ard Vadillo's investigation of Guzman's administration; and it is
probably not unjust to assume that the Bishop's attitude and conduct
were due to the fact that Vadillo had seized a lot of gold which had
been mined by the husband of the Bishop's niece. Vadillo made this
seizure on two grounds: That the nephew-in-law was a mere figure-head
for the Bishop himself, who had no legal right to engage in
gold-mining; and that the gold in question properly belonged to the
royal treasury and therefore should be turned over to Hurtado. At any
rate the Bishop was furious, and strove to restrain, with threats of
excommunication, witnesses from testifying against Guzman in the
inquests which Vadillo was conducting. Vadillo was not at all alarmed or
abashed by the episcopal wrath, but proceeded to look into the affairs
of the church as well as the civil government, and among other reforms
ordered the Bishop and clergy to stop charging for funeral masses higher
fees than those which were charged in Hispaniola. At this the Bishop
seems quite to have lost his head. He began a denunciatory tirade
against Vadillo in the cathedral, at which the latter contemptuously
turned his back upon the speaker and walked out of the building. Then
the Bishop excommunicated him. Vadillo made appeal to the King, and the
King, after careful consideration and investigation, compelled the
Bishop to withdraw the excommunication, and in addition gave his royal
approval to all that Vadillo had done with respect to the church.

In the first clash between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities,
therefore, the former were victorious. Nevertheless, the church exerted
much and steadily increasing influence, particularly in matters relating
to the Indian natives. And these matters were of much importance.
Although the repartimiento system, adopted early in the administration
of Velasquez, was designed and supposed to put all the natives under
government control, it failed to do so. Among those apportioned to the
colonists as serfs--practically slaves--dissatisfaction and resentment
widely prevailed, and insurrections sometimes occurred. But by no means
all the natives were thus apportioned. Some fled to mountain fastnesses,
and others, perhaps the majority, to the small islands or Keys off the
Cuban coast, whence they became known as Key Indians. They used these
islands, moreover, not alone as places of refuge but also as bases from
which to make depredatory raids