86 THE TEEMS "CARJB M AND "CANNIBAL." 



warlike ; but we must also admit that these cruelties were 

 exaggerated by the early travellers, who heard only the nar- 

 ratives of the old enemies of the Caribs. It is not always 

 the vanquished solely, who are calumniated by their contem- 

 poraries ; the insolence of the conquerors is punished by the 

 catalogue of their crimes being augmented. 



All the missionaries of the Carony, the Lower Orinoco, 

 and the Llanos del Cari, whom we had an opportunity of 

 consulting, assured us that the Caribs are perhaps the 

 least anthropophagous nations of the New Continent. They 

 extend this remark even to the independent hordes who 

 wander on the east of the Esmeralda, between the sources ol 

 the Bio Branco and the Essequibo. It may be conceived 

 that the fury and despair with which the unhappy Caribs 

 defended themselves against the Spaniards, when in 1504 a 

 royal decree declared them slaves, may have contributed to 

 acquire for them a reputation for ferocity. The first idea of 

 attacking this nation, and depriving it of liberty and of its 

 natural rights, originated with Christopher Columbus, who 

 was not in all instances so humane as he is represented to 

 have been. Subsequently the licenciado Eodrigo de Figueroa 

 was appointed by the court, in 1520, to determine the tribes 

 of South America, who were to be regarded as of Carib 

 race, or as cannibals ; and those who were Guatiaos,* that 



* I had some trouble in discovering the origin of this denomination, 

 which has become so important from the fatal decrees of Figueroa. The 

 Spanish historians often employ the word guatiao to designate a branch 

 of nations. To become a yuatiao of any one, seems to have signified, in 

 the language of Hayti, to conclude a treaty of friendship. In the West 

 India Islands, as well as in the archipelago of the South Sea, names were 

 exchanged in token of alliance. "Juan de Esquivel (1502) se hice 

 yuatiao del cacique Cotubanama; el qual desde adelante se llamo Juan de 

 Esquivel, porque era liga de perpetua amis tad entre los Indies trocarse 

 los nombres: y trocados quedaban guatiaos, que era tanto como corifede- 

 rados y hermanos en armas. Ponce de Leon se hace guatiao con el 

 poderoso cacique Agueinaha." Herrera, dec. i. pp. 129,159,181. 

 [Juan de Esquivel (1502) became the guatiao of the cacique Cotubanama j 

 and thenceforth the latter called himself Juan de Esquivel, for among the 

 Indians, the exchange of names was a bond of perpetual friendship. 

 Those who exchanged names became guatiaos, which meant the same as 

 confederates or brethren-in-arms. Ponce de Leon became guatiao with 

 the powerful cacique Agueinaha.] One of the Lucayes Islands, inhabited 

 by a mild and pacific people, was heretofore called Guatao ; but we will 



