e King, but not fulfilled save in
the indirect way of empowering the members of the expedition to recoup
themselves at the expense of the people of the island; an arrangement
decidedly at variance with Ferdinand's former solicitude for good
treatment for the natives. Further than that, Diego had little or
nothing to do with Cuba, and in a short time Velasquez was known not as
Lieutenant but as Governor, as though he were entirely independent of
the Viceroy in Hispaniola.

[Illustration: BARACOA

First Capital of Cuba]

Early in 1511 Velasquez assembled a flotilla of three or four vessels on
the northwest coast of Hispaniola, at or near the place where Columbus
had landed when he discovered that island and first visited it from
Cuba. In the adjacent region he recruited a company of about three
hundred men, and with that force set out for the conquest and
colonization of Cuba. The precise date of his expedition is not to be
ascertained, but it was probably in February or at latest March of that
year. The place of his landing in Cuba, however, is known. It was at
Baracoa, where also Columbus had landed before him. Following the
practice of Columbus and the other explorers he promptly gave the place
a new name of his own selection, calling it the City of Our Lady of the
Assumption. There he established his seat of government and base of
further operations, giving to the place in both civil and ecclesiastical
affairs the technical rank and dignity of a city. But, as also
frequently happened, the new name was unable to supplant the old one in
popular usage; and when, in 1514, the insular capital was transferred to
Santiago de Cuba, and in 1522 the cathedral of the diocese was similarly
transferred, the new name was permitted to lapse, and the place became
again universally known as Baracoa. Despite its vicissitudes of fortune,
therefore, and its loss of its former high estate, Baracoa is entitled
to the triple distinction of having been the site of the first permanent
European settlement in Cuba, of the first civilized government, and of
the first cathedral church.

At Baracoa, immediately upon his arrival, Velasquez built a fort, the
exact site of which is now matter of conjecture, and various other
edifices. These were all constructed of wood, probably of bamboo and
thatch, and no trace of them remains to-day. Search was also promptly
made for gold, and some seems to have been found in the beds of streams,
though in no