Many Spaniards left the island before 1550, from
an apprehension that the negroes would destroy the colony. Some
authorities even place the number of Spaniards remaining at that time
as low as eleven hundred.
The common opinion that Las Casas asked permission for the colonists
to draw negroes from Africa, in order to assuage the sufferings of the
Indians, does not appear to be well-founded. For negroes were drawn
from Guinea as early as 1511, and his proposition was made in 1517.
The Spaniards were already introducing these substitutes for the
native labor, regardless of the ordinance which restricted the
possession of negroes in Hayti to those born in Spain. It is not
improbable that Las Casas desired to regulate a traffic which had
already commenced, by inducing the Government to countenance it. His
object was undoubtedly to make it easier for the colonists to procure
the blacks; but it must have occurred to him that his plan would
diminish, as far as possible, the miseries of an irregular transfer of
the unfortunate men from Africa. (See Bridge's _Jamaica, Appendix,
Historical Notes on Slavery._ The Spaniards had even less scruple
about their treatment of the negroes than of the Indians, alleging in
justification that their own countrymen sold them to the traders on
the Guinea coast!)
The horrors of a middle passage in those days of small vessels and
tedious voyages would have been great, if the number of slaves to be
transported had not been limited by law.
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