in the days of
dearth they shall have enough.'

Toward the end of the seventeenth century the Indians summoned up
courage to revolt, after a foolish ineffectual fashion. According
to tradition, and an old 'romance muy doloroso,' which might have
been heard sung within the last hundred years, the governor, the
Cabildo, and the clergy went to witness an annual feast of the
Indians at Arena, a sandy spot (as its name signifies) near the
central mountain of Tamana. In the middle of one of their warlike
dances, the Indians, at a given signal, discharged a flight of
arrows, which killed the governor, all the priests, and almost all
the rest of the whites. Only a Farfan escaped, not without
suspicion of forewarning by the rebels. He may have been a merciful
man and just; while considering the gentle nature of the Indians, it
is possible that some at least of their victims deserved their fate,
and that the poor savages had wrongs to avenge which had become
intolerable. As for the murder of the priests, we must remember
always that the Inquisition was then in strength throughout Spanish
America; and could be, if it chose, aggressive and ruthless enough.

By the end of the seventeenth century there were but fifteen
pueblos, or Indian towns, in the island; and the smallpox had made
fearful ravages among them. Though they were not forced to work as
slaves, a heavy capitation tax, amounting, over most of the island,
to two dollars a head, was laid on them almost to the end of the
last century. There seems to have been no reason in the nature of
things why they should not have kept up their numbers; for the
island was still, nineteen-twentieths of it, rich primeval forest.
It may have been that they could not endure the confined life in the
pueblos, or villages, to which they were restricted by law. But,
from some cause or other, they died out, and that before far
inferior numbers of invaders. In 1783, when the numbers of the
whites were only 126, of the free coloured 295, and of the slaves
310, the Indians numbered only 2032. In 1798, after the great
immigration from the French West Indies, there were but 1082 Indians
in the island. It is true that the white population had increased
meanwhile to 2151, the free coloured to 4476, and the slaves to
10,000. But there was still room in plenty for 2000 Indians.
Probably many of them had been absorbed by intermarriage with the
invaders.