1. The Spanish victims of the Caribs were Colchero, Cristóbal Sánchez and Otte, Juan de León. Enrique, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 1500–1550 (Caracas: Fundación John Boulton y Fundación Eugenio Mendoza, 1963), xxviiiGoogle Scholar.

2. Hulme, Peter, Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean, 1492–1797 (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1986), 63 Google Scholar. Female Caribs reportedly used Arawakan vocabulary, while male Caribs used both Arawakan and Carib words. Mol, Angus A. A., Costly Giving, Giving Guaízas: Towards an OrganicModel of the Exchange of Social Valuables in the Late Ceramic Age Caribbean (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2007), 61 Google Scholar. The Taíno (also an imagined ethnic category) of Española referred to their southern neighbors as “Caribe,” while the Lucayan Indians of the Bahamas islands called them “Caniba.” “Taíno” means noble, or good, and is a derivative of the adjective nitaíno in the Taíno language. Whether or not the Taínos referred to themselves in this way prior to 1492 is difficult to ascertain. The first European to record the term was Diego Álvarez Chanca in a letter to the court of Seville in 1493. Keegan, William, The People Who Discovered Columbus: The Prehistory of the Bahamas (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992), 11 Google Scholar; Stevens-Arroyo, Antonio M., Cave of the Jagua: The Mythological World of the Taínos (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988), xGoogle Scholar; Álvarez, Ángel Rodríguez, ed., Mitología taína o eyeri: Ramón Pané y la Relación sobre las antiguedades de los indios: el primer tratado etnográfico hecho en América (San Juan: Editorial Nuevo Mundo, 2009), 3 Google Scholar.

3. While the term Carib can be controversial, it is difficult to identify these indigenous groups, at least in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, by any other name. Through ethnographic accounts written by French missionaries, we know that the inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles referred to themselves as Kalinago by the middle of the seventeenth century. However, it is likely that the Kalinago identity and people did not develop until nearly a hundred years after original Spanish colonization. This explains why the term was not used in Spanish records in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nor were the Kalinago of 1650 the same peoples or cultures as those living in Guadalupe, Dominica, or Tierra Firme in the 1490s who first encountered, and were enslaved by, Spanish merchants and explorers. In fact, linguistic and archaeological evidence shows that the Kalinago are likely a product of the Indian diaspora that was created by the violence and movement of the earliest indigenous slave trade. Lenik, Stephan, “Carib as a Colonial Category: Comparing Ethnohistoric and Archaeological Evidence from Dominica, West Indies,” Ethnohistory 59:1 (Winter 2012): 80–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hofman, Corrine, Mol, Angus, Hoogland, Menno, and Rojas, Roberto Valcárcel, “Stage of Encounters: Migration, Mobility, and Interaction in the Pre-Colonial and Early Colonial Caribbean,” World Archaeology 46:4 (2014): 599–600 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Santos-Granero, Fernando, Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), 19 Google Scholar.

4. At the time of Spanish exploration there were dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct tribal groups living in present-day Venezuela and Colombia. Largely, they were members of either the Chibcha or Arawak linguistic groups. They would have shared many cultural characteristics, and would have conducted both trade and war with one another. However, it is impossible to know with which groups the Spanish were interacting, as they simply referred to them all as “indios.” Only occasionally did the Spanish accounts differ between Carib and Arauca, but even this division is of little real significance. Due to the limitations of those documents, I will refer to the indigenous peoples of Tierra Firme simply as Indians in this article, and as Caribs when appropriate. For more on the ethnic makeup of the region in the sixteenth century, see Jiménez, Morella A., La esclavitud indígena en Venezuela (Siglo XVI) (Caracas: Fuentes para la Historia Colonial de Venezuela, 1986)Google Scholar.

5. Casas, Bartolomé de Las, Historia de las Indias, Tomo III, Hanke, Lewis and Carlo, Agustín Millares, eds. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1951), 128 Google Scholar; Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, “Del martirio de dos frailes Dominicos, en Cumana: y que Diego Velázquez envía a Pánfilo de Narváez, y al Lic. Casas por la Isla de Cuba, a pacificar los Indios,” in Antonio de Herrera, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos, en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Océano, Tomo 2 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guarania, 1949) 226.

6. Herrera, “De otra instancia de los Frailes Dominicos, sobre el particular de los Indios, y lo que resulto,” Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos, 225.

7. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, III, 130.

8. “Comisión al Licenciado Zuazo sobre los indios cautivados,” January 13, 1518, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 101.

9. “Orden de los Gerónimo a los frailes Dominicos,” September 3, 1516, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 78; Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, III, 131.

