Puerto Rico was scantily provided with p_The History of Puerto Rico From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation

when the treasurer, Haro, wrote to Cardinal Cisneros: "There are no

priests in the granges as has been commanded; only one in Capárra, and

one in San German. The island is badly served. Send us a goodly number

of priests or permission to pay them out of the produce of the

tithes."

The "goodly number of priests" was duly provided. Immediately after

the transfer of the capital to its present site in 1521, the

Dominicans began the construction of a convent, which was nearly

completed in 1529, when there were 25 friars in it. They had acquired

great influence over Bishop Manso, and obtained many privileges and

immunities from him. Bishop Bastidas, Manso's successor, was less

favorably disposed toward them, and demanded payment of tithes of the

produce of their agricultural establishments. He reported to the king

in 1548: "There is a Dominican monastery here large enough for a city

of 2,000 inhabitants,[79] and there are many friars in it. They

possess farms, cattle, negroes, Indians, and are building horse-power

sugar-mills; meanwhile, I know that they are asking your Majesty for

alms to finish their church ... It were better to oblige them to sell

their estates and live in poverty as prescribed by the rules of their

order."

The Franciscans came to Puerto Rico in 1534, but founded no convent

till 1585, when one of their order, Nicolas Ramos, was appointed to

the see of San Juan. Then they established themselves in "la Aguáda,"

and named the settlement San Francisco de Asis. Two years later it was

destroyed by the Caribs, and five of the brothers martyrized. No

attempt at reconstruction of the convent was made. The order abandoned

the island and did not return till 1642, when they obtained the Pope's

license to establish themselves in the capital. Like the Dominicans,

they soon acquired considerable wealth.

The privilege of administering parishes and collecting tithes, which

was the principal source of monastic revenues, was canceled by royal

schedule June 13, 1757. The monks continued in the full enjoyment of

their property till 1835, when all the property of the regular clergy

throughout the Peninsula and the colonies was expropriated by the

Government. In this island the convents were appropriated only after

long and tedious judicial proceedings, in which the Government

demonstrated that the transfer was necessary for the public good. Then

the convents were used--that of the Dominicans as Audiencia hall, that

of the Franciscans as artillery barracks. The intendancy took charge

of the administration of the estate of the two communities, the

mortmain was canceled, and the transfer duly legalized. A promised

indemnity to the two brotherhoods was never paid, but in 1897 a sum of

5,000 pesos annually was added to the insular budget, to be paid to

the clergy as compensation for the expropriated estate of the

Dominicans in San German. Succeeding political events prevented the

payment of this also. The last representatives in this island of the

two dispossessed orders died in San Juan about the year 1865.

Bishop Monserrate made an effort to reestablish the order of

Franciscans in 1875-'76. Only three brothers came to the island and

they, not liking the aspect of affairs, went to South America.

* * * * *

The first head of the secular clergy in Puerto Rico was nominated in

1511. The Catholic princes besought Pope Julius II to make it a

bishopric, and recommended as its first prelate Alonzo Manso, canon of

Salamanca, doctor in theology, a man held in high esteem at court. His

Holiness granted the request, and designated the whole of the island

as the diocese, with the principal settlement in it as the see.

The subsequent conquests on the mainland kept adding vast territories

to this diocese till, toward the end of the eighteenth century, it

included the whole region extending from the upper Orinoco to the

Amazon, and from Guiana to the plains of Bogotá. Manso's successors

repeatedly represented to the king the absolute impossibility of

attending to the spiritual wants of "the lambs that were continually

added to the flock." They requested that the see might be transferred

to the mainland or that the diocese might be divided in two or more.

This was done in 1791, when the diocese of Guiana was created, and

Puerto Rico with the island of Vieyques remained as the original one.

The bishop came to San Juan in 1513, and at once began to dispose all

that was necessary to give splendor and good government to the first

episcopal seat in America. Unfortunately, he arrived at a time when

dissension, strife, and immorality were rampant; and when it became

known that he was authorized to collect his tithes _in specie_, the

opposition of the quarrelsome and insubordinate inhabitants became so

violent that the prelate could not exercise his functions, and was

forced to return to the Peninsula in 1515. He came back in 1519,

invested with the powers of a Provincial Inquisitor, which he

exercised till 1539, when he died and was buried in the cathedral,

where a monument with an alabaster effigy marked his tomb till 1625,

when it was destroyed by the Hollanders.

Rodrigo Bastidas, a native of Santo Domingo, was Manso's successor. He

was appointed Bishop of Coro in Venezuela in 1532, but solicited and

obtained the see of Puerto Rico in 1542. He was a man of great

capacity, virtuous and benevolent. He advised the suppression of the

Inquisition, asked the Government for facilities to educate the youth

and advance the agricultural interests of his diocese, and commenced

the construction of the cathedral. He died in Santo Domingo in 1561,

very old and very rich.

Friar Diego de Salamanca, of the order of Augustines, succeeded

Bastidas. He continued the construction of the cathedral, but soon

returned to the metropolis, leaving the diocese to the care of the

Vicar-General, Santa Olaya, till 1585, when the Franciscan friar

Nicolas Bamos was appointed to the see. He was the last Bishop of

Puerto Rico who united the functions of inquisitor with those of the

episcopate, and a zealous burner of heretics. After him the see

remained vacant for fourteen years; since then, to the end of the

eighteenth century there were 39 consecrated prelates, 9 of whom

renounced, or for some other reason did not take possession. The most

distinguished among the remaining 30 were: Bernardo Balbuena, poet and

author, 1623-'27; Friar Manuel Gimenez Perez, pious, active, and

philanthropist, 1770-'84; and Juan Alejo Arismendi, who, according to

the Latin inscription on his tomb, was an amiable, religious, upright,

zealous, compassionate, learned, decorous, active, leading,

benevolent, paternal man. Of the rest little more is known than their

names and the dates of their assumption of office and demise.

* * * * *

The year 1842 was, for the secular clergy, one of anxiety for the

safety of their long and assiduously accumulated wealth. The members

to the number of 17 individuals, including the bishop, drew annual

stipends from the insular treasury to the amount of 36,888 pesos,

besides which they possessed and still possess a capital of over one

and a half millions of pesos, represented by: 1. Vacant chaplaincies.

2. Investments under the head Ecclesiastical Chapter. 3. Idem for

account of the Carmelite Sisterhood. 4. Legacies to saints for the

purpose of celebrating masses and processions in all the parishes of

the island. 5. Pious donations. 6. Fraternities and religious

associations for the worship of some special saint. 7. Revenues from

an institution known by the name of Third Orders. 8. Capital invested

by the founders of the Hospital of the Conception, the income of which

is mostly consumed by the nuns of that order. And 9. The

ecclesiastical revenues of different kinds in San German.

All this was put in jeopardy by the following decree:

"Doña Isabel II, by the grace of God and the Constitution of the

Spanish Monarchy, Queen of Spain, and during her minority Baldomero

Espartero, Duke of 'la Victoria' and Morella, Regent of the kingdom,

to all who these presents may see and understand, makes known that the

Cortes have decreed, and we have sanctioned, as follows:

"ARTICLE I. All properties of the secular clergy of whatever class;

rights or shares of whatever origin or denomination they may be, or

for whatever application or purpose they may have been given, bought,

or acquired, are national properties.

"ART. II. The properties, rights, and shares corresponding in any

manner to ecclesiastical unions or fraternities, are also national

properties.

"ART. III. All estates, rights, and shares of the cathedral,

collegiate and parochial clergy and ecclesiastical unions and

fraternities referred to in the preceding articles, are hereby

declared _for sale_."

* * * * *

The 15 articles that follow specify the properties

in detail, the manner of sale, the disposition of the

products, administration of rents, etc.

The law was not carried into effect. Espartero, very popular at first,

by adopting the principles of the progressist party, forfeited the

support of the conservatives--that is, of the clerical party, and the

man is not born yet who can successfully introduce into Spain a

radical reform of the nature of the one he sanctioned with his

signature September 2, 1841. From that moment his overthrow was

certain. Narvaez headed the revolution against him, his own officers

and men abandoned him, and on July 30, 1843, he wrote his farewell

manifesto to the nation on board a British ship of war.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 79: San Juan had only about 100 "vecinos"--that is, white

people.]

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE INQUISITION

1520-1813

Bishop Manso, on his arrival in 1513, found Puerto Rico in a state

bordering on anarchy, and after vain attempts to check the prevalent

immorality and establish the authority of the Church, he returned to

Spain in 1519. The account he gave Cardinal Cisneros of the island's

condition suggested to the Grand Inquisitor the obvious remedy of

clothing the bishop with the powers of Provincial Inquisitor, which he

did.

Diego Torres Vargas, the canon of the San Juan Cathedral, says in his

memoirs: "Manso was made inquisitor, and he, being the first, may be

said to have been the Inquisitor-General of the Indies; ... the

delinquents were brought from all parts to be burned and punished

here ... The Inquisition building exists till this day (1647), and until

the coming of the Hollanders in 1625 many sambenitos could be seen in

the cathedral hung up behind the choir."

These "sambenitos" were sacks of coarse yellow cloth with a large red

cross on them, and figures of devils and instruments of torture among

the flames of hell. The delinquents, dressed in one of these sacks,

bareheaded and barefooted, were made to do penance, or, if condemned

to be burned, marched to the place of execution. It is said that in

San Juan they were not tied to a stake but enclosed in a hollow

plaster cast, against which the faggots were piled,[80] so that they

were roasted rather than burned to death. The place for burning the

sinners was outside the gate of the fort San Cristobal. Mr. M.F.

Juncos believes that the prisons were in the lower part of the

Dominican Convent, later the territorial audience and now the supreme

court, but Mr. Salvador Brau thinks that they occupied a plot of

ground in the angle formed by Cristo Street and the "Caleta" of San

Juan.

Of Nicolas Ramos, the last Bishop of Puerto Rico, who united the

functions of inquisitor with the duties of the episcopate, Canon

Vargas says: " ... He was very severe, burning and punishing, _as was

his duty_, some of the people whose cases came before him ..."

