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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR 



HISTORIC SKETCHES. XLIV. 



THE SPANIARDS IN AMEEICA. 



" AND there being among- the Spaniards some who are not only 

 cruel, but very cruel, when a man occasionally wishes to punish 

 a slave, either for some crime that he had committed, or for not 

 having done a good day's work, or for spite that he had towards 

 him, or for not having extracted the usual quantity of silver or 

 gold from the mine, when he came home at night, instead of 

 giving him supper, he made him undress, if he happened to have 

 a shirt on, and being thrown down on the ground, he had his j 

 hands and feet tied to a piece of wood laid across, so permitted ! 

 under the rule called by the Spaniards the law of Baiona a law 

 suggested, I think, by some great demon ; then with a thong or 

 rope he was beaten, until his body streamed with blood ; which 

 done, they took a pound of pitch or a pipkin of boiling oil, and 

 threw it gradually all over the unfortunate victim ; then he 

 was washed with some of the country pepper mixed with salt 

 and water. He was thus left on a plank covered over with a 

 cloth, until the master thought he was able again to work. 

 Others dug a hole in the ground and put the man in, upright, 

 leaving only his head out, and left him in all night; the Spanish 

 saying that they have recourse to this cure because the earth 

 absorbs the blood and preserves the flesh from forming any 

 wound, so they get get well sooner. And if any die (which some- 

 times happens) through great pain, there is no heavier punishment 

 by law than that the master shallpay another slave to the king." 



Thus wrote Girolamo Benzoni the Milanese, who, in the year 

 1541, " started from Milan in the name of God, the sustainer 

 and governor of all the universe," to seek his fortune or what- 

 ever might present itself to him in the newly-discovered pos- 

 sessions of the Spaniards across the Atlantic. Benzoni was, to 

 judge from his own account of his travels, a perfectly ingenuous 

 man, who mentioned gravely and without aiming at effect what- 

 ever came under his notice, nothing extenuating nor setting 

 down aught in malice. He was not particularly squeamish 

 about what he did or what others did, though he appears to 

 have had what was lacking in the Spanish composition some of 

 the feelings of the human heart. He is, therefore, a very fair, 

 unprejudiced witness in respect of the Spanish treatment of the 

 Indians, and his testimony is, moreover, abundantly confirmed 

 by that of many others equally disinterested. 



It is a sad and singular history, that of the conquest and pos- 

 session of the West Indies and America by the Spaniards. How- 

 ever, it is proposed here simply to give a slight sketch of the 

 Spanish doings in America and the Indies after obtaining posses- 

 sion of them, howthey furiouslyraged together, imagined all sorts 

 of vain things, and how in the end the power was reft from them. 



The first permanent settlement made in the West was on 

 Haiti, or, as Columbus called it, La Isla Espanola, of which 

 Bartholomew Columbus was made governor on his brother 

 Christopher's return to Spain. During his administration all 

 went well with the colony, the Indians wondering at the bearded 

 men who had come they knew not from whence with iron tubes 

 from which they hurled lightnings, and by the aid of which 

 they made noises like thunder ; but discord sprung up before 

 Christopher's return, the Spaniards ill-used the women, beat the 

 men, and otherwise behaved oppressively ; and the Indians 

 having ascertained, by the purely philosophical process of holding 

 a Spaniard under water for ten minutes, that the new-comers 

 were mortal, rose against them when familiarity had somewhat 

 taken ajway the dread of them, and killed some of the garrison. 



So long as Columbus and his brother remained in authority 

 the Indians had tolerable treatment, for the influence of the 

 two, weakened though it was by jealousies and mutinies, which 

 sprang up among the Spaniards, was strong enough to hold the 

 greater part of the adventurers in check ; but when Spanish 

 governors came to be in power, and every consideration was sacri- 

 ficed to the greed for gold, the most merciless demands for life 

 were m ade in order to supply the slave labour necessary for the 

 working of the mines. So rapid was the loss of life from this 

 cause for the Indians had never been accustomed to such 

 severe work that in a few years Haiti was all but depopulated, 

 and the Spaniards brought in slaves from the neighbouring 

 islands and from the mainland to fill their place. Porto Rico, 

 Cuba, Jamaica, and all the lesser islands were brought under the 

 yoke ; Jamaica, which was densely populated, but which did not 

 yield gold, being made the slave-mart for the gold-seekers, who 



caught the people as they would have snared so many wild 

 beasts, and shipped them off to the islands where the mines 

 were. Haiti remained for many years the head-quarters of the 

 Spanish Government in the West Indies, but when the attrac- 

 tions of the mainland of Mexico, Peru, and Chili had drawn 

 away many Spaniards, and the nsgroes imported from Africa 

 began to be more numerous than consorted with the safety of 

 the whites, the island was virtually abandoned, and each sepa- 

 rate governor of an island or a province received his orders 

 direct from Spain. 



