So ended the sixteenth century in Boriquen. If the dictum of Las
Casas, that the island at the century's beginning was "as populous as
a beehive and as lovely as an orchard," was but a rhetorical figure,
there is no gainsaying the fact that at the time of Ponce's landing it
was thickly peopled, not only that part occupied by the Spaniards but
_the whole island_, with a comparatively innocent, simple, and
peaceably disposed native race. The end of the century saw them no
more. The erstwhile garden was an extensive jungle. The island's
history during these hundred years was condensed into the one word
"strife." All that the efforts of the king and his governors had been
able to make of it was a penal settlement, a presidio with a
population of about 400 inhabitants, white, black, and mongrel. The
littoral was an extensive hog-and cattle-ranch, with here and there a
patch of sugar-cane; there was no commerce.[39] There were no roads.
The people, morally, mentally, and materially poor, were steeped in
ignorance and vice. Education there was none. The very few who aspired
to know, went to la Espanola to obtain an education. The few spiritual
wants of the people were supplied by monks, many of them as ignorant
and bigoted as themselves. War and pestilence and tempest had united
to wipe the island from the face of the earth, and the very name of
"Rich Port," given to it without cause or reason, must have sounded in
the ears of the inhabitants as a bitter sarcasm on their wretched
condition.
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