It seems that the records of the Inquisition in this island were

destroyed and the traditions of its doings suppressed, because nothing

is said regarding them by the native commentators on the island's

history. Only the names of a few of the leading men who came in

contact with the Tribunal have come down to us. Licentiate Sancho

Velasquez, who was accused of speaking against the faith and eating

meat in Lent, appears to have been Manso's first victim, since he died

in a dungeon. A clergyman named Juan Carecras was sent to Spain at the

disposition of the general, for the crime of practising surgery. In

the same year (1536) we find the treasurer, Blas de Villasante, in an

Inquisition dungeon, because, though married in Spain, he cohabited

with a native woman--an offense too common at that time not to leave

room for suspicion that the treasurer must have made himself obnoxious

to the Holy Office in some other way. In 1537, a judge auditor was

sent from the Española, but the parties whose accounts were to be

audited contrived to have him arrested by the officers of the

Inquisition on the day of his arrival. Doctor Juan Blazquez, having

attempted to correct some abuses committed by the Admiral's employees

in connivance with the Inquisition agents, suffered forty days'

imprisonment, and was condemned to hear a mass standing erect all the

time, besides paying a fine of 50 pesos.

These are the only cases on record. Only the walls of the Inquisition

building, could they speak, could reveal what passed within them from

the time of Manso's arrival in 1520 to the end of the sixteenth

century, when the West Indian Superior Tribunal was transferred to

Cartagena, and a special subordinate judge only was left in San Juan.

Bishop Rodrigo de Bastidas, who visited San Juan on a Government

commission in 1533, perceiving the abuses that were committed in the

inquisitor's name, proposed the abolition of the Holy Office; but the

odious institution continued to exist till 1813, when the

extraordinary Cortes of Cadiz removed, for a time, this blot on

Spanish history. The decree is dated February 22d, and accompanied by

a manifesto which is an instructive historical document in itself. It

shows that the Cortes dared not attempt the suppression of the dreaded

Tribunal without first convincing the people of the disconnection of

the measure with the religious question, and justifying it as one

necessary for the public weal.

"You can not doubt," they say, "that we endeavor to maintain in this

kingdom the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman religion, which you have the

happiness to profess; ... the deputies elected by you know, as do the

legislators of all times and all nations, that a social edifice not

founded on religion, is constructed in vain; ... the true religion

which we profess is the greatest blessing which God has bestowed on

the Spanish people; we do not recognize as Spaniards those who do not

profess it ... It is the surest support of all private and social

virtues, of fidelity to the laws and to the monarch, of the love of

country and of just liberty, which are graven in every Spanish heart,

which have impelled you to battle with the hosts of the usurper,

vanquishing and annihilating them, while braving hunger and nakedness,

torture, and death."

The Inquisition is next referred to. It is stated that in their

constant endeavor to hasten the termination of the evils that afflict

the Spanish nation, the people's representatives have first given

their attention to the Inquisition; that, with the object of

discovering the exact civil and ecclesiastical status of the Holy

Office, they have examined all the papal bulls and other documents

that could throw light on the subject, and have discovered that only

the Inquisitor-General had ecclesiastical powers; that the Provincial

Inquisitors were merely his delegates acting under his instructions;

that no supreme inquisitorial council had ever been instituted by

papal brief, and that the general, being with the enemy (the French

troops), no Inquisition really existed. From these investigations the

Cortes had acquired a knowledge of the mode of procedure of the

tribunals, of their history, and of the opinion of them entertained by

the Cortes of the kingdom in early days. " ... We will now speak

frankly to you," continues the document, "for it is time that you

should know the naked truth, and that the veil be lifted with which

false politicians have covered their designs.

"Examining the instructions by which the provincial tribunals were

governed, it becomes clear at first sight that the soul of the

institution was inviolable secrecy. This covered all the proceedings

of the inquisitors, and made them the arbiters of the life and honor

of all Spaniards, without responsibility to anybody on earth. They

were men, and as such subject to the same errors and passions as the

rest of mankind, and it is inconceivable that the nation did not exact

responsibility since, in virtue of the temporal power that had been

delegated to them, they condemned to seclusion, imprisonment, torture,

and death. Thus the inquisitors exercised a power which the

Constitution denies to every authority in the land save the sacred

person of the king.

"Another notable circumstance made the power of the

Inquisitors-General still more unusual; this was that, without

consulting the king or the Supreme Pontiff, they dictated laws,

changed them, abolished them, or substituted them by others, so that

there was within the nation a judge, the Inquisitor-General, whose

powers transcended those of the sovereign.

"Here now how the Tribunal proceeded with the offenders. When an

accusation was made, the accused were taken to a secret prison without

being permitted to communicate with parents, children, relations, or

friends, till they were condemned or absolved. Their families were

denied the consolation of weeping with them over their misfortunes or

of assisting them in their defense. The accused was not only deprived

of the assistance of his relations and friends, but in no case was he

informed of the name of his accuser nor of the witnesses who declared

against him; and in order that he might not discover who they were,

they used to truncate the declarations and make them appear as coming

from a third party.

"Some one will be bold enough to say that the rectitude and the

religious character of the inquisitors prevented the confusion of the

innocent with the criminal; but the experiences of many years and the

history of the Inquisition give the lie to such assurances. They show

us sage and saintly men in the Tribunal's dungeons. Sixtus IV himself,

who, at the request of the Catholic kings, had sanctioned the creation

of the Tribunal, complained strongly of the innumerable protests that

reached him from persecuted people who had been falsely accused of

heresy. Neither the virtue nor the position of distinguished men could

protect them. The venerable Archbishop of Grenada, formerly the

confessor of Queen Isabel, suffered most rigorous persecutions from

the inquisitors of Cordóva, and the same befell the Archbishop of

Toledo, Friar Louis de Leon, the venerable Avila, Father Siguenza, and

many other eminent men.

"In view of these facts, it is no paradox to say that _the ignorance,

the decadence of science, of the arts, commerce and agriculture, the

depopulation and poverty of Spain, are mainly due to the Inquisition._

"How the Inquisition could be established among such a noble and

generous people as the Spanish, will be a difficult problem for

posterity to solve. It will be more difficult still to explain how

such a Tribunal could exist for more than three hundred years.

Circumstances favored its establishment. It was introduced under the

pretext of restraining the Moors and the Jews, who were obnoxious to

the Spanish people, and who found protection in their financial

relations with the most illustrious families of the kingdom. With such

plausible motives the politicians of the time covered a measure which

was contrary to the laws of the monarchy. Religion demanded it as a

protection, and the people permitted it, though not without strong

protest. As soon as the causes that called the Inquisition into

existence had ceased, the people's attorneys in Cortes demanded the

establishment of the legal mode of procedure. The Cortes of Valladolid

of 1518 and 1523 asked from the king that in matters of religion the

ordinary judges might be declared competent, and that in the

proceedings the canons and common codes might be followed; the Cortes

of Saragossa asked the same in 1519, and the kings would have acceded

to the will of the people, expressed through their representatives,

especially in view of the indirect encouragement to do so which they

received from the Holy See, but for the influence of those with whom

they were surrounded who had an interest in the maintenance of the

odious institution."

The manifesto terminates with an assurance to the Spanish people that,

under the new law, heresy would not go unpunished; that, under the new

system of judicial proceedings, the innocent would no longer be

confounded with the criminal. " ... There will be no more voluntary

errors, no more suborned witnesses, offenders will henceforth be

judged by upright magistrates in accordance with the sacred canons and

the civil code ... Then, genius and talent will display all their

energies without fear of being checked in their career by intrigue and

calumny; ... science, the arts, agriculture, and commerce will

flourish under the guidance of the distinguished men who abound in

Spain ... The king, the bishops, all the venerable ecclesiastics will

instruct the faithful in the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion without

fear of seeing its beauty tarnished by ignorance and superstition,

and, who knows, this decree may contribute to the realization, some

day, of religious fraternity among all nations!"

From this beautiful dream the Cortes were rudely awakened the very

next year when King Ferdinand VII, replaced on his throne by the

powers who formed the holy alliance, entered Madrid surrounded by a

host of retrograde, revengeful priests. Then the Regency, the Cortes,

the Constitution were ignored. The deputies were the first to suffer

exile, imprisonment, and death in return for their loyalty and

liberalism; the public press was silenced; the convents reopened,

municipalities and provincial deputations abolished, the Jesuits

restored, the Inquisition reestablished, and priestcraft once more

spread its influence over the mental and social life of a naturally

generous, brave, and intelligent people.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 80: Neumann, p. 205.]

CHAPTER XXXIX

GROWTH OF CITIES

The proceedings in the formation of a Spanish settlement in the

sixteenth century were the same everywhere. For the choice of a site

the presence of gold was a condition _sine quâ non_, without gold, no

matter how beautiful or fertile the region, no settlement was made.

When a favorable locality was found the first thing done was to

construct a fort, because the natives, friendly disposed at first,

were not long in becoming the deadly enemies of the handful of

strangers who constituted themselves their masters. The next requisite

was a church or chapel in which to invoke the divine blessing on the

enterprise, or maybe to appease the divine wrath at the iniquities

committed. Last, but certainly not least in importance, came the

smelting-house, where the King of Spain's share of the gold was

separated.

Around these the settlers grouped their houses or huts as they

pleased.

The first settlement on this island was made in 1508, on the north

coast, at the distance of more than a league from the present port of

San Juan, the space between being swampy. Ponce called it Capárra.

When the promising result of Ponce's first visit to the island was

communicated to King Ferdinand by Ovando, the Governor of la Española,

his Highness replied in a letter dated Valladolid, September 15, 1509:

"I note the good services rendered by Ponce and that he has not gone

to settle the island for want of means. Now that they are being sent

from here in abundance, let him go at once with as many men as he

can." To Ponce himself the king wrote: "I have seen your letter of

August 16th. Be very diligent in the search for gold-mines. Take out

as much as possible, smelt it in la Española and remit it instantly.

Settle the island as best you can. Write often and let me know what is

needed and what passes."

Armed with these instructions, and with his appointment as governor

_ad interim_, Ponce returned to San Juan in February, 1510, with his

wife and two daughters, settled in Capárra, where, before his

departure in 1509, he had built a house of stamped earth (tapia), and

where some of the companions of his first expedition had resided ever

since. Ponce's house, afterward built of stone, served as a fort. A

church or chapel existed already, and we know that there was a

smelting-house, because we read that the first gold-smelting took

place in Capárra in October, 1510, and that the king's one-fifth came

to 2,645 pesos.

[Illustration: Plaza Alphonso XII and Intendencia Building, San Juan.]

