Part 15 (1/2)
Chapter I
Administration of Ovando in Hispaniola--Oppression of the Natives
[1503]
Before relating the return of Columbus to Hispaniola, it is proper to notice some of the principal occurrences which took place in that island under the governreat crowd of adventurers of various ranks had thronged his fleet--eager speculators, credulous dreaentle to enrich theold was to be picked up froathered from the mountain-brooks They had scarcely landed, says Las Casas, who accompanied the expedition, when they all hurried off to the ues distant The roads swarmed like ant-hills, with adventurers of all classes Every one had his knapsack stored with biscuit or flour, and his entlemen, who had no servants to carry their burdens, bore them on their own backs, and lucky was he who had a horse for the journey; he would be able to bring back the greater load of treasure They all set out in high spirits, eager who should first reach the golden land; thinking they had but to arrive at the mines, and collect riches; ”for they fancied,” says Las Casas, ”that gold was to be gathered as easily and readily as fruit from the trees” When they arrived, however, they discovered, to their dis painfully into the bowels of the earth--a labor to which most of them had never been accustoacity to detect the veins of ore; that, in fact, the whole process of ly toilsome, demanded vast patience and much experience, and, after all, was full of uncertainty They digged eagerly for a tiry, threw by their implements, sat down to eat, and then returned to work It was all in vain ”Their labor,” says Las Casas, ”gave theold”
They soon consumed their provisions, exhausted their patience, cursed their infatuation, and in eight days set off drearily on their return along the roads they had lately trod so exultingly They arrived at San Doold, half-fa
[205] Such is too often the case of those who ignorantly engage in , and fallacious
Poverty soon fell upon these ht froed to exchange even their apparel for bread Some forreater part were like men lost and bewildered, and just awakened frohtened the sufferings of the body Some wasted away and died broken-hearted; others were hurried off by raging fevers, so that there soon perished upwards of a thousand acity, and he certainly took several judicious ulation of the island, and the relief of the colonists Hethe married persons and the families which had co the zeal forthe royal share of the product from one-half to a third, and shortly after to a fifth; but he empowered the Spaniards to avail themselves, in the most oppressivethethe natives with severity had been one of those chiefly urged against Columbus It is proper, therefore, to notice, in this respect, the conduct of his successor, a overn
It will be recollected, that when Colun lands to the rebellious followers of Francisco Roldan, in 1499, he had ement that the caciques in their vicinity should, in lieu of tribute, furnish a nu their estates This, as has been observed, was the commencement of the disastrous system of repartimientos, or distributions of Indians When Bobadilla adovernment, he constrained the caciques to furnish a certain nu the mines; where they were employed like beasts of burden He made an enumeration of the natives, to prevent evasion; reduced the the Spanish inhabitants The enormous oppressions which ensued have been noticed They roused the indignation of Isabella; and when Ovando was sent out to supersede Bobadilla, in 1502, the natives were pronounced free; they immediately refused to labor in the ns, in 1503, that ruinous consequences resulted to the colony froranted to the Indians He stated that the tribute could not be collected, for the Indians were lazy and iularities by occupation; that they now kept aloof from the Spaniards, and from all instruction in the Christian faith
The last representation had an influence with Isabella, and drew a letter frons to Ovando, in 1503, in which he was ordered to spare no pains to attach the natives to the Spanish nation and the Catholic religion To make theood; but to teularly and fairly for their labor, and to have theion on certain days
Ovando availed hiiven hined to each Castilian a certain nu to the quality of the applicant, the nature of the application, or his own pleasure It was arranged in the form of an order on a cacique for a certain number of Indians, ere to be paid by their employer, and instructed in the Catholic faith The pay was so small as to be little better than nominal; the instruction was little more than the mere ceremony of baptisht months in the year Under cover of this hired labor, intended for the good both of their bodies and their souls, more intolerable toil was exacted from them, and more horrible cruelties were inflicted, than in the worst days of Bobadilla They were separated often the distance of several days' journey from their wives and children, and doomed to intolerable labor of all kinds, extorted by the cruel infliction of the lash For food they had the cassava bread, an unsubstantial support for ed to labor; soreat number of them, scarce a mouthful