in the country near Baracoa. These refugees were of course quick to report to the natives of Cuba the cause of their migration, and to portray the conduct and character of the Spaniards, and of Velasquez personally, in the most unfavorable light. The natural result was to predispose the Cuban natives to regard the Spaniards with distrust and aversion. And when Velasquez himself presently appeared among the very people who had been thus prejudiced against him, trouble inevitably arose.
The leader in the trouble was Hatuey, who had a large following both of his own tribe from Hispaniola and also of Cubans. He had maintained a system of spying and communication through which he kept himself perfectly informed of the doings of Velasquez, whom he considered his chief foe, not only politically but personally, and when he learned that he was coming to Cuba he busied himself with preparations to resist him. He was foremost in spreading among the Cuban natives all manner of evil reports concerning the Spaniards, all of which, whether true or false, found ready credence.
Thus on one occasion, as related by Herrera, he gathered many of the natives together with a promise to reveal to them the God of the Spaniards, whom they worshipped and to whom they made human sacrifices of Indians' lives. When they were assembled and their anticipation was whetted, he placed before them a small basket filled with gold. "That," said he, "is the God which the Spaniards worship, and in quest of which they are following us hither. Let us, therefore, ourselves pay this God reverence and implore him to bid his Spanish worshippers not to harm us when they come hither!" The natives performed a religious dance and other rites about the gold, until they were exhausted, and then Hatuey further counselled them to cast the gold into the river, where the Spaniards could not find it; since if they found it they would continue their search for more, even to cutting out the hearts of the people in quest of it.
Whether true or fabricated, the story indicates the attitude of Hatuey toward the Spaniards and explains the intensity of the bitterness which prevailed between him and Velasquez. Of course, when the Spaniards arrived and immediately began to hunt for gold, Hatuey's words about their God seemed to be confirmed. War began, which soon resulted in the defeat and capture of Hatuey, who was put to death. Tradition has it that he was burned at the stake, as was the common custom in those times, and that just before the fire was lighted he was invited to accept Christianity and be baptized, but refused on the ground that he did not want to meet any Spaniards in the other world. He was succeeded in command of the hostile natives by Caguax, who had been his comrade in Hispaniola and who had come to Cuba with him; and the hostilities were continued with the usual result of conflicts between a higher and a lower civilization. In a short time the province of Maysi was conquered and partly pacified, and that of Bayamo was invaded.
At this time and in these operations there appeared in Cuba two more men of commanding importance in the early history of the island, who were sent thither from Hispaniola to assist Velasquez soon after the defeat and death of Hatuey. One of these was Panfilo de Narvaez, a soldier and the leader of a company of thirty expert crossbow-men who had been serving in Jamaica but were no longer needed by the governor of that island, Esquivel. Narvaez was a native of Valladolid, Spain, near which city Velasquez also had been born. It is possible, indeed, that the two men were related, since there was a marked physical resemblance between them; both being tall, handsome, and of a pronounced blond complexion. At any rate, they had long been friends, and Velasquez was glad to make Narvaez his chief lieutenant and right-hand man. Narvaez appears to have been a man of high intelligence, honorable character, and much personal charm. He was, however, too much inclined toward fighting, was sometimes reckless in his leadership, and was no more scrupulous in his conduct toward the natives than were many other conquerors of various lands in those days of adventure and violence. At the head of a force of more than a hundred and fifty men, including a score of horsemen, he led the way in the conquest, first of Bayamo and finally of all the rest of the island. In his campaign he enjoyed immense advantage from the awe and terror which were caused among the natives by the appearance of the horses, which were the first ever seen in Cuba.
The other and more famous of these two men was Bartholomew de Las Casas, known to the world as the "Protector of the Indians" and as the "Apostle to the Indies." As a youth he had accompanied his father on Columbus's third voyage to America, and he had come to the Antilles a second time and permanently with Ovando, the Governor of Hispaniola, in 1502. In 1510 he was ordained to be a priest, and it was in that clerical capacity that he was sent over to Cuba to assist Velasquez in the conquest, pacification and settlement of the island. He appears at first to have had no important religious scruples against oppression of the natives, but joined with Velasquez and Narvaez in their sometimes ruthless policy. When the island was divided among the conquerors under the system of repartimientos, or allotments of natives as practical slaves of the Spaniards, he received and accepted without demur his encomienda or commandery, and held it for some time in partnership with his friend Pedro de Renteria. But a little later, realizing the injustice and cruelties which the natives suffered under this system, he became, as he himself described it, "converted," and thereafter was an earnest, zealous and almost fanatical champion of their rights. He visited Spain several times, to secure commissions of inquiry and other measures for their relief. Also, thinking thus to redeem them from enforced servitude, he secured royal sanction for the introduction of Negro slavery and the importation of Negro slaves into Cuba; a policy which he afterward deeply regretted.
After a brief campaign in Bayamo, which was not particularly successful, beyond the killing of Caguax and the final dispersion of the force which Hatuey had organized, Narvaez formed an expedition of perhaps five hundred men for more extended enterprises, in which he had as his principal companions Las Casas and a young nephew of Velasquez, Juan de Grijalva. The precise route of this expedition cannot now be stated. It certainly, however, traversed the Bayamo region, and went as far west as Camaguey. It also visited the neighborhood of Cape Cruz and there passed through the town of Cueyba, as Las Casas called it, where, as hitherto related, a Spanish mariner, presumably Ojeda, had landed and had established a Christian shrine with a statue of the Holy Virgin. Here and at other places amicable relations were maintained between the Spaniards and the natives.
Unhappily that was not always the rule. At the large town of Caonao, probably near Manzanillo, a number of Spanish soldiers, as if suddenly stricken with madness, began a massacre of the natives, killed a great number, and drove the rest into flight. Narvaez does not seem to have ordered nor to have taken part in the slaughter, but neither did he exert himself to prevent it or to stop it. Whereupon Las Casas, righteously wrathful, bade him to go to the Devil, and thereafter devoted himself to ministering to the sufferers and to reassuring the survivors.
From Caonao the expedition moved westward, through the southern part of the Province of Camaguey, where the natives were so frightened that they fled to the little islands off the coast which Columbus had named the Queen's Gardens. Thence it went across the island to the north coast, and probably in the region of Sagua la Grande, in Santa Clara Province, found some small deposits of gold. After stopping there for some time, it continued its progress into Havana Province, where more gold was found and where, unhappily, serious trouble with the natives was renewed.
On the way across the island Narvaez had heard of three Spaniards, a man and two women, who had been shipwrecked on the coast and were living with the Indians somewhere in the west. He sent word of this report back to Velasquez, who returned him orders to search for the castaways even in preference to gold, and who also dispatched a ship along the north coast to meet Narvaez and his party in the region to which they were going. In Santa Clara the two women were found, unharmed and well, and they presently married members of the expedition. Finally, in Havana the man also was found. He too was unharmed and well, though he had become in speech and habits more like an Indian than a Spaniard. According to his story, he and the two women were the sole survivors
