12
Conflict with
the Indians,
March 24,
1495.
HISTORY  OF  ST. DOMINGO.
and very little, if any animal food, formed their only necessary
stock, and on this a body of men fortifying themselves in towns,
must have made a formidable inroad.   Famine, and the success
of their former revolt, with long repeated grievance, at length
provoked other attempts to rid themselves of the burthen, and
Columbus was compelled to have recourse to arms, which he
had hitherto with much solicitude avoided.    The Indians were
defeated by their precipitance : instead of the mode natural to
them, of drawing the enemy into their fortresses, they rushed
into an open plain, the Vega Real, and numbers being thrown
into consternation by the first appearance of European warfare,
the impetuosity  of cavalry,  (which  they conceived,   like the
Thessalonians, to be Centaurs,) and the fierce onset of the do***
they yielded to Columbus an easy victory; and those who were
not taken prisoners, and reduced to servitude, resigned them-
selves entirely to despair.   Such was the disparity of power, that
though near an hundred thousand Indians took the field with
missile Aveapons of their rude fashion, the victory was obtained
by two hundred foot, twenty horse, and twenty large dogs, which
formed the whole disposable force of the Spaniards.
Columbus employed several months in passing through the
island to complete its subjection, and impose a tribute on all the
natives above the age of fourteen, which was one of the first
effects of a policy adopted against his own inclination to gratify
the avarice of the Spanish court, at which he was attempted to be
* Of the mode of introducing these combatants into Spanish tactics, some account will
be found in a future chapter.
undermined,