With the reinstatement of Ceron and Diaz, complaints about the

distance of the settlement from the port, and its unhealthy location,

soon reached the king's ears, accompanied by requests for permission

to transfer it to an islet near the shore. No action was taken. In

November, 1511, the monarch wrote to Ceron: "Ponce says that he

founded the town of Capárra in the most favorable locality of the

island. I fear that you want to change it. You shall not do so without

our special approval. If there is just reason for moving you must

first inform me."

Capárra remained for the time the only settlement, and was honored

with the name of "City of Puerto Rico." A municipal council was

installed, and the king granted the island a coat of arms which

differed slightly from that used by the authorities till lately.

The next settlement was made on the south shore, at a place named

Guánica, "where there is a bay," says Oviedo, "which is one of the

best in the world, but the mosquitoes were so numerous that they alone

were sufficient to depopulate it." [81] The Spaniards then moved to

Aguáda, on the northwestern shore, and founded a settlement to which

they gave the name of their leader Soto Mayor.

This was a young man of aristocratic birth, ex-secretary of King

Philip, surnamed "the Handsome." He had come to the Indies with a

license authorizing him to traffic in captive Indians, and Ponce,

wishing, no doubt, to enlist the young hidalgo's family influence at

the court in his favor, made him high constable (_alguacil mayor_) of

the southern division (June, 1510).

The new settlement's existence was short. It was destroyed by the

Indians in the insurrection of February of the following year, when

Christopher Soto Mayor and 80 more of his countrymen, who had

imprudently settled in isolated localities in the interior, fell

victims of the rage of the natives.

Diego Columbus proposed the reconstruction of the destroyed

settlement, with the appellation of San German. The king approved, and

near the end of the year 1512, Miguel del Torro, one of Ponce's

companions, was delegated to choose a site. He fixed upon the bay of

Guayanilla, eastward of Guánica, and San German became the port of

call for the Spanish ships bound to Pária. Its proximity to the "pearl

coast," as the north shore of Venezuela was named, made it the point

of departure for all who wished to reach that coast or escape from the

shores of poverty-stricken Puerto Rico--namely, the dreamers of the

riches of Peru, those who, like Sedeño, aspired to new conquests on

the mainland, or crown officers who had good reasons for wishing to

avoid giving an account of their administration of the royal revenues.

The comparative prosperity which it enjoyed made San German the object

of repeated attacks by the French privateers. It was burned and

plundered several times during the forty-three years of its existence,

till one day in September, 1554, three French ships of the line

entered the port and landed a detachment of troops who plundered and

destroyed everything to a distance of a league and a half into the

interior. From that day San German, founded by Miguel del Torro,

ceased to exist.

The town with the same name, existing at present on the southwest

coast, was founded in 1570 by Governor Francisco Solis with the

remains of the ill-fated settlement on the bay of Guayanilla. The

Dominican friars had a large estate in this neighborhood, and the new

settlement enhanced its value. Both the governor and the bishop were

natives of Salamanca, and named the place New Salamanca, but the name

of New San German has prevailed. In 1626 the new town had 50 citizens

(vecinos).

_San Juan_.--Licentiate Velasquez, one of the king's officers at

Capárra, wrote to his Highness in April, 1515: " ... The people of

this town wish to move to an islet in the port. I went to see it with

the town council and it looks well"; and some time later: " ... We

will send a description of the islet to which it is convenient to

remove the town of Puerto Rico."

Ponce opposed the change. His reasons were that the locality of

Capárra was dry and level, with abundance of wood, water, and pasture,

and that most of the inhabitants, occupied as they were with

gold-washing, had to provide themselves with provisions from the

neighboring granges. He recognized that the islet was healthier, but

maintained that the change would benefit only the traders.

The dispute continued for some time. Medical certificates were

presented declaring Capárra unhealthy. The leading inhabitants

declared their opinion in favor of the transfer. A petition was signed

and addressed to the Jerome friars, who governed in la Española, and

they ordered the transfer in June, 1519. Ponce was permitted to

remain in his stone house in the abandoned town as long as he liked.

In November, 1520, Castro wrote to the emperor expressing his

satisfaction with the change, and asked that a fort and a stone

smelting-house might be constructed, because the one in use was of

straw and had been burned on several occasions. Finally, in 1521, the

translation of the capital of Puerto Rico to its present site was

officially recognized and approved.

There were now two settlements in the island. There were 35 citizens

in each in 1515, but the gold produced attracted others, and in 1529

the Bishop of la Española reported that there were 120 houses in San

Juan, "some of stone, the majority of straw. The church was roofed

while I was there." He says, "a Dominican monastery was in course of

construction, nearly finished, with more than 125 friars in it."

During the next five years the gold produce rapidly diminished; the

Indians, who extracted it, escaped or died. Tempests and epidemics

devastated the land. The Caribs and the French freebooters destroyed

what the former spared. All those who could, emigrated to Mexico or

Peru, and such was the depopulated condition of the capital, that

Governor Lando wrote in 1534: "If a ship with 50 men were to come

during the night, they could land and kill all who live here."

With the inhabitants engaged in the cultivation of sugar-cane, some

improvement in their condition took place. Still, there were only 130

citizens in San Juan in 1556, and only 30 in New San German. In 1595,

when Drake appeared before San Juan with a fleet of 26 ships, the

governor could only muster a few peons and 50 horsemen, and but for

the accidental presence of the Spanish frigates, Puerto Rico would

probably be an English possession to-day. It _was_ taken by the Duke

of Cumberland four years later, but abandoned again on account of the

epidemic that broke out among the English troops. When the Hollanders

laid siege to the capital in 1625 there were only 330 men between

citizens and jíbaros that could be collected for the defense. In 1646

there were 500 citizens and 400 houses in San Juan, and 200 citizens

in New San German. Arecibo and Coámo had recently been founded.

Scarcely any progress in the settlement of the country was made during

the remaining years of the seventeenth century. Toward the middle of

the eighteenth century great steps in this direction had been made.

From Governor Bravo de Rivera's list of men fit for militia service,

we discover that in 1759 there were 18 new settlements or towns in the

island with a total of 4,559 men able to carry arms; exclusive of San

Juan and San German, they were:

Ponce with 356 men.

Aguáda with 564 "

Manatí " 357 "

Añasco " 460 "

Yauco " 164 "

Coámo " 342 "

La Tuna " 104 "

Arecibo " 647 "

Utuado " 126 "

Loiza " 179 "

Toa-Alta " 188 "

Toa-Baja " 294 "

Piedras " 104 "

Bayamón " 256 "

Cáguas " 100 "

Guayama " 211 "

Rio Piedras with 46 "

Cangrejos with 120 "

The oldest of these settlements is

_La Aguáda_.--The name signifies "place at which water is taken," and

_Aguadilla_, which is to the north of the former and the head of the

province, is merely the diminutive of Aguáda. The first possesses

abundant springs of excellent water, one of them distant only five

minutes from the landing-place. In Aguadilla a famous spring rises in

the middle of the town and runs through it in a permanent stream.

In 1511 the king directed his officers in Seville to make all ships,

leaving that port for the Indies, call at the island of San Juan in

order to make the Caribs believe that the Spanish population was much

larger than it really was, and thus prevent or diminish their attacks.

The excellence of the water which the ships found at Aguáda made it

convenient for them to call, and the Spanish ships continued to do so

long after the need of frightening away the Caribs had passed.

The first regular settlement was founded in 1585 by the Franciscan

monks, who named it San Francisco de Asis. The Caribs surprised the

place about the year 1590, destroyed the convent, and martyrized five

of the monks, which caused the temporary abandonment of the

settlement. It was soon repeopled, notwithstanding the repeated

attacks of Caribs and French and English privateers. Drake stopped

there to provide his fleet with water in 1595. Cumberland did the same

four years later. The Columbian insurgents attempted a landing in 1819

and another in 1825, but were beaten off. Their valiant conduct on

these occasions, and their loyalty in contributing a large sum of

money toward the expenses of the war in Africa, earned for their

town, from the Home Government, the title of "unconquerable" (villa

invicta) in 1860.

Aguáda, or rather the mouth of the river Culebrinas, which flows into

the sea near it, is the place where Columbus landed in 1493. The

fourth centenary of the event was commemorated in 1893 by the

erection, on a granite pedestal, of a marble column, 11 meters high,

crowned with a Latin cross. On the pedestal is the inscription:

1493

19th of November

1893

_Loiza._--Along the borders of the river which bears this name there

settled, about the year 1514, Pedro Mexia, Sancho Arángo, Francisco

Quinaós, Pedro Lopez, and some other Spaniards, with their respective

Indian laborers. In one of the raids of the Indians from Vieyques or

Aye-Aye, which were so frequent at the time, a cacique named Cacimár

met his death at the hands of Arángo. The fallen chief's brother

Yaureibó, in revenge, prepared a large expedition, and penetrating at

night with several pirogues full of men by way of the river to within

a short distance of the settlement, fell upon it and utterly destroyed

it, killing many and carrying off others. Among the killed were Mexia

and his Indian concubine named Louisa or Heloise. Tradition says that

this woman, having been advised by some Indian friend of the intended

attack, tried to persuade her paramour to flee. When he refused, she

scorned his recommendation to save herself and remained with him to

share his fate.

In the relation of this episode by the chroniclers, figures also the

name of the dog Becerrillo (small calf), a mastiff belonging to

Arángo, who had brought the animal from the Española, where Columbus

had introduced the breed on his second voyage. In the fight with the

Indians Arángo was overpowered and was being carried off alive, when

his dog, at the call of his master, came bounding to the rescue and

made the Indians release him. They sprang into the river for safety,

and the gallant brute following them was shot with a poisoned

arrow.[82]

_Arecibo_ is situated on the river of that name. It was founded by

Felipe de Beaumont in 1616, with the appellation San Felipe de

Arecibo.

_Fajardo._--Governor Bravo de Rivero, with a view to found a

settlement on the east coast, detached a number of soldiers from their

regiment and gave to them and some other people a caballeria[83] of

land each, in the district watered by the river Fajardo. Alexander

O'Reilly, the king's commissioner, who visited the settlement in 1765,

found 474 people, and wrote: " ...They have cleared little ground and

cultivated so little that they are still in the very commencements.

The only industry practised by the inhabitants is illicit trade with

the Danish islands of Saint Thomas and Saint Cross. The people of

Fajardo are the commission agents for the people there. What else

could be expected from indolent soldiers and vagabonds without any

means of clearing forests or building houses? If no other measures are

adopted this settlement will remain many years in the same unhappy

condition and be useful only to foreigners." In 1780 there were 243

heads of families in the district; the town proper had 9 houses and a

church.

