FullReads

[Here, in the original, follows a list of some fifty
names, descriptions, and ages, compiled from certain
recovered documents of Aranda’s, and also from
recollections of the deponent, from which portions
only are extracted.]

–One, from about eighteen to nineteen years, named Jose,
and this was the man that waited upon his master, Don
Alexandro, and who speaks well the Spanish, having
served him four or five years; * * * a mulatto, named
Francesco, the cabin steward, of a good person and
voice, having sung in the Valparaiso churches, native
of the province of Buenos Ayres, aged about thirty-five
years. * * * A smart negro, named Dago, who had been for
many years a grave-digger among the Spaniards, aged
forty-six years. * * * Four old negroes, born in Africa,
from sixty to seventy, but sound, calkers by trade,
whose names are as follows:–the first was named Muri,
and he was killed (as was also his son named Diamelo);
the second, Nacta; the third, Yola, likewise killed;
the fourth, Ghofan; and six full-grown negroes, aged
from thirty to forty-five, all raw, and born among
the Ashantees–Matiluqui, Yan, Leche, Mapenda,
Yambaio, Akim; four of whom were killed; * * * a
powerful negro named Atufal, who being supposed to
have been a chief in Africa, his owner set great
store by him. * * * And a small negro of Senegal,
but some years among the Spaniards, aged about
thirty, which negro’s name was Babo; * * * that he
does not remember the names of the others, but that
still expecting the residue of Don Alexandra’s papers
will be found, will then take due account of them all,
and remit to the court; * * * and thirty-nine women
and children of all ages.

[The catalogue over, the deposition goes on]

