442 



THE AEAWACK LANGUAGE OF GUIANA 



Physically tliey wore undersized, less muscular than the Spaniards, light in color, with thick hair and scanty 

 beards. Their foreheads were naturally low and retreating, and they artificially flattened the skull by pressure on 

 the forehead or the occiput.'" 



Three social grades seem to have prevailed, the common herd, the petty chiefs who ruled villages, and the inde- 

 pendent chiefs who governed provinces. Of the latter there were to Cuba twenty-nine ; in Haiti five, as near as 

 can be now ascertained. 35 Some of those in Cuba had shortly before the arrival of the Spaniards moved there from 

 Haiti, and at the conquest one of the principal chiefs of Haiti was a native of the Lucayos. 88 



The fate of these Indians is something terrible to contemplate. At the discovery there were probably 150,000 

 on Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas. 8 ' Those on the latter were carried as slaves to Haiti to work in the mines, and all 

 of the Lucayos exterminated in three or four years (1508— 1512). 38 The sufferings of the Haitians have been told in a 

 graphic manner by Las Casas in an oft-quoted work. 88 His statements have frequently been condemned as grossly 

 exaggerated, but the official documents of the early history of Cuba prove but too conclusively that the worthy 

 missionary reports correctly what terrible cruelties the Spaniards committed. Cuba was conquered in 1514, and was 

 then quite densely populated. Fourteen years afterwards we find the Governor, Gonzalo do Guzman, complaining 

 that while troops of hunters were formerly traversing the inland constantly, asking no other pay than the right of 

 keeping as slaves the natives whom they captured, ho now has to pay patrolmen, as the Indians are so scarce. 40 The 

 next year (1539) the treasurer, Lope de Hurtado, writes that the Indians are in such despair that they are hanging 

 themselves twenty and thirty at a time. 11 In 1530 the king is petitioned to relinquish his royalty on the produce of 

 the mines, because nearly all the Indians on the island are dead. 42 And in 1582 the licentiate, Vadillo, estimates 

 the total number of Indians on the island, including the large percentage brought from the mainland by the slavers, 

 at only 4,500." 



As a specimen of what the treatment of the Indians was, we have an accusation in 1522 against Vasco Porcallo, 

 afterwards one of the companions of Hernando de Soto, lie captured several Indians, cut off their genitals, and 

 forced them to eat them, cramming them down their throats when they could not swallow. When asked for his 

 defence, Porcallo replied that he did it to prevent his own Indians from committing suicide, as he had already lost 

 two-thirds of h is slaves in that way. The defence, was apparently deemed valid, for he was released ! u 



The myths and traditions of the Haitians have fortunately been preserved, though not in so perfect a form as 

 might bo wished. When Bartholomew Columbus left Rome for the Indies, he took with him a lay brother of the 

 order of the Hermits of St. Jerome, Ramon Pane by name, a Catalan by birth, a worthy but credulous and ignorant 



w " Presso capite, Eronte lata" (Nlcolaus Syllaclus, De InmlU nuper rmwnto'a.p.86. Reprint, New York, 1859. This la the extremely ram account ofCoium- 

 bus' second voyage). Six not, very perfect skulls were obtained in LS80, by Ool.F. 8. Henekea, from a cavern 15 mtles south-west from Porto Plata. They are all 

 more or less distorted in adtscoldal manner, one by pressure over the frontal stnun, reducing the calvarla to a disk. (.1. Barnard Davis, Thesaurus Craniorum, 

 p. 2:10, London, 1867. Mr. Davis erroneously calls them Oarib skulls). 



n The provinces of Cuba are laid down on the Mapa dr. la tela de Cuba Begun la division de los Natural™, por D. Jose Maria (tela Torre y dela Torre, in the 



Memoriaadt !<i Sor.ied.ad Patrio/.i.r.a tic la l/abtoia, 1811. See also li'olipo I'oey, Cr.O'/raJi.a de la Tsla de Cuba,, Ilabana, 1853. Apen.d.ir.e sobre la Cr,t>r/raJI,a Antigua.. 



i„i,:; Oaaas wives the live provinces of Haytl hy the names of their chiefs, Guarlnox, Guacanagarl, Echechlo, Caonabo and Higuoy. For their relative posi- 

 tion see tlie map in ( lharlevoix's Bietoire <U VleleSan Paui.ua/iir,, Paris, 1740, and in Baumgarten's Geschichte vim Ameriha, B. II. 



3(1 This was Caonabo. Ovledo,and following him Charlevoix, say lie was a Oarib, hut Las Casas, who having lived twenty years in Haiti immediately after the 

 discovery, is infinitely the best authority, says: "Bra de nacion Lucayo, natural de las [slasde los Lucayos, que so pas6 deellasaoa." (BOttoria Apologetlca, cap. 

 179, MSS). 



37 I put the figures very low. Peter Martyr, whoso estimates aro the. lowest of any writer, says there were more than 200,000 natives on Haiti alone. (De 

 Rebut Oceanicis, p. 295.) 



M Mori; than 10,000 were brought to Haiti to enjoy the benefits of Christian Instruction, says Herrera, with what might pass as a ghastly sarcasm, (llletoria 



General de las Indias, Dec. I, lib. VIM, cap. 8), 



39 Breoissima Relation de la Dtitruecion dr. las Tndka Oecldtntalu por los Castellanos, Seville,, 1552. 



40 Ramon de do la Sagra, llistoria de la Isla de Cuba, Tom. II, p. .181. 

 «' Ibid, p. .19-1. 



12 Ibid, p. 390. 

 « Ibid, p. U4. 

 44 Ibid, p. 385. These references to De la Sagra's work arc all to the original documents In hi s Appendix. 



