The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-05-01
MANSLAUGHTER PENS.
AN AWFUL STORY OF WEST INDIAN
HISTORY.
Scene of Many an AtrOciOus Mnssn-
ere - bloodhound Campaigns of
Slave Hunters-Race Wars in san
DOMINGO Mass Murder.

ere - bloodhound Campaigns OF
slave Hunters-Race Wars i'm San
Domingo Mass Murder.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The success of the Jamaica steamboat
excavations has attracted the attention of
American travellers to other parts of the
West Indies. Porto Rico. Hayti and the
mountainous east coast of Cuba. The seen
cry of that sea-grit Eden indeed rivals
that of the Grecian Archipelago, and only
few of the tourists who so into ecstasies
about the majestic coast cliffs and the
peaks of the wood-clad Sierras suspect
that they are approaching a GOlgatha OF
the west. a. manslaughter pen of the Amer
lean aborigines, whose blood has stained
every valley and whose death shrek wax
ed the echoes of every mountain glen. In
that monster haunted age, vaguely de-
scribed as the "miocene period the tes-
tering fern swamps engendered Great
ures that could swallow a funny fish at Il
g-lIp and dart through the water at race
horse speed, and others of almost equal
digestive abilities that could pursue their
victims by land and sea, and even through
the air. Yet for all that it remains Doubt
full if our planet has ever produced more
horrible beasts of prey than theS Span
ish man hunters of the sixteenth CEN
fury
The long-continued struggle against the
power of the Spanish Moors had perfect
ed them in the use of warlike implements
and blunted their sympathies with the
suffering of dissenters from sthe tenets
of their own creed. They We're also mas
tiers Of every art of torture, successful
wars of determination had endowed them
with a reckless passion for bloodshed,
and for nearly three centuries they eA-
erted all those qualifications for murder
at the expense of the timid or ill-armed
natives of their American colonies. \
murder grim and great" as the author
of the ''Nibelungen' describes the scene
in the castle court of King l9tzel, was
going on all along the coasts Of the SPAN
ish-American provinces; but the aborS-
ines of South America and Southern Mex
leo could take refuge in practically
boundless wilderness of virgin woods, and
the main byunt of the man hunts fell
upon the natives of the West Indian ISL
ands.
beean in I5l2 when the highlanders of
san Domingo had, in an evil hour be
frayed the existence of rich gold mines.
At first the Spaniards cOntented them
selves by leVying tribute upon the aurif-
erous district and enforcing its collection
in an ingenious manner. Every Indian
living within circle OF thirty Spanish
leagues of the nlaceF mines Was re-
uuired to deliver every three months q
.ihawks bill fun of gold dust, every
chieftain half a calabash full tworth sew
eral hundred dollars)." and as a receipt
was handed a perforated copper coin,
with the instruction TO wear it about his
neck day and night. Secret marks on
each coin indicated the date of delivery,
and every Indian caught without GER
tificate of that kind was dragged to head
quarters and thrashed within an inch OF
his life
The system of control was really an
efficient one, as not one OF 100000 natives
would have undertaken TO counterfeit
the receipt coins. Horse loads of gold
dust were collected in that manner, but
as the surface mines became exhausted
hundreds of gold washers fled to the
west coast of the island. and the gold
greedy colonists then determined to cap
ture few thousand able-bodied natives
and work them in slave gangs under reg
ular oYerseers.
In 1918 a commission appointed to in
Vesugate the conduct of Rodrigo de FL
guerra, governor of San Domingo re-
ported as follows: THE slaves of the
eold mines were kept at work from sun