GENERAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE BISHOP-PRESIDENT DO SO-PROCEEDINGS IN SPAIN WITH RESPECT SUCCESSION PASSED IN 1536. WAR-INDIANS OF RANSOM-INDIANS OF COM- COMMENCE this chapter with a pleasant and B. XIV. unexpected episode in the affairs of the Ch. 1. Indies. The swollen mountain torrent, though now and then retarded for a moment, bursts through, winds round, leaps over, or dashes along with it every obstacle, and still pursues its main, inevitable course, chafed, but not essentially diverted by any of these small interruptions. Such was the inpouring of the Spaniards upon the devoted territories of the New World. Tired with this uniform current of success, we naturally welcome anything like a triumph on the other side. Even had the conquerors been a company of great and good personages, each man of them a Cato or an Aristides, whose efforts all the world were bound to further and approve, we should not wish them always to conquer, and could bear to see them and their virtues tried occasionally by a little adversity, in the way of defeat. Much greater is this disrelish for any uniformity of good fortune on one side, when the B. XIV. reader, as in this case, has to summon up in Ch. 1. imagination all manner of distant benefits and Origin of the rebellion. 1519. indirect advantages, as proceeding, or likely to proceed, from the conquest, in order to enable him to endure, with any patience, the recital of horrors perpetrated by the conquerors, which, for the moment, seem to him lamentably purposeless and unproductive. Any gleam of good fortune, therefore, on the side which we know is ultimately to lose, on the Trojan side, as it may be called, is, then, most welcome. Even the aggressors of one age like to read of the prowess of the oppressed in a former age. Strange to say, this time, the check to the Spanish power in the Indies came, not from the vigorous, alert, and bloodthirsty Mexicans, but from the mild islanders whose praises Columbus had justly celebrated as a loving and uncovetous race. While Cortes was conquering Mexico, an insurrection, which it is diffi cult to dignify with the name of a rebellion (though such the Spaniards considered it), was assuming a vexatious, if not a formidable aspect, in the mountainous districts of Hispaniola. It began in 1519. The narrative of it will serve to exemplify the nature and the abuses of the encomienda system, and will, therefore, fitly form a prelude to the main subject of the present book. This rebellion, which may be considered the last expiring effort for Indian independence in the Island of Hispaniola, arose in the following manner. In the town of Vera Paz, in the province of Xaragua (names that might well have some * * Xaragua had been the province of Queen Anacaona, the treacherous treatment of whom by Ovando is narrated in vol. 1, book 3, ch. 2. fatality in them for the Spaniards), there was a B. XIV. Franciscan Monastery, where a young Indian Ch. 1. cacique, the Lord of Bauruco, was educated by the good Fathers, having been baptized by the name of Enrique, and being called by the affectionate Enrique's diminutive, Enriquillo. This Indian, after quitting the Monastery, went to serve, as was the custom with such caciques, in superintending the encomienda of a certain young Spaniard, whose education. His servitude. name was Valenzuela, and to whom the caciquedom of Bauruco had been given in encomienda. Valenzuela sought to violate the Cacique's wife, and otherwise maltreated him. Enriquillo resolved to see what justice there was in Spanish judges. He appealed to the Lieutenant-Governor of the district for a redress of his grievances. The unjust Judge would not listen to him, and not merely dismissed his complaint, but threatened him with chastisement, and, as some say, put B. XIV. him in prison. When released, Enriquillo, whose Ch. 1. characteristics were extreme patience and perseAppeals verance, proceeded to the Audiencia at St. DoAudiencia, mingo, and appealed against the Lieutenant to the Governor. The Audiencia merely referred the matter back to the local Judge, who, naturally enough, did not vary his decision, and treated Enriquillo worse than before. The Cacique calmly went back to his work, but, when the band of labourers whom he had to superintend (quadrilla it was called) returned to their homes at the appointed time for such changes, he resolved to come no more to work for such a master as Valenzuela, and, being supported Resolves to by a small body of resolute followers, prepared to defend himself in his own mountainous country. revolt. When it was found that neither Enriquillo, nor the Indians he was sent to bring with him, made their appearance at the proper time on their owner's farm, Valenzuela naturally conjectured, knowing the offence he had given, that the Cacique was in revolt. Accordingly, accompanied by eleven Spaniards, Valenzuela went into the Cacique's country, to compel his obedience and to chastise him. When he arrived there, however, he found Enriquillo and his Indians rudely armed, but ready and determined to defend themHis conflict selves. An encounter took place: two of the Encomen Spaniards were killed; most of them were dero wounded; and the whole party were put to flight. The Cacique would not allow his men to pursue the Spaniards, but merely called after his former master, "Be thankful, Valenzuela, that I do not with his Valenzuela. |