The Life of Columbus

m Jamaica, and the cluster of little islands called the "Garden of the Queen." The navigation amongst

ss, which Las Casas calls "pestilential," but which might reasonably be attributed to the privations, cares, and anxieties whic

judgment upon the admiral for so unjust a manner of endeavouring to introduce Christianity. The mariners turned the fl

S OF C

n which he bids him make much of his brother Ferdinand, the son of Beatrice, "for," says he, "ten brothers would not be too many for you. I have never found better friends, on my right hand and on my left, than my brothers." Afterwards came Antonio de Torres with

ATION OF T

ver, was not at any ti

colony in a sad state

ainst the Spaniards; an

ncipal persons had gone

ught Bartholo

e Spaniards, and of freeing the colony from supporting these four hundred men. The instructions to Margarite were, to observe the people and the natural productions of the country through which he should pass; to do rigorous justice, so that the Spaniar

ION OF

tes; 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 Spaniar

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

SSION O

h 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,

ndred 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 fligh

TER OF

the Vega Real, remained untaken. The admiral resolved to secure the person of this cacique by treachery; and sent Ojeda (who afterwards became a conspicuous actor in the sad drama of conquest and depopulation in the West Indies) to cajole Caonabo into coming to a

PTURE OF I

hing that descends from heaven. When, therefore, Ojeda brought these ornaments to Caonabo, and told him they were Biscayan Turey, and that they were a great present from the admiral, and that he would show him how to put them on, and that when they were put on Caonabo should set himself on Ojeda's horse and be shown to his admiring subjects, as, Ojeda said, the kings of Spain were wont to show themselves to theirs, the incautious Indian is said to have fallen entirely into the trap. Going with Ojeda, accompanied by only a small escort, to a river a short distance from his main encampment. Caonabo, after performing ablutions, suffered the crafty young Spaniard to put the heaven-descended fetters on him, and to set him upon the horse. Ojeda himself got up behind the Indian prince, and then whirling a few times round,

IBUTE I

the admiral, after his first victory, sent off four ships with slaves to Spain. He now took occasion to impose a tribute upon the whole population of Hispaniola. It was thus arranged. Every Indian above fourteen years old, who was in the provinces of the mines, or near to these provinces, was to pay every three months a littl

LE INDIA

of bread, stretching from Isabella to St. Domingo (i. e. from sea to sea) which would suffice to maintain all Castile with bread. The cacique would do this on condition that his vassals were

tances to change the nature of them. It appears that, in 1496, service instead of tribute was demanded of certain Indian villages; and as the villagers were ordered to mak

COLUMBUS

diary which he kept of his first voyage, on the 14th of October, three days after discovering the New World, he describes a position which he thinks would be a very good one for a fort; and he goes on to say, "I do not think that it (the fort) will be necessary, for this people is very si

, and he was accustomed to a slave trade. Moreover, he was anxious to reduce the expenses of these Indian possessions to the Catholic sovereigns, to pr

bellion-prisoners of war. Still we find that Ferdinand and Isabella were heedful in their proceedings in this matter. There is a letter of theirs to Bishop Fonseca, who managed Indian affairs, telling him to withhold receiving the money for the sale of these Indians that Torres had brought with him until their Highnesses should be able to inform themselves from men learned in the law, theologians and canonists, whether with a good consc

SS OF

take them away, fell into the profoundest sadness, and bethought them of the desperate remedy of attempting to starve the Spaniards out, by not sowing or planting anything. But this is a shallow device, when undertaken on the part of the greater number, in any country, against the smaller. The scheme reacted

COMMIS

ioned by the various complaints made against the admiral by Father Buil, Margarite, and the Spaniards who had returned from Hispan

g and th

d other persons, who by

ther Juan Aguado, our G

n our part: we command

cred

ing: I t

the King and Qu

ND AL

ninth of Apri

ed and nin

RMINE AND RUI

he settlement; and of his mania for discovery, which made him abandon the colony already formed, in the unremunerative search for new countries. The commissioner who was sent to investigate these charges, as well as to report on the condition of the colony, found no difficulty in collecting evidence to substantiate them. An unsuccessful man is generally persuaded that somebody else has caused his failure. And the "somebody else," in the case of the colonists, was, by universal consent, the foreign sea captain who had deluded Spanish hidalgoes by his wild projects, and had become a grandee under false pretences. The Indians, too, who were glad to lay their miseries at the door of somebody, and who were told that Aguado was the new admiral, and had co

ED VOY

ntil all the admiral's authority was needed to prevent his ravenous shipmates from killing and eating the Caribs who were on board,-in retribution, so ran the grim jest

ION AT

f placing him on his defence against the charges which had been brought forward by Father Buil, they listened with sympathy to his story of the difficulties which had beset him, and heard with sanguine satisfaction of the recent discovery of the mines from which it was said that the natives procured most of the gold that had been found in their possession, and which promised an incalculably rich harvest. Presently, in apparent confirmation of this belief, one Pedro Nino, a captain of the admiral's, announced his arrival at Cadiz, with a quantity of "gold in bars" on board his ship. It was not until great expectations had b