The severe labor imposed by the Spaniards made
such frightful inroads on the native population that within a decade
labor for the plantations and mines began to grow scarce and forty
thousand inhabitants of the Bahama Islands were imported to increase
the supply. They were lured on board the Spanish transports by the
promise that they were to be conveyed to the beautiful home of their
departed ancestors and though they did indeed quickly join their
deceased relatives, it was not until after a taste of purgatory in the
mines of Santo Domingo. In 1507 the entire Indian population was
estimated at only 70,000, in 1508 it had fallen to 40,000, and in 1514
to 14,000. Six years later the remnant of the aborigines united in the
mountains to resist the Spaniards to the end, but in 1533 a treaty was
concluded by which the Indians were assigned certain lands near Boya,
thirty miles northeast of Santo Domingo City. According to some
authorities 4000 and according to others only 600 natives remained to
take advantage of this provision. Thereafter all mention of the
Indians disappears from Dominican annals.
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