Hayti Or the Black Republic Author:Spenser St. John General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1884 Original Publisher: Smith, Elder Subjects: Haiti Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com... more » where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. HISTOUY BEFORE INDEPENDENCE. I Do not doubt but the discovery of America by Columbus was good in its results to mankind; but when we read the history of early Spanish colonisation, the predominant feeling is disgust at the barbarities and fanaticism recorded in almost every page. "We generally overlook much of this, being dazzled by pictures of heroic deeds, as set forth in the works of Prescott and Eobertson -- heroic deeds of steel-clad warriors massacring crowds of gentle, almost unresisting natives, until despair, lending energy to their timid natures, forced them occasionally to turn on their savage persecutors. In no country were the Spaniards more notorious fo their cruelty than in the first land in America on which Columbus established a settlement. The population was then variously estimated, the numbers given varying between 800,000 and 2,000,000, the former calculation being the more probable. They were indeed a primitive people, the men moving about entirely naked, the women wearing a short petticoat. They are said to have been good-looking, which, if true, wouldmark them as a people distinct from any other in America, as the Indians, who still remain by millions in South America and Mexico, are as a race the most ill-favoured natives I have seen in any portion of the globe. That was my impression when I travelled among them, though I have seen among the young women who followed the Indian regiments to Lima a few who might almost be considered handsome, but these by their appearance were probably of mixed breed. Columbus only ...« less