The Indians and the Spaniards, armed with crossbows, engaged. The Indians loosed their arrows from maximum range and Las Casas describes them arriving so spent they would hardly kill a dwarf. The Spaniards, keeping just out of range of the Indian bows, fired volleys of crossbow bolts.
"Esperaban el primer ímpetu de los españoles aventando sus flechas harto de lexos, que cuando llegaban iban tan cansadas que apenas mataran un escarabajo. Desarmadas en los cuerpos desnudos las ballestas principalmente, porque por entonces pocas eran o ningunas las espingardas, viendo caer munchos dellos, luego se iban retrayendo y pocas veces o ninguna esperaban las espadas. Algunos había que, así como le daban la saetada -que le entraba hasta las plumas-, con las manos se sacaba la saeta y con los dientes la quebraba; y, escupida, la arronjaba con la mano hacia los españoles como que con aquella injuria que les hacía se vengara; y luego, allí o poco después, caía muerto". This important passage gives us a clear idea of the effectiveness of Indian bows versus Spanish crossbows. Clearly, the native bows were not as strong and powerful as the contemporary English longbow which so devastated the French mercenary crossbowmen at the Battle of Crécy in 1346 over a century and a half earlier. This passage is also very important because it mentions crossbows were the principal weapon because
few or no espingardas, a kind of firearm, were in use at the time. This is intriguing for a kind of firearm, the escopeta, was used during the first campaign. Is it possible Las Casas has inadvertently described the time during which a primitive firearm was being replaced by a more sophisticated one? We know from archaeological sources, notably the Molasses Reef Wreck and Pre-Site Two off Saona island that the earliest type of firearm used by the Spanish in the New World was the haquebut, a heavy, wrought-iron muzzle loading portable weapon. At Molasses Reef, which apparently was wrecked no later than 1513, they are found together with the remains of an arquebuz, an early form of matchlock whose bore diameter was smaller than that of the larger haquebut. Is Las Casas describing the transition from the haquebut, which he terms escopeta, to the predominance of the arquebuz, called by him espingardas, between 1502 and 1504? Finding firearms shot from land sites associated with the War of Higüey may shed light on this issue.
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