With regard to the remaining settlements mentioned in Governor Bravo

de Rivero's list, there are no reliable data.

From 1759, the year in which a general distribution of Government

lands was practised and titles were granted, to the year 1774, in

which Governor Miguel Muesas reformed or redistributed some of the

urban districts, many, if not most of the settlements referred to were

formed or received the names they bear at present.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 81: The first landing of the American troops was effected

here on July 25, 1898.]

[Footnote 82: These two episodes have given rise to several fantastic

versions by native writers.]

[Footnote 83: Ten by twenty "cuerdas." The cuerda is one-tenth less

than an English acre.]

CHAPTER XL

AURIFEROUS STREAMS AND GOLD PRODUCED FROM

1509 TO 1536

If a systematic exploration were practised to-day, by competent

mineralogists, of the entire chain of mountains which intersects the

island from east to west, it is probable that lodes of gold-bearing

quartz or conglomerate, worth working, would be discovered. Even the

alluvium deposits along the banks of the rivers and their tributaries,

as well as the river beds, might, in many instances, be found to

"pay."

The early settlers compelled the Indians to work for them. These poor

creatures, armed with the simplest tools, dug the earth from the river

banks. Their wives and daughters, standing up to their knees in the

river, washed it in wooden troughs. When the output diminished another

site was chosen, often before the first one was half worked out. The

Indians' practical knowledge of the places where gold was likely to be

found was the Spanish gold-seeker's only guide, the Indians' labor the

only labor employed in the collection of it.

As for the mountains, they have never been properly explored. The

Indians who occupied them remained in a state of insurrection for

years, and when the mountain districts could be safely visited at

last, the _auri sacra fames_ had subsided. The governors did not

interest themselves in the mineral resources of the island, and the

people found it too difficult to provide for their daily wants to go

prospecting. So the surface gold in the alluvium deposits was all that

was collected by the Spaniards, and what there still may be on the

bed-rocks of the rivers or in the lodes in the mountains from which it

has been washed, awaits the advent of modern gold-seekers.

The first samples of gold from Puerto Rico were taken to the Española

by Ponce, who had obtained them from the river Manatuabón, to which

the friendly cacique Guaybána conducted him on his first visit (1508).

This river disembogues into the sea on the south coast near Cape

Malapascua; but it appears that the doughty captain also visited the

north coast and found gold enough in the rivers Cóa and Sibúco to

justify him in making his headquarters at Capárra, which is in the

neighborhood. That gold was found there in considerable quantities is

shown by the fact that in August of the same year of Ponce's return to

the island (he returned in February, 1509), 8,975 pesos corresponded

to the king's fifth of the first _washings_. The first _smelting_ was

practised October 26, 1510. The next occurred May 22, 1511, producing

respectively 2,645 and 3,043 gold pesos as the king's share. Thus, in

the three first years the crown revenues from this source amounted to

14,663 gold pesos, and the total output to 73,315 gold pesos, which,

at three dollars of our money per peso, approximately represented a

total of $219,945 obtained from the rivers in the neighborhood of

Capárra alone.

In 1515 a fresh discovery of gold-bearing earth in this locality was

reported to the king by Sancho Velasquez, the treasurer, who wrote on

April 27th: " ... At 4 leagues' distance from here rich gold deposits

have been found in certain rivers and streams. From Reyes (December

4th) to March 15th, with very few Indians, 25,000 pesos have been

taken out. It is expected that the output this season will be 100,000

pesos."

The streams in the neighborhood of San German, on the south coast, the

only other settlement in the island at the time, seem to have been

equally rich. The year after its foundation by Miguel del Toro the

settlers were able to smelt and deliver 6,147 pesos to the royal

treasurer. The next year the king's share amounted to 7,508 pesos, and

Treasurer Haro reported that the same operation for the years 1517 and

1518 had produced $186,000 in all--that is, 3,740 for the treasury.

A good idea of the island's mineral and other resources at this period

may be formed from Treasurer Haro's extensive report to the

authorities in Madrid, dated January 21, 1518.

" ... Your Highness's revenues," he says, "are: one-fifth of the gold

extracted and of the pearls brought by those who go (to the coast of

Venezuela) to purchase them, the salt produce and the duties on

imports and exports. Every one of the three smeltings that are

practised here every two years produces about 250,000 pesos, in San

German about 186,000 pesos. But the amounts fluctuate.

"The product of pearls is uncertain. Since the advent of the Jerome

fathers the business has been suspended until the arrival of your

Highness. Two caravels have gone now, but few will go, because the

fathers say that the traffic in Indians is to cease and the greatest

profit is in that ... On your Highness's estates there are 400 Indians

who wash gold, work in the fields, build houses, etc.; ... they

produce from 1,500 to 2,000 pesos profit every gang (demora).... I

send in this ship, with Juan Viscaino, 8,000 pesos and 40 marks of

pearls. There remain in my possession 17,000 pesos and 70 marks of

pearls, which shall be sent by the next ship in obedience to your

Highness's orders, not to send more than 10,000 pesos at a time. The

pearls that go now are worth that amount. Until the present we sent

only 5,000 pesos' worth of pearls at one time."

The yearly output of gold fluctuated, but it continued steadily, as

Velasquez wrote to the emperor in 1521, when he made a remittance of

5,000 pesos. Six or seven years later, the placers, for such they

were, were becoming exhausted. Castellanos, the treasurer, wrote in

1518 that only 429 pesos had been received as the king's share of the

last two years' smelting. Some new deposit was discovered in the river

Daguáo, but it does not seem to have been of much importance. From the

year 1530 the reports of the crown officers are full of complaints of

the growing scarcity of gold; finally, in 1536, the last remittance

was made; not, it may be safely assumed, because there was no more

gold in the island, but because those who had labored and suffered in

its production, had succumbed to the unaccustomed hardships imposed on

them and to the cruel treatment received from their sordid masters.

Besides the river mentioned, the majority of those which have their

sources in the mountains of Luquillo are more or less auriferous.

These are: the Rio Prieto, the Fajardo, the Espíritu Santo, the Rio

Grande, and, especially, the Mameyes. The river Loiza also contains

gold, but, judging from the traces of diggings still here and there

visible along the beds of the Mavilla, the Sibúco, the Congo, the Rio

Negro, and Carozal, in the north, it would seem that these rivers and

their affluents produced the coveted metal in largest quantities. The

Duey, the Yauco, and the Oromico, or Hormigueros, on the south coast

are supposed to be auriferous also, but do not seem to have been

worked.

The metal was and is still found in seed-shaped grains, sometimes of

the weight of 2 or 3 pesos. Tradition speaks of a nugget found in the

Fajardo river weighing 4 ounces, and of another found in an affluent

of the Congo of 1 pound in weight.

_Silver_.--In 1538 the crown officers in San Juan wrote to the Home

Government: " ... The gold is diminishing. Several veins of lead ore

have been discovered, from which some silver has been extracted. The

search would continue if the concession to work these veins were given

for ten years, with 1.20 or 1.15 royalty." On March 29th of the

following year the same officers reported: " ... Respecting the silver

ores discovered, we have smolten some, but no one here knows how to

do it. Veins of this ore have been discovered in many parts of the

island, but nobody works them. We are waiting for some one to come who

knows how to smelt them."

The following extract from the memoirs and documents left by Juan

Bautista Muñoz, gives the value in "gold pesos"[84] of the bullion and

pearls, corresponding to the king's one-fifth share of the total

produce remitted to Spain from this island from the year 1509 to 1536:

In 1509, gold pesos 8,975

1510, " 2,645

1511, " 10,000

1512, " 3,043

1513, " 27,291

1514, " 18,000

1515, " 17,000

1516, " 11,490

1517-18, " 38,497

1519, " 10,000

1520, " 35,733

In 1521, " 10,000

1522, " 7,979

1523-29, " 40,000

1530, " 12,440

1531, " 6,500

1532, " 9,000

1533, " 4,000

1534, " 8,500

1535, " 1,848

1536, " 10,000

______

Total, 15 share 277,941

The entire output for this period was 1,389,705 gold pesos, or

$4,169,115 Spanish coin of to-day, as the total produce in gold and

pearls of the island of San Juan de Puerto Rico during the first

twenty-seven years of its occupation by the Spaniards.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 84: Washington Irving estimates the value of the "gold peso"

of the sixteenth century at $3 Spanish money of our day.]

CHAPTER XLI

WEST INDIAN HURRICANES IN PUERTO RICO FROM

1515 TO 1899

Whoever has witnessed the awful magnificence of what the primitive

inhabitants of the West Indian islands called _ou-ra-cán,_ will never

forget the sense of his own utter nothingness and absolute

helplessness. With the wind rushing at the rate of 65 or more miles an

hour, amid the roar of waves lashed into furious rolling mountains of

water, the incessant flash of lightning, the dreadful roll of thunder,

the fierce beating of rain, one sees giant trees torn up by the roots

and man's proud constructions of stone and iron broken and scattered

like children's toys.

The tropical latitudes to the east and north of the West Indian

Archipelago are the birthplace of these phenomena. According to Mr.

Redfield[85] they cover simultaneously an extent of surface from 100

to 500 miles in diameter, acting with diminished violence toward the

circumference and with increased energy toward the center of this

space.

In the Weather Bureau's bulletin cited, there is a description of the

most remarkable and destructive among the 355 hurricanes that have

swept over the West Indies from 1492 to 1899. Not a single island has

escaped the tempest's ravages. I have endeavored in vain to make an

approximate computation of the human life and property destroyed by

these visitations of Providence. Such a computation is impossible when

we read of entire towns destroyed not once but 6, 8, and 10 times; of

crops swept away by the tempest's fury, and the subsequent starvation

of untold thousands; of whole fleets of ships swallowed up by the sea

with every soul on board, and of hundreds of others cast on shore like

coco shards.

To give an idea of the appalling disasters caused by these too oft

recurring phenomena, the above-mentioned bulletin gives Flammarion's

description of the great hurricane of 1780.[86]

"The most terrible cyclone of modern times is probably that which

occurred on October 10, 1780, which has been specially called the

great hurricane, and which seems to have embodied all the horrible

scenes that attend a phenomenon of this kind. Starting from Barbados,

where trees and houses were all blown down, it engulfed an English

fleet anchored before St. Lucia, and then ravaged the whole of that

island, where 6,000 persons were buried beneath the ruins. From thence

it traveled to Martinique, overtook a French transport fleet and sunk

40 ships conveying 4,000 soldiers. The vessels _disappeared_."

