The Juan Peralta Story

                                                                       

                                                       The Juan Peralta Story

                                                                    1968

                                                               A true Story

                                            Written 6/2011 Re-written 05/24/2016

                                                             Howard Yasgar

     When I first met Juan Peralta, he was a young mulatto Dominican boy about 14 years old.

     Juan was living with his mother and father in a small agricultural village in the Dominican Republic north coast, the farming village was called Isabella.

     When I first met Juan, he told me that he had a dream, he wanted to become educated, and he wanted to teach others.

     Juan knew that there was little hope of him ever being able to get a education, because of

his living in a rural community as he did.

     Then, just by chance, in 1968, I met Juan, and I had the opportunity to help him realize his dream.

     This is the story of how it happened.       

     In 1968, I had become interested in searching for the gold of Christopher Columbus.

     I had a theory that the Columbus gold was still in the Dominican Republic.

     I was certain the gold was where Columbus had built his second Colony in the new world, the one he called Isabella, after the queen of Spain.

     I had read that as soon as Columbus established the colony, he, and his fellow colonists started exploiting the native Taino Indians for as much of their gold as they could.

    After I studied in detail what happened at Isabella, I became convinced that there was plenty of gold that had been left behind, I felt that it was left behind by Columbus and his family, and by many of the colonists that had exploited the natives.

     I was absolutely certain there were caches of gold there that had been buried by many of the Spaniards, I was also sure that the gold had to be somewhere in the relative vicinity of the Columbus colony of Isabella.

     By the time I eventually got to go to the Dominican Republic it was 1968, and I was with my Cuban friend Miguel Marquez.

     As hard as Miguel and I looked, we couldn’t find where the original Columbus colony of Isabella had been, it appeared that the government had plowed it all under.

     At the time all we had as a guide was a Texaco road map, and it only showed a farming village of Isabella.

     I had read that when Columbus first established his colony of Isabella, he had to contend with a lot of colonists that were just young Spanish adventurers and former soldiers that had come along with him not to colonize but to look for gold.

    Those young adventurers were called “Los Hidalgo’s”, which means gentlemen in Spanish, but these guys were no gentlemen.

    They were just a bunch of  spoiled rich kids, the sons of the wealthy families in Spain, and they had come with Columbus only for the adventure and the gold that he had bragged about.

    Eventually, over time, many of these unruly colonists had left the colony of Isabella, and it was said that they did it to get away from Columbus’s scrutiny. Many of them simply moved to nearby to wooded  areas where Columbus couldn’t see them.

     My theory was that all those unruly colonists must have buried all their gold somewhere near where they lived.

     I was also sure that some of the colonists were able to eventually dig up their gold and return to Spain with it , however, I was also sure many of them had simply died and their gold has never been found.

    When I decided to make the first trip to the Dominican Republic, I enlisted the assistance of my good friend and employee Miguel Marquez.

    Miguel was a Cuban refugee that had escaped from Cuba in 1963, and had come to work for me in Miami.

    Over the years, Miguel and I had become close friends.

    If it wasn’t for Miguel’s darker complexion, we probably could have been taken for brothers.

    When Miguel first arrived in Miami he spoke Spanish, so I taught him to speak English and in return he taught me to speak his Cuban Spanish.

    Little did we know that because I spoke poor Spanish and Miguel spoke some English  the Dominican military would think that we were both communist infiltrators sent by Fidel Castro.

    When they were interrogating us, I certainly couldn’t tell them that we were just there looking for Spanish gold, because removing antiquities without official permission was also illegal.

    So to avoid more problems I told the Dominican Government officials that I was just studying the history of Christopher Columbus, and Miguel was my assistant.

    I don’t think they believed us, but they did eventually let us go, however we were sure they were watching our every move as we traveled in the country.

    Using our Texaco map, we drove from Santo Domingo to the City of Santiago de los Caballeros and then from there across the Cordillera mountain range all the way to the town of Puerto Plata.

    From the town of Puerto Plata we followed the map to the village of Isabella.

    However, once we arrived there, we determined that the present village of Isabella was not the original Columbus colony of Isabella.

    We asked several people about it, but it was apparent they had been told by the police not to talk to us, thus Miguel and I wasted a lot of our time looking around.

    When we returned disappointed to Miami, I knew I needed more information if I ever intended to find where Columbus’s original colony was.

    When I was in Haiti, I had developed a good relationship with Dr. Marc Bulliet, he was the chief archeologist there, so I asked Marc for assistance.

    I flew to Port Au Prince, and Mark was nice enough to steal a copy of an old map from the Haitian archives, and give it to me.

    It was a copy of a 1776 map of the entire island of Hispaniola, it was originally made by the Spaniards for the King of Wales.

    Once I obtained that map from Marc, it became my key to locating the original Columbus Isabella Colony.

    I felt, that once I found the original colony, it would be easy to find out where the rebelling colonists had moved to, and, then by my using a metal detector, I could find their buried gold.

    While in Miami, I went out and bought the best Whites metal detector I could find. Then we took the map Marc gave me, and the metal detector to the Dominican Republic.

