CHAPTER XXVI. Battle of the Vega-Imposition of Tribute. THE arrival of four ships about this time, commanded by Antonio Torres, bringing out a physician and apothecary, various mechanics, millers, and husbandmen, and an ample supply of provisions, diffused universal joy among the suffering Spaniards. Columbus received a highly flattering letter from the sovereigns, approving of all that he had done, informing him that all differences with Portugal had been amicably adjusted, and inviting him to return to Spain, or to send some able person in his place, furnished with maps and charts, to be present at a convention for adjusting the dividing line of discovery between the two powers. Columbus hastened the return of the ships, sending his brother Diego to attend the convention, and to counteract the misrepresentations which he was aware had been sent home of his conduct, and which would be enforced by Margarite and Friar Boyle. He remitted, by the ships, all the gold he could collect, with specimens of fruits and valuable plants, and five hundred Indian captives, to be sold as slaves in Seville. It is painful to find the glory of Columbus sullied by such violations of the laws of humanity, but the customs of the times must plead his apology. In the recent discoveries along the coast of Africa, the traffic in slaves had formed one of the greatest sources of profit; and in the wars with the enlightened and highly civilized Moors of Granada, the Spaniards were accustomed to make slaves of their prisoners. Columbus was goaded on, likewise, by the misrepresentations of his enemies, to try every means of indemnifying the sovereigns for the expenses of his enterprises, and to produce them a revenue from the countries he had discovered. The admiral had now recovered his health, and the colonists were in some degree refreshed and invigorated by the supplies brought by the ships, when Guacanagari brought intelligence that the allied caciques, headed by Manicaotex, brother and successor to Caonabo, had assembled all their forces in the vega, within two days' march of Isabella, with an intention of making a grand assault upon the settlement. Columbus immediately determined to carry the war into the territories of the enemy, rather than wait for it to be brought to his door. The whole sound and effective force he could muster, in the present sickly state of the colony, did not exceed two hundred infantry and twenty horse. There were twenty blood-hounds also, animals scarcely less terrible to the Indians than the horses, and infinitely more destructive. Guacana gari, also, brought his people into the field, but both he and his subjects were of an unwarlike character; the chief advantage of his co-operation was, that it completely severed him from his fellow caciques, and secured him as an ally. It was on the 27th of March, 1495, that Columbus issued forth from Isabella with his little army, accompanied by his brother, the Adelantado, and advancing by rapid marches, arrived in the neighbourhood of the enemy, who were assembled in the vega, near to where the town of Santiago has since been built. The Indians were confident in their number, which is said to have amounted to one hundred thousand; this is evidently an exaggeration, but the number was undoubtedly very great. The Adelantado arranged the mode of attack. The infantry, divided into small detachments, advanced suddenly from various quarters, with great din of drums and trumpets, and a destructive discharge of fire-arms. The Indians were struck with panic. An army seemed pressing upon them from every quarter. Many were slain by the balls of the arquebuses, which seemed to burst with thunder and lightning from the forests. In the height of their confusion, Alonzo de Ojeda charged impetuously on their main body with his cavalry, bearing down and trampling them under foot, and dealing deally blows with lance and sword. The blood-hounds were, at the same time, let loose, and rushed upon the naked savages, seizing them by the throat, dragging them to the earth, and tearing out their bowels. The battle, if such it might be called, was of short duration. The Indians, overwhelmed, fled in every direction, with yells and howlings. Some clambered to the tops of rocks and precipices, from whence they made piteous supplications and promises of submission. Many were slain, many made prisoners, and the confederacy was, for the time, completely broken up. Guacanagari had accompanied the Spaniards into the field, but he was little more than a spectator of the battle. His participation in the hostilities of the white men, however, was never forgiven by the other caciques; and he returned to his dominions, followed by the hatred and execrations of his countrymen. Columbus followed up his victory by making a military tour through various parts of the island, which were soon reduced to subjection. He then exercised what he considered the right of a conqueror, and imposed tributes on the vanquished provinces. In those which possessed mines, each individual, above the age of fourteen years, was obliged to render, every three months, the measure of a Flemish hawk's bell of gold dust*. The caciques had to pay a much larger amount for their personal tribute. Manicaotex, the brother of Caonabo, rendered in, every three months, half a calabash of gold. In those provinces which produced no gold, each individual was obliged to furnish twenty-five pounds of cotton every three months. A copper medal, suspended about the neck, was a proof that an Indian had paid his tribute; any one found without such certificate was liable to arrest and punishment. Various fortresses were erected in the most important places, so as to keep the Indians in complete subjection. In this way the yoke of servitude was fixed upon the island, and its thraldom completely insured. Deep despair now fell upon the natives, for they found a perpetual task inflicted upon them, enforced at stated and frequently recurring periods. Weak * Equal in value to fifteen dollars of the present time. 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. They saw no end to this harassing evil, which had so suddenly fallen upon them; no prospect of return to that roving independence and ample leisure, so dear to the wild inhabitant of the forest. The pleasant life of the island was at an end;-the dream in the shade by day; the slumber, during the sultry noontide heat, by the fountain or the stream, or under the spreading palm tree; and the song, the dance, and the game in the mellow evening, when summoned to their simple amusements by the rude Indian drum. Or, if they occasionally indulged in a national dance, after a day of painful toil, the ballads to which they kept time were of a melancholy and plaintive character. They spoke of the times that were past, before the white men had introduced sorrow, and slavery, and weary labour among them; and they rehearsed prophecies pretended to be handed down from their ancestors, foretelling that strangers should come into their island, clothed in apparel, with swords capable of cleaving a man asunder at a blow, under whose yoke their race should be subdued and pass away. These ballads, or areytos, they sang with mournful tunes and doleful voices, bewailing the loss of their liberty and their painful servitude. 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 soon waft them back to their home in the sky. In their simplicity they had repeatedly in |