Such is the laconic language in which the governor reported the

disaster. Farther north, Santo Domingo, St. Vincent, St. Eustatius,

and Puerto Rico were devastated, and most of the vessels that were

sailing in the track of the cyclone were lost with all on board.

Beyond Puerto Rico the tempest turned northeast toward Bermuda, and

though its violence gradually decreased, it nevertheless sunk several

English vessels. This hurricane was quite as destructive inland. Nine

thousand persons perished in Martinique, and 1,000 in St. Pierre,

where not a single house was left standing, for the sea rose to a

height of 25 feet, and 150 houses that were built along the shore were

engulfed. At Port Royal the cathedral, 7 churches, and 1,400 houses

were blown down; 1,600 sick and wounded were buried beneath the ruins

of the hospital. At St. Eustatius, 7 vessels were dashed to pieces on

the rocks, and of the 19 which lifted their anchors and went out to

sea, only 1 returned. At St. Lucia the strongest buildings were torn

up from their foundations, a cannon was hurled a distance of more than

30 yards, and men as well as animals were lifted off their feet and

carried several yards. The sea rose so high that it destroyed the fort

and drove a vessel against the hospital with such force as to stave in

the walls of that building. Of the 600 houses at Kingston, on the

island of St. Vincent, 14 alone remained intact, and the French

frigate Junon was lost. Alarming consequences were feared from the

number of dead bodies which lay uninterred, and the quantity of fish

the sea threw up, but these alarms soon subsided...."

"The aboriginal inhabitants," says Abbad, "foresaw these catastrophes

two or three days in advance. They were sure of their approach when

they perceived a hazy atmosphere, the red aspect of the sun, a dull,

rumbling, subterranean sound, the stars shining through a kind of mist

which made them look larger, the nor'west horizon heavily clouded, a

strong-smelling emanation from the sea, a heavy swell with calm

weather, and sudden changes of the wind from east to west." The

Spanish settlers also learned to foretell the approach of a hurricane

by the sulphurous exhalations of the earth, but especially by the

incessant neighing of horses, bellowing of cattle, and general

restlessness of these animals, who seem to acquire a presentiment of

the coming danger.

"The physical features of hurricanes are well understood. The approach

of a hurricane is usually indicated by a long swell on the ocean,

propagated to great distances, and forewarning the observer by two or

three days. A faint rise in the barometer occurs before the gradual

fall, which becomes very pronounced at the center. Fine wisps of

cirrus-clouds are first seen, which surround the center to a distance

of 200 miles; the air is calm and sultry, but this is gradually

supplanted by a gentle breeze, and later the wind increases to a gale,

the clouds become matted, the sea rough, rain falls, and the winds are

gusty and dangerous as the vortex comes on. Then comes the

indescribable tempest, dealing destruction, impressing the imagination

with the wild exhibition of the forces of nature, the flashes of

lightning, the torrents of rain, the cold air, all the elements in an

uproar, which indicate the close approach of the center. In the midst

of this turmoil there is a sudden pause, the winds almost cease, the

sky clears, the waves, however, rage in great turbulence. This is the

eye of the storm, the core of the vortex, and it is, perhaps, 20 miles

in diameter, or one-thirtieth of the whole hurricane. The respite is

brief, and is soon followed by the abrupt renewal of the violent wind

and rain, but now coming from the opposite direction, and the storm

passes off with the several features following each other in the

reverse order." [87]

The distribution over the months of the year of the 355 West Indian

hurricanes which occurred during the four hundred and six years

elapsed since the discovery, to the last on the list, is as follows:

Months. No of hurricanes.

January 5

February 7

March 11

April 6

May 5

June 10

July 42

August 96

September 80

October 69

November 17

December 7

355

Puerto Rico has been devastated by hurricanes more than 20 times since

its occupation by the Spaniards. But the records, beyond the mere

statement of the facts, are very incomplete. Four stand out

prominently as having committed terrible ravages. These are the

hurricanes of Santa Ana, on July 26, 1825; Los Angeles, on

August 2,1837; San Narciso, on October 29, 1867, and San Ciriaco,

on August 8, 1899.

The first mention of the occurrence of a hurricane in this island we

find in a letter from the crown officers to the king, dated August 8,

1515, wherein they explain: " ... In these last smeltings there was

little gold, because many Indians died in consequence of sickness

caused by the tempest as well as from want of food ..."

The next we read of was October 8, 1526, and is thus described by

licentiate Juan de Vadillo:

"On the night of the 4th of October last there broke over this island

such a violent storm of wind and rain, which the natives call

'_ou-ra-cán'_ that it destroyed the greater part of this city (San

Juan) with the church. In the country it caused such damage by the

overflow of rivers that many rich men have been made poor."

On September 8, 1530, Governor Francisco Manuel de Lando reported to

the king: "During the last six weeks there have been three storms of

wind and rain in this island (July 26, August 23 and 31). They have

destroyed all the plantations, drowned many cattle, and caused much

hunger and misery in the land. In this city the half of the houses

were entirely destroyed, and of the other half the least injured is

without a roof. In the country and in the mines nothing has remained

standing. Everybody is ruined and thinking of going away."

_1537_.--July and August. The town officers wrote to the king in

September: "In the last two months we have had three storms of wind

and rain, the greatest that have been seen in this island, and as the

plantations are along the banks of the rivers the floods have

destroyed them all. Many slaves and cattle have been drowned, and this

has caused much discouragement among the settlers, who before were

inclined to go away, and are now more so."

_1575_.--September 21 (San Mateo), hurricane mentioned in the memoirs

of Father Torres Vargas.

_1614_.--September 12, mentioned by the same chronicler in the

following words: "Fray Pedro de Solier came to his bishopric in the

year 1615, the same in which a great tempest occurred, after more than

forty years since the one called of San Mateo. This one happened on

the 12th of September. It did so much damage to the cathedral that it

was necessary partly to cover it with straw and write to his Majesty

asking for a donation to repair it. With his accustomed generosity he

gave 4,000 ducats."

_1678_.--Abbad states that a certain Count or Duke Estren, an English

commander, with a fleet of 22 ships and a body of landing troops

appeared before San Juan and demanded its surrender, but that, before

the English had time to land, a violent hurricane occurred which

stranded every one of the British ships on Bird Island. Most of the

people on board perished, and the few who saved their lives were made

prisoners of war.

_1740_.--Precise date unknown. Monsieur Moreau de Jonnès, in his

work,[88] says that this hurricane destroyed a coco-palm grove of 5 or

6 leagues in extent, which existed near Ponce. Other writers confirm

this.

_1772, August 28_.--Friar Iñigo Abbad, who was in the island at the

time, gives the following description of this tempest: "About a

quarter to eleven of the night of the 28th of August the storm began

to be felt in the capital of the island. A dull but continuous roll of

thunder filled the celestial hemisphere, the sound as of approaching

torrents of rain, the frightful sight of incessant lightning, and a

slow quaking of the earth accompanied the furious wind. The tearing up

of trees, the lifting of roofs, smashing of windows, and leveling of

everything added terror-striking noises to the scene. The tempest

raged with the same fury in the capital till after one o'clock in the

morning. In other parts of the island it began about the same hour,

but without any serious effect till later. In Aguáda, where I was at

the time, nothing was felt till half-past two in the morning. It blew

violently till a quarter to four, and the wind continued, growing less

strong, till noon. During this time the wind came from all points of

the compass, and the storm visited every part of the island, causing

more damage in some places than others, according to their degree of

exposure."

_1780, June 13, and 1788, August 16._--No details of these two

hurricanes are found in any of the Puerto Rican chronicles.

_1804, September 4._--A great cyclone, a detailed description of

which is given in the work of Mr. Jonnés.

_1818 and 1814_--Both hurricanes happened on the same date, that

is, the 23d of July. Yauco and San German suffered most. A description

of the effects of these storms was given in the Dario Económico of the

11th of August, 1814.

_1819, September 21_.--(San Mateo.) This cyclone is mentioned by

Jonnés and by Córdova, who says that it caused extraordinary damages

on the plantations.

_1825, July 26_.--(Santa Ana.) Córdova (vol. ii, p. 21 of his Memoirs)

says of this hurricane: "It destroyed the towns of Patillas, Maunabó,

Yabucóa, Humacáo, Gurabó, and Cáguas. In the north, east, and center

of the island it caused great damage. More than three hundred people

and a large number of cattle perished; 500 persons were badly wounded.

The rivers rose to an unheard of extent, and scarcely a house remained

standing. In the capital part of the San Antonio bridge was blown

down, and the city wall facing the Marina on Tanca Creek was cracked.

The royal Fortaleza (the present Executive Mansion) suffered much,

also the house of Ponce. The lightning-conductors of the

powder-magazine were blown down."

_1837, August 2_.--(Los Angeles.) This cyclone was general over the

island and caused exceedingly grave losses of life and property. All

the ships in the harbor of San Juan were lost.

_1840, September 16_.--No details.

_1851, August 18_.--No details, except that this hurricane caused

considerable damage.

_1867, October 29_.--(San Narciso.) No details.

[Illustration: Casa Blanca and the sea wall, San Juan.]

_1871, August 23_.--(San Felipe.) No details. _1899, August

8_.--(San Ciriaco.) When this hurricane occurred there was a

meteorological station in operation in San Juan, and we are therefore

enabled to present the following data from Mr. Geddings's report: "The

rainfall was excessive, as much as 23 inches falling at Adjuntas

during the course of twenty-four hours. This caused severe inundations

of rivers, and the deaths from drowning numbered 2,569 as compared

with 800 killed by injuries received from the effects of the wind.

This number does not include the thousands who have since died from

starvation. The total loss of property was 35,889,013 pesos."

The United States Government and people promptly came to the

assistance of the starving population, and something like 32,000,000

rations were distributed by the army during the ten months succeeding

the hurricane.

