Those Of The Other Provinces
Were Rated At A Quarter Of An Hundred Weight Of Cotton.
The cacique
Manicatex, who had headed the great insurrection, was condemned to pay
monthly half a gourd, or calabash full of gold, which was worth 150 pieces
of eight.
To ascertain the regular payment of this tribute, certain medals
of brass or copper were coined, every time the tribute fell due, and every
tributary Indian received one of these to wear about his neck, that it
might be known who had paid. Guarionex, the principal cacique of the
Royal Plain, represented to the admiral that his subjects knew not how to
gather the gold which was exacted from them, and offered to cultivate corn
for the Spaniards all across the island, from the town of Isabella to
where St Domingo was afterwards built, provided he would demand no gold
from him. The distance between these two places is 55 leagues[1], and the
grain produce of this vast territory would have sufficed to maintain the
whole population of Castile. The admiral was conscious that he was
obnoxious to the ministers of their Catholic majesties, being an
unprotected stranger, and that he could not support his interest in Spain,
except by the transmission of treasure, which made him eager to procure
gold from the natives: But the pressure of this tribute was so intolerable
upon the Indians, that many of them abandoned their habitations and roamed
about the island, to avoid the tax which they were unable to pay, seeking
a precarious subsistence in the woods.
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