Santo Domingo | Page 8

when
a terrific hurricane broke loose. All but two of the vessels were lost,
and by a strange coincidence one of these two bore Rodrigo de Bastidas,
the friend of Columbus, while the other, the smallest and weakest
vessel of the fleet, was the one that carried Columbus' property.
Bobadilla, Roldan and other enemies of the admiral, and many other
passengers and Indian captives perished and large stores of gold were
lost. Columbus' squadron rode out the storm in safety in a cove of the
bay of Azua, whereupon he continued his voyage.

On land, too, the hurricane wrought great destruction. The houses of
the town of Santo Domingo were demolished and as the right bank of
the Ozama was higher and seemed more suitable, Ovando ordered that
the town be rebuilt on that side, where it now stands.
Ovando now inaugurated a period of general prosperity. He established
peace and order, issued rules for the different branches of the public
service, placed honest men in the posts of responsibility and
encouraged industry and agriculture. Yet, strange mixture of energy
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