The West Indies and the Spanish Main. James Rodway
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James Rodway
The West Indies and the Spanish Main
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066174262
Table of Contents
THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR VICTIMS
"SINGEING THE SPANIARD'S BEARD"
RALEGH AND THE FIRST BRITISH COLONIES
BUCCANEERS, FILIBUSTERS, AND PIRATES
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DARIEN TRADE
SLAVE INSURRECTIONS AND BUSH NEGROES
EMANCIPATION OF THE SPANISH MAIN
THE WEST INDIES
I
THE SPANIARDS AND THEIR VICTIMS
When the early writers spoke of America as the new world, mundus novus, they could hardly have appreciated the full meaning of the name. True, it was a new world to them, with new animals, new plants, and a new race of mankind; but the absolute distinctness of everything, especially in the tropical regions, was not understood. With our fuller knowledge the ideas of strangeness and novelty are more and more impressed, and we are ready to exclaim, Yes! it is indeed a new world.
Unlike those of the eastern hemisphere, the peoples of the West are of one race. Apart from every other, the development of the American Indian has gone on different lines, the result being a people self-contained, as it were, and unmodified until the arrival of the European. The American is perhaps the nearest to the natural man, and his character is the result of nature's own moulding. When compared with the European or Asiatic he seems to be far behind, yet the civilisation of Peru and Mexico was in some respects in advance of that of their conquerors. This was brought about by a dense population which forced men into collision with each other—in other parts of the continent and on the islands they were more isolated and therefore less civilised.
In the forest region of the Spanish Main, and on the West Indian islands, the communities were, as a rule, very small and isolated one from another. A kind of patriarchal system prevented much communication, and inter-tribal disputes were a bar to union. Every community distrusted every other, and even when one tribe fought against its neighbour there were few attempts to bring the sections together against the common enemy.
On the coasts and islands of the Caribbean Sea, at the time of their discovery, lived two distinct peoples, the Arawaks and the Caribs. There were also a few other tribes of minor importance, such as the Warrows, but these made little impression, and may therefore be left out of consideration. The remnants of the two great stocks still exist in Guiana and at the mouth of the Orinoco, living to-day in much the same manner as they did when the country was first discovered by the Spaniards.
Four centuries ago the Greater Antilles were exclusively inhabited by Arawaks, and the Lesser by Caribs. The Arawak, as his name implies, was more or less an agriculturalist—a meal-eater, a cultivator of vegetables, mainly cassava.