Santo Domingo | Page 9

point for voyages of discovery and conquest in the islands and along the shores of the Caribbean Sea.
After the death of Christopher Columbus his son Diego made fruitless efforts to recover the honors of which his father had been despoiled, but it was not until he married Maria de Toledo, the beautiful niece of the Duke of Alba, that he met with partial success, probably more because of the influence of his wife's family than because of the justice of his claims. In 1509 he was appointed governor of Santo Domingo to succeed Ovando and arrived in the colony with his wife, his uncles, and a brilliant suite.
Diego Columbus inaugurated his administration with a splendor till then unknown in the new world, establishing a kind of vice-regal court. He built the castle of which the ruins are still to be seen near the San Diego gate in the city of Santo Domingo, and which in its glory must have been an imposing structure. Unfortunately many persons transferred to the son the hatred they had borne the father and he found his plans balked. Intending to carry into effect the royal dispositions relative to the release of the Indians from slavery he incurred the hostility of the planters and when he desisted owing to their opposition, he was attacked by the friars. Complaints poured in upon King Ferdinand; the accusation most calculated to arouse the suspicious monarch's fears was that the second admiral, as Diego Columbus was called, harbored the intention of proclaiming himself sovereign of Santo Domingo. Ferdinand accordingly instituted the audiencia or high court of justice of Santo Domingo, which was invested with a comprehensive jurisdiction, being authorized to hear appeals even from decisions of the governor, whose powers were thus materially curtailed.
This circumstance, as well as a new distribution of the Indians, made over the head of the governor, induced Diego Columbus to return to Spain in 1515 in order to defend his interests. During the term of the two governors who succeeded him, various dispositions were made for the protection of the natives whose numbers were rapidly diminishing notwithstanding importations from the other islands and from South America. The only result of these orders was a change of masters; for when Diego Columbus returned as governor in 1520, he found the Indians exploited by the priests and officers of the crown to whom they had been intrusted ostensibly for religious instruction, while the mine-owners and planters now employed negro slaves.
Almost simultaneously with the return of the second admiral began the insurrection of a young Indian cacique known as Enrique. This noble Indian, a relative of Anacaona, had been converted to Christianity and educated by the Spaniards, but was nevertheless enslaved in one of the "repartimientos," or distributions. His wife having been gravely offended by the Spaniard to whom they were assigned, he retired to the almost inaccessible mountains in the center of the island, and many of the remaining natives fled to join him. Efforts to dislodge him were in vain and negotiations only elicited from him the promise to act on the defensive alone, which was equivalent to an indefinite truce. The number of negro slaves had in the meantime increased, and the treatment given them was as harsh as that which had been accorded the aborigines. As a result an insurrection, the first negro uprising in the new world, began near Santo Domingo City on December 27, 1522. Several Spaniards were murdered, but the troops overpowered the mutineers and a number were hung.
Diego Columbus continued in his efforts to promote the welfare of the colony, but became involved in a quarrel with the royal audiencia and found himself obliged in March, 1524, to return to Spain where he died two years later. The new governor, Bishop Sebastian Ramirez de Fuenleal, was appointed president of the royal court, and the offices of governor and president of the court were thenceforth consolidated. Both he and his successor used their best efforts to promote immigration into the colony which was beginning to suffer on account of the draughts of men that left for the mainland. An army was dispatched against the insurgent chief Enrique who still menaced the tranquillity of the colonists from his mountain fastnesses. When it was found impossible to reach him, peaceful methods were employed. Negotiations were opened, and a treaty of peace signed in 1533, on an island in the beautiful lake still known as Lake Enriquillo. By this treaty the Indians, now reduced to not more than 4000 in number, were freed from slavery and assigned lands in Boya, in the mountains to the northeast of Santo Domingo City. From this time forward there is no further mention of the Indians in the island's history; they disappeared completely by dying out and by