The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (93 page)

Angelita announced to the Committee and the people assembled in the village plaza she would read a list that was only a small sample of the great mass of Native American history that Bartolomeo and the other white men, so-called Marxists, had tried to omit and destroy. The list would be in Spanish to prove Bartolomeo had no excuse for his ignorance. Native uprisings and rebellions in the Americas had been exhaustively reported by the Church clergy, and colonial flunkies who had sent frantic dispatches to the Spanish throne from the New World pleading for more weapons and soldiers. Indigenous American uprisings had been far more extensive than any Europeans wanted to admit, not even the Marxists, who were jealous of African and Native American slave workers who had risen up successfully against colonial masters without the leadership of a white man.

“Here, listen to this,” Angelita said. “Here’s what the Europeans don’t want us to know or remember,” and Angelita had begun reading the dates, names, and places rapidly in Spanish for Bartolomeo to hear, since he was the perpetrator of crimes against history. “Each day since the arrival of the Europeans, somewhere in the vastness of the Americas the sun rises on Native American resistance and revolution. Listen to the history that Europeans, even Marxists, hope we Native Americans will forget! These are only a few of the
big
uprisings and revolutions. These don’t include all the rebellions, all the mysterious fires, all the lost horses and other acts of resistance. She began to read:

1510
—Cuba—Hateuy leads the first Native American revolt against European slave hunters.

1521
—Colombia—Colonial slave hunters outrage coastal Indians, who destroy Dominican convent at Chiribichi, killing two priests.

1526
—U.S.A.—Pee Dee River, South Carolina; Indian and Negro slaves rise up.

1536
—Peru—Incas rise up against Pizarro and lay siege to Cuzco and set it afire. Rebellion spreads down Rimac Valley where Incas lay siege to Lima.

1538
—U.S.A.—Zuni Pueblo Indians kill the Moor, Esteban, sent by Spanish to scout the Grand Chichimecas for cities of gold.

1540
—U.S.A.—Zuni Pueblo Indians fight Coronado to prevent starving Spanish expedition from entering village.

1540
—U.S.A.—Hopi Pueblo Indians fight and repel de Tovar and his men.

1540
—Mexico—Alvarado argues that two kings of the Cakchiquel Quiche must hang, otherwise they will incite revolt.

1540-41
—Mexico—Great Mixton War led by Tenamaztle and others against de Guzmán.

1541
—Mexico—
July:
Alvarado dies in freak accident impaled on his own spear.
August:
Colonial capital of Guatemala is flooded by volcanic crater lake; Alvarado’s wife drowns.

1542
—Mexico—Indian rebellion at Mixton is put down, and all the rebels are branded and sold into slavery. In Jalisco, 4,650 women and children are branded on grounds of rebellion.

1545
—Mexico—Two hundred thousand Indians die of flu around Mexico City and Chiapas.

1590-94
—Mexico—Nacabeba leads rebellion of Indians at Deboropa; Catholic priest, Father Tapia, is killed.

1598
—U.S.A.—Acoma Pueblo people fight Onate’s troops and kill assistant commander Zaldivan.

1600
—Mexico—Revolt by mountain tribes, Chicoratos and Cavametos. Churches are burned. Revolt by Toroacas Indians on San Ignacio Island.

1610
—Mexico—Two Mayas declare themselves “pope” and “bishop” in revolt against the Europeans’ exclusive control of the sacred.

1616
—Mexico—Great Tepehuan Rebellion at San Pablo, northwest of Durango, led by “Cobameai” on the feast of the Virgin; three hundred Europeans die.

1617
—Mexico—Yaqui warriors defeat Spaniards; Captain Hurtado and men narrowly escape death.

1622
—U.S.A.—Indian uprising at James River, 347 Europeans dead.

1624
—Mexico—Rebellion at the royal mines of San Andres led by Nebomes.

1633
—Mexico—Pimas revolt at Nuri, east of the Yaqui River.

