fitness of the Indians for any greater measure of liberty than they
were already enjoying, which was practically none at all. It was
declared that the Indians were at that very time largely armed and
threatening the Spaniards with massacre and extermination, and that any
further privileges granted to them would certainly provoke a tragic
catastrophe. The Indians would exterminate the Spanish colonists and of
course revert to heathen idolatry, and it would be necessary to conquer
and to convert the island over again. This perjured stuff,
responsibility for which must be regarded as the worst stain upon
Gonzalo de Guzman's fame, was presented to the King in the name of the
government and people of Cuba.

But King Charles was no fool. Thousands of miles away though he was, and
absorbed in important problems of other parts of his vast empire, he
took pains to find out the truth about Cuba. Learning it, he threw the
stuff which Guzman had sent him into the waste basket, gave his
Franciscan commissioner stronger orders, declared that he wanted the
Indians to be treated as free men and not as slaves, and promulgated a
set of new laws concerning them. In connection with these laws, as a
statement of the need of them, the King delivered himself of a scathing
indictment of the Cuban government and people for ill-treatment of the
natives and for causing depopulation of the island. (The original
population of the island at the time of the first Spanish settlements is
unknown, but has reasonably been estimated at several hundred thousand.
By the end of Guzman's administration the number of surviving Indians
was reckoned at not more than five thousand!)

These new laws, issued in the latter part of 1526, forbade further
compulsion of the Indians as laborers in the mines. But in the course of
a few weeks some modifications of them--to the disadvantage of the
Indians--were obtained through false representations at court, with the
result that conditions became almost as bad as before. The King next
directed Sebastian Ramirez, who was Bishop of Hispaniola and president
of the supreme court, to report to him on the desirability of retaining
or abolishing the repartimiento system; and that functionary reported in
favor of retaining it. Then Miguel Ramirez was made Bishop of Cuba and
Protector of the Indians; and he, as we have seen, fell completely under
the influence of Guzman. The result was that no reforms were effected,
and the state