    Sure enough after using Marc’s map, Miguel and I were able to pinpoint exactly where the original Columbus colony of Isabella was located.

    However, once we were there, we found that the whole area had been bulldozed over a long time ago, and now it was part of  someone’s farm growing crops.

    After discovering this, I thought about digging a few holes to see if we could find some of the original Isabella colony building foundation stones.

    I wasn’t expecting to find any artifacts of value, I just wanted to verify the colony’s existence.

    It was a hot day, and the noon time sun was beating down on us.

    My friend Miguel volunteered to do the digging and I didn’t argue with him. I think the temperature was probably in the high ninety’s and on top of that the ground was very hard and dry.

    Miguel started digging anyway, and after few minutes we had attracted quite a few local people that came to watch us.

    I was standing there next to Miguel with a big pad and pencil, I did it to make it look like what we were doing was official.

    It was then that I noticed  one of the onlookers was a young Dominican boy that I took to be about 14 years old.

    He was standing there looking very stern, with his arms folded across his chest and a scowl on his face.

    After watching us for a few minutes, he asked us in Spanish, what we were doing?

    I told him we were trying to determine where the original Village of Isabella was.

    Then he became more serious, and he sternly advised me that we could go to jail for disturbing  historical relics.

    The boy was speaking to us in Spanish but I understood every word he said loud and clear.

    I advised him, that we knew all about the antiquities laws and we had no intentions of disturbing anything, or breaking any laws.

    I acted nonchalant, but really I was very concerned, because I knew we had no official permission to dig anywhere, and the last thing I needed was this kid calling the police over, as Miguel and I  could both end up in jail.

    Miguel was sweating pretty heavy so as it was noon time, we took a break.

    I suggested that we walk to the ocean’s edge and look for a place to slip into the water and cool off.

    We found a sandy spot and we both stripped down to our underwear and got in the water, but we soon found that the water was very shallow and hot like a bath tub.

    We quickly got out of the water, and as I was dressing I saw that same young Dominican boy still watching us.

     He was about thirty feet away from us, squatting behind a bush.

     He wasn’t hiding from us, he was just simply sitting there and watching us.

     Miguel, said hello to him, and asked what his name was?

     He replied, and said that his name was Juan Peralta.

     Now, my friend Miguel was always quite the comedian and Spanish Jokester, so he started a friendly conversation with Juan, and before I knew it, Miguel and Juan were both laughing and joking around.

    Juan’s facial features had changed, he was no longer scowling, he was now laughing and smiling and happily talking to Miguel.

    Juan asked us where we came from, and what we were doing there in the Dominican Republic.

     I fibbed and told him that I was a student of Christobal Colon (Christopher Columbus). And I was traveling with my friend Miguel looking for the Columbus colonies.

     I told  Juan that Miguel was a Cuban refugee that had escaped from the Communists in Cuba.

     Juan was fascinated, with us, and he wanted to know more about America.

     I could see that Juan was really a very intelligent fellow, and I guessed we might have been the first foreigners he had ever spoken to.

     Juan was curious if we had found anything yet that pertained to Columbus and the Spaniards.

     I told him that we had brought over a metal detector to look for old Spanish coins.

     I could see that Juan had no idea of what I was talking about.

     I asked Juan if he had ever seen a metal detector and he said no.

     We all walked to where I had parked our rental car and I opened up the trunk.

     I assembled the metal detector, and to test it, I threw two quarters on the ground.

     Miguel had himself just a few days before learned how to use the metal detector, but now he was acting like he was a metal detector expert, and he was intent on showing Juan how it buzzed when he passed it over one of the quarters.

     After a few minutes, I told Miguel to let Juan try it, he did, and  I could see Juan was very excited as he put on the head set, and we could hear the machine buzz every time he passed the wand over a coin.

     Juan started walking all around the area busily picking up bottle caps and beer can tabs.

     After a while, he got tired, and he came back all smiles.

     I knew right then that we had made a friend out of Juan.

     We all sat down under a big tree and I told Juan what I had read about Columbus’s colony of Isabella.

     Juan said he learned all about the colony from going to school and also from reading books and newspapers, he had also learned all about Columbus by listening to local stories.

     Juan said that the original Columbus colony had been abandoned years ago after a disastrous hurricane and later, many years after the colony was abandoned, the local people came and removed all the original stones, using them to build the nearby town of Puerto Plata.

     I told Juan how I had read how Columbus had built a stone warehouse at the water’s edge, a warehouse that had a window overlooking the ocean.

    I had read that he did it so he could watch for ships coming from Spain with supplies.

    Juan smiled, he said that was all true and he said that sometimes the old floor of the warehouse became exposed, but it could only be seen at an extremely low tide.

    Juan said that the warehouse had  been bulldozed over for many years, but the waves from storms and hurricanes have since exposed it again.

    Juan said, “Do you want to see it”? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I said yes.

    We walked along the water’s edge all the way back to where we had first met Juan.

    I didn’t know it but that day it was a super low tide and sure enough, there it was. Juan pointed to a hand laid stone floor with lots of broken Spanish roof tiles laying on it.

    I picked up a piece of  the orange clay roof tile and I could clearly see the finger and palm print of the Spanish colonist that had made the tile for Columbus, over 500 years ago.

