In return for these exhibitions, Ovando invited Anacaona, with her
beautiful daughter Higuenamata, and her principal subjects, to witness a
tilting match in the public square.

When all were assembled, and the square crowded with unarmed Indians,
Ovando gave a signal, and instantly the horsemen rushed into the midst
of the naked and defenceless throng, trampling them under foot, cutting
them down with their swords, transfixing them with their lances, and
sparing neither age nor sex.

Above eighty caziques had been assembled in one of the principal houses:
it was surrounded by troops, the caziques were bound to the posts which
supported the roof, and put to cruel tortures, until in the extremity of
anguish they were made to admit as true what their queen and themselves
had been charged with.

When they had thus been made, by torture, to accuse themselves, a
horrible punishment was immediately inflicted. Fire was set to the
house, and they all perished miserably in the flames.

As to Anacaona, she was carried to St. Domingo, where, after the mockery
of a trial, she was pronounced guilty on the testimony of the Spaniards,
and was barbarously hanged by the people whom she had so long and so
greatly befriended.

After the massacre of Xaragua, the destruction of its inhabitants went
on. They were hunted for six months amid the fastnesses of the
mountains, and their country ravaged by horse and foot, until, all being
reduced to deplorable misery and abject submission, Ovando pronounced
the province restored to order; and in remembrance of his triumph,