42 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



were to receive the money to be paid for their permits." (Helps, vol. i, 

 p. 180.) Not long after Ovando had come to the government of 

 Hispaniola, it appears that he " solicited that no Negro slaves should 

 be sent to Hispaniola, for they fled amongst the Indians and taught 

 them bad customs, and never could be captured." (Helps, vol. i, 

 pp. 219-220.) Las Casas, to relieve the burden of the Indians, advised 

 " that each Spanish resident in the island should have licence to 

 import a dozen Negro slaves." (Helps, vol. 2, p. 18.) " The number 

 of Negroes imported into America from the year 15 17, when the 

 trade was first permitted by Charles the Fifth, to 1807, the year 

 in which the British Parliament passed the act abolishing the slave 

 trade, cannot be estimated at less than five or six millions." (Helps, 

 vol. 4, p. 371.) " Many instances might be adduced showing that, in 

 the decade from 1535 to 154S, Negroes had come to form part of 

 the households of the wealthier colonists. At the same time, in the 

 West India Islands, which had borne the first shock of the conquest 

 and where the Indians had been more swiftly destroyed, the Negroes 

 were beginning to form the bulk of the population ; and the licences 

 for importation were steadily increasing in number." (Helps, vol. 4, 

 p. 401.) 



Cortes, in 1535 or 1536 (De Humboldt, 1825) in his journey to 

 Lower California, carried with him 300 Negro slaves. Both Ulloa 

 (1539) and Alarchon (1540), his lieutenants, were accompanied by 

 Negroes.*" Venegas says (pp. 94, 201): "It is known that some 

 ships have left Mulattoes and Mestizos at Cape San Lucas." " Yen- 

 eca ", Clavigero tells us in his History of Lower California (1852, 

 p. 83), " was a place inhabited by a tribe of Indians whose chief was 

 a mulatto named Chicori " ; while " the governor of Santiago [mission 

 between La Paz and Cape Lucas] was a convert named Boton, son 

 of a mulatto and an Indian woman". From the records about the 

 missions it is seen that mulattoes or Negroes who lived with the 

 Indians were instrumental in the insurrections of the Lower Cali- 

 f ornians against the Missions ; and that the first permanent settlers 

 were released soldiers, sailors, and those who knew how to work 

 the ground (see Lassepas, op. cit.). Among these men, who generally 

 married native women, were not a few colored. 



These data show that from at least as early as 1545 the African 

 Negro came into contact with the natives of Lower California and 

 eventually mixed with them. There is a bare possibility that a few 

 Oceanic blacks may have been left in the vicinity of Cape San Lucas 



See also Helps, A. (1855) ; Winsor, J. (1885) ; Rippy, J. F. (1921). 



