History of Haiti - Part 2

The Crown (Spanish Government) thought it was best to sent over Nicholas Ovando in to pick up where Columbus left off. He brought with him 2500 Spaniards, who rushed to the gold mines no sooner than they had arrived. The close contact between large number of Europeans and native workers provided a propitious environment for diseases to set in Europeans brought with them chronic infectious diseases that were new to the Caribbean, to which the indigenous population lacked immunity. These new diseases were the chief cause of the dying off of the Taíno,[5] but ill treatment, malnutrition, and a drastic drop in the birthrate as a result of societal disruption also contributed. The boom in the mining of gold in Espanola was short-lived. The decline in the supply of gold paralleled the decline in population. The Spaniards soon left the island for the richer lands of Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Cuba. Upon Ovando’s retirement in 1509, Columbus’s son Diego Columbus became governor of Espanola.

One of the main consequences of the invasion of the New World was the genocide of the Taino on Espanola. Indeed, the introduction of small pox, measles, whooping cough, bubonic plague, typhoid, influenza, Malaria, and yellow fever wiped out an important section of the Taino population whose immune system was not accustomed to those diseases The main factor in the Taino population reduction directly results from Spanish obsession for gold and the establishment of the Encomienda and the Repartimiento, which destroyed the rhythm of their lives, and their social structure. The Taino family structure was broken up as the men were sent to work on gold mines all over the island. They suddenly faced the obligation to spend most of their day working for a master whose cruelty and punishments were swift and justified by greed. Malnutrition quickly developed and the Taino suffered from protein deficiency and overwork. Another factor was the deliberate cruelty the Spaniards displayed towards the Indians. In their inexorable march for conquest in the island, the Spanish destroyed and burned entire villages

The treacherous massacre of the Taino of Xaragua was one of the most cruel and complete mass killings of Taino on the island.
An Indian chief who was being executed was about to be baptized. The priest promised him that if he did get baptized, he would go to paradise. He asked the priest:Are there any Spaniards in your heaven?. The priest responded that only good ones go to heaven. At those words, the chief refused the baptism retorting that even the best one of them is worth nothing; I do not want to go to any heaven where I stand to meet one




The population timidly surged upward between 1510 and 1520 due to the importation of Indians from the Bahamas by the Spaniards in a desperate attempt to palliate the inexorable loss of the original Haitians. The Taino population thus increased from 61,600 in 1509 to 65,800 in 1510 and again, from 26,700 in 1512 to 27,800 in 1514.