[Footnote A: To Castile and to Leon Columbus gave a New World.]




CHAPTER VIII.

PARLEY TELLS OF OVANDO'S CRUEL TREATMENT OF ANACAONA, THE PRINCESS OF
HAYTI.


Columbus discovered and gave names to some of these islands, and on
several of them he settled colonies, and did all he could to make them
the abodes of peace and happiness.

On his taking leave of them for the last time, Ovando continued governor
of Hayti.

The cruelties exercised by this unfeeling man it would take a volume to
describe, but I will mention only one or two instances.

When the natives were unable to pay the tribute which he exacted from
them, he always accused them of insurrection, and it was to punish a
slight insurrection of this kind in the eastern part of the island that
he sent his troops, who ravaged the country with fire and sword. He
showed no mercy to age or sex, putting many to death with horrible
tortures, and brought off the brave Catabanama, one of the five
sovereign caziques of the island, in chains to St. Domingo, where he was
ignominiously hanged by Ovando, for the crime of defending his territory
and his native soil against usurping strangers.