* * * * *

Such are the calamities that are suspended over the heads of the

inhabitants of the West Indian Islands. From July to October, at any

moment, the sapphire skies may turn black with thunder-clouds; the

Eden-like landscapes turned into scenes of ruin and desolation; the

rippling ocean that lovingly laves their shores becomes a roaring

monster trying to swallow them. The refreshing breezes that fan them

become a destructive blast. Yet, such is the fecundity of nature in

these regions that a year after a tempest has swept over an island, if

the debris be removed, not a trace of its passage is visible--the

fields are as green as ever, the earth, the trees, and plants that

were spared by the tempest double their productive powers as if to

indemnify the afflicted inhabitants for the losses they suffered.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 85: See Bulletin H, Weather Bureau, West Indian Hurricanes,

by E.B. Garriott, Washington, 1900.]

[Footnote 86: L'Atmosphère, p. 377 and following.]

[Footnote 87: Enrique del Monte, Havana University, On the Climate of

the West Indies and West Indian Hurricanes.]

[Footnote 88: Histoire physique des Antilles Françaises.]

CHAPTER XLII

THE CARIBS

The origin of the Caribs, their supposed cannibalism and other customs

have occasioned much controversy among West Indian chroniclers. The

first question is undecided, and probably will remain so forever. With

regard to cannibalism, in spite of the confirmative assurances of the

early Spanish chroniclers, we have the testimony of eminent

authorities to the contrary; and the writings of Jesuit missionaries

who have lived many years among the Caribs give us a not unfavorable

idea of their character and social institutions.

The first European who became intimately acquainted with the people of

the West Indian Islands, on the return from his first voyage, wrote to

the Spanish princes: " ... In all these islands I did not observe much

difference in the faces and figures of the inhabitants, nor in their

customs, nor in their language, seeing that they all understand each

other, which is very singular." On the other hand the readiness with

which the inhabitants of Aye-Aye and the other Carib islands gave

asylum to the fugitive Boriquén Indians and joined them in their

retaliatory expeditions, also points to the existence of some bond of

kinship between them, so that there is ground for the opinion

entertained by some writers that all the inhabitants of all the

Antilles were of the race designated under the generic name of Caribs.

The theory generally accepted at first was, that at the time of the

discovery two races of different origin occupied the West Indian

Archipelago. The larger Antilles with the groups of small islands to

the north of them were supposed to be inhabited by a race named

Guaycures, driven from the peninsula of Florida by the warlike

Seminoles; the Guaycures, it is said, could easily have reached the

Bahamas and traversed the short distance that separated them from Cuba

in their canoes, some of which could contain 100 men, and once there

they would naturally spread over the neighboring islands. It is

surmised that they occupied them at the time of the advent of the

Phoenicians in this hemisphere, and Dr. Calixto Romero, in an

interesting article on Lucúo, the god of the Boriquéns,[89] mentions a

tradition referring to the arrival of these ancient navigators, and

traces some of the Boriquén religious customs to them. The Guaycures

were a peacefully disposed race, hospitable, indolent, fond of dancing

and singing, by means of which they transmitted their legends from

generation to generation. They fell an easy prey to the Spaniards.

Velasquez conquered Cuba without the loss of a man. Juan Esquivél made

himself master of Jamaica with scarcely any sacrifice, and if the

aborigines of the Española and Boriquén resisted, it was only after

patiently enduring insupportable oppression for several years.

The other race which inhabited the Antilles were said to have come

from the south. They were supposed to have descended the Orinoco,

spreading along the shore of the continent to the west of the river's

mouths and thence to have invaded one after the other all the lesser

Antilles. They were in a fair way of occupying the larger Antilles

also when the discoveries of Columbus checked their career.

In support of the theory of the south-continental origin of the Caribs

we have, in the first place, the work of Mr. Aristides Rojas on

Venezuelan hieroglyphics, wherein he treats of numerous Carib

characters on the rocks along the plains and rivers of that republic,

marking their itinerary from east to west. He states that the

Acháguas, the aboriginals of Columbia, gave to these wanderers, on

account of their ferocity, the name of Chabi-Nabi, that is, tiger-men

or descendants of tigers.

In the classification of native tribes in Codazzi's geography of

Venezuela, he includes the Caribs, and describes them as "a very

numerous race, enterprising and warlike, which in former times

exercised great influence over the whole territory extending from

Ecuador to the Antilles. They were the tallest and most robust Indians

known on the continent; they traded in slaves, and though they were

cruel and ferocious in their incursions, they were not cannibals like

their kinsmen of the lesser Antilles, who were so addicted to the

custom of eating their prisoners that the names of cannibal and Carib

had become synonymous." [90]

Another theory of the origin of the Caribs is that advanced by M.

d'Orbigny, who, after eight years of travel over the South American

continent, published the result of his researches in Paris in 1834. He

considers them to be a branch of the great Guaraní family. And the

Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Raymond and Dutertre, who lived many

years among the Antillean Caribs, concluded from their traditions that

they were descended from a people on the continent named Galibis, who,

according to M. d'Orbigny, were a branch of the Guaranís.

But the Guaranís, though a very wide-spread family of South American

aborigines, were neither a conquering nor a wandering race. They

occupied that part of the continent situated between the rivers

Paraguay and Paraná, from where these two rivers join the river Plate,

northward, to about latitude 22° south. This region was the home of

the Guaranís, a people indolent, sensual, and peaceful, among whom the

Jesuits, in the eighteenth century founded a religious republic, which

toward the end of that period counted 33 towns with a total population

of over one hundred thousand souls. A glance at the map will show the

improbability of any Indian tribe, no matter how warlike, making its

way from the heart of the continent to the Orinoco through 30° of

primitive forests, mountains, and rivers, inhabited by hostile

tribes.[91]

The French missionaries who lived many years with the Caribs of

Guadeloupe and the other French possessions, do not agree on the

subject of their origin. Fathers Dutertre and Raymond believe them to

be the descendants of the Galibis, a people inhabiting Guiana. Fathers

Rochefort, Labat, and Bristol maintain that they are descended from

the Apalaches who inhabited the northern part of Florida. Humboldt is

of the same opinion, and suggests that the name Carib may be derived

from Calina or Caripuna through transformation of the letters _l_ and

_p_ into _r_ and _b_, forming Caribi or Galibi.[92] Pedro Martyr

strongly opposes this opinion, the principal objection to which is

that a tribe from the North American continent invading the West

Indies by way of Florida would naturally occupy the larger Antilles

before traveling east and southward. Under this hypothesis, as we have

said, all the inhabitants of the Antilles would be Caribs, but in that

case the difference in the character of the inhabitants of the two

divisions of the archipelago would have to be accounted for.

Most of the evidence we have been able to collect on this subject

points to a south-continental origin of the Caribs. On the maps of

America, published in 1587 by Abraham Ortellus, of Antwerp, in 1626 by

John Speed, of London, and in 1656 by Sanson d'Abbeville in Paris, the

whole region to the north of the Orinoco is marked Caribana. In the

history of the Dutch occupation of Guiana we read that hostile Caribs

occupied a shelter[93] constructed in 1684 by the governor on the

borders of the Barima, which shows that the vast region along the

Orinoco and its tributaries, as well as the lesser Antilles, was

inhabited by an ethnologically identical race.

* * * * *

Were the Caribs cannibals? This question has been controverted as much

as that of their origin, and with the same doubtful result.

The only testimony upon which the assumption that the Caribs were

cannibals is founded is that of the companions of Columbus on his

second voyage, when, landing at Guadeloupe, they found human bones and

skulls in the deserted huts. No other evidence of cannibalism of a

positive character was ever after obtained, so that the belief in it

rests exclusively upon Chanca's narrative of what the Spaniards saw

and learned during the few days of their stay among the islands. Their

imagination could not but be much excited by the sight of what the

doctor describes as "infinite quantities" of bones of human

creatures, who, they took for granted, had been devoured, and of

skulls hanging on the walls by way of receptacles for curios. It was

the age of universal credulity, and for more than a century after the

most absurd tales with regard to the people and things of the

mysterious new continent found ready credence even among men of

science. Columbus, in his letter to Santangel (February, 1493),

describing the different islands and people, wrote: "I have not yet

seen any of the human monsters that are supposed to exist here." The

descriptions of the customs of the natives of the newly discovered

islands which Dr. Chanca sent to the town council of Seville were

unquestioned by them, and afterward by the Spanish chroniclers; but

there is reason to believe with Mr. Ignacio Armas, an erudite Cuban

author, who published a paper in 1884 entitled the Fable of the

Caribs, that the belief in their cannibalism originated in an error of

judgment, was an illusion afterward, and ended by being a

calumny[97]. Father Bartolomé de las Casas was the first to contradict

this belief. "They [the Spaniards] saw skulls," he says, "and human

bones. These must have been of chiefs or other persons whom they held

in esteem, because, to say that they were the remains of people who

had been eaten, if the natives devoured as many as was supposed, the

houses could not contain the bones, and there is no reason why, after

eating them, they should preserve the relics. All this is but

guesswork." Washington Irving agrees with the reverend historian, and

describes the general belief in the cannibalism of the Caribs to the

Spaniards' fear of them. Two eminent authorities positively deny it.

Humboldt, in his before-cited work, in the chapter on Carib missions,

says: "All the missionaries of the Carony, of the lower Orinoco, and

of the plains of Cari, whom we have had occasion to consult, have

assured us that the Caribs were perhaps the least anthropophagous of

any tribes on the new continent, ..." and Sir Robert Schomburgh, who

was charged by the Royal Geographical Society with the survey of

Guiana in 1835, reported that among the Caribs he found peace and

contentment, simple family affections, and frank gratitude for

kindness shown.[94]

* * * * *

The narratives of the French, English, and Dutch conquerors of the

Guianas and the lesser Antilles accord with the observations of

Humboldt in describing the Caribs as an ambitious and intelligent

race, among whom there still existed traces of a superior social

organization, such as the hereditary power of chiefs, respect for the

priestly caste, and attachment to ancient customs. Employed only in

fishing and hunting, the Carib was accustomed to the use of arms from

childhood; war was the principal object of his existence, and the

proofs through which the young warrior had to pass before being

admitted to the ranks of the braves, remind us of the customs of

certain North American Indians.

They were of a light yellow color with a sooty tint, small, black

eyes, white and well-formed teeth, straight, shining, black hair,

without a beard or hair on any other part of their bodies. The

expression of their face was sad, like that of all savage tribes in

tropical regions. They were of middle size, but strong and vigorous.

To protect their bodies from the stings of insects they anointed them

with the juice or oil of certain plants. They were polygamous. From

their women they exacted the most absolute submission. The females did

all the domestic labor, and were not permitted to eat in the presence

of the men. In case of infidelity the husband had the right to kill

his wife. Each family formed a village by itself (carbet) where the

oldest member ruled.