* * * That all the negroes slept upon deck, as is
customary in this navigation, and none wore fetters,
because the owner, his friend Aranda, told him that
they were all tractable; * * * that on the seventh
day after leaving port, at three o’clock in the
morning, all the Spaniards being asleep except the
two officers on the watch, who were the boatswain,
Juan Robles, and the carpenter, Juan Bautista Gayete,
and the helmsman and his boy, the negroes revolted
suddenly, wounded dangerously the boatswain and the
carpenter, and successively killed eighteen men of
those who were sleeping upon deck, some with
hand-spikes and hatchets, and others by throwing them
alive overboard, after tying them; that of the
Spaniards upon deck, they left about seven, as he
thinks, alive and tied, to manoeuvre the ship, and
three or four more, who hid themselves, remained
also alive. Although in the act of revolt the negroes
made themselves masters of the hatchway, six or seven
wounded went through it to the cockpit, without any
hindrance on their part; that during the act of revolt,
the mate and another person, whose name he does not
recollect, attempted to come up through the hatchway,
but being quickly wounded, were obliged to return to
the cabin; that the deponent resolved at break of day
to come up the companion-way, where the negro Babo
was, being the ringleader, and Atufal, who assisted
him, and having spoken to them, exhorted them to
cease committing such atrocities, asking them, at
the same time, what they wanted and intended to do,
offering, himself, to obey their commands; that
notwithstanding this, they threw, in his presence,
three men, alive and tied, overboard; that they told
the deponent to come up, and that they would not
kill him; which having done, the negro Babo asked
him whether there were in those seas any negro
countries where they might be carried, and he
answered them, No; that the negro Babo afterwards
told him to carry them to Senegal, or to the
neighboring islands of St. Nicholas; and he
answered, that this was impossible, on account
of the great distance, the necessity involved of
rounding Cape Horn, the bad condition of the
vessel, the want of provisions, sails, and water;
but that the negro Babo replied to him he must
carry them in any way; that they would do and
conform themselves to everything the deponent should require
as to eating and drinking; that after a long conference, being
absolutely compelled to please them, for they threatened to kill
all the whites if they were not, at all events, carried to
Senegal, he told them that what was most wanting for the voyage
was water; that they would go near the coast to take it, and
thence they would proceed on their course; that the negro Babo
agreed to it; and the deponent steered towards the intermediate
ports, hoping to meet some Spanish, or foreign vessel that would
save them; that within ten or eleven days they saw the land, and
continued their course by it in the vicinity of Nasca; that the
deponent observed that the negroes were now restless and mutinous,
because he did not effect the taking in of water, the negro Babo
having required, with threats, that it should be done, without
fail, the following day; he told him he saw plainly that the coast
was steep, and the rivers designated in the maps were not to be
found, with other reasons suitable to the circumstances; that the
best way would be to go to the island of Santa Maria, where they
might water easily, it being a solitary island, as the foreigners
did; that the deponent did not go to Pisco, that was near, nor
make any other port of the coast, because the negro Babo had
intimated to him several times, that he would kill all the whites
the very moment he should perceive any city, town, or settlement
of any kind on the shores to which they should be carried: that
having determined to go to the island of Santa Maria, as the
deponent had planned, for the purpose of trying whether, on the
passage or near the island itself, they could find any vessel that
should favor them, or whether he could escape from it in a boat to
the neighboring coast of Arruco, to adopt the necessary means he
immediately changed his course, steering for the island; that the
negroes Babo and Atufal held daily conferences, in which they
discussed what was necessary for their design of returning to
Senegal, whether they were to kill all the Spaniards, and
particularly the deponent; that eight days after parting from the
coast of Nasca, the deponent being on the watch a little after
day-break, and soon after the negroes had their meeting, the negro
Babo came to the place where the deponent was, and told him that
he had determined to kill his master, Don Alexandro Aranda, both
because he and his companions could not otherwise be sure of their
liberty, and that to keep the seamen in subjection, he wanted to
prepare a warning of what road they should be made to take did
they or any of them oppose him; and that, by means of the death of
Don Alexandro, that warning would best be given; but, that what
this last meant, the deponent did not at the time comprehend, nor
could not, further than that the death of Don Alexandro was
intended; and moreover the negro Babo proposed to the deponent to
call the mate Raneds, who was sleeping in the cabin, before the
thing was done, for fear, as the deponent understood it, that the
mate, who was a good navigator, should be killed with Don
Alexandro and the rest; that the deponent, who was the friend,
from youth, of Don Alexandro, prayed and conjured, but all was
useless; for the negro Babo answered him that the thing could not
be prevented, and that all the Spaniards risked their death if
they should attempt to frustrate his will in this matter, or any
other; that, in this conflict, the deponent called the mate,
Raneds, who was forced to go apart, and immediately the negro Babo
commanded the Ashantee Martinqui and the Ashantee Lecbe to go and
commit the murder; that those two went down with hatchets to the
berth of Don Alexandro; that, yet half alive and mangled, they
dragged him on deck; that they were going to throw him overboard
in that state, but the negro Babo stopped them, bidding the murder
be completed on the deck before him, which was done, when, by his
orders, the body was carried below, forward; that nothing more was
seen of it by the deponent for three days; * * * that Don Alonzo
Sidonia, an old man, long resident at Valparaiso, and lately
appointed to a civil office in Peru, whither he had taken passage,
was at the time sleeping in the berth opposite Don Alexandro’s;
that awakening at his cries, surprised by them, and at the sight
of the negroes with their bloody hatchets in their hands, he threw
himself into the sea through a window which was near him, and was
drowned, without it being in the power of the deponent to assist
or take him up; * * * that a short time after killing Aranda, they
brought upon deck his german-cousin, of middle-age, Don Francisco
Masa, of Mendoza, and the young Don Joaquin, Marques de
Aramboalaza, then lately from Spain, with his Spanish servant
Ponce, and the three young clerks of Aranda, Jose Mozairi Lorenzo
Bargas, and Hermenegildo Gandix, all of Cadiz; that Don Joaquin
and Hermenegildo Gandix, the negro Babo, for purposes hereafter to
appear, preserved alive; but Don Francisco Masa, Jose Mozairi, and
Lorenzo Bargas, with Ponce the servant, beside the boatswain, Juan
Robles, the boatswain’s mates, Manuel Viscaya and Roderigo Hurta,
and four of the sailors, the negro Babo ordered to be thrown alive
into the sea, although they made no resistance, nor begged for
anything else but mercy; that the boatswain, Juan Robles, who knew
how to swim, kept the longest above water, making acts of
contrition, and, in the last words he uttered, charged this
deponent to cause mass to be said for his soul to our Lady of
Succor: * * * that, during the three days which followed, the
deponent, uncertain what fate had befallen the remains of Don
Alexandro, frequently asked the negro Babo where they were, and,
if still on board, whether they were to be preserved for interment
ashore, entreating him so to order it; that the negro Babo
answered nothing till the fourth day, when at sunrise, the
deponent coming on deck, the negro Babo showed him a skeleton,
which had been substituted for the ship’s proper figure-head–the
image of Christopher Colon, the discoverer of the New World; that
the negro Babo asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether,
from its whiteness, he should not think it a white’s; that, upon
discovering his face, the negro Babo, coming close, said words to
this effect: “Keep faith with the blacks from here to Senegal, or
you shall in spirit, as now in body, follow your leader,” pointing
to the prow; * * * that the same morning the negro Babo took by
succession each Spaniard forward, and asked him whose skeleton
that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it
a white’s; that each Spaniard covered his face; that then to each
the negro Babo repeated the words in the first place said to the
deponent; * * * that they (the Spaniards), being then assembled
aft, the negro Babo harangued them, saying that he had now done
all; that the deponent (as navigator for the negroes) might pursue
his course, warning him and all of them that they should, soul and
body, go the way of Don Alexandro, if he saw them (the Spaniards)
speak, or plot anything against them (the negroes)–a threat which
was repeated every day; that, before the events last mentioned,
they had tied the cook to throw him overboard, for it is not known
what thing they heard him speak, but finally the negro Babo
spared his life, at the request of the deponent; that a few days
after, the deponent, endeavoring not to omit any means to preserve
the lives of the remaining whites, spoke to the negroes peace and
tranquillity, and agreed to draw up a paper, signed by the
deponent and the sailors who could write, as also by the negro
Babo, for himself and all the blacks, in which the deponent
obliged himself to carry them to Senegal, and they not to kill any
more, and he formally to make over to them the ship, with the
cargo, with which they were for that time satisfied and quieted. *
* But the next day, the more surely to guard against the sailors’
escape, the negro Babo commanded all the boats to be destroyed but
the long-boat, which was unseaworthy, and another, a cutter in
good condition, which knowing it would yet be wanted for towing
the water casks, he had it lowered down into the hold.

* * * * *