Colonization and Christianity. William Howitt
universal calamities to them, and of the extinction of more than fifty millions of their race.
Though Providence permitted these things, it did not leave them unavenged. If ever there was a history of the divine retribution written in characters of light, it is that of Spain and the Spaniards in America. On Spain itself the wrath of God seemed to fall with a blasting and enduring curse. From being one of the most powerful and distinguished nations of Europe, it began from the moment that the gold of America, gathered amidst the tears and groans, and dyed with the blood of the miserable and perishing natives, flowed in a full stream into it, to shrink and dwindle, till at once poor and proud, indolent and superstitious, it has fallen a prey to distractions that make it the most melancholy spectacle in Europe. On one occasion Columbus witnessed a circumstance so singular that it struck not only him but every one to whom the knowledge of it came. After he himself had been disgraced and sent home in chains, being then on another voyage of discovery—and refused entrance into the port of St. Domingo by the governor—he saw the approach of a tempest, and warned the governor of it, as the royal fleet was on the point of setting sail for Spain. His warning was disregarded; the fleet set sail, having on board Bovadillo, the ex-governor, Roldan, and other officers, men who had been not only the fiercest enemies of Columbus, but the most rapacious plunderers and oppressors of the natives. The tempest came; and these men, with sixteen vessels laden with an immense amount of guilty wealth, were all swallowed up in the ocean—leaving only two ships afloat, one of which contained the property of Columbus!
But the fortunes of Columbus were no less disastrous. Much, and perhaps deservedly as he has been pitied for the treatment which he received from an ungrateful nation, it has always struck me that, from the period that he departed from the noble integrity of his character; butchered the naked Indians on their own soil, instead of resenting and redressing their injuries; from the hour that he set the fatal example of hunting them with dogs, of exacting painful labours and taxes, that he had no right to impose—from the moment that he annihilated their ancient peace and liberty, the hand of God’s prosperity went from him. His whole life was one continued scene of disasters, vexations, and mortifications. Swarms of lawless and rebellious spirits, as if to punish him for letting loose on this fair continent the pestilent brood of the Spanish prisons, ceased not to harass, and oppose him. Maligned by these enemies, and sent to Europe in chains; there seeking restoration in vain, he set out on fresh discoveries. But wherever he went misfortune pursued him. Denied entrance into the very countries he had discovered; defeated by the natives that his men unrighteously attacked; shipwrecked in Jamaica, before it possessed a single European colony, he was there left for above twelve months, suffering incredible hardships, and amongst his mutinous Spaniards that threatened his life on the one hand, and Indians weary of their presence on the other. Having seen his authority usurped in the new world, he returned to the old—there the death of Isabella, the only soul that retained a human feeling, extinguished all hope of redress of his wrongs; and after a weary waiting for justice on Ferdinand, he died, worn out with grief and disappointment. He had denied justice to the inhabitants of the world he had found, and justice was denied him; he had condemned them to slavery, and he was sent home in chains; he had given over the Indians to that thraldom of despair which broke the hearts of millions, and he himself died broken-hearted.
CHAPTER V.
THE SPANIARDS IN HISPANIOLA AND CUBA.
Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening for the prey; to shed blood, and to destroy souls, and to get dishonest gain.
Ezekiel xxii. 27.
But whether Columbus or others were in power, the miseries of the Indians went on. Bovadillo, the governor who superseded Columbus, and loaded him with irons, only bestowed allotments of Indians with a more liberal hand, to ingratiate himself with the fierce adventurers who filled the island. Raging with the quenchless thirst of gold, these wretches drove the poor Indians in crowds to the mountains, and compelled them to labour so mercilessly in the mines, that they melted away as rapidly as snow in the sun. It is true that the atrocities thus committed reaching the ears of Isabella, instructions were from time to time sent out, declaring the Indians free subjects, and enjoining mercy towards them; but like all instructions of the sort sent so far from home, they were resisted and set aside. The Indians, ever and anon, stung with despair, rose against their oppressors, but it was only to perish by the sword instead of the mine—they were pursued as rebels, their dwellings razed from the earth, and their caziques, when taken, hanged as malefactors.
In vain the simple race
Kneeled to the iron sceptre of their grace,
Or with weak arms their fiery vengeance braved;
They came, they saw, they conquered, they enslaved,
And they destroyed! The generous heart they broke;
They crushed the timid neck beneath the yoke;
Where’er to battle marched their fell array,
The sword of conquest ploughed resistless way;
Where’er from cruel toil they sought repose,
Around the fires of devastation rose.
The Indian as he turned his head in flight,
Beheld his cottage flaming through the night,
And, mid the shrieks of murder on the wind,
Heard the mute bloodhound’s death-step close behind.
The conquest o’er, the valiant in their graves,
The wretched remnant dwindled into slaves;
Condemned in pestilential cells to pine,
Delving for gold amidst the gloomy mine.
The sufferer, sick of life-protracting breath,
Inhaled with joy the fire-damp blast of death—
Condemned to fell the mountain palm on high,
That cast its shadow to the evening sky,
Ere the tree trembled to his feeble stroke,
The woodman languished, and his heart-strings broke;
Condemned in torrid noon, with palsied hand,
To urge the slow plough o’er the obdurate land,
The labourer, smitten by the sun’s fierce ray,
A corpse along the unfinished furrow lay.
O’erwhelmed at length with ignominious toil,
Mingling their barren ashes with the soil,
Down to the dust the Charib people past,
Like autumn foliage withering in the blast;
The whole race sunk beneath the oppressor’s rod,
And left a blank amongst the works of God.
Montgomery.
In all the atrocities and indignities practised on these poor islanders, there were none which excite a stronger indignation than the treatment of the generous female cazique, Anacoana. This is the narrative of Robertson, drawn from Ovieda, Herrera, and Las Casas. “The province anciently named Zaragua, which extends from the fertile plain where Leogane is now situated, to the western extremity of the island, was subject to a female cazique, named Anacoana, highly respected by the natives. She, from the partial fondness with which the women of America were attached to the Europeans, had always courted the friendship of the Spaniards, and loaded them with benefits. But some of the adherents of Roldan having settled in her country, were so much exasperated at her endeavouring to restrain their excesses, that they accused her of having formed a plan to throw off the yoke, and to exterminate the Spaniards. Ovando, though he well knew what little credit was due to such profligate men, marched without