Gold tribute imposed.

Never, perhaps, were little skirmishes, for such they were on the part of the Spaniards, of greater permanent importance than those above narrated, which took place in the early part of the year 1495.  They must be looked upon as the origin in the Indies of slavery, vassalage, and the system of repartimientos.  We have seen that the admiral, after his first victory, sent off four ships with slaves to Spain.  He now took occasion to impose a tribute upon the whole population of Hispaniola.  It was thus arranged.  Every Indian above fourteen years old, who was in the provinces of the mines, or near to these provinces, was to pay every three months a little bellful of gold; all other persons in the island were to pay at the same time an arroba of cotton for each person.  Certain brass or copper tokens were made—­different ones for each tribute time—­and were given to the Indians when they paid tribute and these tokens, being worn about their necks, were to show who had paid tribute.

  Remarkable Indian scheme.

A remarkable proposal was made upon this occasion to the admiral by Guarionex, cacique of the Vega Real, namely, that he would institute a huge farm for the growth of corn and the manufacture of bread, stretching from Isabella to St. Domingo (i. e. from sea to sea) which would suffice to maintain all Castile with bread.  The cacique would do this on condition that his vassals were not to pay tribute in gold, as they did not know how to collect that.  But this proposal was not accepted, because Columbus wished to have tribute in such things as he could send over to Spain.

This tribute is considered to have been a most unreasonable one in point of amount, and Columbus was obliged to modify his demands upon these poor Indians, and in some instances to change the nature of them.  It appears that, in 1496, service instead of tribute was demanded of certain Indian villages; and as the villagers were ordered to make (and work) the farms in the Spanish settlements, this may be considered as the beginning of the system of repartimientos, or encomiendas, as they were afterwards called.

  Views of Columbus on slavery.

We must not, however, suppose that Indian slavery would not have taken place by means of Columbus, even if these uprisings and defeats of the Indians in the course of the year 1495 had never occurred.  Very early indeed we see what the admiral’s views were with regard to the Indians.  In the diary which he kept of his first voyage, on the 14th of October, three days after discovering the New World, he describes a position which he thinks would be a very good one for a fort; and he goes on to say, “I do not think that it (the fort) will be necessary, for this people is very simple in the use of arms (as your highnesses will see from seven of them that I have taken in order to bring them to you, to learn our language and afterwards to take them back); so that when your highnesses command, you can have them all taken to Castille or kept in the island as captives.”