CONTEMPT FOR OTHER TRIBES. 83 



"valiant strangers") ; but that, owing to a dispute respecting 

 their religious rites, the Confachite- Caribs were driven from 

 Florida. They went first to the Yucayas or Lucayes Islands 

 (to Cigateo and the neighbouring islands) ; thence to Ayay 

 (Hayhay, now Santa Cruz), and to the lesser Caribbee 

 Islands ; and lastly to the continent of South America.* It 

 is supposed that this event took place toward the year 1] 00 

 of our sera. In the course of this long migration, the Caribs 

 had not touched at the larger islands; the inhabitants 

 of which however also believed that they came originally 

 from Florida. The islanders of Cuba, Hayti, and Boriken 

 (Porto Kico) were, according to the uniform testimony of 

 the first conquistador es, entirely different from the Caribs ; 

 and at the period of the discovery of America, the latter 

 had already abandoned the group of the lesser Lucayes 

 Islands ; an archipelago, in which there prevailed that 

 variety of languages always found in lands peopled by ship- 

 wrecked men and fugitives.f 



The dominion so long exercised by the Caribs over a 

 great part of the continent, joined to the remembrance of 

 their ancient greatness, has inspired them with a sentiment 

 of dignity and national superiority, which is manifest in 

 their manners and their discourse. " We alone are a nation," 

 say they proverbially; "the rest of mankind (oquili) are 

 made to serve us." This contempt of the Caribs for their 

 enemies is so strong, that I saw a child of ten years of age 

 foam with rage on being called a Cabre or Cavere ; though 

 he had never in his life seen an individual of that unfor- 

 tunate race of people, who gave their name to the town of 

 Cabruta (Cabritu) ; and who, after long resistance, were 

 almost entirely exterminated by the Caribs. Thus we find 



* Rochefort, Hist, des Antilles, vol. i. pp. 326353 ; Garcia, p. 322 ; 

 Robertson, book Hi. note 69. The conjecture of Father Gili, that the 

 Caribs of the continent may have come from the islands at the time of the 

 first conquest of the Spaniards (Saggio, vol. iii. p. 204), is at variance 

 with all the statements of the early histor HIS. 



t " La gente de las islas Yucayas era (1492) mas blanca y de major 

 policia que la de Cuba y Haiti. Havia mucha diversidad de lenguas." 

 [The people of the Lucayes were (1492) of fairer complexion and of more 

 tivilized manners than those of Cuba and Haiti. They had a great diver* 

 tity of languages.] Gomara, Hut. de lud. fol. xxii. 



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