But the climax yet remained to be put to the inflictions on these islanders:—and that was found in the pearl fishery of Cubagua. Columbus had discovered this little wretched island—Columbus had suggested and commenced the slavery of the Indians,—and it seemed as though a Columbus was to complete the fabric of their misery. Don Diego, Columbus's son, had compelled an acknowledgment of his claims in the vice-royalty of the New World. He had enrolled himself by his marriage with the daughter of Don Ferdinand de Toledo, brother of the Duke of Alva, and a relative of the king, amongst the highest nobility of the land. Coming over to assume his hereditary station, he brought a new swarm of these proud and avaricious hidalgoes with him. He seized upon and distributed amongst them whatever portions of Indians remained unconsumed; and casting his eyes on this sand-bank of Cubagua, he established a colony of pearl-fishers upon it—where the Indians, and especially the wretched ones decoyed from the Lucayos, were compelled to find in diving the last extremity of their sufferings.
countrymen, took upon him a bold and difficult piece of work. Having been used to build cottages in his native country, he procured instruments of stone, and cut down a large spongy tree, called jaruma (the bombax, or wild cotton), the body of which he dexterously scooped into a canoe. He then provided himself with oars, some Indian corn, and a few gourds of water, and prevailed on another man and woman to embark with him on a voyage to the Lucayos. Their navigation was prosperous for near two hundred miles, and they were almost within sight of their long-lost shores, when unfortunately they were met by a Spanish ship, which brought them back to slavery and sorrow! The canoe is still preserved in Hispaniola as a curiosity, considering the circumstances under which it was made."—Decad. vii.