10. Otte, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, xxviii.

11. Ricard, Robert developed the idea of the “spiritual conquest” in his pivotal work The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523–1572, translated by Lesley Byrd Simpson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966)Google Scholar. For Ricard, the “spiritual conquest” was the successful conversion of the natives of New Spain to Catholicism, a process that occurred in concert with the military conquest of Mexico. Since the publication of Ricard's work, the idea of the “spiritual conquest,” especially the degree to which it was completed and degree of success it achieved, has come under fire from many historians. Historians like Louise Burkhart and Nancy Farriss portray the “spiritual conquest” as a multilayered negotiation between the Indians and clergy. Others, like William Taylor, have questioned the success of the friars, arguing for the creation of a syncretic Catholicism infused with surviving elements of native culture, ritual, and beliefs constantly evolving over time. For more on this topic, see Burkhart, Louise, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Farriss, Nancy, Maya Society Under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Taylor, William B., Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Cline, Sarah’s review essay, “Conquest and the Aftermath: Center and Periphery in Colonial Mexico,” Latin American Research Review 27:3, (1992): 244–253 Google Scholar; and Schwaller, John F.’s article “Franciscans in Colonial Latin America,” The Americas 61:4 (2005): 565–570 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Schwaller, John F., The Church in Colonial Latin America (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2000), xiii–xiv Google Scholar.

13. Rivera, Luis N., “The Theological Juridical Debate,” in The Church in Colonial Latin America, Schwaller, John F., ed. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 2000), 10 Google Scholar.

14. Hanke, Lewis, “The Dawn of Consciousness in America: Spanish Experiments and Experiences with Indians in the New World,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 107:2 (April 1963): 84 Google Scholar.

15. For more on silences in history, see Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 26 Google Scholar.

16. Historians that do discuss the missions, albeit briefly, include Morella A. Jiménez, La esclavitud indígena en Venezuela (Siglo XVI); Enrique Otte in his document collection Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 1500–1550; and Daniel Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007).

17. Clayton, Lawrence A., Bartolomé de las Casas: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. The first missions of Tierra Firme are even referenced by other friars in their narratives of exploration and conversion. For example, in Luis Cáncer's relation of his attempted mission near present-day Tampa Bay, he frequently mentions past failures, suffering, and sadness. While his references could be taken to refer to the general hardships of conquest and colonization, it is more likely he is remembering the past experiences of his fellow Dominican friars, perhaps even those who were martyred in Tierra Firme in 1515, 1521, and 1522. Cáncer's more cautious hopes for success are also noticeably different from Córdoba or Montesinos's discourses in 1513 or 1516. Luis Cáncer: jornada a la Florida, 1549. Archivo General de Indios [hereafter AGI], Patronato 19, R.4, fol. 1r.

19. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas, 192.

20. Griffiths, Nicholas, ed. Spiritual Encounters: Interactions Between Christianity and Native Religions in Colonial America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 19 Google Scholar.

21. For more on these missions, see Sadlier, Darlene J., Brazil Imagined: 1500 to the Present (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Roger, ed., Portraits from the Age of Exploration: Selections from André Thevet's Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993)Google Scholar; De Léry, Jean, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil Otherwise called America, trans. Janet Whatley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and de Sousa, Gabriel Soares, Tratado descritivo do Brasil em 1587 (Sao Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1938)Google Scholar. For more on the Indian slave trade in Brazil, see Monteiro, John Manuel, Negros da terra: indios e bandeirantes nas origens de Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1994)Google Scholar.

22. For more on indigenous slavery and the Jesuits in New France, see Rushforth, Brett, Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France (Williamsburg, VA and Chapel Hill, NC: Omohundro Institute and University of North Carolina Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hart, William B., “‘The kindness of the blessed Virgin’: faith, succor, and the cult of Mary among Christian Hurons and Iroquois in eventeenth-century New France,” in Spiritual Encounters: Interactions Between Christianity and Native Religions in Colonial America, Griffiths, Nicholas, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 65–90 Google Scholar.

23. For more on the praying towns, interactions between the English and Indians in North America, and Indian slavery in British colonies, see Lepore, Jill, The Name of War: King Phillip's War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Vintage Books, 1999)Google Scholar; Newell, Margaret Ellen, “Indian Slavery in Colonial New England,” in Indian Slavery in Colonial America, Gallay, Alan, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2009), 33–66 Google Scholar; Kupperman, Karen Ordahl, Indians and English: Facing off in Early America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and David Murray, “Spreading the Word: Missionaries, Conversion, and Circulation in the Northeast,” in Spiritual Encounters, Nicholas Griffiths, ed., 43–64.

24. In his extensive work on the history of Cubagua, Enrique Otte describes the coastline of Venezuela as a “granjeria de indios” by the late 1520s. Otte, , Las perlas del Caribe: Nueva Cádiz de Cubagua (Caracas: Fundación John Boulton, 1977), 205 Google Scholar.