Their industry, besides the manufacture of their arms and canoes, was

limited to the spinning and dyeing of cotton goods, notably their

hammocks, and the making of pottery for domestic uses. Though

possessing no temples, nor religious observances, they recognized two

principles or spirits, the spirit of good (boyee) and the spirit of

evil (maboya). The priests invoked the first or drove out the second

as occasion required. Each individual had his good spirit.

Their language resembled in sound the Italian, the words being

sonorous, terminating in vowels. By the end of the eighteenth century

the missionaries had made vocabularies of 50 Carib dialects, and the

Bible had been translated into one of them, the Arawak. A remarkable

custom was the use of two distinct languages, one by the males,

another by the females. Tradition says that when the Caribs first

invaded the Antilles they put to death all the males but spared the

females. The women continued speaking their own tongue and taught it

to their daughters, but the sons learned their fathers' language. In

time, both males and females learned both languages.

"It is true," says the Jesuit Father Rochefort, in his Histoire des

Antilles, "that the Caribs have degenerated from the virtues of their

ancestors, but it is also true that the Europeans, by their pernicious

examples, their ill-treatment of them, their villainous deceit, their

dastardly breaking of every promise, their pitiless plundering and

burning of their villages, their beastly violation of their girls and

women, have taught them, to the eternal infamy of the name of

Christian, to lie, to betray, to be licentious, and other vices which

they knew not before they came in contact with us."

Father Dutertre declares that at the time of the arrival of the

Europeans the Caribs were contented, happy, and sociable. Physically

they were the best made and healthiest people of America. Theft was

unknown to them, nothing was hidden; their huts had neither doors nor

windows, and when, after the advent of the French, a Carib missed

anything in his hut, he used to say: "A Christian has been here!"

Dutertre says that in thirty-five years all the French missionaries

together, by taking the greatest pains, had not been able to convert

20 adults. Those who were thought to have embraced Christianity

returned to their practises as soon as they rejoined their fellows.

"The reason for this want of success," says the father, "is the bad

impression produced on the minds of these intelligent natives by the

cruelties and immoralities of the Christians, which are more barbarous

than those of the islanders themselves. They have inspired the Caribs

with such a horror of Christianity that the greatest reproach they can

think of for an enemy is to call him a Christian."

The reason the Spaniards never attempted the conquest of the Caribs is

clear. There was no gold in their islands. They defended their homes

foot by foot, and if, by chance, they were taken prisoners, they

preferred suicide to slavery. Toward the end of the eighteenth century

there still existed a few hundred of the race in the island of St.

Vincent. They were known as the black Caribs, because they were

largely mixed with fugitive negro slaves from other islands and with

the people of a slave-ship wrecked on their coast in 1685. They lived

there tranquil and isolated till 1795, when the island was settled by

French colonists, and they were finally absorbed by them. They were

the last representatives in the Antilles of a race which, during five

centuries, had ruled both on land and sea. On the continent, along the

Esequibo and its affluents, they are numerous still; but in their

contact with the European settlers in those regions they have lost

the strength and the virtues of their former state without acquiring

those of the higher civilization. Like all aboriginals under similar

conditions, they are slowly disappearing.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 89: Revista Puertoriqueña, Tomo I, Año I, 1887.]

[Footnote 90: The word "cannibal" is but a corruption of guaribó, is,

"brave or strong," changed into Caribó, Caríba, and finally that

Carib. The name Galibi, also applied to the Caribs, means equally

strong or brave.]

[Footnote 91: The author visited this region and sketched some of the

ruins of these Jesuit-Guarani missions, of which scarcely one stone

has remained on the other. They were destroyed by the Brazilians after

the suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV in 1773;

the defenseless Indians were cruelly butchered or carried off as

slaves. The sculptured remains of temples, of gardens and orchards

grown into jungles still attest the high degree of development

attained by these missions under the guidance of the Jesuit fathers.]

[Footnote 92: Voyage aux Regions Equinoctiales du Nouveau Continent,

Paris, 1826.]

[Footnote 93: "Kleyn pleysterhuisye," small plaster house.]

[Footnote 94: As an example of the credulity of the people of the

period, see Theodore Bry's work in the library of Congress in

Washington, in which there is a map of Guiana, published in Frankfort

in 1599. On it are depicted with short descriptions the lake of Parmié

and the city of Manáo, which represent El Dorado, in search of which

hundreds of Spaniards and thousands of Indians lost their lives. There

is a picture of one of the Amazons, with a short notice of their

habits and customs, and there is the portrait of one of the

inhabitants of the country Twai-Panoma, who were born without heads,

but had eyes, nose, and mouth conveniently located in their breast.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY The history of Puerto Rico has long since been a

subject of study and research by native writers and others, to whose

works we owe many of the data contained in this book. Their names, in

alphabetical order, are:

ABBAD, FRAY IÑIGO.--Historia geográfica, civil y natural de San Juan

Bautista de Puerto Rico. Madrid, 1788.

AGOSTA, D. JOSÉ JULIÁN.--New edition of Abbad's history, with notes

and commentaries. Puerto Rico, 1866.

BRAU, D. SALVADOR.--Puerto Rico y su historia. (Critical

investigations.)Valencia, 1894.

CEDÓ, D. SANTIAGO.--Compendio de geografía para instrucción de la

juventud portoriqueña. Mayaguez, 1855.

COELLO, D. FRANCISCO.--Mapa de la isla de Puerto Rico, ilustrado con

notas históricas y estadísticas escritas por Don Pascual Madoz.

Madrid, 1851.

COLL Y TOSTE, D. CAYETANO.--Colón en Puerto Rico. (Disquisiciones

histórico-filológicas.) Puerto Rico, 1894. Repertorio histórico de

Puerto Rico. A monthly publication.

CÓRDOVA, D. PEDRO TOMÁS.--Memorias geográficas, históricas, económicas

y estadísticas de la isla de Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, 1830. Memoria

sobre todos los ramos de la administración de la isla de Puerto Rico.

Madrid, 1838.

CORTÓN, D. ANTONIO.--La separación de mandos en Puerto Rico. Discurso

escrito y comenzado á leer ante la Comisión del Congreso de los

Diputados. Habana, 1890.

FLINTER, COLONEL.--An Account of the Present State of the Island of

Puerto Rico. London, 1834.

JIMENO AGIUS, J.--Puerto Rico. Madrid, 1890. LEDRU, ANDRÉ

PIERRE.--Voyage aux iles Ténériffe, la Trinité, St. Thomas, Ste. Croix

et Porto Rico, avec des notes et des additions par Sonnini, Paris,

1810. (A work full of fantastic and imaginary data, without any

historical value.)

MELENDEZ Y BRUNA, D. SALVADOR.--Puerto Rico. Representation of the

Governor of the Island to the King. Cadiz, 1811.

NAZARIO, D. JOSÉ MARÍA.--Guayanilla y la historia de Puerto Rico.

Ponce, 1893.

PÉREZ MORIS, D. JOSÉ, Y CUETO, D. LUIS.--Historia de la insurrección

de Lares.

SAMA, D. MANUEL MARÍA.--El desembarco de Colón en Puerto Rico y el

Monumento de Culebrinas, Mayaguez, 1895.

STAHL, D. AGUSTIN.--Los Indios Borinqueños. Puerto Rico, 1887.

TAPIA, D. ALEJANDRO.--Biblioteca histórica de Puerto Rico. Puerto

Rico, 1854.

TORRES, D. LUIS LLORENS.--América. Estudios históricos y filológicos.

Madrid y Barcelona, 1897.

UBEDA Y DELGADO, D. MANUEL.--Isla de Puerto Rico, Estudio

histórico-geográfico. Puerto Rico, 1878.

VIZCARRONDO, D. JULIO.--Elementos de historia y geografía de la isla

de Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, 1863.

There are other writings on subjects connected with the island's

history by native authors, some published in book or pamphlet form,

others, like those of Zeno Gandía, Neumann, Dr. Dominguez, and

Navarrete, have appeared in the columns of periodicals at different

times before the American occupation of the island.

INDEX

Abbad, Friar Iñigo, his history of

Puerto Rico; cited; on

state of agriculture in 1776.

Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, attacks San

Juan.

Aborigines, see Indians.

Agriculture, inhabitants of Puerto

Rico forced to turn to;

condition of, in 1776.

Aguáda, its history.

Albemarle, Earl of, captures

Havana.

Alexander VI, Pope, divides the

world between Spain and

Portugal.

American army, landing of;

recognized as liberators,; also

see preface v.

Americans, interest of, in the

insurrection of Lares, 1868.

Antigua, discovery of.

Arecibo, town of.

Armada, effects of destruction of.

Autonomy granted to Puerto Rico.

Bastidas, Bishop Rodrigo, charged

with liberating Indian slaves in

Puerto Rico.

Beet-sugar, its injurious

competition with cane-sugar, 228.

Bemini (Florida), island of, King

Ferdinand wants Ponce to explore

it, 59; Indian reports of, 60;

discovery of, 61.

Blake, English admiral, captures

Spanish galleons, 136.

Blasquez, Juan, judge-auditor of

Puerto Rico, 102.

Boabdil, last of the Moorish kings.

Boriquén, first known name of

Puerto Rico; seat of Guaybána; Boriqueños

restless; revolt in; last of the Boriquén

Indians; the republic of, proclaimed; falls;

native inhabitants of.

Bowdoin, Hendrick, commands

Dutch fleet in attack on San Juan.

Brau, his history of Puerto Rico quoted.

Bruckman, an American, takes

active part in insurrection;

shot.

Buccaneers, their origin.

Cacáo.

Cannibals, supposed to be found among

the Caribs.

Capárra, first settlement of Spaniards

in Puerto Rico; capital transferred

from, to San Juan; the old capital.

Capital, transferred from Capárra to Sun Juan.

Caribs, supposed by Columbus to be

on Guadeloupe; annoy Spaniards in Puerto

Rico; assist the Boriquén Indians; raids in

Puerto Rico; in Dominica punished by the

Spaniards; in the Windward Islands; their

extermination of aborigines of the West

Indies; origin of; characteristics; were they

cannibals?; disappearing.

Castellano y Villaroya, Spanish Colonial

Minister, intercedes in behalf of Puerto

Rico.

Castellanos, Juan, brings 75 colonists

to Puerto Rico; attorney for Puerto

Rico at the court of Spain.

