242 THE OCEAN RIVER 



and at home was moving with a new release of nationahstic 

 energy. She became great as the Atlantic Ocean, the Ocean 

 River of the west, emerged out of the unknown; for her sailors, 

 explorers, and fishermen, untrammelled by a rigid church or 

 a jealous concept of kingship, moved out freely on the tide 

 of the future. It is only just to remember, when we see how 

 the English inaugurated the slave trade as a successful com- 

 merce to the Caribbean and the southern colonies, that the 

 English were also the first to condemn slavery and make 

 attempts to control the trade. We have seen how Hawkins 

 initiated the English contraband trade in slaves in the Carib- 

 bean with the connivance of the local Spanish colonial author- 

 ities. From then on, as sugar plantations grew on the islands, 

 nothing could stop it. White adventurers went on to the Main 

 looking for gold. The native Indian populations on the islands 

 were soon dead and gone under the harsh breath of European 

 lust for property. Africa filled the gap so well, indeed, that 

 Haiti and Jamaica today have populations almost completely 

 of African descent. This negro predominance was inevitable 

 for two reasons. The Spanish colonizer did not come to work 

 the land himself; his concept of rising in life was not through 

 day labor. Also he was perhaps lazy, certainly proud, and the 

 climate did not suit him. After 1518 the crown recognized the 

 need for imported labor and created contracts and licenses 

 called ''asientos,'' which in turn were farmed out by the 

 favored holders to actual slave carriers. But here again the 

 heavy hand of absentee government placed such imposts on 

 these commercial privileges that it actually encouraged illicit 

 contraband trade. 



It might have been possible, of course, for the West Indies 

 to have remained in the hands of white European settlers 

 if there had been concerted action by European governments 

 to that end. But no such long-term policy was likely, for 

 several reasons. First, the European governments were most 



