or the new commerce may
be pushed forward.(18)

The Queen's observation on this passage was not as positive as it might
have been and, though the proposition was evidently repugnant to her, she
merely directed that the matter be suspended for the present until some
other way of providing on the spot be found and that the Admiral should
report further. Columbus, however, did not wait to receive the royal
approval of his slave-trading schemes. During a voyage which resulted in
the discovery of Jamaica and other islands, he visited that of San Juan
(Puerto Rico) for the purpose of capturing more cannibals, and on his
return Hispaniola, where he had left his brother Don Diego in charge as
President and Don Pedro Margarite as Captain-General, he found affairs in
the worst possible condition owing to the foolish and inconsiderate
conduct of the colonists, which had converted the friendly natives into
hostile enemies and placed the very existence of the colony in jeopardy.
After some hostilities, a degree of tranquillity was established and
Columbus laid a tribute upon the entire population of the island which
required that each Indian above fourteen years of age who lived in the
mining provinces was to pay a little bell filled with gold every three
months; the natives of all other provinces were to pay one arroba of
cotton. These amounts were so excessive that in 1496 it was found
necessary to change the nature of the payment, and, instead of the gold
and cotton required from the villages, labour was substituted, the Indians
being required to lay out and work the plantations of the colonists in
their vicinity. This was the germ of the cruel and oppressive
repartimientos and encomiendas which were destined to depopulate the
islands and to bring an indelible stigma on the Spanish colonial system in
the Indies. In that year, 1496, Bartholomew Columbus sent three hundred
natives, who were convicted or accused of killing Spaniards, to Spain to
be sold as slaves. Though the Spanish sovereigns admitted a difference in
the status of such natives, there is nevertheless a letter of theirs
addressed to Bishop Fonseca, who was at the head of Indian affairs,
directing him to receive no money from the sale of Indians until
theologians and canonists had pronounced upon the question whether they
might with a good conscience, permit such Indians to be sold. No positive
decision is recorded, but order were given that all Indians taken in acts