25. Encomiendas formally subjected Americas' native peoples to Spanish overlords. The Crown commended a certain number of Indians (living within certain boundaries, or in a specific territory under one indigenous leader or cacique) to a single Spaniard known as an encomendero. This encomendero would collect all tribute from his Indians, usually through the help of their natural lord or cacique, giving the Crown its royal fifth. In exchange for receiving their tribute, the encomendero was put in charge of ensuring that his Indians were converted to the Catholic faith and that they were treated well.

26. In fact, it was Montesinos's rousing indictment of the Spanish settlers that would later inspire the now-famous Bartolomé de Las Casas to abandon his own encomienda, become a Dominican friar in 1524, and take up the defense of Native Americans.

27. While Montesinos, along with his fellow Dominicans, did criticize the encomenderos for their excessive exploitation and abuse of the Indians, it is important to understand that he did not question the Spaniards' right to rule over the natives and to collect tribute and labor from them. His main contention was how they reigned over the Taíno, not that they did not possess the right to govern them generally, as received from both God and the king of Spain. Seed, Patricia, “Are These Not Men? The Indians' Humanity and Capacity for Spanish Civilization,” Journal of Latin American Studies 25:3 (October 1993): 635 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Mena, Miguel D., Iglesia, espacio, y poder: Santo Domingo (1498–1521), experiencia fundacional del Nuevo Mundo (Santo Domingo: Archivo General de la Nación, 2007), 250–251 Google Scholar.

29. Sauer, Carl Ortwin, The Early Spanish Main (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 197 Google Scholar; Errasti, Mariano, Los primeros franciscanos en América: Isla Española, 1493–1520 (Santo Domingo: Fundación García Arévalo Inc., 1998), 205–206 Google Scholar.

30. Sauer, The Early Spanish Main, 344. The term naboría comes directly from the Taíno word for commoner or worker. Naborías were not considered property and could not be sold nor inherited, unlike the Indian slaves taken from Carib lands.

31. “Cédula a Pedro de Córdova,” June 2, 1513. Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 65. “ha acordado de pasarse con los más frailes que pudiere llevar a la dicha Tierra Firme e doctrinar y enseñar los indios della en las coas de nuestra santa fe católica.”

32. Ibid., 65. “ir a las partes de Tierra Firme que no estuvieren alborotadas e escandalizadas de cristianos.”

33. Another significant factor that contributed to the failure of the missions was the distance of Tierra Firme, or more specifically Cumaná, from the Spanish centers of the Caribbean. This made the receipt of supplies sporadic at best, leaving the friars dependent upon the indigenous peoples of the region. The same disadvantage led to the end of many settlements across the Americas.

34. However, impediments to reform originated not solely in secular corners, but grew out of the animosity and competition between the religious groups themselves. The infighting among the religious orders only undermined an already difficult and tenuous process, allowing the clergy's opponents to persist in their exploitation of native peoples for decades more.

35. “Cédula a Pedro de Córdova,” 1513, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 65. “me suplico mandase que ninguna persona de ninguna calidad e condición que fuese no fuese osado de hacer ninguna cosa a los indios e tierra donde el e los dichos frailes estuviesen si no fuese con su licencia e parecer e consentimiento, porque los dichos frailes tenían ya conocimiento de aquella parte donde estuvieren, e con su parecer es de creer que se acertara muy mejor qualquier cosa que en ella se oviere de hacer.”

36. “Prohibición de comercio con indios,” June 12, 1513, AGI, Indiferente 419, L.4, fol. 144r–144v. “ni tenga otra ninguna manera de contratación ni comunicación con los indios e tierra donde los dichos frailes estuvieren, salvo que todo lo que oviere de hacer o decir sea con parecer, licencia e consentimiento de dicho fray Pedro de Córdova e de los religiosos que consigo tuviere.”

37. “Cédula a Pedro de Córdova,” 1513, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 65. “sea direte ni indirete de hacer ninguna alteración ni maltratamiento, que contra ello no vayan ni pasen, so pena de la nuestra merced e de perdimiento de la mitad de sus bienes a qualesquier persona o personas que ansi no lo guardaren e cumplieren.”

38. “Orden a Sancho de Matienzo,” May 12, 1513, AGI, Indiferente General 419, L.4, fols. 157v–158r; Orden a los oficiales de la Casa de la Contratación, June 10, 1513, AGI, Indiferente General 419, L.4, fol. 143r; Orden a Fray Pedro de Córdova, Valladolid, June 10, 1513, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 62–63.

