Oppression of Indians.

The proceedings of the men under Margarite were similar to those of the Spaniards formerly left at La Navidad.  They went straggling over the country:  they consumed the provisions of the poor Indians, astonishing them by their voracious appetites; waste, rapine, injury and insult followed in their steps; and from henceforth there was but little hope of the two races living peaceably together in those parts, at least upon equal terms.  The Indians were now swarming about the Spaniards with hostile intent:  as a modern historian describes the situation, “they had passed from terror to despair;” and but for the opportune arrival of the admiral, the Spanish settlements in Hispaniola might again have been entirely swept away.

Caonabo, the cacique who, in former days, had put to death the garrison at La Navidad, was now threatening that of St. Thomas, the fort which the admiral had caused to be built in the mining district of Cibao.  Guatignana, the cacique of Macorix, who had killed eight Spanish soldiers and set fire to a house where there were forty ill, was now within two days’ march of Isabella, besieging the fort of Magdalena.  Columbus started up forthwith, went off to Magdalena, engaged the Indians, and routed them utterly.

  Transmission of slaves,

He took a large part of them for slaves, and reduced to obedience the whole of the province of Macorix.  Returning to Isabella, he sent back, on the 24th of February, 1495, the four ships which Antonio de Torres had brought out, chiefly laden with Indian slaves.  It is rather remarkable that the very ships which brought that admirable reply from Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus, begging him to seek some other way to Christianity than through slavery, even for wild man-devouring Caribs, should come back full of slaves taken from amongst the wild islanders of Hispaniola.

Caonabo, not daunted by the fate of Guatignana, still continued to molest St. Thomas.  The admiral accordingly sallied out with two hundred men against this cacique.  On the broad plains of the Vega Real the Spaniards found an immense number of Indians collected together, amounting, it is said, to one hundred thousand men.  The admiral divided his forces into two bands, giving the command of one to his brother Bartholomew, and leading the other himself; and when the brothers made an attack upon the Indians at the same time from different quarters, this numerous host was at once and utterly put to flight.  In speaking of such a defeat, the modern reader must not be lavish of the words “cowardly,” “pusillanimous,” and the like, until, at least, he has well considered what it is to expose naked bodies to firearms, to the charge of steel-clad men on horseback, and to the clinging ferocity of bloodhounds.

  SLAUGHRTER of natives.