repartimiento assumes its utmost development. It seems, too, that in
addition to these repartimientos, Columbus gave slaves to those partizans
of Roldan who stayed in the island. Others of Roldan's followers, fifteen
in number, chose to return to Spain; they received a certain number of
slaves, some one, some two, some three; and the admiral sent them home in
two vessels which left the port of St. Domingo at the beginning of
October, 1499.


THE QUEEN'S ANGER; PARTIAL RELEASE OF SLAVES.

On the arrival in Spain of these vessels, the Queen was in the highest
degree angered by the above proceedings, and said that the admiral had
received no authority from her to give her vassals to anyone. She
accordingly commanded proclamation to be made at Seville, Granada, and
other places, that all persons who were in possession of Indians, given to
them by the admiral, should, under pain of death, send those Indians back
to Hispaniola, "and that particularly they should send back those Indians,
and not the others who had been brought before, because she was informed
that the others had been taken in just war." The former part of this
proclamation has been frequently alluded to, and no doubt it deserves much
praise; but from the latter part it is clear that there were some Indians
who could justly, according to Queen Isabella, be made slaves. By this
time, therefore, at any rate the question had been solved, whether by the
learned in the law, theologians and canonists, I know not, but certainly
in practice, that the Indians taken in war could be made slaves. The whole
of this transaction is very remarkable, and, in some measure,
inexplicable, on the facts before us. There is nothing to show that the
slaves given to Roldan's followers were made slaves in a different way
from those who had been sent over on former occasions, both by the admiral