ntend with, their ingenuity had never been taxed to
invent weapons of warfare against man or beast. The natives were at
once subjected by the new-comers, who reduced them gradually to an
actual state of slavery, and proving hard task-masters, the poor
overworked creatures died by hundreds, until they had nearly
disappeared. The home government then granted permission to import
negroes from the coast of Africa to labor upon the soil and to seek
for gold, which was known to exist in the river courses. Thus
commenced the foreign slave-trade of the West Indies, King Ferdinand
himself sending fifty slaves from Seville to labor in the mines, and
from that time this plague spot upon humanity has festered on the
island. It should be remembered in this connection that previous to
the discoveries of Columbus, negro slavery had been reduced to a
system by the Moors, and thus existed in Spain before the days of the
great Genoese.

The Spaniards were not content with putting the aborigines to labor
far beyond their power of endurance on the soil where they were born,
but shipped them by hundreds to Spain to be sold in the slave-market
of Seville, the proceeds being turned into the royal treasury.
Columbus himself was the promoter of this outrageous return for the
hospitality he had received at the hands of the natives. Irving
apologetically says he was induced to this course in order to
indemnify the sovereigns of Castile and Leon for the large expense his
expedition had been to them. The fact that the great navigator
originated the slave-trade in the New World cannot be ignored, though
it detracts in no small degree from the glory of his career.

Although the conquerors have left us but few details respecting these
aborigines, still we know with certainty from the narrative of
Columbus, and those of some of his most intelligent followers, that
they were docile, artless, generous, but inclined to ease; that they
were well-formed, grave, and far from possessing the vivacity of the
natives of the south of Europe. They expressed themselves with a
certain modesty and respect, and were hospitable to the last degree.
Reading between the lines of the records of history, it is manifest
that after their own rules and estimates, their lives were chaste and
proper, though it was admissible for kings to have several wives.
Moreover, though living in a state of nudity, they religiously
observed the decencies of life, and were more outraged by