CHAPTER II
COLONIAL LIFE IN CUBA
INFORMATION concerning the events of the first years of the residence of Cortes in the island of Cuba is scanty, but it may be assumed that he attended to his interests, which prospered, and enjoyed considerable popularity among his fellow-colonists as well as the favour of the Governor, Diego Velasquez, who extended a protecting friendship to him such as an older man of high rank might naturally feel for one of the most promising young men among his colonists. Mr. George Folsom, in the Introduction to his English translation of the Despatches of Hernando Cortes (New York, 1843), says that Velasquez was brother-in-law to Cortes, having married one of the Xuarez sisters. I have found no authority for this assertion, and, a few pages farther on, the same writer describes Velasquez as seeking to arrange a marriage for himself with a sister of the Bishop of Burgos. This alleged relationship between the two through their marriages is apocryphal.
As the changes which the relations between these two men underwent, worked powerfully and far upon the course of events in the New World, it is necessary before going further to consider somewhat the character of Diego Velasquez, and the causes which brought about the breach in their friendship. Oviedo states that Velasquez was of noble family, and, though arriving in the Indies poor, had there accumulated an ample fortune. His military experience had been gained by seventeen years
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