Juan Daniel Balcácer's Enriquillo: historia y leyenda is a fascinating read on the "last cacique of Haiti. A person admired and commemorated by Dominicans and Haitians alike, Enrique's rebellion inspired nationalist movements among both peoples. The reality, however, was rather different from the legend we have constructed. While undoubtedly an important figure and one whose alzamiento inspired resistance among Africans and Indians during his lifetime, including indigenous people in other islands, such as Cuba, the actual history of Enrique is a more ambivalent legacy. By highlighting the actual history of Enrique from what can be verified with written sources, what emerges is a complex figure who merged aspects of Spanish and Taino culture.
His resistance, sparked by personal abuse and affronts from his encomendero, only transformed into a long-lasting alzamiento in the Bahoruco region after he failed to find justice through the colonial system. However, once peace was accorded in 1533, Enrique agreed to police the countryside in order to hunt runaway Indians and Africans. In exchange for having a recognized community of his own close followers, not too far from the Bahoruco (and not the Boya near Monte Plata, as many of us have erroneously assumed), Enrique clearly agreed to cooperate with the brutal, dehumanizing systems of the encomienda and chattel slavery. Indeed, according to a letter from 1547, included in the text, the community founded by Enrique was actually destroyed by African maroons, who had a score to settle with them. This implies that the community was probably supporting the Spanish by spying on and fighting African runaways in Bahoruco after Enrique died in 1535. The very same primary sources included in the appendix of the text also allude to cultural survival of aspects of Taino culture. For example, the areitos were very much still observed in 1547, much to the chagrin of the Spanish. Indeed, the survival of areitos was believed to also be one of the reasons non-Christian religious practices were revived or maintained. One wonders to what extent Enrique's community maintained these practices, despite their leader's Catholicism and the meeting with Las Casas in which Tamayo was baptized.
In light of Enrique's past as someone who, despite suffering from the massacre of Jaragua's elite ordered by Ovando, was raised and educated by Christians and therefore at least partially Hispanicized, his collaboration with the colonial system is perhaps not too surprising. However, this collaboration, which involved defending the very same system that other Indians and Africans continued to resist, makes it difficult to justify the legends of Enrique as a liberator who fought for the freedom of Indians, an end to colonialism, and emancipation for Africans. The reality, based at least on the documents and Spanish chroniclers, was closer to Enrique acting in his own interests and only for those of his community. His resistance movement, however, was costly for the Spanish crown and inspired other Indians to flee to the mountainous areas. Nonetheless, their resistance was not unified and perhaps this was due to Enrique coming from the acculturated Taino elite, one that had been pacified or destroyed in the conquest and, in some cases, reared in Spanish culture. Other Indian rebels of Hispaniola, such as African maroons, may have been more likely to have desired an end to the encomiendas and slavery. However, it is interesting to note, as mentioned by Pichardo Moya's study of Cuba's Indians, how some Indian rebels of Guama were recorded in 1533 as hoping for Enrique's arrival. Perhaps the immediate legacy and influence of Enrique was to inspire other communities to resist, even after he made peace with the colonizers when Francisco de Barrionuevo met him. Indeed, if the letter written by Enrique is any indication, it is possible he truly saw himself as a worthy vassal of the Emperor and accepted Spanish rule.
Due to the aforementioned collaborationist agreement of Enrique, Balcácer finds the legends created around him to be worthy of historical criticism. Despite the numerous places named after him and literary tributes to Enrique, the legends have masked the reality of an "Hispanicized" Indian who, ultimately, only fought to secure his own community's survival. The fact that they were later destroyed by runaway Africans further illustrates the complex rivalries and conflicts that prevented unification of the oppressed majority of the island's population. Indeed, the ultimate destruction of Enrique's pueblo by Africans makes it interesting to see Haitian nationalist legends about Enrique. Whatever African-Indian collaboration in marronage that occurred, Enrique was probably far from exemplifying. It is lamentable for us Haitians due to Enrique's kinship with Anacaona and the fact that his wife, Mencia, was said to be a granddaughter of Anacaona. As much as we would like for things to have been different, the legend of Enrique at least helps both Haitians and Dominicans claim deeper, precolonial roots. Like so many protagonists in our legends, the real Enrique was far more complex and contradictory than one would like. Nevertheless, let us hope that his tomb is one day found in Azua and he continues to receive our admiration for the longevity of his movement that inspired others to combat colonial oppression.
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