ry the islands failed to
prosper; and the reports of adversity so strongly checked the Spanish
impulse for adventure that special inducements by the government were
required to sustain any flow of emigration. But in 1512-1515 the
introduction of sugar-cane culture brought the beginning of a change in
the industrial situation. The few surviving gangs of Indians began to be
shifted from the mines to the fields, and a demand for a new labor supply
arose which could be met only from across the sea.

Apparently no negroes were brought to the islands before 1501. In that
year, however, a royal decree, while excluding Jews and Moors, authorized
the transportation of negroes born in Christian lands; and some of these
were doubtless carried to Hispaniola in the great fleet of Ovando, the new
governor, in 1502. Ovando's reports of this experiment were conflicting.
In the year following his arrival he advised that no more negroes be sent,
because of their propensity to run away and band with and corrupt the
Indians. But after another year had elapsed he requested that more negroes
be sent. In this interim the humane Isabella died and the more callous
Ferdinand acceded to full control. In consequence a prohibition of the
negro trade in 1504 was rescinded in 1505 and replaced by orders that the
bureau in charge of colonial trade promote the sending of negroes from
Spain in large parcels. For the next twelve years this policy was
maintained--the sending of Christian negroes was encouraged, while the
direct slave trade from Africa to America was prohibited. The number of
negroes who reached the islands under this regime is not ascertainable. It
was clearly almost negligible in comparison with the increasing demand.[11]

[Footnote 11: The chief authority upon the origin and growth of negro
slavery in the Spanish colonies is J.A. Saco, _Historia de la Esclavitud
de la Raza Africana en el Nuevo Mundo y en especial en los Paises
Americo-Hispanos_. (Barcelona, 1879.) This book supplements the same
author's _Historia de la Esclavitud desde los Tiempos remotos_ previously
cited.]

The policy of excluding negroes fresh from Africa--"bozal negroes" the
Spaniards called them--was of course a product of the characteristic
resolution to keep the colonies free from all influences hostile to
Catholic orthodoxy. But whereas Jews, Mohammedans and Christian heretics
were considered as champions of rival faiths, the pagan blacks came
increasingly to