ey hammered the native gold into ornaments, and their rude
sculptures on the face of the rocks are still visible in parts of Cuba
and Haiti. Their boats were formed of single trunks of trees often of
large size, and they managed them adroitly; their houses were of reeds
covered with palm leaves, and usually accommodated a large number of
families; and in their holy places, they set up rows of large stones
like the ancient cromlechs, one of which is still preserved in Hayti,
and is known as _la cercada de los Indios_.

Physically they were undersized, less muscular than the Spaniards, light
in color, with thick hair and scanty beards. Their foreheads were
naturally low and retreating, and they artificially flattened the skull
by pressure on the forehead or the occiput.[34]

Three social grades seem to have prevailed, the common herd, the petty
chiefs who ruled villages, and the independent chiefs who governed
provinces. Of the latter there were in Cuba twenty-nine; in Haiti five,
as near as can be now ascertained.[35] Some of those in Cuba had shortly
before the arrival of the Spaniards moved there from Haiti, and at the
conquest one of the principal chiefs of Haiti was a native of the
Lucayos.[36]

The fate of these Indians is something terrible to contemplate. At the
discovery there were probably 150,000 on Cuba, Haiti, and the
Bahamas.[37] Those on the latter were carried as slaves to Haiti to work
in the mines, and all of the Lucayos exterminated in three or four years
(1508-1512).[38] The sufferings of the Haitians have been told in a
graphic manner by Las Casas in an oft-quoted work.[39] His statements
have frequently been condemned as grossly exaggerated, but the official
documents of the early history of Cuba prove but too conclusively that
the worthy missionary reports correctly what terrible cruelties the
Spaniards committed. Cuba was conquered in 1514, and was then quite
densely populated. Fourteen years afterwards we find the Governor,
Gonzalo de Guzman, complaining that while troops of hunters were
formerly traversing the island constantly, asking no other pay than the
right of keeping as slaves the natives whom they captured, he now has to
pay patrolmen, as the Indians are so scarce.[40] The next year (1529)
the treasurer, Lope de Hurtado, writes that the Indians are in such
despair that they are hanging themselves twenty and thirty at a
time.[41] In 1530 the king is petitioned to relinquish his royalty o