On land, too, the hurricane wrought great destruction. The houses of
the town of Santo Domingo were demolished and as the right bank of the
Ozama was higher and seemed more suitable, Ovando ordered that the
town be rebuilt on that side, where it now stands.
Ovando now inaugurated a period of general prosperity. He established
peace and order, issued rules for the different branches of the public
service, placed honest men in the posts of responsibility and
encouraged industry and agriculture. Yet, strange mixture of energy
and cruelty, of valor and bigotry that he was, his treatment of the
Indians was most oppressive. To each Spanish landholder was assigned a
number of Indians under the pretext that they were to be given
religious instruction and accustomed to work; but so onerous and
unremitting was the labor imposed that they succumbed to disease by
thousands, while thousands of others perished by their own hand in an
epidemic of suicide which swept through the country, and many fled to
almost inaccessible mountain regions.
But two Indian chieftains still reigned in the island, one the Indian
queen Anacaona in the district of Jaragua, the other the chief of
Higuey.
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