CHAPTER VIII.
PARLEY TELLS OF OVANDO'S CRUEL TREATMENT OF ANACAONA, THE PRINCESS OF HAYTI.
Columbus discovered and gave names to some of these islands, and on several of them he settled colonies, and did all he could to make them the abodes of peace and happiness.
On his taking leave of them for the last time, Ovando continued governor of Hayti.
The cruelties exercised by this unfeeling man it would take a volume to describe, but I will mention only one or two instances.
When the natives were unable to pay the tribute which he exacted from them, he always accused them of insurrection, and it was to punish a slight insurrection of this kind in the eastern part of the island that he sent his troops, who ravaged the country with fire and sword. He showed no mercy to age or sex, putting many to death with horrible tortures, and brought off the brave Catabanama, one of the five sovereign caziques of the island, in chains to St. Domingo, where he was ignominiously hanged by Ovando, for the crime of defending his territory and his native soil against usurping strangers.
But the most atrocious act of Ovando, and one that must heap odium on his name, wherever the woes of the gentle natives of Hayti are heard of, was the cruelty he was guilty of towards the province of Xaragua for one of those pretended conspiracies.
Ovando set out at the head of nearly four hundred well armed soldiers, seventy of whom were steel-clad horsemen; giving out that he was coming on a visit of friendship, to make arrangements for the payment of tribute.
Behechio, the ancient cazique of the province, was dead, and his sister, Anacaona, wife of the late formidable chief Caonabo, had succeeded to the government.
She was one of the most beautiful females in the island; of great natural grace and dignity, and superior intelligence; her name in the Indian language signified "Golden Flower."
She came forth to meet Ovando, according to the custom of her nation, attended by her most distinguished subjects, and her train of damsels waving palm branches, and dancing to the cadence of their popular ayretos.
all her principal caziques had been assembled to do honour to the guests, who, for several days were entertained with banquets, and national games and dances.
In return for these exhibitions, Ovando invited Anacaona, with her beautiful daughter Higuenamata, and her principal subjects, to witness a tilting match in the public square.
When all were assembled, and the square crowded with unarmed Indians, Ovando gave a signal, and instantly the horsemen rushed into the midst of the naked and defenceless throng, trampling them under foot, cutting them down with their swords, transfixing them with their lances, and sparing neither age nor sex.
Above eighty caziques had been assembled in one of the principal houses: it was surrounded by troops, the caziques were bound to the posts which supported the roof, and put to cruel tortures, until in the extremity of anguish they were made to admit as true what their queen and themselves had been charged with.
When they had thus been made, by torture, to accuse themselves, a horrible punishment was immediately inflicted. Fire was set to the house, and they all perished miserably in the flames.
As to Anacaona, she was carried to St. Domingo, where, after the mockery of a trial, she was pronounced guilty on the testimony of the Spaniards, and was barbarously hanged by the people whom she had so long and so greatly befriended.
After the massacre of Xaragua, the destruction of its inhabitants went on. They were hunted for six months amid the fastnesses of the mountains, and their country ravaged by horse and foot, until, all being reduced to deplorable misery and abject submission, Ovando pronounced the province restored to order; and in remembrance of his triumph, founded a town near the lake, which he called Santa Maria de la Verdadera Pas (St. Mary of the true peace.)
Such was the tragical fate of the beautiful Anacaona, once extolled as the Golden Flower of Hayti; and such the story of the delightful region of Xaragua, which the Spaniards, by their own account, found a perfect paradise, but which, by their vile passions, they filed with horror and desolation.
After this work of destruction, they made slaves of the remaining inhabitants, and divided them amongst them, and many of the sanguinary contests among themselves arose out of quarrels about the distribution.
We cannot help pausing to cast back a look of pity and admiration over these beautiful but devoted regions.
The white man had penetrated the land! In his train came avarice, pride, and ambition; sordid care, and pining labour, were soon to follow, and the paradise of the Indian was about to disappear for ever.