Santo Domingo | Page 8

and cruelty, of valor and bigotry that he was, his treatment of the Indians was most oppressive. To each Spanish landholder was assigned a number of Indians under the pretext that they were to be given religious instruction and accustomed to work; but so onerous and unremitting was the labor imposed that they succumbed to disease by thousands, while thousands of others perished by their own hand in an epidemic of suicide which swept through the country, and many fled to almost inaccessible mountain regions.
But two Indian chieftains still reigned in the island, one the Indian queen Anacaona in the district of Jaragua, the other the chief of Higuey. Ovando's severe measures against the natives made him ready to believe the tales of conspiracies brought to him. He therefore sent a troop of 300 infantry under Diego Velazquez, the future conqueror of Cuba, and 70 horsemen, to the territory of Anacaona, where they were received with every mark of kindness. The Spaniards invited the natives to witness a military drill and when the queen, her principal caciques and a great crowd of Indians were assembled, the exercises commenced. The Indians were awed by the spectacle so new and imposing to them, when suddenly the trumpets gave a signal, the infantry opened fire and the cavalry charged on the defenseless spectators. All the Indians who could not escape by flight were massacred without respect to age or sex. Anacaona alone was spared and carried off to Santo Domingo where she was shortly afterwards ignominiously executed, on the pretext that she was not sufficiently sincere in the Catholic religion which she had recently professed! A tenacious persecution of the Indians who would not become slaves was instituted and but few were able to hide in the mountains of the interior.
In 1503 the subjugation of the last remaining independent chieftain, Cotubanama, lord of Higuey, in the extreme eastern part of the island, was undertaken. Near this province a Spaniard wantonly set his hound upon one of the principal natives, and the Indian was torn to pieces, whereupon the chief, indignant at his friend's death, caused a boatload of Spaniards to be killed, thus giving Ovando a welcome excuse for the invasion. Four hundred Spaniards dealt death and desolation throughout the region, pursuing the Indians into the mountains and forests and sparing neither women nor children. When at last they captured and hung an aged Indian woman revered as a prophetess, the terrified aborigines sued for peace and agreed to pay a heavy tribute. A fortress was erected at Higuey, but the conduct of the Spanish garrison was so outrageous that the Indians in desperation again rose, and killed every Spaniard in the district. Ovando then began a war of extermination and the Indians were killed off by thousands, Cotubanama resisted heroically but in vain, and after being beaten in a number of desperate battles he withdrew to the island of Saona, southeast of Santo Domingo. Here he was surprised and captured by the Spaniards, his remaining warriors mercilessly shot and he himself taken to the city of Santo Domingo and hung. With his death the island was thoroughly pacified, though at a bloody cost, and the conquest proper ended.
On August 13, 1504, Columbus once more arrived in Santo Domingo. On his ill-fated fourth voyage he had been shipwrecked in Jamaica and one of his men crossed the ocean in an open boat, to solicit aid of Ovando. The latter, after dallying for months, finally yielded to the murmurings of the colony and sent for the Discoverer. He received Columbus well, but subjected him to humiliation by arbitrarily liberating a mutineer imprisoned by the admiral. Disappointed and sad, the great navigator left the shores of the island he loved and returned to Spain where his death occurred two years later. The golden age of the colony was now at hand. Ovando built up the city of Santo Domingo, constructed forts and other defences, and laid the foundations of most of its public buildings. Fine private residences and great churches and convents were erected. Sugar-cane was introduced in 1506 and gave rich returns, the production of the gold mines continued to increase, and cattle raising brought large profits. The Indians were dying out under the rigorous treatment, and others were imported from the surrounding islands under the pretense of converting them to Christianity; and when these also succumbed, the importation of negroes from Africa was commenced. About 1508 the island began to be called Santo Domingo, but for almost three centuries royal decrees continued to refer to it as Espanola. So flourishing was its state at this time that thirteen of its towns were granted coats of arms and three were declared cities. The colony was and for many years continued to be a starting