39. “Orden a los oficiales de la Casa de la Contratación,” June 1, 1513, AGI, Indiferente General 419, L.4, fol. 164r; Orden a Fray Pedro de Cordova, June 1, 1513, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 72; Orden al Doctor Sancho de Matienzo, June 19, 1513, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 75–76. In addition to the religious objects, the friars received materials and tools to construct and furnish a church building and their own residences. These included cement, various types of cloth, scissors, knives, pots, pans, axes, and candleholders, to name a few items.

40. While the Laws of Burgos did little to ameliorate the day-to-day suffering of the Taínos of Española, they did inspire one significant development: the schools for hijos de caciques (sons of native chiefs or leaders). Specifically, the Laws of Burgos required that “all of the sons of caciques on the island of Española, now and in the future, thirteen years of age or younger, be given to the friars of the Order of Saint Francis so that the friars show them how to read and write and the ways of our faith.” Canedo, Lino Gómez, La educación de los marginados durante la Época Colonial (Mexico City: Editorial Porrua, S.A., 1982), 7Google Scholar. To fulfill these instructions, bachiller Hernán Súarez in 1513 received 20 grammar books, several reams of paper, and other books with which he was to open a school for the caciques' sons in the Monastery at Verapaz on the island of Española. “Orden al provincial de la orden de San Francisco,” 1513, AGI, Indiferente 419, L.4, fol. 127v.

41. “Orden a Diego Colón,” May 12, 1513. AGI, Indiferente General 419, L.4, fol. 146r–146v. “y ansimismo les deis e hagáis dar quatro o cinco indios de los que han venido de Tierra Firme a esa dicha isla Espanola, para que ellos los puedan llevar y lleven por lenguas a la dicha Tierra Firme, los quales sean los que el dicho fray Pedro pidiere, y si los tales indios fueren esclavos, mando a vos, Miguel de Pasamonte, nuestro tesorero de la dicha isla, que los compréis de las personas cuyos fueron, e tomes dellos sus cartas de pago, con las quales e con el traslado signado desta mi cédula mando que se vos reciban en cuenta los maravedís que ansi pareciere que distes por ellos.”

42. For more on these influential characters, known as go-betweens, see Metcalf, Alida C., Go-Betweens and the Colonization of Brazil, 1500–1600 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005)Google Scholar; and Yannakakis, Yanna, The Art of Being In-Between: Native Intermediaries, Indian Identity and Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43. “Orden a Diego Colón,” May 28, 1513, AGI, Indiferente General 419, L.4, fol. 160v.

44. This could be partially because many of his closest advisers at court, including the Bishop of Burgos and his secretary Lope Conchillos, held encomiendas in absentia. These men actively encouraged the indigenous slave trade as well as the continuation of the encomienda system. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas, 91.

45. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, III, 127.

46. As of 1510, Pedro de Córdoba held the position of royal inquisitor in the Indies; hence, he did not journey to Tierra Firme himself.

47. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, III, 127.

48. Ibid.; Herrera, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos, 225; Jiménez, La esclavitud indígena en Venezuela, 139.

49. Otte, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, xxviii. The exploitation of the Araya salt mines began under the guidance of Jerónimo de Grimaldi y Jácome de Castellón in 1514.

50. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, III, 130.

51. “Orden de Licenciado Zuazo,” January 14, 1518. Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 103–104. Regarding other recently enslaved Indians, any found to have been captured illegally were to be taken from their masters and placed in Dominican or Franciscan monasteries in Santo Domingo. There they would be indoctrinated in the Catholic faith.

52. See Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas, 175–190.

53. King Ferdinand died in January 1516, leaving power to Cardinal Francisco Jimenéz de Cisneros, the regent of Castile, until Ferdinand's grandson Charles came of age).

54. “Prohibición para pasar a Cumaná,” September 3, 1516, AGI, Indiferente General 419, L.6, fols. 512v–515r; “Orden de los Gerónimo a los frailes Dominicos,” September 3, 1516, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 77. The term rescate signifies trade under some pressure, force, or violence and could mean the commandeering of goods. Sauer, The Early Spanish Main, 85. It was commonly used to describe the forceful capture and trade of Indian slaves in later years.

55. “Orden de los Gerónimo a los frailes Dominicos,” September 3, 1516, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 79.

56. Ibid., 80.

57. Castro, Daniel, Another Face of Empire, 80–81 Google Scholar.

58. Cisneros appointed the group of Jeronymites to serve as an impartial religious government in Española. Even though Cisneros was a member of the Franciscan order, he decided that he had to choose an impartial judge or party, or at least a group with less extreme ideas. At the time, the Franciscan and Dominican orders were embroiled in a fight, as can be witnessed in the very aggressive and exaggerated debates at court that resulted in the Dominicans being briefly expelled from the colonies in late 1511. Cisneros felt he had to appoint a group not involved in the conflict, and the Jeronymites, a completely cloistered group that had remained separate from all politics, seemed like the perfect choice. de Retana, Luis Fernández, Cisneros y su siglo: estudio histórico de la vida y actuación pública del Cardenal D. Fr. Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros, Tomo II (Madrid: Administración de “El Perpetuo Socorro,” 1930), 311–313 Google Scholar; Mena, Iglesia, espacio, y poder, 294.

