outnumbered their Spanish allies by a minimum of 3:1, but as with victorious battles later in European-American history, the Europeans took all the credit, leaving their Indian allies out of most of the official accounts. The army of Spanish and Taíno warriors led by Columbus had, as their goal, stamping out the increasing Indian attacks against the Spaniards (who were scouting around in small groups throughout the Cibao seeking gold and food and women. They also wanted to establish a firm foothold in the gold-bearing region where, until now, they had only one small fort, Santo Tomás on the Jánico River—the name Santo Tomás, after “Doubting Thomas,” was a riposte to those who had publicly expressed their doubt that Columbus would find much gold on Hispaniola. The Taíno cacique who had given them the most trouble to date, Caonabó (who was supposedly the leader of the Taínos who massacred the 39 Spaniards whom Columbus left behind at Fort la Navidad on his first voyage) had been captured, put aboard a ship bound for trial in Spain, and had died at sea. Now his brother Manicaotex was leading the attacks against the Spaniards out of the cacicazgo of the Cacique Guarionex, which was tributary to Caonabó’s cacicazgo of Maguá.

Columbus appears to have chosen the site of Santo Cerro at which to make his stand because it provided a clear view of the Cibao Valley below and because it was relatively easy to defend. It is a high, steep mountain, easternmost in the vast chain called the Cordillera Central. From atop Santo Cerro, one can see across the entire Cibao Valley (approximately 24 kms. wide at this point), all the way to the narrow but high mountain pass of the Cordillera Septentrional beyond Mocca that gives way to the Atlantic Coast near today’s Puerto Plata. Columbus and his men appear to have arrived in late afternoon. Columbus ordered his Indian allies to build a palenque, a palisaded area, on top of the mountain, and he planted a cross made out of the wood of a local nispero tree, where they all prayed for success in the next day’s battle.

What a sight awaited Columbus and his men as they looked down upon the valley in the early light of dawn on March 15. Reports vary, and the numbers probably grew over time, as often happens with legendary battles, but somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 Taínos, the combined forces of Manicaotex and Guarionex, were gathered at the foot of Santo Cerro, ready to do battle with the Spaniards. Witnesses later testified that there were “Indians as far as the eye could see.” The Spaniards descended to do battle and, despite their Indian allies, their cavalrymen, arquebuses, and advanced fighting strategies that had been polished throughout 800 years of fighting Moors back in Spain, they could not gain any headway against the Taíno warriors. Outnumbered and out fought, by nightfall the Spaniards were beaten back into their palenque where, say the witnesses, they wailed and prayed, dreading the dawn and the deaths that they were certain awaited them in the next day’s battle.

Certain defeat was avoided by a series of miracles that occurred during the night, or so eyewitnesses reported. In the early hours after nightfall, enemy Indians tried to burn down the Spaniards’ cross, but they could only scorch it, despite all the dry firewood they piled around it. Unsuccessful in burning down the Christian symbol, they tried to pull the cross down, using thick vines of the bejuco plant, but couldn’t pull it down. Frustrated, they tried to chop the cross down with their stone axes, but were also unsuccessful. Fray Juan Infante of the Order of Mercederians was Columbus’s private confessor. He not only witnessed all of the above Indian attacks on the cross, but was witness to a far more miraculous event. At about 9 PM, he claims he saw a light descend and envelop the cross, while a lady dressed all in white, with a baby in her arms, appeared on the right arm of the cross. He declared that the Virgen de las Mercedes (The Virgin of Blessings) had come to save the day for the Spaniards. And it certainly appeared to be so. In the morning, when the weary, bloody, frightened troops got up, ready to descend the mountain to do battle to the death, there was no one there to fight! Columbus ordered his men to kneel and pray in thanks to the Virgen de las Mercedes for their miraculous victory and to build a fortress at the foot of Santo Cerro, just one-half league from Cacique Guarionex’s main population center.

That’s how the story of the first major battle between Europeans and Indians, and the legend of the Virgen de las Mercedes, have come down to us in history. But, as the truism goes, victors write the histories--and they very seldom include the viewpoint of the “other,” in this case the Taínos, who left us no written account of their own. As an anthropologist who specializes in the history and culture of the Taínos, however, I think I know how the above events can be explained: That battle was a clash not only of warriors and weaponry, but of cultures and rituals. The Taínos did not know that Spaniards fought to the death, or at least until one side officially surrendered and a treaty agreement was negotiated, spelling out the terms of both the conquest and the defeat. Conversely, the Spaniards did not know that Taínos fought (albeit rarely) until one side was clearly the winner. No official surrender or official treaty was needed—the win was clear for all to see—no need to lose face by rubbing it in. When an Indian battle was over, it was over! Both sides went back home to continue the normal cycle of planting, hunting, harvesting, living….

In the case of that first-ever Amerindian/European battle at Santo Cerro, however, it appears that both sides thought they had won. Neither side understood the other’s beliefs and rituals concerning warfare. The Taínos, knowing that they were clearly the victors, just went home the night the battle ended, as was their norm. The attacks on the cross may have been a final nose-flip at the losers, perhaps by one particular group of Indians who had been particularly maltreated by marauding groups of gold-seeking Spaniards. But when the Spaniards awoke to an empty battlefield, they preferred to believe that the Taínos had fled. It may have been the sight of the empty battlefield that morning that led Fray Juan Infante to relate his tale of having seen the blessed Lady in White the night before, thereby “explaining” the miraculous sight of no Indians instead of the even more thousands of strong warriors than the day before that the Spanish troops had expected to see.

