intention was to vifit Anacoana, to whom his countrymen had been fo much indebted, in the most respectful manner, and to regulate with her the mode of levying the tribute payable to the king of Spain. Anacoana, in order to receive this illuftrious gueft with due honour, affembled the principal men in her dominions, to the number of three hundred, and advancing at the head of thefe, accompanied by a vast crowd of perfons of inferior rank, fhe welcomed Ovando with fongs and dances, according to the mode of the country, and conducted him to the place of her refidence. There he was feafted, for fome days, with all the kindness of fimple hospitality, and amufed with the games and spectacles ufual among the Americans upon occafions of mirth and feftivity. But amidst the security which this infpired, Ovando was meditating the deftruction of his unfufpicious entertainer and her fubjects; and the mean perfidy with which he executed this fcheme, equalled his barbarity in forming it. Under colour of exhibiting to the Indians the parade of an European tournament, he advaneed with his troops, in battle array, towards the house in which Anacoana and the chiefs who attended her were affembled. The infantry took poffeffion of all the avenues which led to the village. The horsemen encompaffed the house. These movements were the objec of admiration without any mixture of fear, un

til, upon a fignal which had been concerted, the Spaniards fuddenly drew their fwords, and rufhed upon the Indians, defencelefs, and aftonished at an act of treachery which exceeded the conception of undefigning men. In a mo

ment Anacoana was fecured. All her attendants were feized and bound.. Fire was fet to the house; and, without examination or conviction, all these unhappy perfons, the most illuftrious in their own country, were confumed in the flames. Anacoana was referved for a more ignominious fate. She was carried in chains to Saint Domingo, and, after the formality of a trial before Spanish judges, fhe was condemned, upon the evidence of those very men who had betrayed her, to be publickly hanged. c)

Reduction of the Indians, and its effects.

Overawed and humbled by this atrocious treatment of their princes and nobles who were objects of their highest reverence, the people in all the provinces of Hifpaniola fubmitted,. without farther refiftance, to the Spanish yoke. Upon the death of Ifabella, all the regulations tending to mitigate the rigour of their fervitude were forgotten.. The fmall gratuity paid to them as the price of their labour was withdrawn;

c) Oviedo, lib. iii. c. 12. Herrera dec. I. lib. vi. c. 4. Oviedo, lib. iii. c. 12. Relation de deftruyc. de las In

dias, por Bart. de las Cafas, p. 8.

and at the fame time the talks impofed upon them were increased. Ovando, without any reftraint, diftributed Indians among his friends in the island. Ferdinand, to whom the queen had left by will one half of the revenue arifing from the fettlements in the New World, conferred grants of a fimilar nature upon his courtiers, as the leaft expenfive mode of rewarding their fervices. They farmed out the Indians, of whom they were rendered proprietors, to their countrymen fettled in Hifpaniola; and that wretched people, being compelled to labour in order to fatisfy the rapacity of both, the exactions of their oppreffors no longer knew any bounds. But, barbarous as their policy was, and fatal to the inhabitants of Hifpaniola, it produced, for fome time, very confiderable effects. By calling forth the force of a whole nation, and exerting it in one direction, the working of the mines was carried on with amazing rapidity and fuccefs. During feveral years, the gold brought into the royal fmelting-houfes in Hifpaniola amounted annually to four hundred and fixty thousand pefos, above a hundred thousand pounds fterling; which, if we attend to the great change in the value of money fince the beginning of the fixteenth century to the present times, muft appear a confiderable fum. Vaft fortunes were created, of a fudden, by fome. Others diffipated in oftentatious profufion, what they acquired with fa

cility. Dazzled by both, new adventurers crowded to America, with the moft eager impatience, to fhare in thofe treafures which had cnriched their countrymen; and, notwithstanding the mortality occafioned by the unhealthinefs of the climate, the colony continued to increase. d)

Progrefs of the colony.

Ovando governed the Spaniards with wifdom and justice, not inferior to the rigour with which he treated the Indians. He established equal laws, and, by executing them with inpartiality, accustomed the people of the colony to reverence them. He founded feveral new towns in different parts of the island, and alJured inhabitants to them, by the conceffion of various immunities. He endeavoured to turn the attention of the Spaniards to fome branch of induftry more useful than that of fearching for gold in the mines. Some flips of the fugarcane having been brought from the Canary iflands by way of experiment, they were found to thrive with fuch increase in the rich foil and warm climate to which they were transplanted, that the cultivation of them foon became an object of commerce. Extenfive plantations were. begun; fugar-works, which the Spaniards called ingenios, from the various machinery employed

Herrera. dec. I. lib. vi. c. 18, &c.

ployed in them, were erected, and in a few years the manufacture of this commodity was the great occupation of the inhabitants of Hifpaniola, and the most confiderable fource of their wealth. e)

Political régulations of Ferdinand.

to

The prudent endeavours of Ovando, promote the welfare of the colony, were powerfully feconded by Ferdinand. The large remittances which he received from the New World, opened his eyes, at length, with refpect to the importance of thofe difcoveries, which he had hitherto affected to undervalue. Fortune, and his own addrefs, having now extricated him out of thofe difficulties in which he had been involved by the death of his queen, (1507.) and by his difputes with his fon-in-law about the government of her dominions, f) he had full leifure to turn his attention to the af

fairs of America. To his provident sagacity, Spain is indebted for many of those regulations which gradually formed; that fyftem of profound, but jealous policy, by which' fhe governs her dominions in the New World. He erected a court, diftinguished by the title of the Cafa de Contratacion, or Board of Trade, compofed of perfons eminent for rank and abi

e) Oviedo, lib. iv. c. 8.

f) Hift. of the reign of Charles V.

ROBERTSON. Tom. I.

vol. ii. p. 1o, &c.

Q