So great was the veneration and respect entertained for him, that on his arrival at Court, accusation was not allowed to be produced against him: and, without instituting enquiry, it was arranged, that he should return to his government with a large reinforcement of Spaniards, and with authority to grant lands to whomsoever he chose to think capable of cultivating them. Various accidents delayed his departure from Spain on his third voyage, till 1498.
City of Nueva Ysabel founded, 1496. He had left two of his brothers to govern in Hispaniola during his absence; the eldest, Bartolomé, with the title of Adelantado; in whose time (A. D. 1496) was traced, on the South side of the Island, the plan of a new town intended for the capital, the land in the neighbourhood of the town of Ysabel, before built, being poor and little productive. Its name changed to Santo Domingo. The name first given to the new town was Nueva Ysabel; this in a short time gave place to that of Santo Domingo, a name which was not imposed by authority, but adopted and became in time established by common usage, of which the original cause is not now known[2].
Under the Adelantado's government, the parts of the Island which till then had held out in their refusal to receive the Spanish yoke, were reduced to subjection; and the conqueror gratified his vanity with the public execution of one of the Hayti Kings.
Columbus whilst he was in Spain received mortification in two instances, of neither of which he had any right to complain. In October 1496, three hundred natives of Hayti (made prisoners by the Adelantado) were landed at Cadiz, being sent to Spain as slaves. At this act of disobedience, the King and Queen strongly expressed their displeasure, and said, if the Islanders made war against the Castilians, they must have been constrained to do it by hard treatment. Columbus thought proper to blame, and to disavow what his brother had done. The other instance of his receiving mortification, was an act of kindness done him, and so intended; and it was the only shadow of any thing like reproof offered to him. In the instructions which he now received, it was earnestly recommended to him to prefer conciliation to severity on all occasions which would admit it without prejudice to justice or to his honour.
1498. It was in the third voyage of Columbus that he first saw the Continent of South America, in August 1498, which he then took to be an Island, and named Isla Santa. He arrived on the 22d of the same month at the City of San Domingo.
The short remainder of Columbus's government in Hayti was occupied with disputes among the Spaniards themselves. A strong party was in a state of revolt against the government of the Columbuses, and accommodation was kept at a distance, by neither party daring to place trust in the other. 1498-9. Columbus would have had recourse to arms to recover his authority, but some of his troops deserted to the disaffected, and others refused to be employed against their countrymen. In this state, the parties engaged in a treaty on some points, and each sent Memorials to the Court. The Admiral in his dispatches represented, that necessity had made him consent to certain conditions, to avoid endangering the Colony; but that it would
be highly prejudicial to the interests of their Majesties to ratify the treaty he had been forced to subscribe.
Beginning of the Repartimientos. The Admiral now made grants of lands to Spanish colonists, and accompanied them with requisitions to the neighbouring Caciques, to furnish the new proprietors with labourers to cultivate the soil. This was the beginning of the Repartimientos, or distributions of the Indians, which confirmed them slaves, and contributed, more than all former oppressions, to their extermination. Notwithstanding the earnest and express order of the King and Queen to the contrary, the practice of transporting the natives of Hayti to Spain as slaves, was connived at and continued; and this being discovered, lost Columbus the confidence, but not wholly the support, of Queen Ysabel.
1500. Government of Bovadilla. The dissensions in the Colony increased, as did the unpopularity of the Admiral; and in the year 1500, a new Governor General of the Indies, Francisco de Bovadilla, was sent from Spain, with a commission empowering him to examine into the accusations against the Admiral; and he was particularly enjoined by the Queen, to declare all the native inhabitants free, and to take measures to secure to them that they should be treated as a free people. How a man so grossly ignorant and intemperate as Bovadilla, should have been chosen to an office of such high trust, is not a little extraordinary. His first display of authority was to send the Columbuses home prisoners, with the indignity to their persons of confining them in chains. He courted popularity in his government by shewing favour to all who had been disaffected to the government or measures of the Admiral and his brothers, the natives excepted, for whose relief he had been especially appointed Governor. To encourage the Spaniards to work the mines, he reduced the duties payable to the Crown on the produce, and trusted to an increase in the quantity of gold extracted, for preserving the revenue from