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Updated: June 2, 2025
Up to this time the harmony established by the prudent cacique between his tribesmen and the Spaniards on their first arrival had apparently not been disturbed. There is no record of any dissension between them during Ponce's absence. The cacique was succeeded by his brother, who according to custom assumed the name of the deceased chief, together with his authority.
The force under Ponce's command was too small to follow up his victory by the persecution of the terror-stricken natives; nor would the exhausted condition of the men have permitted it, so he wisely determined to return to Capárra, cure his wounded soldiers, and await the result of his message to la Española.
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.
The frequent changes in the government that had been made by Diego Columbus, the arrest of Velasquez and his death in the gloomy dungeons of the Inquisition, the arrival of de la Gama as judge auditor and governor ad interim, and his subsequent marriage with Ponce's daughter Isabel, all these events but served to embitter the strife of parties.
This population was divided into different hostile parties. The most powerful at the time was Ponce's party, led by Sedeño, the auditor, and Villafranca, the treasurer; opposed to whom were the partizans of Ceron and Diaz, the protégés of the Admiral, and those who had found favor with Velasquez, all of them deadly enemies because of the unequal division among them of the unhappy Indians.
When the promising result of Ponce's first visit to the island was communicated to King Ferdinand by Ovando, the Governor of la Española, his Highness replied in a letter dated Valladolid, September 15, 1509: "I note the good services rendered by Ponce and that he has not gone to settle the island for want of means.
At this time, too , Juan Castellanos, the island's attorney at the court, returned with his own family and 75 colonists. Yet scarcely had they had time to settle when they were invited to remigrate by one of Ponce's old companions. This was Sedeño, a perfect type of the Spanish adventurer of the sixteenth century restless, ambitious, unscrupulous.
Both were killed, and Alejandro Tapia, a native poet, has immortalized the woman's devotion in a romantic, but purely imaginative, composition. Ponce's virtual defeat in Guadeloupe made the Caribs bolder than ever. They came oftener and in larger numbers, always surprising the settlements that were least prepared to offer resistance. Five years had elapsed since the destruction of Daguáo.
Some, like the caciques of Humacáo and Daguáo, who occupied the eastern and southeastern parts of the island, had agreed to live on a peace footing with the Spaniards, but Ponce's impolitic proceeding in taking by force ten men from the village of the first-named chief caused him and his neighbor of Daguáo to burn their villages and take to the mountains in revolt.
The redistribution was practised in September, 1514, with no better result than the former ones. It was impossible to satisfy the demands of all. The discontented were mostly Ponce's old companions, who overwhelmed the king with protests, while Velasquez defended himself, accusing Ponce and his friends of turbulence and exaggerated ambition.
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