THE HAND OF THE GIANT 247 



one of his Spaniards against the Moors: 'Their only thought 

 is how to scrape up money and keep it ... by perpetual getting 

 and never spending, they get the greater part of the money in 

 Spain into their hands. Consider how numerous they are and 

 how they increase . . . neither sex take monastic vows but all 

 marry and multiply. They have no servants, for they all wait 

 upon themselves, etc., etc." 



This economic and social complaint was carried over into 

 the New World. The Spanish Bishop of Oaxaca wrote home 

 in 1544: 'Tour Majesty may be reassured on the way the 

 Indians are treated. They are so protected that they dare even 

 to maltreat the Spaniards. . . . These Indians own properties, 

 many are rich and all possess goods of which their ancestors 

 were ignorant. In fact, all the money of the country is in their 

 hands . . . and they sell goods at such exorbitant prices that 

 living here is impossible. Everything is topsy-turvy." 



And finally from the island of San Domingo in 1755: 

 'These people are beginning to fill the colony and it is a 

 scandal to see them increasing in numbers continually among 

 the whites, and overtaking them in opulence and riches. . . . 

 Their low standard of living enables them to save their earn- 

 ings each year. They pile up capital. They become arrogant 

 because they are rich and in proportion to their wealth, etc., 

 etc." 



So we see from the beginning the established Indian of the 

 mainland and the Negro in the islands began taking over from 

 a white population that was enervated by the climate, not used 

 to the hard manual labor necessary to a new frontier, and too 

 proud to adjust to conditions his own eagerness for quick 

 wealth had superimposed on the islands. And yet the Spanish, 

 French, and English governments, according to the lights of 

 the times, did try to recognize in law the inevitable mixture of 

 races and the social and economic adjustments that had to 

 take place. They did this, at least, until the pressure against 



