The Juan Peralta Story

1968

A true Story

Written 6/2011* 1,003 Words

By Howard Yasgar

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

Juan was living with his mother and father in a small agricultural village on the North Coast of

The Dominican Republic, his village was called Isabella.

When I first met Juan, he told me that he had a dream, he said that he wanted to become

educated, and to be able to teach others, but his dream was just that, a dream, that was until I met

him.

This is the story of how it all happened.

In 1968 I was on a quest to find Christopher Columbus’s second colony in the Dominican

Republic. I had a theory that the original Columbus Colonists had hidden their gold there and

Columbus had done the same.

I was traveling with my best friend Miguel Marquez, a Cuban refugee who had escaped Cuba

in 1963.

I enjoyed traveling with Miguel, because he was sort of a Cuban hillbilly, and he could make

jokes about almost everything and anything.

We had come to the Dominican Republic to try and find Columbus’s second colony, but as

hard as we looked; we couldn’t find where the original Columbus colony had been located.

It appeared that the government might have plowed over the entire original colony.

We had a shovel with us, so I suggested we try and dig a hole to find out where the original

Colony walls might have been.

As we started digging, several people came to watch us, they were curious as to what we were

doing.

Eventually there were about 20 people watching us, and standing in the front was a young boy

around 14 years old. He was standing there with his arms folded across his chest, and looking

sternly at us.

He said in Spanish “what are you people looking for?” Miguel replied to him, and the boy

asked if we had permission from the government.

Miguel and the boy exchanged a few words, and I could see trouble was coming.

The last thing we needed was to have this kid give us a hard time and then call the police.

He said, “it’s illegal to dig up artifacts without government permission”, so I told him that we

were just writing about Columbus and we were making a map. It wasn’t true but it shut the

kid up.

I suggested to Miguel that it was getting too hot to continue digging and we should go down

to the ocean and cool off.

However, we found that the water was very shallow and was hot as hell. But Miguel and I

still stripped down to our underwear and tried to cool off, but it was impossible.

Looking along the shore, we could see the young boy sitting there watching us.

Miguel called over to him in Spanish, telling him to come over to us.

When he came over Miguel asked him for his name, and he said it was Juan Peralta.

I could see the boy was not afraid to talk to us and after a few minutes he was joking around

With Miguel.

He started asking us all kinds of questions, and I thought we were probably the first

foreigners he ever spoken to.

After talking and joking for about an hour, I could see Juan was very concerned about anyone

removing any artifacts.

He said he learned all about Columbus from reading newspapers he found in the trash, and he

wanted to protect his country’s history.

I could see the young boy was so happy about having met us.

I asked Juan if he had ever seen a metal detector, and he said no. So, I told him we had one in

the car, and he could try it.

After Juan played around with our metal detector, he became so friendly, it was like we all

had been friends forever.

I then took a chance and asked Juan if he knew where Columbus’s old warehouse had been.

Juan said yes, he knew where it had been, but the government had buried it a long time ago.

He also said at extreme low tides, the floor of the warehouse could sometimes be seen.

I asked Juan if the tide was low now and he said yes.

We walked along the rocky shore and suddenly it was there. It was a stone floor with broken

red Spanish roof tiles laying everywhere.

I picked up a piece of roof tile and it had a handprint on it from when it was made in 1493.

I walked over to where Columbus would have had his bed, and I saw the rock floor had

several holes drilled in it. I just knew there was something underneath that floor.

I saw Juan watching me, so I dropped the roof tile back on the floor, but as soon as Juan

turned his back, I picked up a smaller piece of roof tile and put it in my pocket.

As Miguel and I were ready to leave, Juan asked us if we wanted to see an original Taino

Indian village that no white man had ever seen before. We said yes and the next morning Juan

took us there.

When Miguel and I were leaving the Dominican Republic, I gave Juan my address in Miami.

Two years later Juan wrote me that he had moved to live with a cousin in the city of

Santiago, and he wanted to go to the university but couldn’t afford it. So. I then helped Juan to

go to the University.

The next time I heard from Juan it was an invitation to a party. Juan had been appointed to

head up the rural schools in the Dominican Republic just like he had always dreamed of.

Juan said he had also bought a small house for his parents. We went to the party; I couldn’t

Refuse, because it was being held in my honor.

The next time we heard from Juan it was 1992. Juan came to visit us in Miami, and we all

took a drive to Key West.

Juan wanted to say goodbye, he was leaving to live in France.

And that’s the Juan Peralta story.

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