THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA AND NOVA SCOTIA. 261 



■exercise of the utmost atrocities, these were melted away until none 

 remained to work as slaves in the mines or in the fields. 



" Here," says Las Casas, " the Spaniards exercised their accustomed 

 cruelties, killing, burning, and I'oasting men, and throwing them to the 

 dogs, as hIso by oppressing them with sundry and various torments in 

 the gold mines, as if they had come to rid the earth of these innocent 

 and harmless creatures. So lavish were the Spanish swords of the 

 blood of these poor souls, scarce 200 remaining, the rest pei'ished 

 without the least knowledge of God." 



When conquering Cuba, Hatuey, a cacique, was captured and 

 fastened to the stake by these emissaries of a Christian King. A 

 Franciscan friar laboured to convert him and promised him immedi- 

 ate admittance into heaven if he would embrace the Christian faith. 

 " Ai'e there any Spaniai'ds " said he, " in that heaven which you des- 

 ■cribel " " Yes," replied the monk, " but only such as are worthy and 

 good." "The best of them," returned the indignant cacique, "have 

 neither worth nor goodness. I will not go to a place where I may 

 meet one of that accursed race," 



As a military measure this cruel murder was successful. All 

 ■Cuba submitted awed by the example made of poor Hatuey. When 

 Hispaniola was discovered, the number of its inhabitants was com- 

 puted, says Robertson on the authority of Herrara, to be at least a 

 million, certainly a large and probably excessive estimate. They 

 were reduced to sixty thousand in fifteen years. Jamaica was not so 

 populous, but not a single descendant of the original inhabitants 

 -existed on that island, says Dallas, author of the " History of the 

 Maroons," in 1655, when Venables and Penn, under commission 

 from Oliver Cromwell, landed there. Caves were found where human 

 bones, evidently belonging to the oppressed and harried natives, 

 ■covered the ground. Famine and cruelty desolated these lovely 

 islands. Then the Spaniards decoyed natives of the Lucayo islands 

 to Hispaniola (now Hayti) to the number of forty thousand, and these 

 shared the fate of the former inhabitants. 



The scheme for importing Africans to take the place of the natives, 

 was then pushed on under the guise at first of mistaken philanthi'opy, 

 6 



