Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia Part 5

On his arrival he received the fatal news of the death of his patroness queen Isabella, from whom he had hoped for the redress of his wrongs.

He applied to the king, who, instead of confirming the t.i.tles and honours which he had formerly conferred upon him, insulted him with the proposal of renouncing them all for a pension.

Disgusted with the ingrat.i.tude of a monarch whom he had served with fidelity and success, exhausted with the calamities which he had endured, and broken with infirmities, this great and good man breathed his last at Valladolid, a.d. 1506, in the 69th year of his age.

He was buried in the cathedral at Seville, and on his tomb was engraved an epitaph commemorating his discovery of a New World.

Christobal Colon, obiit 1506,

aetat 69.

A Castilla y a Leon Neubo Mundo dio Colon.[A]

Thus much for Columbus; those who are the greatest benefactors of mankind seldom meet with much grat.i.tude from men in their lives; they must look to G.o.d for their reward, and leave future generations to do justice to their memory.

It was very unfortunate for the natives of America, that the country fell into the hands of such a cruel, covetous, and bigoted nation as the Spaniards were. Their thirst for gold was insatiable, and the cruelties they exercised upon the natives are too horrible to recite. After the death of Columbus, the Indians were no longer treated with gentleness, for it was his defence of the property and lives of these harmless natives that brought down upon his head such bitter hatred. You will now look into your map and follow Columbus in some of his discoveries. You will see a great number of islands extending in a curve from Florida, which is the southernmost part of the United States, to the mouth of the river Oronoko in South America; and, as Columbus firmly believed these islands, when he discovered them, to be a part of India, the name of Indies was given to them by Ferdinand and Isabella; and, even after the error was detected, and the true position of the new world ascertained, the name has remained, and the appellation of Indies is given to the country, and that of Indians to the inhabitants.

[Footnote A: To Castile and to Leon Columbus gave a New World.]

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 s.e.x, 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 hors.e.m.e.n; giving out that he was coming on a visit of friends.h.i.+p, 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 princ.i.p.al caziques had been a.s.sembled 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 princ.i.p.al subjects, to witness a tilting match in the public square.

When all were a.s.sembled, and the square crowded with unarmed Indians, Ovando gave a signal, and instantly the hors.e.m.e.n 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 s.e.x.

Above eighty caziques had been a.s.sembled in one of the princ.i.p.al 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 ma.s.sacre 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.sions, they filled 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.

CHAPTER IX.

PARLEY DESCRIBES THE TREES, PLANTS, AND FLOWERS OF THE NEW WORLD.

When once the way had been pointed out, it was easy for other navigators to follow, and accordingly many Spaniards undertook voyages of further discovery.

Among others, Yanez Pinzon, one of the brave companions of Columbus, undertook a voyage to the new world in 1499.

This navigator suffered much from storms, and having sailed southward, he crossed the equator and lost sight of the polar star.

The sailors were exceedingly alarmed at this circ.u.mstance, as the polar star was relied upon by them as one of their surest guides; not knowing the shape of the earth, they thought that some prominence hid this star from their view.

The first land that Pinzon discovered, after crossing the line, was Cape St. Augustine, in eight degrees south lat.i.tude, the most projecting part of the extensive country of Brazil.

As the fierceness of the natives made it unsafe to land on this coast, he continued his voyage to the north-west, and fell in with the mighty river Amazon, which is nearly under the equinoctial line.

The mouth of this river is more than thirty leagues in breadth, and its waters enter more than forty leagues into the ocean without losing its freshness.

He now recrossed the line, and coming again in sight of the polar star, he pursued his course along the coast, pa.s.sed the mouth of the Oronoko, and entered the Gulph of Paria, after which he returned to Spain.

Ojeda also undertook a voyage expressly to found a settlement; but as the character of the Spaniards was now well known to the inhabitants of these parts, they determined to oppose their landing, and being a numerous and warlike people, Ojeda nearly lost his life in the attempt.

Many of his companions were slain; the survivors, however, succeeding in making good their retreat on board the s.h.i.+ps.

Shortly afterwards he landed on the eastern side of the Gulph of Darien, and built a fortress which they called San Sebastian.