At dawn on December 26, Guacanagarí rode by canoe to meet Columbus aboard the Niña.
That afternoon and over the next week, the two men would have a series of conversations—dramatized in Encounters Unforeseen—resulting in understandings that Columbus would leave a portion of his crew behind under Guacanagarí’s protection when Columbus returned to Spain in his one ship and that an emissary of Guacanagarí would accompany Columbus to Spain to meet King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. A rudimentary fort would be constructed for the men remaining with Guacanagarí from the planking of the Santa María salvaged from the wreckage. They discussed Caribe raiding, and Columbus offered Guacanagarí that Ferdinand and Isabella could protect his people from the Caribes.
Columbus deceived Guacanagarí as to his true intent. On the evening of December 26, Columbus assured Isabella and Ferdinand in his Journal that the entire island of Española—which he believed larger than Portugal—could be subjugated with the men he had because the inhabitants had no arms and were cowardly. He wrote that the fort to be built was not even necessary for his men’s protection, but would acquaint the Indians with the sovereigns’ skills and powers, so that the Indians would obey with love and fear. He promised that, on his return to Española, his men would have found the gold mines and, within three years of colonization, the sovereigns would achieve such profit that they could undertake the recapture of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem from the infidel.