350 MEXICO, CENTEAJ. AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



Inhabitants. 



Like the animal species, the inhabitants of the Antilles at the arrival of. 

 Columbus in 1492 represented immigrants from the three continental regions of 

 North, Central, and South America. Although these populations have all 

 disappeared, with the exception of a few half-caste Caribs removed to the Hon- 

 duras mainland, the accounts of the early Spanish chroniclers, the traditions and 

 usages of the natives, the little that has been preserved of their languages, have 

 enabled ethnologists to reconstruct the history of their migrations to some, at least, 

 of the insular groups. 



The present inhabitants are mainly of mixed origin, Europe, Africa, and even 

 Asia having contributed even more than America to the re-peopling of the 

 archipelagoes. The Chinese and Hindus are found in almost every island, while 

 the Africans, numerically the dominant element, have come from every part of 

 the Dark Continent, introduced as slaves before the abolition of the traffic in human 

 flesh. The whites also come from almost every country in Europe. The Casti- 

 llans and Andalusians, descendants of the first conquerors and settlers, are still 

 numerous by the side of Catalonians, Basques, Galicians, and other later arrival? 

 from the Iberian peninsula. English, Scotch, and Irish settlers from the United 

 Kingdom here meet their kinsmen from the United States. French, Dutchmen, 

 Danes, are also numerously represented, and to all these European elements must 

 be added the so-called "engaged," that is, whites formerly purchased for a 

 temporary period of servitude, besides the descendants of the buccaneers and 

 filibusters. 



For the three centuries following the discovery the political and social rela- 

 tions in the "West Indies were in a state of chaos. A ruthless spirit of rivalry 

 prevailed amongst traders, planters, and other adventurers ; life and liberty were 

 at a discount ; on the same island neighbouring promontories were occupied by 

 hostile communities, who went about armed to the teeth, watching each other, 

 and ever on the look out for an opportunity of falling upon and murdering their 

 chronic enemies. Trading vessels lay concealed during the day in some secluded 

 creek behind a curtain of mangrove bush, cautiously venturing on the open seas 

 at night. Every distant sail was an object of suspicion, for every man's hand 

 was raised against his neighbours, and even when the Great Powers were at 

 peace, hostilities were continued by the filibusters on their own account, and 

 where they swooped down, nothing was left except smoking ruins and wasted 

 lands. 



Yet the high prices commanded by sugar, coffee, tobacco, and other colonial 

 produce offering the chance of making rapid fortunes, continually attracted fresh 

 speculators, ready to risk their lives in a deadly climate, and surrounded by con- 

 stant perils from war, arson, and lawless raiding. To clear the ground and 

 cultivate their fields they had no longer the aid of the aborigines, exterminated 

 during the first years of the conquest ; but the}^ kept under the lash gangs of 

 blacks imported from Africa by the slavers. 



