So ended the sixteenth century in Boriquen.  If the dictum of Las Casas, that the island at the century’s beginning was “as populous as a beehive and as lovely as an orchard,” was but a rhetorical figure, there is no gainsaying the fact that at the time of Ponce’s landing it was thickly peopled, not only that part occupied by the Spaniards but the whole island, with a comparatively innocent, simple, and peaceably disposed native race.  The end of the century saw them no more.  The erstwhile garden was an extensive jungle.  The island’s history during these hundred years was condensed into the one word “strife.”  All that the efforts of the king and his governors had been able to make of it was a penal settlement, a presidio with a population of about 400 inhabitants, white, black, and mongrel.  The littoral was an extensive hog-and cattle-ranch, with here and there a patch of sugar-cane; there was no commerce.[39] There were no roads.  The people, morally, mentally, and materially poor, were steeped in ignorance and vice.  Education there was none.  The very few who aspired to know, went to la Espanola to obtain an education.  The few spiritual wants of the people were supplied by monks, many of them as ignorant and bigoted as themselves.  War and pestilence and tempest had united to wipe the island from the face of the earth, and the very name of “Rich Port,” given to it without cause or reason, must have sounded in the ears of the inhabitants as a bitter sarcasm on their wretched condition.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 39:  A precarious traffic in hides and ginger did not deserve the name of commerce.]

CHAPTER XIX

ATTACK ON SAN JUAN BY THE HOLLANDERS UNDER BOWDOIN

1625

Holland emancipated itself from Spanish domination in 1582 and assumed the title of “the United Provinces of Netherland.”  After nearly half a century of an unequal struggle with the most powerful kingdom in Europe, the people’s faith in final success was unbounded, while Spain was growing weary of the apparently interminable war.  At this juncture, proposals for a suspension of hostilities were willingly entertained by both nations, and after protracted negotiations, a truce of twelve years was signed in Bergen-op-Zoom, April 9, 1609.  In it the absolute independence of the United Provinces was recognized.

This gave the Spanish colonies a welcome respite from the ravages of privateers till 1621, the first year of the reign of King Philip IV, when hostilities immediately recommenced.  France and England both came to the assistance of the Provinces with money for the raising of troops, and the wealthy merchants of Holland, following the example of the French merchants in the former century, fitted out fleets of privateers to prey upon the commerce and colonies of Spain and Portugal.  The first exploits of these privateers were the invasion of Brazil and the sacking of San Salvador, of Lima and Callao (1624).