59. “Orden de los Gerónimo a los frailes Dominicos,” September 3, 1516, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 77.

60. Ibid., 79.

61. Otte, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, xxix.

62. “La provision que llevaron los frailes franciscanos a Indias,” November 8, 1516, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 94. The Franciscan friars were Thomas, Juan de Visani, Nicolas de Videri, Remigio de Fox, Hernando de Vitoria, Juan de Valonis, Ricardo de Anglicus, Juan Flanigi, Lateranus, Guillén de Normandia, Diego Escoti, Diego Haren, Miguel Jeli, and Miguel Legros.

63. Jiménez, La esclavitud indígena, 142.

64. Lynne Guitar, “Cultural Genesis: Relationships Among Indians, Africans and Spaniards in Española, First Half of the Sixteenth Century” (PhD diss.: Vanderbilt University, 1998), 224.

65. Additionally, the Jeronymites began working to create pueblos tutelados, free towns governed jointly by clergy and a cacique. Indians just taken from absent encomenderos, of whom there were approximately 3,000 (with the majority belonging to the Crown), were the first to move to pueblos tutelados. Altman, Ida, “The Revolt of Enriquillo and the Historiography of Early Spanish America,” The Americas 63:4 (2007), 597 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sauer, The Early Spanish Main, 205; Caballos, Esteban Mira, “La primera utopía americana: las reducciones de indios de los jerónimos en la Española (1517–1519),” in La Española, epicentro del Caribe en el Siglo XVI, Caballos, Esteban Mira, ed. (Santo Domingo: Academia Dominicana de la Historia, 2010), 351 Google Scholar.

66. Saco, J.A., Historia de la esclavitud de los indios en el Nuevo Mundo, Tomo I (Havana: Librería Cervantes, 1932), 3–55 Google Scholar.

67. Jiménez, La esclavitud indígena, 67–68.

68. Otte, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, xxix.

69. Jiménez, La esclavitud indígena, 145.

70. “Comisión al Licenciado Zuazo sobre los indios cautivados,” January 13, 1518. Cédulas reales, relativas a Venezuela, 101.

71. “Carta al rey y reina por el Licenciado Figueroa,” April 7, 1519, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, Colección de Juan Bautista Muñoz [hereafter CJBM], Tomo 58, fol. 91r.

72. Bozal slaves came directly from Africa. Unlike the ladino (Hispanicized) slaves, they did not speak a European language and had not converted to Catholicism.

73. African slaves would eventually replace almost all Indian slave labor in the Caribbean, but throughout the sixteenth century Spanish colonists continued to utilize both types of slaves, largely because African slaves were much more expensive than their indigenous counterparts. Also, it took many years for the transatlantic slave trade to become efficient enough to fulfill the labor demands of all the Spanish colonies. An example of the inefficiency: in 1519 the king granted the governor of Bresa a license to import and sell 4,000 African slaves to Española, but the total number did not arrive until 1528. Lynne Guitar, Cultural Genesis, 164.

74. Saco, Historia de la esclavitud de los indios, Tomo I, 178.

75. “Confirmación de privilegios de Santo Domingo por los Jerónimos,” 1518, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, CJBM, Tomo 58, fol. 89r; Licencia para traer de Tierra Firme para esclavos los que allí lo son de otros indios. “Licencia para traer negros bozales,” 1518, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, CJBM, Tomo 58, fol. 89r.

76. “Licencia a Miguel de Pasamonte para rescatar esclavos,” June 19, 1519, AGI, Indiferente General 420, L.8, fol. 69r. “Por cuanto por parte de vos Miguel de Pasamonte nuestro tesorero general de la isla española me has hecho relación que vos queréis hacer en la dicha isla un ingenio para hacer azúcar y porque en esta dicha isla hay mucha falta de indios y esclavos para ello vos quería de enviar a rescatar algunos esclavos a la provincia de Paria que es en la costa de tierra firme del mar océano que son de los que están declarados por caribes y que se pueden tomar por esclavos como dicho.”

77. Otte, Las perlas, 136.

78. They may also have been frustrated by the failure of their other reforms on Espanola. By this point their pueblos tutelados had also deteriorated, with most Indians fleeing the towns to return to their ancestral homes. All the towns were abandoned by 1530. Guitar, Cultural Genesis, 176; Esteban Mira Caballos, “La primera utopía americana,” 369.

