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<font size=2>February 01, 2012<br>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/01/the-first-american-freedom-fighter/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/01/the-first-american-freedom-fighter/</a>
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Hatuey's Rebellion<br><br>
</font><h1><b>The First American Freedom Fighter</b></h1><font size=2>by
WILLIAM LOREN KATZ<br><br>
This February 2nd stands as the 500th anniversary of the death of Hatuey,
an Indigenous American fighter for independence from colonialism not
mentioned in the same breath as Patrick Henry, George Washington, and
Thomas Jefferson. However, Hatuey deserves recognition as their earliest
ideological ancestor and great forerunner.<br><br>
Little is known about Hatuey, a Taino Cacique [leader], not his date of
birth, nor exactly when he first led his forces into battle. But key
elements of his story have come down to us from Bishop Las Casas, the
Dominican Priest, who became Spain’s “Defender of the Indians.” On
February 2, 1512, Las Casas was in Cuba when Hatuey died at the hands of
the European invaders.<br><br>
Hatuey’s armed resistance began on the island of Hispaniola [today Haiti
and the Dominican Republic] during the age of Columbus. It probably
increased after 1502 when a fleet of 30 Spanish ships brought over the
new Governor Nicolas de Ovando, hundreds of Spanish settlers and a number
of enslaved Africans to pursue Spain’s search for gold.<br><br>
But oppression rarely goes as planned. Before the year was over Governor
Ovando complained to King Ferdinand that the enslaved Africans “fled
among the Indians, taught them bad customs, and could not be captured.”
The last four words reveal more than his problem with disobedient
servants or his difficulty of retrieving runaways in a rainforest. Ovando
is probably describing the formation of the first American rainbow
coalition: Hatuey and his followers are greeting and embracing the
runaway Africans as allies.<br><br>
After about a decade of armed resistance in Hispaniola, in 1511 Hatuey
and 400 of his followers climbed into canoes and headed to Cuba. His plan
was not escape but to mobilize fellow Caribbean islanders against the
bearded intruders, their lust for gold, and the slavery, misery and death
their invasion brought.<br><br>
In Cuba Hatuey’s clear message was recorded by Las Casas: the intruders
“worship gold,” “fight and kill,” “usurp our land and makes us
slaves” For gold, slaves and land “they fight and kill; for these they
persecute us and that is why we have to throw them into the
sea….”<br><br>
Hatuey’s forces had no sooner begun to mobilize Cubans when well-armed
Spaniards under Diego Velásquez landed in Cuba. (One was Hernán Cortés
who would conquer Mexico.) Hatuey’s strategy to attack, guerilla fashion,
and then retreat to the hills and regroup for the next attack, kept the
Spaniards pinned down at their fort at Baracoa for at least three
months.<br><br>
But finally a Spanish offensive overwhelmed Hatuey and his troops. On
February 2, 1512, Hatuey was led out for a public execution. Las Casas
described the scene:<br><br>
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<dd>“When tied to the stake, the cacique Hatuey was told by a Franciscan
friar who was present . . . something about the God of the Christians and
of the articles of Faith. And he was told what he could do in the brief
time that remained to him, in order to be saved and go to heaven. The
Cacique, had never heard any of this before, and was told he would go to
Inferno where, if he did not adopt the Christian faith, he would suffer
eternal torment, asked the Franciscan friar if Christians all went to
Heaven. When told that they did he said he would prefer to go to
Hell.”<br><br>
</dl><font size=3>As the first freedom fighter of the Americas, Hatuey
not only united Africans and Indigenous people against the invaders, but
in bringing his fighters from Hispaniola to Cuba, he initiated the first
pan-American struggle for independence from colonialism.<br><br>
Today a statue in Cuba celebrates Hatuey as a national hero, its first
great liberator. He was more than that. He was the first of the heroic
American freedom fighters whose contributions led to 1776, to the
revolution in Haiti, and to Simon Bolivar who also sought to liberate all
of the Americas from Spain.<br><br>
One could argue that Hatuey was the first to have ignited the American
spirit of liberty and independence that would circle the globe for the
next five hundred years.<br><br>
<b><i>WILLIAM LOREN KATZ </b>is the author of Black Indians: A Hidden
Heritage and forty other American history books. His website is
www.williamlkatz.com<br><br>
<br><br>
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522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
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