Number Of Aboriginal Inhabitants And Second Distribution Of Indians

1511-1515



Friar Bartolome de Las Casas, in his Relation of the Indies, says with

reference to this island, that when the Spaniards under the orders of

Juan Ceron landed here in 1509, it was as full of people as a beehive

is full of bees and as beautiful and fertile as an orchard. This

simile and some probably incorrect data from the Geography of Bayaeete

led Friar Inigo Abbad to estimate the number of abo iginal inhabitants

at the time of the discovery at 600,000, a number for which there is

no warrant in any of the writings of the Spanish chroniclers, and

which Acosto, Brau, and Stahl, the best authorities on matters of

Puerto Rican history, reject as extremely exaggerated.



Mr. Brau gives some good reasons for reducing the number to about

16,000, though it seems to us that since little or nothing was known

of the island, except that part of it in which the events related in

the preceding chapters took place, any reasoning regarding the

population of the whole island, based upon a knowledge of a part of

it, is liable to error. Ponce's conquest was limited to the northern

and western littoral; the interior with the southern and eastern

districts were not settled by the Spaniards till some years after the

death of Guaybana; and it seems likely that there were caciques in

those parts who, by reason of the distance or other impediments, took

no part in the uprising against the Spaniards. For the rest, Mr.

Brau's reasonings in support of his reduction to 16,000 of the number

of aborigines, are undoubtedly correct. They are: First. The

improbability of a small island like this, in an uncultivated state,

producing sufficient food for such large numbers. Second. The fact

that at the first battle (that of Jacaguas), in which he supposes the

whole available warrior force of the island to have taken part, there

were 5,000 to 6,000 men only, which force would have been much

stronger had the population been anything near the number given by

Abbad; and, finally, the number of Indians distributed after the

cessation of organized resistance was only 5,500, as certified by

Sancho Velasquez, the judge appointed in 1515 to rectify the

distributions made by Ceron and Moscoso, and by Captain Melarejo in

his memorial drawn up in 1582 by order of the captain-general, which

number would necessarily have been much larger if the total aboriginal

population had been but 60,000, instead of 600,000.



* * * * *



The immediate consequence to the natives of the panic and partial

submission that followed the death of their leader was another and

more extensive distribution. The first distributions of Indians had

been but the extension to San Juan of the system as practised in la

Espanola, which consisted in granting to the crown officers in

recompense for services or as an inducement to settle in the island, a

certain number of natives. In this way 1,060 Boriquenos had been

disposed of in 1509 to 9 persons. The ill usage to which they saw them

subjected drove the others to rebellion, and now, vae victis, the king,

on hearing of the rebellion, wrote to Ceron and Diaz (July, 1511): "To

'pacify' the Indians you must go well armed and terrorize them. Take

their canoes from them, and if they refuse to be reduced with reason,

make war upon them by fire and sword, taking care not to kill more

than necessary, and send 40 or 50 of them to 'la Espanola' to serve us

as slaves, etc." To Ponce he wrote on October 10th: "I give you credit

for your labors in the 'pacification' and for having marked with an F

on their foreheads all the Indians taken in war, making slaves of them

and selling them to the highest bidders, separating the fifth part of

the product for Us."



This time not only the 120 companions of Ponce came in for their share

of the living spoils of war, but the followers of Ceron claimed and

obtained theirs also.



The following is the list of Indians distributed after the battle of

Yacueeca (if battle it may be called) as given by Mr. Brau, who

obtained the details from the unpublished documents of Juan Bautista

Munoz:





Indians



To the estates (haciendas) of their royal Highnesses 500

Baltasar de Castro, the factor 200

Miguel Diaz, the chief constable 200

Juan Ceron, the mayor 150

Diego Morales, bachelor-at-law 150

Amador de Lares 150

Louis Soto Mayor 100

Miguel Diaz, Daux-factor 100

the (municipal) council 100

the hospitals 100

Bishop Manso 100

Sebastian de la Gama 90

Gil de Malpartida 70

Juan Bono (a merchant) 70

Juan Velasquez 70

Antonio Rivadeneyra 60

Gracian Cansino 60

Louis Aqueyo 60

the apothecary 60

Francisco Cereceda 50

40 other individuals 40 each 1,600



4,040

Distributed in 1509 1,060



Total 5,100





These numbers included women and children old enough to perform some

kind of labor. They were employed in the mines, or in the rivers

rather (for it was alluvium gold only that the island offered to the

greed of the so-called conquerors); they were employed on the

plantations as beasts of burden, and in every conceivable capacity

under taskmasters who, in spite of Ferdinand's revocation of the order

to reduce them to slavery (September, 1514), had acted on his first

dispositions and believed themselves to have the royal warrant to work

them to death.



The king's more lenient dispositions came too late. They were

powerless to check the abuses that were being committed under his own

previous ordinances. The Indians disappeared with fearful rapidity.

Licentiate Sancho Velasquez, who had made the second distribution,

wrote to the king April 27, 1515: " ... Excepting your Highnesses'

Indians and those of the crown officers, there are not 4,000 left." On

August 8th of the same year the officers themselves wrote: " ... The

last smeltings have produced little gold. Many Indians have died from

disease caused by the hurricane as well as from want of food...."



To readjust the proportion of Indians according to the position or

other claims of each individual, new distributions were resorted to.

In these, some favored individuals obtained all they wanted at the

expense of others, and as the number of distributable Indians grew

less and less, reclamations, discontent, strife and rebellion broke

out among the oppressors, who thus wreaked upon each other's heads the

criminal treatment of the natives of which they were all alike guilty.



Such had been the course of events in la Espanola. The same causes had

the same effects here. Herrera relates that when Miguel de Pasamente,

the royal treasurer, arrived in the former island, in 1508, it

contained 60,000 aboriginal inhabitants. Six years later, when a new

distribution had become necessary, there were but 14,000 left - the

others had been freed by the hand of death or were leading a

wandering life in the mountains and forests of their island. In this

island the process was not so rapid, but none the less effective.