The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-05-01

rise to sunset, and scourged on betray-
ing the least symptom of fatigue. Their
rations consisted of three pounds of
scorched maize Qndian CORN or two
pounds of corn bread per diem. They
were pat in chains before being marched
to their night camp. Those suspected of
plotting to escape were tortured to betray
their accomplices. Actual deserters were
scourged to death. If they resisted their
pursuers they were killed on the spot
ana often burned at the stake. Parties
and slave hunters and bloodhounds
ranged the mountains in all directions
Few OF the stoutest adults survived the
slavery of the mining camps for more
than a year. In camp containing 500
poems the average weekly death list was
about a dozen.
From San Domingo the campaigns of
the peoneros or slave hunters spread to
the neighbOring islands. On some of the
smaller isles of the Bahamas these ennis
saries often captured the entire population
OF male adults, leaving only women and
infants TO get along the best way they
could. Armed resistance was punished as
high treason, and there were cases of pop
ulOus villages being burned with all their
inhabitants, who, indeed, often preferred
death in the flames to the alternative
OF being dragged to the mines. In the
pursuit OF fugitive rebels men and
hounds We're permitted to glut their blood
thirst as a salUtary warning to malcon-
tents. by constant practice the AragOn
Sleuthhounds had acquired the sagacity
OF veteran detectives and could be relied
upon 10 kill or recapture ninety-nine out of
hundred deSerters. Flight being inn
practicable, the enslaVement of a West
Indian might be said to amount to a sen
tence of death, either by slow torture and
Starvation or under the less cruel fangs
of a trained beast of prey.
Those horrors reached their climax
when the colonists went into agriculture.
Working knee-deep in moist gravel is not
the worst job in a warm climate, and the
greed of the mine owners prompted them
TO stimulate the discovery of bonanzas by
special rewards the finders of extra large
nuggets We're sometimes manumitted, or
at least treated to a feast and a few
weeks exemption from drudgery. When
the diggingS of n special district had he
come clearly exhausted and the neiehbOr-
ing mines reported surplus of laborers,
slave owners sometimes allowed their
men 20 try their luck at fishing or set them
free altogether
The planters had no motive for such
acts of generosity. AS long as an acre of
the coast plain remained uncleared there
was a chance to extend the sugar planta-
tons with profitable results, and while
slaves could be sacrificed to the prospect
of large crop, and bought at S12 apiece.
there was no special reason for sparing
their lives
The systematic inhunianitv of the slave
owners led TO that mania of suicide de.
sCribed in the chronicle of NalVerde who
speaks of whole Wigwam towns emulating
the example of Numantia and effecting
their escape to the land of shades Others
lacking the courage FOR direct self-murder
fed 10 highland caves and permitted their
W.
fled them in the open vega and died like
Wild beasts at bay. Mantanza a field of
I slaughter form matar. to kill or slay,
whence matadOr and Matamoros Moor
killed } is the namc repeated in the topOg-
raphN OF every SDanish-American settle
ment from cuba TO Terra del Fuego
II is true that the priests often did their
best TO mitigate the martyrdom of the plan
tatIOn slaves, and succeeded in convert
ing and baptiZing thousands of Indian
/ Youngsters, bat even on the mission farms
those converts had TO pay a tuition fee in
the form of hard labor. and the artist of
the Truthseeker graphically sums up the
history of the native Americans i'm two
cartoons, one representing the unreclaim-
ed savage, Il chubby urchin in a hammock
Graded by the breezes of q sylvan lake;
the other the convert" living skele-
ton, wearing ffty-pound ball and chain
and swallowing n dose of dogma. while
tn instructor keeps a business grip in the
pupils hair.
The warlilSe Caribs defended heir houses
with the courage Of despair. but their
Valor was unaVaiiing against the adVan-
tages of their steel-clad aggresscrs and
some Of the more protracted Matanzas in
Volved the loss Of seVTal thousand human
lives The history of Porto Rico is an cpl
tome Of the whole chronicle of the West
Indian murder campaigns. AT the time
of its discovery, in 1909. the island. with
an area of $500 English square miles, had
a population Variously estimated at from
| 10000 TO 100 900. But even on the basis
Of the lowest computation the extermina-