Columbus assured Spain’s Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand that “Española” would be conquered with little opposition from its inhabitants, but he soon discovered the promise ominously false. A historical novel, Columbus and Caonabó: 1493–1498 Retold dramatizes his invasion of Española and the bitter resistance mounted by its Taíno peoples. Based closely on primary sources, the story is told from both Taíno and European perspectives, including through the eyes of the conflict’s principal Taíno chieftain and leader, Caonabó, and Columbus. Chief Caonabó opposes any European presence on the island and massacres the garrison Columbus left behind on his first voyage. When Columbus returns, the second voyage’s twelve-hundred settlers suffer from disease and famine and are alienated by his harsh rule, resulting in crown-appointed officers and others deserting for Spain. Sensing European vulnerability, Caonabó establishes a broad Taíno alliance to expel the intruders, becoming the first of four centuries of Native American chieftains to organize war against European expansion. Columbus realizes that Caonabó’s capture or elimination is key to the island’s conquest, and their conflict escalates—with the fateful clash of their soldiers, cultures, and religions, enslavement of Taíno captives, the imposition of tribute, and hostile face-to-face conversations. As the two men battle, Caonabó’s wife Anacaona anguishes and considers how to confront the Europeans if Caonabó is killed. The settlers grow lawless when Columbus explores Cuba and Jamaica, and his enslaved Taíno interpreters witness them forcing Taínos into servitude, committing rape, and destroying Taíno religious objects. Chief Guarionex, whose chiefdom neighbors Caonabó’s, studies Christianity with missionaries and observes the first recorded baptisms of Natives in the Americas but ultimately rejects his own conversion. All question or ascribe the spirits’ or Lord’s design as epidemic diseases ravage the island’s peoples. Isabella and Ferdinand are disturbed when Columbus initiates slave shipments home, but they deliberately acquiesce—and the justification for the European enslavement of Native Americans begins to evolve. The novel is the sequel to Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold, which portrays the lives of the same Taíno and European protagonists from youth through 1492.