Castellanos, Juan de, treasurer of Puerto Rico.

Castro, Baltazar, reports depredations of Caribs.

Ceron, Juan, Governor of Puerto Rico;

arrested by Juan Ponce;

restored to office;

returns to Puerto Rico as governor.

Cervantes de Loayza, governor.

Charles V, King of Spain;

quarrels with Francis I of France;

orders the fortification of San German.

Cholera, epidemic of.

Church, in general.

Cities, growth of.

Clergy;

the island made a diocese;

Alonzo Manso, first prelate;

decree of Isabel II affecting clergy.

Coco-palm introduced.

Coffee.

Columbus, Christopher, returns from his first

voyage; received by the court at Barcelona;

second expedition organized; his second

expedition sails from Cadiz; discovers the

Windward Islands; introduces system of

enslaving the Indians by "distribution" of

them among settlers.

Columbus, Diego, with Christopher

Columbus's second expedition; viceroy and

admiral, in la Española; deposes Ponce;

authority of, suspended; deprived of the

power of appointing Governor of Puerto Rico.

Commerce, its development; imports

and exports.

Cortéz, his conquest of Mexico.

Cromwell, his alliance with France

against Spain.

Cuba, influence of Cuban revolution on

Puerto Rico; reforms in, suggested by

Sagasta.

De la Gama, Antonio, charged with executing

the royal decree against the "distribution" of Indians.

Diaz, Bernal, de Pisa, with Columbus's

second expedition.

Diego, Rafael, organizer of the revolution

of 1812.

Distribution of Indians among the Spanish

conquerors as slaves;

system introduced by Columbus.

Dominica, discovery of;

Caribs in, aid Puerto Rico Indians against

the Spaniards; Spanish expedition against

Caribs in.

Dominicans, order of.

Drake, Francis, his expeditions in the

Caribbean.

Education;

illiteracy and general ignorance; in hands of

clergy; new interest in; first college;

schools.

Elective system.

England contracts to take slaves into

the Spanish-American colonies.

English, ship visits Puerto Rico and

alarms inhabitants; war with, fleet sent

against Spaniards in West Indies; fleet

anchors off "Caleta del Cabron," and is fired

on by Spaniards; abandons the attack;

alliance with France against Spain; capture

Havana; attack San Juan.

Española (Santo Domingo).

Fajardo, town of.

Ferdinand, King of Spain, his interest

in Puerto Rico.

Fetichism in the religion of the peasantry.

Filibusters, origin of.

Finance.

Florida, discovery of;

Ponce's last expedition to.

Francis I, King of France, quarrel

with Charles V of Spain.

Franciscans, order of.

French, send privateers to attack the Antilles;

capture San German twice and destroy it;

attack Guayama; fail in an attack on Puerto

Rico; alliance with English against Spain;

pirates in the Caribbean.

Fuente, Alonso la, his letters to the

Spanish Government.

Ginger.

Gold, in Puerto Rico;

early search for; first discovery;

gold-bearing streams; production of

gold.

Government of Puerto Rico, instructions

by the King of Spain.

Guadeloupe, discovery of;

Caribs in, aid Puerto Rico Indians

against the Spaniards.

Guaybána, cacique in Puerto Rico;

death of.

Guaybána second, heads revolt against

the Spaniards; massacres Spaniards;

is defeated; killed.

Haro, Juan de, governor, defends San

Juan against the Dutch.

Havana, captured by the English under

the Earl of Albemarle and Admiral

Pocock.

Hawkyns, John, his freebooting

voyages among the Antilles; his fleet

captured; killed.

Holland, Spain's war with;

sends fleet against Puerto Rico;

it is defeated.

Hurricanes in the West Indies;

in Puerto Rico.

Indians, system of "distribution" of,

introduced; in revolt; slaughter Spaniards;

defeated by Ponce; number of, in Puerto Rico;

"distribution" of; rapid decrease of;

condition of; efforts to prevent extinction

of; "distribution" of, among settlers

forbidden; the last 80 survivors liberated

from slavery; last report of the Boriquén

Indians.

Inquisition, the, in Puerto Rico;

Nicolas Ramos, the last Inquisitor;

abolition of the Inquisition;

reestablished.

Isabel II, her decree declaring property

of the secular clergy national property.

Jews, property of, confiscated to supply

funds for Columbus's second expedition.

Jíbaro, the Puerto Rican peasant;

customs of.

Lando, Governor of Puerto Rico, tries

to prevent persons leaving the island.

Lares, the insurrection of.

Las Casas, Bartolomé de, his "Relations

of the Indies" cited; seeks to prevent

extinction of Indians; favors introduction of

negro slaves.

Laws, reform, promised;

electoral.

Leeward Islands, discovery of.

Le Grand, Pierre, the French pirate.

Libraries; since American occupation.

Loiza, settlement of.

l'Olonais, sobriquet of Sables d'Olone,

_q.v._

Macias, Manuel, governor-general, declares

the island in a state of war.

Manso, Alonzo, first bishop of Puerto

Rico.

Marie-Galante, discovery of.

Mayor, Soto, forms a settlement at Guánica;

killed by Indians.

McCormick, James, his report on Puerto

Rico in 1880.

Mestizos, or mixed races.

Military service, number of men in Puerto

Rico able to carry arms.

Mixed races;

prejudice against.

Montbras, French pirate.

Morals in the island under Spanish rule.

Morgan, Sir Henry, the pirate.

Mulattoes in the Spanish colony.

Napoleon, his influence over Spain.

Natives, see Indians.

Negroes, introduced into Santo Domingo

as slaves; into Puerto Rico; as slaves in

Puerto Rico; introduced to save the Indians

from extermination; intermix with Indians;

number of, in the island; severe laws

against.

Newspapers.

O'Daly, General, leads successful

revolution in Puerto Rico.

Palm, coco-, introduced.

Papers, see Newspapers.

Peasants of Puerto Rico.

Peru, gold discoveries there serve to

attract many settlers from Puerto

Rico.

Philip I, his character.

Philip II, death of.

Pirates, see Buccaneers and Filibusters.

Pocock, English admiral, and the Earl

of Albemarle, capture Havana.

Political rights.

Ponce, Juan, de Leon, with Columbus's

second expedition; lands on Puerto Rico;

appointed governor; deposed; restored;

arrests Ceron; recalled by the King of Spain;

defeats Guaybána with 5,000 to 6,000 Indians;

deprived of his privileges; retires to

Capárra; prepares for exploring the island of

Bemini; discovers Florida; honored by the

king; ordered to destroy the Caribs; accused

of fomenting discord in Puerto Rico; last

expedition to Florida, wounded, dies;

monument to him in San Juan.

Population, growth of.

Portugal, Alexander VI divides world

between Portugal and Spain.

Press, the;

first printing-press.

Prim, John, Count of Reus, his severe

proclamation against the negroes.

Primitive inhabitants.

Products.

Puerto Rico, discovery of;

first settlement, at Capárra; made a

bishopric; name of Puerto Rico first used

October, 1514; divided into two departments;

capital transferred from Capárra to present

location, San Juan; disease and pestilence;

destructive storms; news of gold discoveries

in Peru causes many settlers to leave;

inhabitants try to leave the island for the

Peru gold fields; devastated by French and

Indians; the inhabitants turn to agriculture,

100; expedition sent against the French in

Santa Cruz; English fleet, under the Earl of

Estren, appears off San Juan; used as a

"presidio," or place of banishment for

political prisoners for three centuries;

condition of, in 1765, described by Alexander

O'Reilly; revolution headed by Rafael Diego

and General O'Daly, 153; divided into seven

judicial districts; political rights in the

island; efforts of Spain to promote

development of the island; state of society,

159; effects of Carlist troubles in Spain;

resources of, diminished; description of the

island in 1880; reform laws to relieve

financial distress; promise of reforms; the

new electoral law; conditions in the island

immediately before the American occupation;

becomes part of the United States; its

advantageous situation; soil and products;

harbors; climate; primitive inhabitants;

present inhabitants; era of greatest

prosperity under Spanish rule.

Races in Puerto Rico.

Ramirez, Francisco, President of the

"Republic of Boriquén,".

Reforms, promise of, by Spanish

Government; granted too late.

Religion of the peasantry.

Republic of Boriquén proclaimed.

Revolution, against Spanish oppression.

Rodney, English admiral, attacks French

West Indies.

Sables d'Olone, French pirate.

Sagasta, suggests reforms in Puerto Rico

and Cuba.

Sail.

Salazar, Diego do, heroic conduct of;

defeats Indians.

San German founded.

San Juan, only settlement in Puerto

Rico not destroyed by the French;

the fort, "Fortaleza," still used as

governor's residence, built in 1540;

fortification and improvement of;

attacked by English fleet, under Drake;

captured by English, 120; evacuated by the

English; attacked by English;

history of; replaces Capárra as the

capital.

San Juan Bautista, island of (Puerto

Rico).

Santa Cruz taken and held by the French.

Santo Domingo, discovery of.

Schools, number and attendance of, in

1889.

Sedeño, Contador of Puerto Rico; his

peculations and death.

Slavery, Indians placed in, through the

system of "distribution.".

Slavery, negro, introduced into Santo

Domingo; favored by Church and State; first

negro slaves in Puerto Rico; discussion of

its abolition; abolition of; its history in

the island; introduced to replace lost labor

of the Indians; England contracts to take

140,000 slaves into the Spanish-American

colonies in thirty years; slaves emancipated.

Spain, Alexander VI divides the world

between Spain and Portugal; effects of her

disastrous wars; sends fleet against

pirates in the West Indies; abolishes

the slave-trade.

Spaniards, number of, in Puerto Rico;

as colonists in Puerto Rico; no women

among early settlers.

Storms, damages by.

Sugar;

the industry injured by production of

beet-sugar.

Tiedra, Vasco de, Governor of Puerto

Rico.

Tobacco, its cultivation permitted by a

special law.

Trade, its growth.

United States sends army to Puerto Rico;

acquires the island.

Weyler, General, his inhuman proceedings

in Cuba.

Windward Islands, discovered by Columbus.

Women, none among early Spanish settlers;

education of, neglected.

Zambos, mixture of negro and Indian.

End of Project Gutenberg's The History of Puerto Rico, by R.A. Van Middeldyk

The History of Puerto Rico From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation · 第 27 / 27 章

Puerto Rico was scantily provided with priests till the year 1518,