“According to our belief, the souls of men have two journeys to perform after they have departed from the body: one to a place dismal, foul, and covered with darkness, prepared for such men as have been unjust and cruel to their fellow-men; the other full of delight for such as have promoted peace on earth. If then thou art mortal, and dost expect to die, beware that thou hurt no man wrongfully, neither do harm to those who have done no harm to thee.”
When this speech was explained to Columbus by his interpreter, he was greatly moved, and rejoiced to hear this doctrine of the future state of the soul, having supposed that no belief of the kind existed among the inhabitants of these countries. He assured the old man that he had been sent by his sovereigns, to teach them the true religion, to protect them from harm, and to subdue their enemies the Caribs.
Alas! for the simple Indians who believed such professions. Columbus, no doubt, was sincere, but the adventurers who accompanied him, and the tyrants who followed him, cared only for riches for themselves. They ground down the poor, harmless red men beneath a harsh system of labor, obliging them to furnish, month by month, so much gold. This gold was found in fine grains, and it was a severe task to search the mountain pebbles and the sands of the plains for the shining dust.
Then the islands, after they were seized upon by the Christians, were parcelled out among the leaders, and the Indians were compelled to be their slaves. No wonder “deep despair fell upon the natives. Weak and indolent by nature, and brought up in the untasked idleness of their soft climate and their fruitful groves, death itself seemed preferable to a life of toil and anxiety.
“The pleasant life of the island was at an end; the dream in the shade by day; the slumber during the noontide heat by the fountain, or under the spreading palm; and the song, and the dance, and the game in the mellow evening, when summoned to their simple amusements by the rude Indian drum.
“They spoke of the times that were past, before the white men had introduced sorrow, and slavery, and weary labor among them; and their songs were mournful, and their dances slow.
“They had flattered themselves, for a time, that the visit of the strangers would be but temporary, and that, spreading their ample sails, their ships would waft them back to their home in the sky. In their simplicity, they had frequently inquired of the Spaniards when they intended to return to Turey, or the heavens. But when all such hope was at an end, they became desperate, and resorted to a forlorn and terrible alternative.”
They knew the Spaniards depended chiefly on the supplies raised in the islands for a subsistence; and these poor Indians endeavored to produce a famine. For this purpose they destroyed their fields of maize, stripped the trees of their fruit, pulled up the yuca and other roots, and then fled to the mountains.
The Spaniards were reduced to much distress, but were partially relieved by supplies from Spain. To revenge themselves on the Indians, they pursued them to their mountain retreats, hunted them from one dreary fastness to another, like wild beasts, until thousands perished in dens and caverns, of famine and sickness, and the survivors, yielding themselves up in despair, submitted to the yoke of slavery. But they did not long bear the burden of life under their civilized masters. In 1504, only twelve years after the discovery of Hayti, when Columbus visited it, (under the administration of Ovando,) he thus wrote to his sovereigns: “Since I left the island, six parts out of seven of the natives are dead, all through ill-treatment and inhumanity; some by the sword, others by blows and cruel usage, or by hunger.”
No wonder these oppressed Indians considered the Christians the incarnation of all evil. Their feelings were often expressed in a manner that must have touched the heart of a real Christian, if there was such a one among their oppressors.