As for the indestructible cross, I suggest that Columbus didn’t have the nispero tree cut down to “plant” the cross as witnesses’ testimony suggests, but that he made it out of a living tree that was rooted deeply into the earth and whose green, living wood would be difficult to burn, difficult to pull down, and difficult to chop down with stone axes. Explanation of the white light and descent of the Virgin onto the arm of the cross that only Fray Juan Infante saw, I leave to the faithful.

Details of the next days and weeks are not available. More battles must have occurred, for Columbus and his men took over Guarionex’s main population center and built Fort Concepción de la Vega there. The site quickly became a major European-style city, center of the island’s early gold mining industry until an earthquake destroyed it on November 2, 1564. How did the Spaniards manage to take over? My best guess is that Guarionex was caught off guard, thinking the battle over, and Manicoatex and his warriors probably had returned to Maguá. It is also quite likely that, with so many Spaniards in the vicinity, the Taínos of the Cibao began to fall ill of diseases to which they had no natural immunities, thus didn’t put up much of a fight. At any rate, by 1508, the year in which the Spanish Royal Crown granted it a royal city shield, Concepción de la Vega was larger and more populous than the capital city of Santo Domingo, and in 1511 it was raised to a bishopric (the famous Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican friar and Royal Protector of the Indians, gave his first Mass at the church here).

The wood of the original cross that Columbus planted at Santo Cerro was divided into thousands of little pieces, which were enshrined at churches all over the island. Some fragments were sent to Spain, to Italy, and other European countries, fetching high prices, for it was said that they had magical powers: One only had to drink a “tea” made of a powder of wood from the holy cross to be cured of any fever. Another legend arose connected to the cross and the Virgen de las Mercedes: It was said that, no matter how many splinters were taken from the cross, it “grew new wooden arms” to replace them. (One doesn’t have to be a scholar to guess that human greed was the origin of that particular legend.) A small hermitage was built at the site where Columbus had, supposedly, planted the cross, and many of the faithful made pilgrimages to it over the centuries.

The city of Concepción de la Vega was abandoned in 1564, after it was destroyed by an earthquake and long after the easily-mined gold had run out. The town of La Vega, much smaller than the original city, was relocated to its present site, a few kilometers to the southwest. In 1880, the beautiful white church that presently stands atop Santo Cerro was built to replace the small hermitage.

Today, Santo Cerro is still a popular pilgrimage site for the faithful as well as an attraction for tourists. The view across the Cibao Valley from its outdoor amphitheater is breathtaking. A tall nispero tree grows beside the church, with signs explaining that Columbus’s cross was made of the wood of this tree. Inside the church, in a small chapel to the south of the central nave, is the glassed-over hole where Columbus’s cross once stood—the miracle must have finally run its course, for there is no sign of wood to be seen in the hole and no splinters of the cross for sale. Canny merchants of the little town that’s grown up on the site do, however, sell holy paintings of the famous Virgin de las Mercedes on everything from t-shirts to miniature crosses and holy cards, in addition to icy-cold water, soft drinks, fast food, and the region’s special bread, ojardra, which is tasty little “beads” of yucca starch baked in unusual beehive-shaped ovens, then strung on strings.

The Church of Santo Cerro is open daily from 9 AM to 6 PM, but is closed from 1-2 PM. There is no fee to enter and no particular dress code, but please remember that it is a Catholic church and a holy shrine.

The ruins of part of the original city of Concepción de la Vega (now called La Vega Vieja) are now preserved in the National Park of La Vega Vieja. The park is open daily from 8:30 AM- 3:30 PM. There is an entry fee of RD$45 for foreign visitors; RD$20 for Dominican nationals. It is located 8 kms. from the main Autopista Duarte, along the road that leads east from La Vega to Moca.

Excavation and restoration of the ruins of La Vega Vieja began in 1976. There is a small museum on site with a collection of both Taíno and Spanish artifacts that were uncovered during the work, though many of the finds are now at the Museum de las Casas Reales in the capital. The original Fuerte de la Concepción is in amazingly good shape, including the fort’s six (ironically) cross-shaped window slits that allowed Spaniards inside to shoot at the Indians outside, while remaining protected behind a circle of thick brick-and-stone walls. The rest of the old city’s buildings, however, with the exception of the brick building that protected the community’s water reservoir, were shaken down by major earthquakes in 1564 and 1842, as well as by the passage of time. Only foundations remain and as-yet-unexcavated mounds, but it is easy to see how extensive the city once was. The major residential and church area has yet to be excavated because the family that owns the land (and lives in buildings built among and over top of the ruins) will not cede permission. About 1 km. west of the national park are the ruins of the Franciscan Monastery, which was built beside a vast Taíno cemetery. Eager guides will show you what the various rooms of the monastery used to be and will lift the lids off the graves to show you the Taínos buried in fetal position. There is no official entrance fee, but the guides appreciate RD$50-100 for their services.