1474, that Negro slaves were common
in Seville. There is a letter from Ferdinand and Isabella in the year 1474
to a celebrated Negro, Juan de Valladolid, commonly called the "Negro
Count" (El Conde Negro), nominating him to the office of "mayoral of the
Negroes" in Seville. The slaves were apparently treated kindly, allowed to
keep their own dances and festivals, and to have their own chief, who
represented them in the courts, as against their own masters, and settled
their private quarrels.

Between 1455 and 1492 little mention is made of slaves in the trade with
Africa. Columbus is said to have suggested Negroes for America, but
Ferdinand and Isabella refused. Nevertheless, by 1501, we have the first
incidental mention of Negroes going to America in a declaration that Negro
slaves "born in the power of Christians were to be allowed to pass to the
Indies, and the officers of the royal revenue were to receive the money to
be paid for their permits."

About 1501 Ovando, Governor of Spanish America, was objecting to Negro
slaves and "solicited that no Negro slaves should be sent to Hispaniola,
for they fled amongst the Indians and taught them bad customs, and never
could be captured." Nevertheless a letter from the king to Ovando, dated
Segovia, the fifteenth of September, 1505, says, "I will send more Negro
slaves as you request; I think there may be a hundred. At each time a
trustworthy person will go with them who may have some share in the gold
they may collect and may promise them ease if they work well."[70] There
is a record of a hundred slaves being sent out this very year, and Diego
Columbus was notified of fifty to be sent from Seville for the mines in
1510.

After this time frequent notices show that Negroes were common in the new
world.[71] When Pizarro, for instance, had been slain in Peru, his body
was dragged to the cathedral by two Negroes. After the battle of Anaquito
the head of the viceroy was cut off by a Negro, and during the great
earthquake in Guatemala a most remarkable figure was a gigantic Negro seen
in various parts of the city. Nunez had thirty Negroes with him on the top
of the Sierras, and there was rumor of an aboriginal tribe of Negroes in
South America. One of the last acts of King Ferdinand was to urge that no
more Negroes be sent to the West Indies, but under Charles V, Bishop Las
Casas drew up a plan of assisted migration to America and asked in 1517
the right for immigrants to import