slaves, a heavy capitation tax, amounting, over most of the island,
to two dollars a head, was laid on them almost to the end of the
last century. There seems to have been no reason in the nature of
things why they should not have kept up their numbers; for the
island was still, nineteen-twentieths of it, rich primeval forest.
It may have been that they could not endure the confined life in the
pueblos, or villages, to which they were restricted by law. But,
from some cause or other, they died out, and that before far
inferior numbers of invaders. In 1783, when the numbers of the
whites were only 126, of the free coloured 295, and of the slaves
310, the Indians numbered only 2032. In 1798, after the great
immigration from the French West Indies, there were but 1082 Indians
in the island. It is true that the white population had increased
meanwhile to 2151, the free coloured to 4476, and the slaves to
10,000. But there was still room in plenty for 2000 Indians.
Probably many of them had been absorbed by intermarriage with the
invaders. At present, there is hardly an Indian of certainly pure
blood in the island, and that only in the northern mountains.

Trinidad ought to have been, at least for those who were not
Indians, a happy place from the seventeenth almost to the nineteenth
century, if it be true that happy is the people who have no history.
Certain Dutchmen, whether men of war or pirates is not known,
attacked it some time toward the end of the seventeenth century,
and, trying to imitate Raleigh, were well beaten in the jungles
between the Caroni and San Josef. The Indians, it is said, joined
the Spaniards in the battle; and the little town of San Josef was
rewarded for its valour by being raised to the rank of a city by the
King of Spain.