injuring the Indians, or the Indians
the Spaniards; to treat the Indians kindly; to obtain provisions by
purchase, if possible, if not, by any other means; and to capture Caonabo
and his brothers, either by force or artifice.

OPPRESSION OF INDIANS.

The proceedings of the men under Margarite were similar to those of the
Spaniards formerly left at La Navidad. They went straggling over the
country: they consumed the provisions of the poor Indians, astonishing
them by their voracious appetites; waste, rapine, injury and insult
followed in their steps; and from henceforth there was but little hope of
the two races living peaceably together in those parts, at least upon
equal terms. The Indians were now swarming about the Spaniards with
hostile intent: as a modern historian describes the situation, "they had
passed from terror to despair;" and but for the opportune arrival of the
admiral, the Spanish settlements in Hispaniola might again have been
entirely swept away.

Caonabo, the cacique who, in former days, had put to death the garrison at
La Navidad, was now threatening that of St. Thomas, the fort which the
admiral had caused to be built in the mining district of Cibao.
Guatignana, the cacique of Macorix, who had killed eight Spanish soldiers
and set fire to a house where there were forty ill, was now within two
days' march of Isabella, besieging the fort of Magdalena. Columbus started
up forthwith, went off to Magdalena, engaged the Indians, and routed them
utterly.

TRANSMISSION OF SLAVES,

He took a large part of them for slaves, and reduced to obedience the
whole of the province of Macorix. Returning to Isabella, he sent back, on
the 24th of February, 1495, the four ships which Antonio de Torres had
brought out, chiefly laden with Indian slaves. It is rather remarkable
that the very ships which brought that admirable reply from Ferdinand and
Isabella to Columbus, begging him to seek some other way to Christianity
than through slavery, even for wild man-devouring Caribs, should come back
full of slaves taken from amongst the wild islanders of Hispaniola.

Caonabo, not daunted by the fate of Guatignana, still continued to molest
St. Thomas. The admiral accordingly sallied out with two hundred men
against this cacique. On the broad plains of the Vega Real the Spaniards
found an immense number of Indians collected together, amounting, it is
said, to one hundred thousand men. The admiral divided his forc