The royal conscience was not satisfied, however, with the sophistry of his councilors, and as a quietus to it, the well-meaning ordinances just cited were enacted.  They, too, remained a dead letter, and not even the scathing and persevering denunciations of Las Casas, who continued the good work begun by Montesinos, could obtain any practical improvement in the lot of the Indians until it was too late, and thousands of them had been crushed under the heel of the conqueror.

* * * * *

King Ferdinand’s efforts to make Puerto Rico a prosperous colony were rendered futile by the dissensions between the Admiral’s and his own partizans and the passions awakened by the favoritism displayed in the distribution of Indians.  That the king took a great interest in the colonization of the island is shown by the many ordinances and decrees issued all tending to that end.  He gave special licenses to people in Spain and in Santo Domingo to establish themselves in Puerto Rico.[22] In his minute instructions to Ponce and his successors he regulated every branch of the administration, and wrote to Ceron and Diaz:  " ...I wish this island well governed and peopled as a special affair of mine.”  On a single day (February 26, 1511) he made, among others of a purely private character, the following public dispositions:  “That the tithes and ‘primicias’” [23] should be paid in kind only; that the fifth part of the output of the mines should be paid only during the first ten years; that he ceded to the colony for the term of four years all fines imposed by the courts, to be employed in the construction of roads and bridges; that the traffic between San Juan and la Espanola should be free, and that this island should enjoy the same rights and privileges as the other; that no children or grandchildren of people executed or burned for crimes or heresy should be admitted into the colony, and that an exact account should be sent to him of all the colonists, caciques, and Indians and their distribution.

He occupied himself with the island’s affairs with equal interest up to the time of his death, in 1516.  He made it a bishopric in 1512.  In 1513 he disposed that the colonists were to build houses of adobe, that is, of sun-dried bricks; that all married men should send for their wives, and that useful trees should be planted.  In 1514 he prohibited labor contracts, or the purchase or transfer of slaves or Indians “encomendados” (distributed).  Finally, in 1515, he provided for the defense of the island against the incursions of the Caribs.

If these measures did not produce the desired result, it was due to the discord among the colonists, created by the system of “repartimientos” introduced in an evil hour by Columbus, a system which was the poisoned source of most of the evils that have afflicted the Antilles.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 21:  The twelfth part of a “fanega,” equal to about two gallons, dry measure.]