Repartimientos and encomiendas.
The battle and the succeeding collapse had settled the fate of the poor natives. The policy of subjecting men by violence to pay the tribute of their lives and property to Spanish cupidity was begun in earnest, and it was shortly after made to include the labor on the Spanish farms, which, under the names of repartimientos and encomiendas, demoralized the lives of master and slave. When prisoners were gathered in such numbers that to guard them was a burden, there could be but little delay in forcing the issue of the slave trade upon the Crown as a part of an established policy. To the mind of Columbus, there was now some chance of repelling the accusations of Margarite and Father Boyle by palpable returns of olive flesh and shining metal. A scheme of enforced contribution of gold was accordingly planned. Each native above the age of fourteen was required to pay every three months, into the Spanish coffers, his share of gold, measured by the capacity of a hawk's bell for the common person, and by that of a calabash for the cacique. In the regions distant from the gold deposits, cotton was accepted as a substitute, twenty-five pounds for each person. A copper medal was put on the neck of every Indian for each payment, and new exactions were levied upon those who failed to show the medals. The amount of this tribute was more than the poor natives could find, and Guarionex tried to have it commuted for grain; but the golden greed of Columbus was inexorable. He preferred to reduce the requirements rather than vary the kind. A half of a hawk's bell of gold was better than stores of grain. "It is a curious circumstance," says Irving, "that the miseries of the poor natives should thus be measured out, as it were, by the very baubles which first fascinated them."
Forts built.
To make this payment sure, it was necessary to establish other armed posts through the country; and there were speedily built that of Magdalena in the Vega, one called Esperanza in Cibao, another named Catalina, beside La Concepcion, which has already been mentioned.
The natives debased.
The change which ensued in the lives of the natives was pitiable. The labor of sifting the sands of the streams for gold, which they had heretofore made a mere pastime to secure bits to pound into ornaments, became a depressing task. To work fields under a tropical sun, where they had basked for sportive rest, converted their native joyousness into despair. They sang their grief in melancholy songs, as Peter Martyr tells us. Gradually they withdrew from their old haunts, and by hiding in the mountains, they sought to avoid the exactions, and to force the Spaniards, thus no longer supplied by native labor with food, to abandon their posts and re tire to Isabella, if not to leave the island.
Guacanagari disappears.
Scant fare for themselves and the misery of dank lurking-places were preferable to the heavy burdens of the taskmasters. They died in their retreats rather than return to their miserable labors. Even the long-tried friend of the Spaniards, Guacanagari, was made no exception. He and his people suffered every exaction with the rest of their countrymen. The cacique himself is said eventually to have buried himself in despair in the mountain fastnesses, and so passed from the sight of men.
The Spaniards were not so easily to be thwarted. They hunted the poor creatures like game, and, under the goading of lashes, such as survived were in time returned to their slavery. So thoroughly was every instinct of vengeance rooted out of the naturally timid nature of the Indians that a Spaniard might, as Las Casas tells us, march solemnly like an army through the most solitary parts of the island and receive tribute at every demand.