THE CARIBS.
THE Indians whom Ponce de Leon and his followers treated so unkindly
were gentle and generous, as I have said. They were not eager for war,
like many of the tribes on the continent, nor savage in their habits.
They wore short girdles of cotton cloth, raised crops of corn and
manioc, and built large canoes in which they took quite long voyages.
They wrought the gold found in the streams into ornaments.
This tribe of Indians was very numerous at the time the Spaniards first
came to the West Indies, but now there is not a single trace of them
left. War with the Spaniards, hard work for their masters in the mines
and fields,--these made the race die out rapidly.
It is sad to think that the Spaniards tortured them also.
Is it any wonder that the natives did not care to share the Spaniards'
heaven, but died hating them with all their hearts?
Long before Ponce de Leon came to Porto Rico, the poor Indians were
attacked from time to time by other enemies; but although they suffered
much, they were never conquered. These enemies were the Caribs, who
seemed to love war better than anything else in the world.
Sometimes the people would be strolling along the shores of the island
when they would see something out on the ocean which looked like a mass
of floating palm leaves. That did not frighten them, of course, and
they would go on with their sports.
When it was too late to give the alarm, they discovered that the mass
of palm leaves was the covering of a boat-load of fierce warriors who
were all ready to attack them.
Or perhaps their foes would hide themselves from sight in some other
clever way until they were all ready to spring out of their boats and
take the peaceful islanders by surprise.
You wonder, perhaps, where was the Caribs' home. They told legends of
a far-distant land in the north, from which their own people had come.
They had fought their way from Florida to South America, and feared no
one in the world. They believed that their tribe had grown up out of
the stones which had been planted in the soil.
They belonged to the great Indian, or red, race, as did the natives
of Porto Rico, but their customs and natures were very different.
They painted their faces to make themselves look as fierce as they
felt. They were trained to fight from the time when they were little
children. They loved to sail upon the ocean, and guided their boats by
studying the stars.
When the Spaniards had settled in Porto Rico, the Caribs thought it
would be an easy thing to master them in fight, and trouble them as
they had troubled the poor natives. But the white men were a match for
them, and, when they landed on the shores of the island, the Spaniards
entrapped them and drove them over the side of a cliff down into the
water below. Not one Carib lived to tell the story of that fearful day.
Time passed by and many workers were needed, and as the natives became
fewer the Spaniards sent ships to the coast of Africa and brought away
the black people to be their slaves. To-day the negroes are all free
and seem to be happy in their island home; but most of them are very,
very poor, as are the greater part of the whites of Porto Rico. The
rule of Spain has kept them so; and it was a glorious thing for these
people when our soldiers, under General Miles, marched in triumph
through the land.