    I saw Juan watching me, so I threw the piece of tile back down on the ground.

    As Miguel and Juan climbed back up the embankment, I picked up a smaller piece of the roof tile and I put it in my pocket.

    We walked back to the car and sat in the shade.

    Then I asked Juan what he knew about the original Taino Indians that had once lived there.

     Juan said he knew all about what had happened to them.

     Juan said the Spaniards brought diseases from Europe that killed thousands of natives.

     He said that lots of Spaniards also killed the natives for no good reasons other than to take

their food and steal whatever gold the natives had.

     Juan said many of the natives had hidden from the Spaniards, he knew that because he had seen the hiding places.

     I was very curious, so I asked Juan more about it.

     Juan told us that one very  secret place was up on a mountain top and no white man has ever been there, nor has anyone from the Dominican government ever been there.

     I asked Juan if he would show it to us?

     Juan said we should come in the morning and he would take us there.

     The next morning we drove with Juan on back roads, driving deep into the Cordillera mountains.

     All of a sudden Juan said to stop, he said we were there.

     It was a big mountain that looked just like a haystack.

     We got out of the car and climbed a long winding trail to the mountain top.

     Once we were there, it appeared as if someone was farming the land.

     There were long furrows dug into the stony earth. At the end of each furrow was a tall pile of rocks.

     I set up the metal detector and started checking along the long furrows.

     As soon as I looked down I saw a small rubbing stone with all four sides worn down, it was some kind of Indian tool, so I put it in my pocket.

     That’s when I saw Juan and Miguel on the far side of the mountain top, they were waving to me.

     I went over to them and I saw they were standing right on top of the Indian village dump site.

     There were large piles of oyster shells, and there were broken shards from bowls and pottery. Some of the bowls had small clay heads all around the border and some others had designs etched into them.

    When Juan wasn’t looking I put a few pottery shards in my pocket.

    On our drive back, I asked Juan if he knew anything about the Isabella colonists lived, the ones that were rebelling against Columbus.

     Juan said he knew that many of the colonists had moved out of the Isabella colony and had made their homes at various places in the woods.

     Juan said that he had heard that some of those colonists had taken as many as five native wives, so I asked Juan if he could show us where they had lived.

    Juan said it would be difficult as it was now over 500 years since the colonists had built native style huts there, and many other families had since moved onto the properties.

    He said that over the years, some local people had even built permanent wooden homes on them.

    I didn’t tell Juan that I had a theory about those early colonists possibly having built small gold smelters on their property, and I hoped that possibly the remnants of those smelters would still be there.

    I knew that if I could find just one furnace, and then with a little luck, I was sure there would be gold buried nearby.

    Juan said he was afraid that we would find most of the old homesteads now had people living on them, but he remembered a couple of places that possibly had been abandoned.

     On the second site Juan took us to, there was an old wooden shack, that was now falling down, but there was a suspicious looking pile of rocks right near it.

     As Miguel and Juan were walking inside what was left of the shack, I looked for a likely places to check with the metal detector.

     I closed my eyes and said to myself, if I had lived there 500 years ago and I had some gold, where would I have buried it?

     I Turned on the metal detector and swung it near a tree root that was right next to a boulder and the metal detector started buzzing right away.

     I quickly shut the machine off  right away so no one would hear it.

     Then I kicked the earth by the tree root with my shoe and believe it or not a small piece of gold appeared.

     I just put it in my pocket as if nothing had happened.   

     The next day Miguel and I left the Dominican Republic for Miami, but I always kept in touch with Juan, and he wrote me often, always in Spanish.

     One day he told me that he could move in with an aunt in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros and he could attend High School there,  so I assisted him financially for clothes and books.

     Then, after high school, it was on to the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo.

     As soon as Juan graduated the University, he was offered the government position of inspector of rural schools at a salary of $40.00 a month.

    Juan was so happy, his lifelong dream had come true.

    A year later he wrote to tell me he had saved enough money to rent a small cottage for his parents, the letter was in English.

    Juan invited me to come to see his parents new home, he said he wanted to have a party for us, so my wife and I went to the Dominican Republic.

    The house he rented was just a wooden shack but it was heaven for Juan’s parents.

     For the party, Juan had bought a large watermelon, it was wonderful.

     In late 1986, I received a letter from Juan, again it was written in beautiful English.

     The letter said Juan  was now in the United States, and would like to visit us in Miami.

     On the very day Juan arrived at our house in Miami, we had guests visiting us from Australia.

     That evening Juan told us all his story, he said that while he was attending college he had a relationship with one of his professors.

    The professor was now retired and moving to France. So to join the professor, Juan had entered the United States illegally and was now working as a press man in a laundry in New Jersey.

    Juan said that he intended to buy a phony passport that would allow him to follow the professor to France.

    The next day, we all took a trip to Key West in my wife’s car.

    Katherine and I were in front seat and Juan in the rear seat sitting between our friends Neil and Rosalyn from Australia.

    When we returned to Miami, Juan said goodbye to us all and then left to return to New Jersey, and I have never heard from him since.

     I hope Juan made it to France.