from making the journey by an injury he sustained while hurriedly escaping from the bedroom of a married woman of Medellín. The expedition reached Santo Domingo in April 1502, and included Diego de Nicuesa and Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon. Also on board were 13 Franciscans, led by Friar Alonso de Espinar, bringing the total on the island to 25. His Administration When Ovando arrived in Hispaniola in 1502, he found the once-peaceful natives in revolt. Ovando and his subordinates ruthlessly suppressed this rebellion through a series of bloody campaigns, including the Jaragua Massacre and Higüey Massacre. Ovando’s administration in Hispaniola became notorious for its cruelty toward the native Taíno. Estimates of the Taino population at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards in 1492 vary, with Anderson Córdova giving a maximum of 500 000 people inhabiting the island. By the 1507 census, according to Bartolomé de las Casas, battlefield slaughter, enslavement and disease had reduced the native population to 60 000 people, and the decline continued. In 1501, Ovando ordered the first importation of Spanish-speaking black slaves into the Americas. Many Spanish aristocrats ordered slaves to work as servants in their homes. After the conquests made by his lieutenants including Juan Ponce de León and Juan de Esquivel, Ovando founded several cities on Hispaniola. He also developed the mining industry, introduced the cultivation of sugar cane with plants imported from the Canary Islands, and commissioned expeditions of discovery and conquest throughout the Caribbean. Ovando allowed Spanish settlers to use the natives in forced labour, a system known as encomienda, to provide food for the colonists and for ships returning to Spain. Hundreds of thousands of Taíno died while forced to extract gold from the nearby mines. Pursuant to a deathbed promise he made to his wife Queen Isabella I, King Ferdinand II of Aragon recalled Ovando to Spain in 1509 to answer for his treatment of the native people. Diego Columbus was appointed his successor as governor, but the Spanish Crown permitted Ovando to retain possession of the property he brought back from the Americas. Later years Little is known of Ovando's activities after his return to Spain in 1509. He probably spent much of his time in the town of Brozas, the headquarters of the Order of Alcántara. In February 1511 Ferdinand ordered Ovando to accompany him on a campaign against Oran, in North Africa. The expedition never