1648
—Mexico—Tarahumara Rebellion at Fariagic, southwest of Parral. Priest is hanged from an arm of a cross in front of the church. Tarahumaras say church bells attract the plague.

1680
—U.S.A.—Great Pueblo Indian Revolt. Pueblo tribes join
Apache and Navajo tribes to drive Europeans south across the Rio Grande at El Paso. Three hundred ten Europeans dead.

1690
—Mexico—Quaualatas of the Tarahumaras leads the Tepehuan Revolt in northwestern Mexico. Four hundred Spaniards killed, including four priests. Quaualatas promised any Indian who died fighting would be resurrected.

1712
—Mexico—Tzeltal Maya revolt in Chiapas, take control of the Church and sacraments.

1720
—Paraguay—Successful Indian revolt.

1760
—Jamaica—The Great Jamaican Rebellion led by Koromantin, a Gold Coast Negro, oracle who promises magical preparations to ward off bullets.

1761
—Mexico—Caste war and revolt led by Jacinto Canek and Mayas who sought to purge themselves of all things European. Canek is a half-breed educated by the priests.

1762
—U.S.A.—Pontiac, of the Algonquin Confederation, warns all tribes to rid the continent of white people.

1766
—Mexico—Lower Pimas rebel and in 1768 are joined in the revolt by the Seri Indians from the shore of the Sea of Cortés.

1778
—U.S.A.—Taos, New Mexico, hosts annual “trade fairs” where Indians are bought and sold by whites.

1781
—Mexico—Yumas kill Franciscan father Garcia near the Gila River junction with the Colorado River.

1781
—Peru—Half-breed who calls himself Condorcanqui proclaims himself the long-lost Tupac Amaru, the Child of the Sun. Spaniards execute him.

1791
—Haiti—The first successful slave rebellion in the New World. In 1801, slaves and the first “black Indians” hold off Napoleon’s brother-in-law and twenty-five thousand French troops.

1805
—Simón Bolívar visits European courts and salons. He refuses to kiss the Pope’s slipper, and the Pope says, “Let the young Indian do as he pleases.” Bolívar has not one drop of Indian blood, but Europeans believe any babies conceived in the Americas undergo changes in skin, hair, and eyes; in other words, colonials are believed to be slightly tainted.

1807
—U.S.A.—“The Meteor” or “the Shooting Star,” Tecumtha, notifies the governor of Ohio that all former treaties are invalid: “These lands are ours. No one has a right to remove us, because we are the first owners.”

1812
—U.S.A.—Red Eagle leads the Creek tribe to resist the Europeans. “Red Sticks” reject all things European.

1819
—Florida—Spanish territory is “annexed” by the U.S.A. to wipe out nests of hostile Indians and runaway slaves who use Florida as a base camp for guerrilla raids on plantations across the border.

1825
—Mexico—The Yaqui whose Spanish name is Bandera leads a rebellion in which the Yaquis declare themselves a sovereign nation not liable for taxes to Mexico; a Catholic priest is killed at Torim.

1910
—Mexico—Eight hundred Mayo Indians rise up and take over three thousand federal troops at garrison at Navajoa.

1911
—Mexico—Zapata leads the Indians, who demand “land and liberty.”

1915
—Mexico—Although promised land after the revolution, the Mayo Indians get none. So Bachomo leads a guerrilla band in the Fuerte River valley.

1923
—Peru—Mariatequi founds Sendero Luminoso.

1945
—Bolivia—Indians form National Federation of Peasants to restore Indians’ rights.

Angelita skipped from the dates to the tables of facts and read the figures for the Native American holocaust:

1500
—72 million people lived in North, Central, and South America.

1600
—10 million people live in North, Central, and South America.

1500
—25 million people live in Mexico.

1600
—1 million people live in Mexico.

