newcomers and of their doings in la Española as was the first
Guaybána's mother, and they wisely kept aloof so long as their
territories were not invaded.

The reduced number of Spaniards facilitated the maintenance of a
comparative independence by these as yet unconquered Indians, at the
same time that it facilitated the flight of those who, having bent
their necks to the yoke, found it unbearably heavy. According to
"Regidor" (Prefect) Hernando de Mogollon's letter to the Jerome
fathers, fully one-third of the "pacified" Indians--that is, of those
who had submitted--had disappeared and found a refuge with their
kinsmen in the neighboring islands.

The first fugitives from Boriquén naturally did not go beyond the
islands in the immediate vicinity. Vieques, Culébras, and la Mona
became the places of rendezvous whence they started on their
retaliatory expeditions, while their spies or their relatives on the
main island kept them informed of what was passing. Hence, no sooner
was a new settlement formed on the borders or in the neighborhood of
some river than they pounced upon it, generally at night, dealing
death and destruction wherever they went.

In vain did Juan Gil, with Ponce's two sons-in-law and a number of
tried men, make repeated punitive expeditions to the islands. The
attacks seemed to grow bolder, and not till Governor Mendoza himself
led an expedition to Vieques, in which the cacique Yaureibó was
killed, did the Indians move southeastward to Santa Cruz.

That the Caribs[31] inhabiting the islands Guadeloupe and Dominica
made common cause with the fugitives from Boriquén is not to be