79. Deive, Carlos Esteban, La Española y la esclavitud de los indios (Santo Domingo: Fundación García Arévalo, 1995), 169–170 Google Scholar.

80. “Licencia para comprar indios a los portugueses,” January 9, 1520, AGI, Indiferente General 420, L.8, fol. 177r–177v. The Indians on the northern coast of Brazil were easily categorized as Caribs, following the accounts of early explorers, most notably the publications of Amerigo Vespucci following his 1501 journey to Brazil. In perhaps his most inflammatory anecdote, he describes how two European men ventured ashore to trade with the Indians, but were instead captured, killed, cooked, and eaten in full view of the waiting Portuguese vessel. Due to such narratives, the Indians of Brazil were among the first who could be legally enslaved, with few moral arguments. Metcalf, Go-Betweens and the Colonization of Brazil, 1500–1600, 36. Other important early colonial accounts that detail cannibalism in Brazil include Jean de Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil Otherwise called America, trans. Janet Whatley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) and Hans Staden, Hans Staden's True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity In Brazil, ed. and trans. Neil L. Whitehead and Michael Harbsmeier (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008).

81. Saco, Historia de la esclavitud de los indios, Tomo II, 180.

82. Demorizi, Emilio Rodríguez, Los Dominicos y las encomiendas de indios de la Isla Española (Santo Domingo: Editora del Caribe, 1971), 44 Google Scholar. In the same market, African slaves sold for 91 pesos each, demonstrating the preference for African laborers. It is likely that at least some of these slaves came from the two caravels for which Juan de Cárdenas received license in August of 1520. Cardenas was allowed to capture and trade for Indian slaves in Barbados, Isla Verde, Trinidad, and along the coast of Paria. Licencia a Juan de Cárdenas para armar carabelas, August 27, 1520, AGI, Indiferente General 420, L.8, fol. 253r.

83. Whitehead, Neil, Of Cannibals and Kings: Primal Anthropology in the Americas (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), 9 Google Scholar.

84. Saco, Historia de la esclavitud de los Indios, Tomo II, 195.

85. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas, 122–123.

86. Figueroa was also not the first official to be assigned the difficult task of differentiating between the Caribs, who could be enslaved, and all the other Indians who were free. In 1515 Francisco de Vallejo had been charged with the job, but slavers actively blocked him from completing the work. Later, Las Casas was asked to carry out the task, but he refused to be the man to relegate hundreds or thousands of Indians to slavery regardless of their practices and ethnicities. Whitehead, Of Cannibals, 13–14.

87. “Información hecha por el licenciado Rodrigo de Figueroa acerca de la población india de las islas e costa de Tierra Firme, e sentencia que dió en nombre de su Majestad,” 1520, Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de Ibero-América/Hispano-América [hereafter CDI], Tomo I (Madrid: Compañía Ibero-Americana de Publicaciones, 1925-1937), 380. “las islas y parte de Tierra Firme en que los indios e pobladores de ellas son caribes, e pueden e deben ser de los cristianos traídos y tenidos por esclavos.” For the first published English translation of the Figueroa report, see “The Deposition of Rodrigo de Figueroa on the Islands of the Barbarous Caribs” 1520, printed and translated in Whitehead, Of Cannibals, 115–119.

88. “Información hecha por el licenciado Figueroa,” CDI, Tomo I, 380.

89. “Memorial de Hernando de Gorjon, acerca de la despoblación de la isla Española” 1520, CDI, Tomo I, 428–429. For example, Lares de Guahaba was abandoned, its few residents joining with Puerto Real. According to Gorjon, even Concepción de la Vega was losing residents by 1520.

90. “Información hecha por el licenciado Figueroa,” CDI, Tomo I, 380.

91. Ibid., 383.

92. Otte, Las perlas, 186.

93. “Licencia a Juan de Cárdenas para armar carabelas,” August 27, 1520, AGI, Indiferente General 420, L.8, fols. 253v–254r.

94. Badillo, Jalil Sued, “The Island Caribs,” in Wolves from the Sea: Readings in the Anthropology of the Native Caribbean, Whitehead, Neil, ed. (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1995), 74–75 Google Scholar.

95. Whitehead, Of Cannibals, 11.

96. In March 1520, the Crown did order the delivery of cazabe to the Franciscan settlement, but it is not known whether or not the friars ever received the food. Orden a los oficiales de Española, March 9, 1520, AGI, Indiferente General 419, L.6, fol. 184r.

97. “Orden a los oficiales de Española,” May 5, 1519, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, 114. In Vicente's opinion the settlement needed up to 20 more friars to ensure its survival.

