how long shall we
endure their cruelty? Is it not better to die than to submit to
such abuse as you have endured from them? And not only you, but our
neighbours Abenamacheios, Zemaco, Careca, Poncha, and all the other
caciques our friends? They carry off our wives and sons into captivity
before our very eyes, and they seize everything we possess as though
it were their booty. Shall we endure this? Me they have not yet
attacked, but the experience of others is enough for me, and I know
that the hour of my ruin is not far distant. Let us then unite
our forces and try to struggle against those who have maltreated
Abenamacheios and driven him from his house, and when these first are
killed the others will fear to attack us, or if they do so, it will be
with diminished numbers, and in any case it will be more endurable for
us." After exchanging their views, Abibaiba and Abraibes came to an
understanding and decided upon a day for beginning their campaign. But
events were not favourable to them. It so happened by chance that,
on the night previous to the day fixed for the attack, thirty of the
soldiers who had crossed the sierra against the cannibals were sent
back to relieve the garrison left at Rio Negro, in case of attack, and
also because the Spaniards were suspicious. The caciques rushed into
the village at daybreak with five hundred of their warriors armed
in native fashion and shouting wildly. They were ignorant of the
reinforcements that had arrived during the night. The soldiers
advanced to meet them, using their shields to protect themselves; and
first shooting arrows and javelins and afterwards using their native
swords, they fell upon their enemies. These native people, finding
themselves engaged with more adversaries than they had imagined, were
easily routed; the majority were killed like sheep in a panic. The
chiefs escaped. All those who were captured were sent as slaves to
Darien, where they were put to work in the fields.

After these events, and leaving that region pacified, the Spaniards
descended the river and returned to Darien, posting a guard of thirty
men, commanded by an officer, Hurtado,[1] to hold that province.
Hurtado descended the Rio Negro to rejoin his leader, Vasco Nunez, and
his companions. He was using one of those large native barques and had
with him twelve companions, a captive woman, and twenty-four slaves.
All at once four uru, that is to say, barques dug out of tree trunks,
attacked