to each When the Spaniards who superintended the mines were at their repast, says Las Casas, the fas, for any bone thrown to thenawed and sucked it, they pounded it between stones andof so precious a ht be lost As to those who labored in the fields, they never tasted either flesh or fish; a little cassava bread and a few roots were their support While the Spaniards thus withheld the nourishth, they exacted a degree of labor sufficient to break down the orous man If the Indians fled froe in the ed in the most inhuman manner, and laden with chains to prevent a second escape Many perished long before their term of labor had expired Those who survived their terht months, were permitted to return to their homes, until the next terhty leagues distant They had nothing to sustain thei peppers, or a little cassava bread Worn down by long toil and cruel hardshi+ps, which their feeble constitutions were incapable of sustaining, th to perform the journey, but sank down and died by the way; some by the side of a brook, others under the shade of a tree, where they had crawled for shelter from the sun ”I have foundunder the trees, and others in the pangs of death, faintly crying, Hunger! hunger!” [206] Those who reached their hoht months they had been absent, their wives and children had either perished or wandered away; the fields on which they depended for food were overrun eeds, and nothing was left the, and die at the threshold of their habitations [207]
It is impossible to pursue any further the picture drawn by the venerable Las Casas, not of what he had heard, but of what he had seen; nature and humanity revolt at the details Suffice it to say that, so intolerable were the toils and sufferings inflicted upon this weak and unoffending race, that they sank under the, as it were, from the face of the earth Many killed themselves in despair, and even mothers overcame the powerful instinct of nature, and destroyed the infants at their breasts, to spare them a life of wretchedness Twelve years had not elapsed since the discovery of the island, and several hundred thousand of its native inhabitants had perished,avarice of the white ua--Fate of Anacaona
[1503]
The sufferings of the natives under the civil policy of Ovando have been briefly shown; it reive a concise view of the military operations of this commander, so lauded by certain of the early historians for his prudence By this notice a portion of the eventful history of this island will be recounted which is connected with the fortunes of Coluation, and, it may also be said, extermination of the native inhabitants And first, we ua, the seat of hospitality, the refuge of the suffering Spaniards; and of the fate of the female cacique, Anacaona, once the pride of the island, and the generous friend of white men
Behechio, the ancient cacique of this province, being dead, Anacaona, his sister, had succeeded to the government The marked partiality which she once reatly weakened by the general misery they had produced in her country; and by the brutal profligacy exhibited in her immediate dominions by the followers of Roldan The unhappy story of the loves of her beautiful daughter Higuena Spaniard Hernando de Guevara, had also caused her great affliction; and, finally, the various and enduring hardshi+ps inflicted on her once happy subjects by the grinding systeth, it is said, converted her friendshi+p into absolute detestation
This disgust was kept alive and aggravated by the Spaniards who lived in her irants of land there; a reross licentiousness and open profligacy in which they had been indulged under the loose misrule of that commander, and whoservices tyrannically and capriciously under the baneful system of repartimientos
The Indians of this province were uniforenerous-spirited race than any others of the islands They were thetreatment to which they were subjected Quarrels sometimes took place between the caciques and their oppressors These were ierous mutinies; and a resistance to any capricious and extortionate exaction was overn in upon Ovando, until he was persuaded by sothe Indians of this province to rise upon the Spaniards
Ovando iua at the head of three hundred foot-soldiers, armed with swords, arquebuses, and cross-bows, and seventy horsemen, with cuirasses, bucklers, and lances He pretended that he was going on a ements about the payment of tribute
When Anacaona heard of the intended visit, she summoned all her tributary caciques, and principal subjects, to asseht receive the coe and distinction As Ovando, at the head of his little ar to the custouished subjects, male and female; who, as has been before observed, were noted for superior grace and beauty They received the Spaniards with their popular areytos, their national songs; the young wo before them, in the way that had so much charmed the followers of the Adelantado, on his first visit to the province
Anacaona treated the governor with that natural graciousness and dignity for which she was celebrated She gave hiest house in the place for his residence, and his people were quartered in the houses adjoining