The Spaniards having spoiled all the islands of the West 

 Indies those which yielded gold for sake of the gold, and 

 those which yielded only slaves for sake of the slaves turned 

 their attention to the mainland, which hitherto they had not 

 thoroughly explored. Balboa, an independent pioneer, made a 

 settlement on the Isthmus of Darien, and having there learned 

 that on the other side of the isthmus was a kingdom in which 

 any quantity of gold was to be had for the seeking, sent 

 to Isla Espanola for reinforcements, and went meantime him- 

 self with a small body of men to where the mighty Pacific was 

 first revealed to the eyes of a European. Gathering as much 

 gold as he could get, and which the native chiefs freely gave him, 

 h returned for assistance, not daring with his few friends to 

 di-aw down the hostility of the wealthy nation which he under- 

 stood was also exceedingly strong. On April 2, 1519, an ex- 

 tensive expedition which had been fitted out in the ports of 

 Cuba, and which sailed under the command of Fernando Cortoz, 

 landed on the coast of Yucatan, and was well received by the 

 natives. Cortez immediately formed an entrenched camp, which 

 subsequently became the city of Vera Cruz, and having esta- 

 blished himself there began to negotiate for an interview with 

 Montezuma, the emperor of the country. 



Whether the Mexicans suspected the character of the wolves 

 who came to them in sheep's clothing; whether the Spaniards, 

 as is most likely, did not refrain from acts of violence even at 

 the beginning of their occupation ; or whether it was from fear 

 of the firearms which so greatly astonished the people, the 

 Mexicans held back from this proposal. Montezuma sent rich 

 presents which only inflamed the greed of the Spaniards, and 

 Cortez, after entering into alliances with tribes discontented 

 with the government, marched inland with 500 foot soldiers, 

 fifteen horsemen, and six pieces of cannon. With such a force 

 he proposed to himself the conquest of a populous and power- 

 ful empire. By striking terror into opponents who had never 

 seen a gun fired until now, by artifice, by playing off hostile 

 chiefs one against the other, Cortez marched on,' his admiration 

 being excited at every step by the magnificence of the scenery, 

 and his cupidity aroused by the signs which he daily saw of the 

 enormous wealth of the soil. After short sojourns in some of 

 the cities which fell before him like snow before the sun, he ad- 

 vanced to the city of Mexico, in the environs of which Montezuma 

 came out to meet him in friendly sort, with barbaric but splendid 

 state, and magnificent gifts. The emperor was so gracious and 

 hospitable that Cortez had much difficulty in knowing how even 

 he was to begin playing the villain. The Spaniards wera 

 brought into the city, lodged, fed, and clothed, and all that they 

 wanted was supplied to them. Cortez resolved to avail himself 

 of an outrage on some Spaniards on the coast to possess him- 

 self of the person of Montezuma. He first complained of 

 the outrage and demanded the punishment of the murderers, who, 

 including a cacique or chief, were brought to Mexico and burned 

 alive as a punishment ; but the sufferers having averred, truly 

 or not, that what they had done was by Montezuma' s own 

 order, Cortez seized the emperor, and kept him a prisoner in 

 irons in the Spanish quarters. He wrote to the King of Spain, 

 telling him what he had done, and how that he had done it for 

 the better security of the lives of the Spaniards in Mexico, and 

 for the purpose of more effectually bringing the empire under 

 the dominion of the Spanish king. The enormous consignments 

 of gold sent to Europe astonished the Old World folk, and 

 attracted thousands of them across the water. The gold itself 

 was spent in attempts to found universal dominion, and in 

 endeavours, continued through many years, to crush out as a 

 plague the spirit of liberty both in church and state. In Mexico, 

 after the imprisonment of Montezuma, the Mexicans were com- 

 pelled to be the slaves of the Spaniards and to work their own 

 gold mines for them. The waste of life became as prodigious 

 as in the West India Islands, and the sufferings of the people 



