FIRST DISTRIBUTION OF INDIANS. "REPARTIMIENTOS"
1510
Soon after Ponce's return from la Española Guaybána sickened and died.
Up to this time the harmony established by the prudent cacique between
his tribesmen and the Spaniards on their first arrival had apparently
not been disturbed. There is no record of any dissension between them
during Ponce's absence.
The cacique was succeeded by his brother, who according to custom
assumed the name of the deceased chief, together with his authority.
The site for his first settlement, chosen by Ponce, was a low hill in
the center of a small plain surrounded by hills, at the distance of a
league from the sea, the whole space between being a swamp, "which,"
says Oviedo, "made the transport of supplies very difficult." Here the
captain commenced the construction of a fortified house and chapel, or
hermitage, and called the place Capárra.[10]
[Illustration: Ruins of Capárra, the first capital.]
Among the recently arrived Spaniards there was a young man of
aristocratic birth named Christopher de Soto Mayor, who possessed
powerful friends at Court. He had been secretary to King Philip I,
and according to Abbad, was intended by Ferdinand as future governor
of San Juan; but Señor Acosta, the friar's commentator, remarks with
reason, that it is not likely that the king, who showed so much tact
and foresight in all his acts, should place a young man without
experience over an old soldier like Ponce, for whom he had a special
regard.
The young hidalgo seemed to aspire to nothing higher than a life of
adventure, for he agreed to go as Ponce's lieutenant and form a
settlement on the south coast of the island near the bay of Guánica.
"In this settlement," says Oviedo, "there were so many mosquitoes that
they alone were enough to depopulate it, and the people passed to
Aguáda, which is said to be to the west-nor'-west, on the borders of
the river Culebrinas, in the district now known as Aguáda and
Aguadilla; to this new settlement they gave the name Sotomayor, and
while they were there the Indians rose in rebellion one Friday in the
beginning of the year 1511."
* * * * *
The second Guaybána[11] was far from sharing his predecessor's
good-will toward the Spaniards or his prudence in dealing with them;
nor was the conduct of the newcomers toward the natives calculated to
cement the bonds of friendship.
Fancying themselves secure in the friendly disposition of the
natives, prompted by that spirit of reckless daring and adventure that
distinguished most of the followers of Columbus, anxious to be first
to find a gold-bearing stream or get possession of some rich piece of
land, they did not confine themselves to the two settlements formed,
but spread through the interior, where they began to lay out farms and
to work the auriferous river sands.
In the beginning the natives showed themselves willing enough to
assist in these labors, but when the brutal treatment to which the
people of la Española had been subjected was meted out to them also,
and the greed of gold caused their self-constituted masters to exact
from them labors beyond their strength, the Indians murmured, then
protested, at last they resisted, and at each step the taskmasters
became more exacting, more relentless.
At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards the natives of Boriquén
seem to have led an Arcadian kind of existence; their bows and arrows
were used only when some party of Caribs came to carry off their young
men and maidens. Among themselves they lived at peace, and passed
their days in lazily swinging in their hammocks and playing ball or
dancing their "areytos." With little labor the cultivation of their
patches of yucca[12] required was performed by the women, and beyond
the construction of their canoes and the carving of some battle club,
they knew no industry, except, perhaps, the chipping of some stone
into the rude likeness of a man, or of one of the few animals they
knew.
These creatures were suddenly called upon to labor from morning to
night, to dig and delve, and to stand up to their hips in water
washing the river sands. They were forced to change their habits and
their food, and from free and, in their own way, happy masters of the
soil they became the slaves of a handful of ruthless men from beyond
the sea. When Ponce's order to distribute them among his men confirmed
the hopelessness of their slavery, they looked upon the small number
of their destroyers and began to ask themselves if there were no means
of getting rid of them.
* * * * *
The system of "repartimientos" (distribution), sometimes called
"encomiendas" (patronage), was first introduced in la Española by
Columbus and sanctioned later by royal authority. Father Las Casas
insinuates that Ponce acted arbitrarily in introducing it in Boriquén,
but there were precedents for it.
The first tribute imposed by Columbus on the natives of la Española
was in gold and in cotton[13](1495). Recognizing that the Indians
could not comply with this demand, the Admiral modified it, but still
they could not satisfy him, and many, to escape the odious imposition,
fled to the woods and mountains or wandered about from place to place.
The Admiral, in virtue of the powers granted to him, had divided the
land among his followers according to rank, or merit, or caprice, and
in the year 1496 substituted the forced labor of the Indians for the
tribute, each cacique being obliged to furnish a stipulated number of
men to cultivate the lands granted. Bobadilla, the Admiral's
successor, made this obligation to work on the land extend to the
mines, and in the royal instructions given to Ovando, who succeeded
Bobadilla, these abuses were confirmed, and he was expressly charged
to see to it "that the Indians were employed in collecting gold and
other metals for the Castilians, in cultivating their lands, in
constructing their houses, and in obeying their commands." The pretext
for these abuses was, that by thus bringing the natives into immediate
contact with their masters they would be easier converted to
Christianity. It is true that the royal ordinances stipulated that the
Indians should be well treated, and be paid for their work like free
laborers, but the fact that they were _forced_ to work and severely
punished when they refused, constituted them slaves in reality. The
royal recommendations to treat them well, to pay them for their work,
and to teach them the Christian doctrines, were ignored by the
masters, whose only object was to grow rich. The Indians were tasked
far beyond their strength. They were ill-fed, often not fed at all,
brutally ill-treated, horribly punished for trying to escape from the
hellish yoke, ruthlessly slaughtered at the slightest show of
resistance, so that thousands of them perished miserably. This had
been the fate of the natives of la Española, and there can be no doubt
that the Boriqueños had learned from fugitives of that island what
was in store for them when Ponce ordered their distribution among the
settlers.
The following list of Indians distributed in obedience to orders from
the metropolis is taken from the work by Don Salvador Brau.[14] It was
these first distributions, made in 1509-'10, which led to the
rebellion of the Indians and the distributions that followed:
Indians
To the general treasurer, Pasamonte, a man described by
Acosta as malevolent, insolent, deceitful, and sordid...... 300
To Juan Ponce de Leon...................................... 200
To Christopher Soto Mayor[15]...............................100
To Vicente Yañez Pinzón, on condition that he should settle
in the island.............................................. 100
To Lope de Conchillos, King Ferdinand's Chief Secretary,
as bad a character as Pasamonte............................ 100
To Pedro Moreno and Jerome of Brussels, the delegate and
clerk of Conchillos in Boriquén, 100 each...................200
To the bachelor-at-law Villalobos........................... 80
To Francisco Alvarado.......................................80
A total of 1,060 defenseless Indians delivered into the ruthless hands
of men steeped in greed, ambition, and selfishness.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: The scanty remains of the first settlement were to be
seen till lately in the Pueblo Viejo Ward, municipal district of
Bayamón, along the road which loads from Cataño to Gurabó.]
[Footnote 11: He may have been the tenth or the twentieth if what the
chroniclers tell us about the adoption of the defunct caciquess' names
by their successors be true.]
[Footnote 12: The manioc of which the "casaba" bread is made.]
[Footnote 13: A "cascabel" (a measure the size of one of the round
bells used in Spain to hang round the neck of the leader in a troop of
mules) full of gold and twenty-five pounds (an arroba) of cotton every
three months for every Indian above sixteen years of age.]
[Footnote 14: Puerto Rico y su historia, p. 173.]
[Footnote 15: Among the Indians given to Soto Mayor was the sister of
the cacique Guaybána second. She became his concubine, and in return
for the preference shown her she gave the young nobleman timely
warning of the impending rebellion.]