The village people murmured over the figures; the people were not in the habit of looking at the “bigger picture,” as Angelita liked to call it. Of course the white man had never wanted Native Americans to contemplate confederacies between the tribes of the Americas; that would mean the end of European domination.

Angelita had to take a break. Rattling off all the names and dates had left her mouth dry. But the people in the crowd had begun clapping and cheering when she paused; the names and dates had touched off a great deal of excitement among the people, who immediately added
dozens of other uprisings and rebellions that had occurred in that region alone. Angelita stepped away from the microphones to watch the people. Voices buzzed with enthusiasm and she realized that for a moment the crowd had forgotten the Cuban on trial as people began to recall stories of the old days, not just stories of armed rebellions and uprisings, but stories of colonials sunk into deepest depravity—Europeans who went mad while their Indian slaves looked on.

El Feo pointed at the sun. Time to get on with the trial; they didn’t have all week; help could always arrive for Bartolomeo in the minivan of radical Catholic Church people or a surprise visit from Bartolomeo’s superiors in Mexico City might interrupt.

Angelita returned to the microphone, and applause and shouts for “land” and “justice” and more “land” rang out, mostly from the young soldiers of the people’s defense units. But others in the crowd had also cheered, and drunks made jokes and called out, “Beer! Television!” Angelita detected a change; she felt strange energy in the air—something generated by the people themselves in their anticipation and excitement. It was as if the recitation of rebellions and rebel leaders had radiated energy to the people gathered in the plaza.

“All this is only a short list. A beginning. But Comrade Bartolomeo here has no use for indigenous history. Comrade Bartolomeo denies the holocaust of indigenous Americans! Seventy-two million people in 1500 reduced to ten million people by 1600! Comrade Bartolomeo is guilty! Guilty of crimes against history!”

The people cheered and clapped, but Angelita could see they were tiring; small children had begun whining, and the old men who weren’t asleep coughed, spat, and raised their straw hats to scratch.

The crowd had shifted toward the small speaker’s platform with two PA speakers nailed at each corner. Behind them, the new gallows was leaning slightly in the direction of the wind. The workmen had not wanted to bother with much bracing since the scaffold would only be used once.

People were not sure about killing an outsider such as the Cuban, crime against history or no crime against history. First there were the questions concerning the white man’s spirit or ghost, and where it would go after they hanged him.

El Feo shook his head slowly. The gallows should never have been built. It looked oddly like an elevated outdoor privy without its walls, with only a simple hole in the boards for the shit to drop through. El
Feo sighed. Someone would have to think of something better to do with traitors like Bartolomeo. Once the people got their land back the killing would be stopped.

The execution took place as the sun was getting low in the west. Bartolomeo wet his pants and had to be carried and dragged up the gallows steps to the noose.

“Next time
don’t lie
about our history!” shouted an old woman standing near the gallows as Bartolomeo fell through the hole and dangled.

“So, sadly, they have been forced to terminate their relationship with dear comrade Bartolomeo,” as a wisecracker at the graveyard had put it.

Angelita, El Feo, and the others with their volunteer units scattered in all directions from the village. Because this time, the people had
really
done it and there was no turning back. Sure, there was going to be a lot of shooting all right. Angelita was realistic about that, because after all, this was war, the war to retake the Americas and to free all the people still enslaved. You did not fight a war for such a big change without the loss of blood.

Angelita felt inspired. She talked to the people again. Change was on the horizon all over the world. The dispossessed people of the earth would rise up and take back lands that had been their birthright, and these lands would never again be held as private property, but as lands belonging to the people forever to protect. The old people had said over and over again, “Remember, tell your children so they will remember; never forget the identities of the days or the years because they shall
all
return to bring bitterness and regret to those who do not recognize the dangerous days or the murderous epochs.”

If the Cubans or government authorities started asking questions, all they had to say was Comrade Bartolomeo had tried to involve them in the cocaine smuggling business.

Angelita told the people not to worry. Both governments wanted Bartolomeo dead anyway. He had outlived his usefulness.