CHAP. V I I ]
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS.
55
him, was long absent either in the interior of the island, or de足 tained in Europe by his own wrongs. In the interval, the Span足 iards forgot the hospitality and services of Guacanagari, and his tribute was harshly exacted. He found himself overwhelmed with opprobrium from his countrymen at large, and assailed by the clamors and lamentations of his suffering subjects. The strangers whom he had succored in distress, and taken as it were to the bosom of his native island, had become its tyrants and oppressors. Care, and toil, and poverty, and strong-handed vio足 lence, had spread their curses over the land, and he felt as if he had invoked them on his race. Unable to bear the hostilities of his fellow caciques, the woes of his subjects, and the extortions of his ungrateful allies, he took refuge at last in the mountains, where he died obscurely and in misery.* An attempt has been made by Oviedo to defame the charac足 ter of this Indian prince : it is not for Spaniards, however, to excuse their own ingratitude by casting a stigma on his name. He appears to have always manifested towards them that true friendship which shines brightest in the dark days of adversity. He might have played a nobler part, in making a stand, with his brother caciques, to drive these intruders from his native soil ; but he appears to have been fascinated by his admiration of the strangers, and his personal attachment to Columbus. He was bountiful, hospitable, affectionate, and kind-hearted ; competent to rule a gentle and unwarlike people in the happier days of the island, but unfitted, through the softness of his nature, for the stern turmoil which followed the arrival of the white men. * Charlevoix, Hist, de St. Domingo, lib. ii.