[35] Wilson’s “Western Africa.” CHAPTER XII. HAYTI. In sketching an account of the people of Hayti, and the struggles through which they were called to pass, we confess it to be a difficult task. Although the writer visited the Island thirty years ago, and has read everything of importance given by the historians, it is still no easy matter to give a true statement of the revolution which placed the colored people in possession of the Island, so conflicting are the accounts. The beautiful island of St. Domingo, of which Hayti is a part, was pronounced by the great discoverer to be the “Paradise of God.” The splendor of its valleys, the picturesqueness of its mountains, the tropical luxuriance of its plains, and the unsurpassed salubrity of its climate, confirms the high opinion of the great Spaniard. Columbus found on the Island more than a million of people of the Caribbean race. The warlike appearance of the Spaniards caused the natives to withdraw into the interior. However, the seductive genius of Columbus soon induced the Caribbeans to return to their towns, and they extended their hospitality to the illustrious stranger. After the great discoverer had been recalled home and left the Island, Dovadillo, his successor, began a system of unmitigated oppression towards the Caribbeans, and eventually reduced the whole of the inhabitants to slavery; and thus commenced that hateful sin in the New World. As fresh adventurers arrived in the Island, the Spanish power became more consolidated and more oppressive. The natives were made to toil in the gold-mines without compensation, and in many instances without any regard whatever to the preservation of human life; so much so, that in 1507, the number of natives had, by hunger, toil, and the sword, been reduced from a million to sixty thousand. Thus, in the short space of fifteen years, more than nine hundred thousand perished under the iron hand of slavery in the island of St. Domingo.