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At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards the natives of Boriquén seem to have led an Arcadian kind of existence; their bows and arrows were used only when some party of Caribs came to carry off their young men and maidens. Among themselves they lived at peace, and passed their days in lazily swinging in their hammocks and playing ball or dancing their "areytos."
The Jerome fathers on their way to la Española, in 1516, touched at what they describe as "the port of Puerto Rico, which is in the island of San Juan de Boriquén," and the treasurer, Haro, wrote of them on January 21, 1518: " ... They have done nothing during the year, and the inhabitants are uncertain and fear changes. This is the principal cause of harm to the Indians.
The reduced number of Spaniards facilitated the maintenance of a comparative independence by these as yet unconquered Indians, at the same time that it facilitated the flight of those who, having bent their necks to the yoke, found it unbearably heavy. The first fugitives from Boriquén naturally did not go beyond the islands in the immediate vicinity.
To Vicente Yañez Pinzón, on condition that he should settle in the island.............................................. 100 To Lope de Conchillos, King Ferdinand's Chief Secretary, as bad a character as Pasamonte............................ 100 To Pedro Moreno and Jerome of Brussels, the delegate and clerk of Conchillos in Boriquén, 100 each...................200
When Ponce's order to distribute them among his men confirmed the hopelessness of their slavery, they looked upon the small number of their destroyers and began to ask themselves if there were no means of getting rid of them. Father Las Casas insinuates that Ponce acted arbitrarily in introducing it in Boriquén, but there were precedents for it.
They were beaten back by a Spanish sergeant at the head of a detachment of twenty men, while a Mr. Domeneck with his servants attended to the artillery in Fort San Carlos, constructed during Castro's administration. In February, 1825, some insurgent ships landed fifty marines at night near Point Boriquén, where the lighthouse now is.
Juan Esquivél made himself master of Jamaica with scarcely any sacrifice, and if the aborigines of the Española and Boriquén resisted, it was only after patiently enduring insupportable oppression for several years. The other race which inhabited the Antilles were said to have come from the south.
The information which we possess with regard to the habits and customs of the inhabitants of Boriquén at the time of discovery is too scanty and too unreliable to permit us to form more than a speculative opinion of the degree of culture attained by them.
The probable explanation of the alleged arrival of Caribs is that some of the fugitive Indians who had found a refuge in the small islands close to Boriquén may have been informed of the preparations for a revolt and of the result of the experiment with Salcedo, and they naturally came to take part in the struggle.
He discovered Florida, bathed in its springs, drank from its flower-edged streams, but to no avail. Bimini, the place of the living waters, evaded him. Boriquen, renamed Porto Rico, could offer no more.
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