The first recorded Christian baptism in “Española” of a Taíno occurred on September 21, 1496 (528 years ago next week). The Hieronymite friar Ramón Pané baptized the Taíno youth Guatícabanu as Juan Mateo in Pané’s church in Guaricano (Chief Guarionex’s hometown), near Fort Concepción. Prior posts have related Pané’s background (fort-magdalena-and-fray-pane/) and how he taught Guatícabanu (pane-and-guaticabanu/) and Guarionex (fray-ramon-pane-and-chief-guarionex/).
Histories often discuss Guatícabanu’s baptism, less often its aftermath (Columbus and Caonabó: 1493–1498 Retold depicts both). Soon after the baptism, Chief Guarionex rejected Christianity and Pané departed Guaricano disappointed, intent on establishing a church to the south. Guarionex then ordered six servants to destroy the church’s altar cross and other religious objects. When Columbus’s brother Bartolomé learned of that, he had the six servants burned at the stake—I suspect the first executions carried out in that manner on Española. Those wishing to view an historic engraving depicting such an execution (relating to the conquest of Mexico, Theodor be Bry, 1598, courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library, portion of rec. no 0683-5) can find it Columbus and Caonabó.
Some months later, after his plotted uprising to overthrow Fort Concepción was thwarted, Guarionex ordered Guatícabanu’s and his baptized brothers’ executions. According to Pané, Guatícabanu and brothers died Christian martyrs, exclaiming as they died “I am a servant of God.” According to Las Casas, they were executed for assisting the Spanish rather than for being Christian.
I post simply a photo of the monument to Pané in the gardens of the monastery in Catalonia where he served prior to Española, the Monastery of Sant Jeroni de la Murtra in Badalona, Spain (north of Barcelona).