98. Cemíes are painted stone, wood, cotton, or seashell figures that come in many shapes, from dog-like to those in the form of a human body. They link the physical world to the spiritual world and were commonly used by Arawak peoples throughout the Caribbean. “Oviedo on the Arawaks of Española,” 1514. Translated and printed in Parry, J. H., New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the Early 17th Century, Volume 1: The Conquerors and The Conquered (New York: Times Books, 1984), 9 Google Scholar; Stevens-Arroyo, Cave of the Jagua, 56.

99. This is also when Córdoba completed the original version of his famous Doctrina cristiana para la instruccion de los indios. This manuscript was later brought to New Spain and published for the first time in Mexico in 1544. It was edited and enlarged by other Franciscan friars in 1548 and used in evangelization efforts across the Americas. One wonders how much the document was influenced by Córdoba's experiences in Tierra Firme. von Wobeser, Gisela, “La concepción del Más Allá en la obra Doctrina cristiana para la instrucción de los indios de Fray Pedro de Córdoba (1548),” Tópicos 34 (2008): 272 Google Scholar.

100. Otte, Cédulas reales relativas a Venezuela, xxi.

101. A factor was a royal official in the Indies in charge of collecting the royal rents and tributes due to the Crown.

102. “Interrogatorio de factor Juan Ampiés sobre Indios,” August 29, 1526, AGI, Santo Domingo 74, R.1, N.1, fols. 1r–11r.

103. “Carta del factor de Santo Domingo, Juan de Ampiés, a su majestad, avisando lo que hizo con los indios que habían venido a la Isla Española de las islas inmediatas a Tierra Firme, volviendo muchas a la de Curaçao, sin fecha,” CDI, Tomo I, 434.

104. Ibid., 435.

105. “Carta de Juan de Ampiés al rey: indios llegados isla Española,” 1521, AGI, Patronato 18, N.1, R.3, no folio number.

106. In 1520, Las Casas received a commison and license from the king to establish three more “pueblos” with the help of 50 men, some indigenous from the Greater Antilles and some Spanish. These towns would receive the same support as had previous settlements set up by Dominican and Franciscan friars on the coast of Tierra Firme. The asiento is transcribed in the collection Descubrimiento y conquista de Venezuela: textos históricos contemporáneos y documentos fundamentales, Tomo I (Caracas: Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1962), 357–432 Google Scholar.

107. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas, 188.

108. Castro, Another Face of Empire, 82.

109. “A sus Majestades de los oidores e oficiales reales de Santo Domingo,” November 14, 1520, CDI, Tomo I, 422–423.

110. Castro, Another Face of Empire, 82.

111. A “sus Majestades de los oidores e oficiales reales de Santo Domingo,” November 14, 1520, CDI, Tomo I, 423.

112. Ibid.

113. Ibid., 424–426. During one of these attacks, at least 11 Spaniards were killed, including a Captain Hojeda.

114. “Orden a los oficiales de La Española,” March 11, 1522, AGI, Indiferente General 420, L.8, fol. 362v. “mataron dos cristianos que aquel domingo habían de comulgar con cinco o seis indios criados de casa que habían llevado de la isla y los mataron diciendo misa.”

115. “Representación del Contador Real que fue con Casas a Cumaná,” 1524, Descubrimiento y conquista de Venezuela, Tomo I, 378.

116. “Orden a los oficiales de La Española,” March 11, 1522, AGI, Indiferente General 420, L.8, fols. 362v–363r.

117. At this point, the royal officials of Santo Domingo also began calling for the construction of a fortress on Cumaná, declaring that the missions were insufficient to protect the coastline from Carib attacks.

118. “Extracto de una provisión real, emanada del Almirante de la Audiencia y oficiales de Santo Domingo de la Isla Española dando instrucciones al capitán Gonzalo de Ocampo para la guerra de los indios,” January 20, 1521, CDI, Tomo I, 438. “A vos el capitán Gonzalo Docampo cometemos el castigo de los indios de las provincias de Cumana, Santa Fe, los Tagares, y Maracapana, a cuyos caciques y especialmente a los llamados Maraguey, D. Diego, Gil Gonzalez, y Pasamonte y otros con sus indios, se había procurado dar doctrina y regalar para que se convirtiesen. Y ellos lejos de agradecerlo, habrá un ano, que andando contratando con ellos ciertos capitanes españoles, los mataron con 40 hombres, y habrá cuatro meses mataron también a los dos frailes dominicos, el uno revestido para decir misa, etc. Luego mataron al capitán Hernando Ibáñez con cinco españoles. Los de Maracapana mataron al capitán Hojeda y a sus compañeros alevosamente, y del mismo modo a los capitanes Villafañe y Gregorio de Ocana con 46 hombres, y quemaron el monasterio de franciscos de Cumana.”

119. “Extracto de una provisión real, emanada del Almirante de la Audiencia y oficiales de Santo Domingo de la Isla Española dando instrucciones al capitán Gonzalo de Ocampo para la guerra de los indios,” January 20, 1521, CDI, Tomo I, 438.

120. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas, 191–195.

121. “Representación del Contador Real que fue con Casas a Cumaná,” 1524, Descubrimiento y conquista de Venezuela. Tomo I, 378–379.

122. Las Casas and the Franciscans made another attempt, establishing the town of Toledo about a half mile up the Cumaná River in the late summer of 1521. As with earlier missions, the settlement faced problems that including protecting the Indians from slave raiders, supplying the colony, and indigenous apathy toward the friars. Las Casas returned to Santo Domingo on New Year's Eve of 1521, and the mission was attacked shortly thereafter. At least four Spaniards were killed in this attack. This was the final attempt by Las Casas and his fellow friars in Tierra Firme, at least for decades to come. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas, 201–209.

123. “Jácome de Castellón to the king,” November 14, 1528. Transcribed and printed in Descubrimiento y conquista de Venezuela, Tomo II, 58.

124. In 1528, licenses to engage in rescate were provided to Martín Alonso Alemán, Pedro Ortiz de Matienzo, Álvaro Beltrán, Andrés Hernández, Pedro de Alegría, Alonso Díaz de Gibraleón, Diego de la Peña, and Rodrigo de León, among others. Otte, Las perlas, 211.

125. For a discussion on the good of the metropole versus the public good of the colony, specifically in cases of illegal trade and contraband in African slaves, see Peláez, María Cristina Navarrete, “De las ”malas entradas" y las estrategias del “buen pasaje”: el contrabando de esclavos en el Caribe neogranadino, 1550–1690," Historia Critica 34 (2007): 160–183 Google Scholar.

126. “Testimony of Lope de Gámez,” AGI, Justicia 50, fol. 867v. This legajo contains the residencia, or report and examination of the judges Cristóbal Lebrón, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, Juan Ortiz de Matienzo, Marcelo de Villalobos, y Pedro León by the judges and treasurer of the royal court of Santo Domingo, led by Judge Gaspar de Espinosa.

127. English and Dutch explorers, merchants, and colonists were engaged in a circum-Caribbean indigenous slave trade centered on capturing Indians from the Guyanas and Brazil. Perhaps because of their recent experience with the Spanish merchants, the Indians of the region engaged in an active slave trade, selling “cannibals” into slavery in the West Indies. During his travels through the territory Sir Walter Raleigh witnessed one such slave market near the intersection of the Orinoco and Meta Rivers where Arawak Indians sold Caribs to the Spanish of Nueva Granada for 3 pesos. Walter Raleigh, “The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana,” transcribed and annotated by Neil L. Whitehead (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 179. War between European powers accelerated the slave trade. During the Anglo-Dutch wars of the 1660s and 1670s, each side captured and enslaved their enemy's indigenous allies. For example, the English captain Peter Wroth took several Indians captive during an attack on the Dutch at Approwaco in 1666, selling them soon after in Barbados. For his part, the Dutch commander Cornelis Evertsen sold 206 Indian slaves, all of them declared Carib allies of the English, in Curaçao in 1673. Carolyn Arena, “The Carib/Anglo-Dutch/Arawak War: Strategic Knowledge and Alliance Formation in the 17th Century Caribbean,” paper presented at “Transmitting Knowledge in the Early Modern Dutch World,” December 6-7, 2013).

128. Following the conquest of Mexico, Franciscans from Espanola opened a school for native leaders in Tlatelolco in 1536. One of the Franciscans was friar Pedro Melgarejo de Urrea, who was Hernán Cortés's chaplain during the conquest of Mexico and first served at the monastery of Concepción de la Vega. While we cannot ascertain how much his experience in Española influenced the school of Tlatelolco, we do know that the school used and relied on Pedro de Córdoba's Doctrina. Abel, Christopher. “The Catholic Church,” Cambridge History of Latin America: Bibliographical Essays, Vol. 11, , Leslie Bethell, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 523Google Scholar. In 1537, Bartolomé de las Casas tried to create a settlement in Guatemala that was very similar to those in Tierra Firme; it was called Verapaz. For more on this endeavor, see Castro, Another Face of Empire, 99–102. Missions also spread to Florida under Luis Cáncer in 1549, there was a later attempt by the Jesuits in 1569 in the Chesapeake region, and there were other attempts as well. By the 1560s, there even seems to have been a school for hijos de caciques in Havana, where the conquistador of Florida, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, promised to send the son of cacique Carlos of the Calusa, an indigenous group located near present-day Tampa. By the eighteenth century, some of the largest and most prosperous missions had been established in the Guaraní territory of Rio de la Plata. For more on these missions, see Sarreal, Julia J. S., The Guaraní and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History (Stanford University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.