[Illustration: Ruins of Capárra, the first capital.]

Among the recently arrived Spaniards there was a young man of
aristocratic birth named Christopher de Soto Mayor, who possessed
powerful friends at Court. He had been secretary to King Philip I,
and according to Abbad, was intended by Ferdinand as future governor
of San Juan; but Señor Acosta, the friar's commentator, remarks with
reason, that it is not likely that the king, who showed so much tact
and foresight in all his acts, should place a young man without
experience over an old soldier like Ponce, for whom he had a special
regard.

The young hidalgo seemed to aspire to nothing higher than a life of
adventure, for he agreed to go as Ponce's lieutenant and form a
settlement on the south coast of the island near the bay of Guánica.

"In this settlement," says Oviedo, "there were so many mosquitoes that
they alone were enough to depopulate it, and the people passed to
Aguáda, which is said to be to the west-nor'-west, on the borders of
the river Culebrinas, in the district now known as Aguáda and
Aguadilla; to this new settlement they gave the name Sotomayor, and
while they were there the Indians rose in rebellion one Friday in the
beginning of the year 1511."

* * * * *

The second Guaybána[11] was far from sharing his predecessor's
good-will toward the Spaniards or his prudence in dealing with them;
nor was the conduct of the newcomers toward the natives calculated to