A Social History of the American Negro | Page 5

Hispaniola, where
they seem to have suffered from indulgence in drinks made from

sugarcane. In 1521 it was ordered that Negro slaves should not be
employed on errands as in general these tended to cultivate too close
acquaintance with the Indians. In 1522 there was a rebellion on the
sugar plantations in Hispaniola, primarily because the services of
certain Indians were discontinued. Twenty Negroes from the Admiral's
mill, uniting with twenty others who spoke the same language, killed a
number of Christians. They fled and nine leagues away they killed
another Spaniard and sacked a house. One Negro, assisted by twelve
Indian slaves, also killed nine other Christians. After much trouble the
Negroes were apprehended and several of them hanged. It was about
1526 that Negroes were first introduced within the present limits of the
United States, being brought to a colony near what later became
Jamestown, Va. Here the Negroes were harshly treated and in course of
time they rose against their oppressors and fired their houses. The
settlement was broken up, and the Negroes and their Spanish
companions returned to Hispaniola, whence they had come. In 1540, in
Quivira, in Mexico, there was a Negro who had taken holy orders; and
in 1542 there were established at Guamanga three brotherhoods of the
True Cross of Spaniards, one being for Indians and one for Negroes.
[Footnote 1: Spain in America, Vol. 3 in American Nation Series, p.
270.]
The outstanding instance of a Negro's heading in exploration is that of
Estévanico (or Estévanillo, or Estévan, that is, Stephen), one of the four
survivors of the ill-fated expedition of De Narvaez, who sailed from
Spain, June 17, 1527. Having returned to Spain after many years of
service in the New World, Pamfilo de Narvaez petitioned for a grant,
and accordingly the right to conquer and colonize the country between
the Rio de las Palmas, in eastern Mexico, and Florida was accorded
him.[1] His force originally consisted of six hundred soldiers and
colonists. The whole conduct of the expedition--incompetent in the
extreme--furnished one of the most appalling tragedies of early
exploration in America. The original number of men was reduced by
half by storms and hurricanes and desertions in Santo Domingo and
Cuba, and those who were left landed in April, 1528, near the entrance
to Tampa Bay, on the west coast of Florida. One disaster followed

another in the vicinity of Pensacola Bay and the mouth of the
Mississippi until at length only four men survived. These were Alvar
Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca; Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a captain of
infantry; Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado; and Estévanico, who had
originally come from the west coast of Morocco and who was a slave
of Dorantes. These men had most remarkable adventures in the years
between 1528 and 1536, and as a narrative of suffering and privation
Cabeza de Vaca's Journal has hardly an equal in the annals of the
continent. Both Dorantes and Estévanico were captured, and indeed for
a season or two all four men were forced to sojourn among the Indians.
They treated the sick, and with such success did they work that their
fame spread far and wide among the tribes. Crowds followed them
from place to place, showering presents upon them. With Alonzo de
Castillo, Estévanico sojourned for a while with the Yguazes, a very
savage tribe that killed its own male children and bought those of
strangers. He at length escaped from these people and spent several
months with the Avavares. He afterwards went with De Vaca to the
Maliacones, only a short distance from the Avavares, and still later he
accompanied Alonzo de Castillo in exploring the country toward the
Rio Grande. He was unexcelled as a guide who could make his way
through new territory. In 1539 he went with Fray Marcos of Nice, the
Father Provincial of the Franciscan order in New Spain, as a guide to
the Seven Cities of Cibola, the villages of the ancestors of the present
Zuñi Indians in western New Mexico. Preceding Fray Marcos by a few
days and accompanied by natives who joined him on the way, he
reached Háwikuh, the southern-most of the seven towns. Here he and
all but three of his Indian followers were killed.
[Footnote 1: Frederick W. Hodge, 3, in _Spanish Explorers in the
Southern United States_, 1528-1543, in "Original Narratives of Early
American History," Scribner's, New York, 1907. Both the Narrative of
Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and the Narrative of the Expedition of
Coronado, by Pedro de Casteñada, are edited by Hodge, with
illuminating introductions.]
3. Development of the Slave-Trade

Portugal and Spain having demonstrated that the slave-trade was
profitable, England also determined to engage in the traffic; and as
early as 1530 William Hawkins, a merchant of Plymouth, visited the
Guinea Coast