stalwart Cotubanama. It was an easy matter to find a pretext for waging war on him. The last of the Haitian "caciques" defended his small State with great bravery. The struggle was a fierce one. The Spanish fury spared neither sex nor age. They massacred the natives indiscriminately. Vanquished at last, Cotubanama was taken as a prisoner to Santo Domingo where, like Anacaona, he was hanged. Through his defeat and death the Spaniards at last acquired the entire possession of Hispañola.
Ovando was victorious. The Spanish conquest had annihilated a whole race. Shipped to Europe and sold as slaves, heavily burdened with taxes, over-worked, tormented, persecuted, the autochthons had rapidly disappeared. Many had resorted to suicide to escape from the ill treatment inflicted on them; others were devoured by the ferocious dogs; the greatest number had fallen in the bloody wars and bloody massacres. In 1507, scarcely fifteen years after the arrival of the Spaniards, there remained, out of a population numbering about 1,000,000, only 60,000 natives. Four years later, in 1511, these 60,000 were reduced to 14,000.[1]
The cruelty and cupidity of the newcomers had depopulated the island. There was in consequence a great deficiency of laborers: the prosperity of Hispañola was in jeopardy. Ovando, always fruitful in expedients, conceived the idea of importing the inhabitants of the neighboring islands, pretending that it would be easier to convert them to Christianity. Deceived by the grossest artifices, 40,000 of those unfortunate people were removed from their homes and became at Hispañola the prey of the Spanish avidity.
The Spaniards soon introduced into the island a new element more resisting than the Indians and Caribs: a few blacks had been sold in the colony. Pleased with their work, the Spaniards held the Africans as indispensable. The slave-trade which ensued was the cause of the downfall of the colonists. Cargoes of human flesh abounded in Hispañola. Stunned by their brutal
- ↑ Placide Justin, Histoire d'Haiti, pp. 40-42.
