to make slaves of them. We believe, although we do not positively know it, that the said Diego Velasquez, Lieutenant of the Admiral, owned a fourth part of the armada. One of the owners of the said armada, called Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba, went as its Captain, taking as pilot a resident of the town of Palos,[1] one Anton de Alaminos,[2] whom we have also now as pilot, and whom we have sent to Your Royal Highnesses that he may furnish information to Your Majesties.
Pursuing their voyage, they arrived at the said Island of Yucatan, at its uttermost point, which may be sixty or seventy leagues both from the
Discovery
of
Yucatan
said Island of Fernandina, and from this country of the rich land of Vera Cruz, [thus in the MS. where in the name of Your Royal Highnesses. At this point they disembarked at a town called Campoche, [3] whose chief they named
- ↑ Anton de Alaminos had served under Columbus on his voyage in 1502, when the other pilots were Comacho de Triana, and Juan Alvarez; there was also the inspector of the royal fifth Bernardino de Iñiquez, and a Chaplain, Alonzo Gonzalez from the town of San Cristobal.
- ↑ The little port from which Columbus originally sailed in 1492.
- ↑ The point of Catoche, where they landed on March 5th, is the extremity of the peninsula nearest to Cuba. A chief and many people came out to the caravels in canoes, and having no interpreter they made themselves understood as best they could by signs, inviting
there were, had been made by disillusioned immigrants who, when they found that gold and pearls, instead of lying at their feet, had to be sought as elsewhere with labour, enslaved the natives for the exploitation of the natural resources of the islands. Thus the slave trade sprang up, and as the Indians, unaccustomed to hard work and harsh treatment, died off in such numbers as to rapidly depopulate the neighbourhoods of the Spanish settlements, expeditions were constantly organised to the neighbouring islands for the purpose, as Cortes states, of capturing the natives. The system of repartimientos and encomiendas was begun under the sanction of Columbus, and, in spite of the denunciations of the Church, and repeated edicts from the home government, the slave trade flourished, and the island population rapidly dwindled. This subject is more fully noticed in Appendix I. to the Fourth Letter.
