First distribution of Indians.  “REPARTIMIENTOS”

1510

Soon after Ponce’s return from la Espanola Guaybana sickened and died.  Up to this time the harmony established by the prudent cacique between his tribesmen and the Spaniards on their first arrival had apparently not been disturbed.  There is no record of any dissension between them during Ponce’s absence.

The cacique was succeeded by his brother, who according to custom assumed the name of the deceased chief, together with his authority.

The site for his first settlement, chosen by Ponce, was a low hill in the center of a small plain surrounded by hills, at the distance of a league from the sea, the whole space between being a swamp, “which,” says Oviedo, “made the transport of supplies very difficult.”  Here the captain commenced the construction of a fortified house and chapel, or hermitage, and called the place Caparra.[10]

[Illustration:  Ruins of Caparra, the first capital.]

Among the recently arrived Spaniards there was a young man of aristocratic birth named Christopher de Soto Mayor, who possessed powerful friends at Court.  He had been secretary to King Philip I, and according to Abbad, was intended by Ferdinand as future governor of San Juan; but Senor Acosta, the friar’s commentator, remarks with reason, that it is not likely that the king, who showed so much tact and foresight in all his acts, should place a young man without experience over an old soldier like Ponce, for whom he had a special regard.

The young hidalgo seemed to aspire to nothing higher than a life of adventure, for he agreed to go as Ponce’s lieutenant and form a settlement on the south coast of the island near the bay of Guanica.

“In this settlement,” says Oviedo, “there were so many mosquitoes that they alone were enough to depopulate it, and the people passed to Aguada, which is said to be to the west-nor’-west, on the borders of the river Culebrinas, in the district now known as Aguada and Aguadilla; to this new settlement they gave the name Sotomayor, and while they were there the Indians rose in rebellion one Friday in the beginning of the year 1511.”

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The second Guaybana[11] was far from sharing his predecessor’s good-will toward the Spaniards or his prudence in dealing with them; nor was the conduct of the newcomers toward the natives calculated to cement the bonds of friendship.

Fancying themselves secure in the friendly disposition of the natives, prompted by that spirit of reckless daring and adventure that distinguished most of the followers of Columbus, anxious to be first to find a gold-bearing stream or get possession of some rich piece of land, they did not confine themselves to the two settlements formed, but spread through the interior, where they began to lay out farms and to work the auriferous river sands.