was numbered in his party. Three years later, when the
timbers for the four boats with which he intended to explore the
Pacific had been prepared, thirty Negroes were among those who carried
them piece by piece over mountain and jungle from Acla to San Miguel.
Moreover, when Balboa's successor constructed the first highway from
ocean to ocean he made use of Negro labor along with that of the
Indian.[2]

Hernan Cortes carried with him from Cuba not only Indian servants but
Negro slaves who helped to drag along the artillery which he used to
strike mortal terror into the Indians of Mexico. There has been
preserved a list of those who set out on this famous expedition, and
among the names are those of two Negroes, one of whom Saco claims to
have been the first to sow and reap small grain in Mexico. Moreover,
two Negroes were among the company sent out by Velasquez in 1520 to
punish Cortes for his insubordination. One of these has the unenviable
distinction of having introduced smallpox among the Mexican Indians.
The other, who seems to have observed the fight between the men of the
agent of Velasquez (Narvaez) from the safe and comfortable distance of
a neighboring tree, has, because of some witty and flattering remarks
which he made to Cortes, received the honor of a paragraph in the
_Decades_ of Herrera.[3]

It is not definitely known whether Pedro de Alvarado, one of the
bravest and most gallant lieutenants of Cortes, carried Negroes with
him into Guatemala in 1523, but it is certain that eleven years later,
when his ambition and love of gain led him to fit out that ill-fated
expedition to Quito, he saw fit to include in the company two hundred
black slaves, most of whom perished while making their way through the
blinding snows of the Andes.[4]

It is certain, moreover, that several Negroes were along with the
_Conquistadores_ of Peru and Chile. The contract of Francisco Pizarro
permitted him to introduce fifty Negroes into Peru free of duty; and
even before this, Negroes had accompanied those who had spied out the
land. In 1525, when Diego de Almagro effected a landing near the port
of Quemado, on the west coast of South America, and attempted to
penetrate the adjacent country, he encountered rather severe
opposition from the Indians of the section. During the resulting
skirmish one of his eyes was crushed by a dart and he was saved from
captivity and death only by the valiant succor of his Negro slave. A
year lat