The world's leading conquerors

by Wilson Lloyd Bevan

The escape of the natives to the mountains and their efforts to retaliate started, according to Las Casas, the war of extermination. When the governor Ovando arrived in the part of the island which was ruled over by a woman chieftain, Anacaona, more than 300 chiefs were brought together and assured of the pacific intentions of the Europeans. “He lured the principal ones by fraud into a straw house, and, setting fire to it, he burnt them alive; all the others, together with numberless people, were put to the sword and lance; and to do honor to the lady Anacaona, they hanged her.” Death by fire, administered with the most exquisitely devised tortures, was the fate of the Indian chieftains. “I once saw,” he continues, “that they had four or five of the chief lords stretched on the gridiron to burn them, and I think also there were two or three pairs of gridirons where they were burning others.” The fugitives were hunted down by boar-hounds who were taught and trained to tear an Indian to pieces as soon as they saw him.

Although Cuba had been discovered by Columbus, no attempt was made to occupy the island until 1511, when his son Diego, acting under the powers conferred upon him by the home government, selected Velasquez, one of the oldest and most respected colonists in Hispaniola, to take charge of the enterprise. With only three hundred men he easily occupied the island. Like the Indians of Hispaniola they were not able to organize any effective resistance. There was a repetition of the atrocities by which Hispaniola had been pacified. By 1521 the miserable natives were so brought under control that they were turned into the unwilling and inefficient instruments of the colonial policy of their new masters.

Las Casas was present at the close of this expedition, and he speaks of frequent burnings and hangings of the inhabitants. Many committed suicide to escape the enforced working in the mines. The following item in his indictment deserves to be reproduced: “There was,” he says, “an officer of the king in this island to whose share 300 Indians fell, and by the end of three months he had, through labor in the mines, caused the deaths of 270; so that he had only 30 left, which was the tenth part. The authorities afterwards gave him as many again, and again he killed them; and they continued to give and he to kill.... In three or four months, I being present, more than 7000 children died of hunger, their fathers and mothers having been taken to the mines.” The concentration of the conquerors on economic success may be gathered from the experience of Las Casas himself, who, though he had done all in his power to restrain the commission of cruel deeds, wherever he was present, did not hesitate to take advantage, priest though he was, of the “repartimiento” system, under which he received a valuable piece of land and a number of Indians to work it, in recognition of the services he had rendered in conciliating the natives.

Columbus, it must be remembered, received an authorization to deport from Spain criminals under sentence of either partial or perpetual banishment. Other delinquents had had their sentences remitted provided they agreed to go to the Indies. The result among such a motley crowd, released from the ordinary pressure of social obligations, was a laxity and dissoluteness such as was seen in the nineteenth century among frontier communities. Even Columbus spoke with no admiration of the colonists. “I know,” he said, “that numbers of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water from God or man.”

Despite the fact that the exploration and subjugation of the larger Antilles went on with feverish energy, Puerto Rico and Jamaica both being taken in 1509, the profits of the colonial system were most disappointing. The expeditions were costly, there was no economy in organization; at home and abroad, there were a host of officials who had to receive salaries. The gold mines were poor in quality. The native population, by war and disease, had been so much diminished that labor became scarce. The smaller islands were then drawn upon to keep up the supply of labor in Hispaniola, and as the death-rate still continued excessively high, the place of the natives was filled by negroes imported from the Portuguese colonies in Africa. Some negroes were taken to Hispaniola as early as 1505. In 1517 the African slave traffic was authorized by Charles V.

A more intelligent side of the colonial system was seen in the aim of the government to acclimatize in America European plants, trees, and domestic animals. From the time of the second voyage of Columbus there had been detailed government orders, according to which each ship that carried colonists should also be provided with specimens of such seeds as might be useful. Though there were very few domesticated animals in America, it was soon found that the European varieties would flourish there. Las Casas often speaks of the astonishment caused among the natives by their first sight of the horse. This animal soon became an economic necessity, and in many places herds of wild horses in unoccupied regions proved how fast the original stock multiplied in the newly discovered countries. Cattle also soon became one of the chief articles of internal trade between the colonies, and hides were one of the staple goods carried on the fleets engaged in West Indian trade. Sheep and European poultry also were introduced with great success. As to plants, the vine was not encouraged because the mother country produced more wine than was needed for home consumption, and it was an article that could be transported easily to the colonists. The introduction of the sugar-cane was a social benefaction, for it set the settlers free from the burden of gold mining under unfavorable conditions. The sugar industry was developed rapidly after the introduction of negro labor.

