Governor, Don Arnoldi Gasi, sent as
one of his representatives Don Acosta, "a noble Portuguese."
Belonging to his establishment and accompanying him as chaplain was a
Negro priest. His name has not come down to us but we know his fate.
One of the conditions of the surrender was that the Spaniards were not
to attempt to remove their belongings.[212] The town, however,
contained a party, chiefly of Portuguese, hostile to the surrender.
The first article of the capitulation required that all "goods, wares,
merchandizes, or what else upon the said island, be delivered up,
etc., without any deceit, embezzlement, or concealment whatever." A
certain Colonel made bold to drive away into the woodlands all the
cattle he could collect. Don Acosta was not only as a man of honor
shocked at this breach of a solemnly signed agreement, but he had the
painful personal interest in it of being a hostage in the hands of the
British for the due performance of the treaty of surrender. He
therefore, we are told, sent to the Colonel "his priest, a discreet
Negro, to remonstrate."[213] The Colonel put the priest to death, and
apparently suffered no worse punishment for this dastardly act than to
have the cattle he had gone away with discovered and brought back to
the British lines.[214]

When the Spaniards a few weeks after evacuated the island, going by
ship to Cuba, they took the liberty of further transgressing the
treaty made with Penn and Venables, the British commanders, for,
instead of taking their slaves with them, they turned them loose into
the hills, with directions to harass the British as much as was
possible. These slaves formed the nucleus of the Maroons, a body of
mountain warriors whose deeds of daring and battle form a story too
long and too interesting to be dealt with here.[215]

The British speedily introduced African slaves into the island, and,
after a few generations, the population had taken the contour it still
preserves, namely, the pure whites, the colored folk (mixed breeds)
and the pure blacks. For one reason and another, individuals in the
last-named section obtained their freedom. Sometimes it was granted to
them by masters who appreciated some special service rendered.
Sometimes it was bequeathed to them by kind-hearted masters. At times
it was a gift from the state for services rendered in times of
rebellion or other disaster to the commonwealth.[216]

Among the colored element of the population the tendency