218 THE OCEAN RIVER 



nations, was a plain forecast of a new phase of exploitation. 

 The State and the Church no longer held a monopoly. Ver- 

 razano — or John the Florentine as the Spanish called him — 

 opened up wide prospects of new endeavor when he sailed for 

 Francis I, and discovered the Hudson River. Here was fresh 

 food for speculation as to a Northwest Passage. For many 

 years the Chesapeake was called the Sea of Verrazano. 



Let us first look briefly at the West Indian frontier, so lightly 

 controlled by Spain that even her cultural influence was weak, 

 though strong enough on the mainland to last to this day. 

 In a short time Buccaneer authority came to equal civil 

 authority. The pathfinders moved on westward and the 

 exploiters and looters came following in, very much as the 

 mountain men of our American Wild West opened up vast 

 tracts of rich territory, then moved on and died as the squat- 

 ters and traders and law-minded sharpers took over prior to 

 the establishment of civil power. Like the later continental 

 frontier, the island frontier had its romantic and picturesque 

 heroes, its sordid villains and sharp lawyers. Here let us read 

 a letter of Balboa from Darien; it is the eternal voice of com- 

 plaint of the true frontiersman against the connivers and 

 second-comers: "I entreat your Highness to command that 

 no Bachelor of Law nor any other thing, unless it should be 

 of medicine, may pass to these parts of the mainland [Darien], 

 for no Bachelor comes here who is not the Devil, and they 

 lead the life of Devils, and not only are they bad, but they 

 even contrive how to bring about a thousand lawsuits and 

 villanies." Balboa was aware of what the stay-at-home courtiers 

 through their plotting had done to rob Columbus of his due. 



Meanwhile, back in the islands after two decades of Spanish 

 control, we have a sad picture of cruelty and disorganization. 

 The Arawak population of almost a million happy, peaceable, 

 and indolent souls decreased in the first fifteen years of Span- 

 ish conquest to fifty thousand, and on many of the islands 