With the prevailing ideas of state control of industry, colonial autonomy was out of the question. The need of a central body with supreme powers was suggested from the first by the dissensions caused by the conflict of jurisdiction between the various officials, whose spheres of action were not carefully distinguished. In 1509 the king decided to establish at Hispaniola a supreme tribunal which could hear appeals from the decisions of the governor. From this body grew the committee called the Real Audiencia, or royal court of claims, which, after 1521, governed most of the West Indies. The function of this body was to look after the welfare of the natives, to watch over the executive acts of the governor and other functionaries, and to put a stop to abuses. An appeal from the committee lay to the Council of the Indies in Spain. This body was given final jurisdiction in all civil, military, ecclesiastical, and commercial affairs. With the consent of the king it named the viceroys, the presidents of the Audiencia, and the governors, and it had full control of the higher ecclesiastical patronage.

There was also the Indian Chamber of Commerce, the so-called Casa de Contratacion, which was intrusted with the supervision of the West Indian trade. This body saw to the provision of ships, received all goods, and had jurisdiction of all commercial questions between the colonies and the home country. Through the “Casa” passed all the enormous mineral wealth that came from the opening up of the mines on the continent of America. In 1515, owing to the representations made in Spain by Las Casas of the grievances of the native population, Cardinal Ximenes sent three friars of the order of St. Jerome with full authority to act on behalf of the Indians. Las Casas was appointed protector. When the commission was under discussion, he asked specifically for unconditional liberty for the natives and for the suppression of the serf system in all its forms and provisions, in order to enable the European proprietors to work their estates profitably. These humanitarian efforts had little effect in arresting the prevailing methods of exploitation. When the pearl coast near Trinidad in the northeastern region of South America attracted settlers, there was a fresh demand for enforced labor of a new type, and the native tribes were raided in order to secure supplies of pearl divers. Although through the voyages of explorers various widely separated points on the mainland had been touched, no place had been effectively occupied by settlement. Wherever efforts were made, the native population, the Caribs, were found to have such warlike qualities that no successful foothold could be secured. The climate also proved fatal to Europeans. After Balboa made his celebrated passage across the Isthmus, an expedition of 15 ships and 2000 men came to occupy the land, but 600 of these died in a few months.

No point yet visited by European adventurers had offered examples of native civilization higher than the primitive standards attained by the Carib and the Arawak. But in the interior, in the thick forests of Central America, were scattered about the relics of an ancient culture. In a triangular space including some of northern Yucatan, Mitla in Oaxaca, and Copan in Honduras, there are the remains of sixty communities distinguished by temples, tombs, statues, bas reliefs, fragments of buildings, and deserted palaces. These are relics of a race who at the discovery of America had lost their supremacy for many generations. According to some reckonings, at least as early as the twelfth century these celebrated dead cities were founded.

The difficulty of historical research in reconstructing the records of these aboriginal peoples is due partly to poor methods of transmission and also to the fact that so many of the original documents were lost at the time of the Spanish conquest and before. Chronological reckonings were kept for the purpose of marking the days on which tributes and sacrifices were due. To this were added the figures of chieftains, the notices of tribal conquests, and such events as floods, famines, and eclipses. All of this miscellaneous popular lore was embodied in paintings, executed by a large class of artists, some of whom were women, on paper or fiber rolls or on prepared skins. For this picture-writing skins, oblong in shape and of great length, were employed. Along with these “pinturas” there was handed down an oral method of interpretation. Our knowledge of Mexican history has to be derived from the surviving examples of these picture rolls and from the traditional explanations which were taken down in writing at the time of the entrance of the Spaniards into the country.