CHAP. XVII. 



IN AMERICA. 43 



were unavailable to extract much gold by the 

 exterminating degree of labour that was imposed 

 by those rigid governors who had succeeded to 

 the milder rule of Columbus. In the regions 

 where gold was found in the streams, each in- 

 dividual, above fourteen years of age, was required 

 to pay, every three months, a Flemish hawk's 

 bell of gold dust (equal in the present day to 

 twenty shillings in silver) ; and the caciques were 

 called upon to pay a much larger amount one of 

 them, Maniocatex 1 , as much as ten pounds in 

 three months. This was, however, found to be 

 far more than could be obtained, and the re- 

 quisition was reduced to one half; but even this 

 demand produced despair among the natives ; they 

 abandoned the labour of their fields; a scarcity of 

 the means of subsistence soon followed : what little 

 was to be found was seized by the Spaniards; 

 great numbers of the Indians were left destitute of 

 food, and thus many of their tribes were thinned 

 or extirpated by absolute starvation 2 . 



As the possession of Hispaniola produced gold 

 in such small quantities, and as even this was ex- 

 hausted within twenty years after the discovery, 

 in spite of the forced labour of the aborigines, 

 it is not surprising that the expectations of the 

 adventurers of immense mineral wealth should 



1 Irving, vol. ii. p. 276. 2 Idem, p. 282. 



