Next to climbing aboard a ship for a long journey, there is probably nothing more exciting than getting off that same ship, especially if after a long voyage, sometimes made terrifying by the perils of the sea. It actually takes a few minutes to get the feel of a stable platform – dry land – beneath your feet again, after weeks or months of walking, standing, sleeping on a pitching, rolling deck.

The ships anchored along the shore of the Rio Ozama. The excited inhabitants gathered in their boats around the ships, questions flying back and forth. Much gold was to be found, and, best of all, the Indians were in rebellion. Hundreds had already been captured and enslaved. This meant more Indians to work the mines; more Indians to be returned to Castile to be sold as slaves.

Gold fever captured the new arrivals. Loading their backpacks with hardtack left over from the voyage or brought over for use in the island, they set off like an army of ants for the mines. The gentlemen without servants carried their own tools with them. Greed had an equalizing effect on this rigid old medieval society now transferred to the islands of the new world.