DISPOSAL OF THE INDIANS, 498

perfectly reformed, exceeding pious and religious, and, as far as |
may be allowed to speak positively in such a case, I verily believe
was a true sincere penitent.

He divided things so justly, and so much to everyone’s satis-
faction, that they only desired one general writing under my hand
for the whole, which I caused to be drawn up and signed and
sealed to them, setting out the bounds and situation of every
man’s plantation, and testifying that I gave them thereby severally
aright to the whole possession and inheritance of the respective
plantations or farms, with their improvements, to them and their
heirs, reserving all the rest of the island as my own property, and
a certain rent for every particular plantation after eleven years, if
I, or any one from me or in my name, came to demand it, pro-
ducing an attested copy of the same writing.

As to the government and laws among them, I told them I was
not capable of giving them better rules than they were able to give
themselves; only made them promise me to live in love and good
neighbourhood with one another. And so I prepared to leave
them.

One thing I must not omit, and this is, that being now settled
in a kind of commonwealth among themselves, and having much
business in hand, it was but odd to have seven and thirty Indians
live in a nook of the island independent, and indeed unemployed ;
for excepting the providing themselves food, which they had dif-
ficulty enough in too, sometimes, they had no manner of business
or property to manage. I proposed, therefore, to the governor
Spaniard that he should go to them, with Friday’s father, and
propose to them to remove, and either plant for themselves or take
them into their several families as servants, to be maintained for
their labour, but without being absolute slaves; for I would not
admit them to make them slaves by force by any means, because
they had their liberty given them by capitulation, and, as it were,
articles of surrender, which they ought not to break

They most willingly embraced the proposal, and came all very
cheerfully along with him; so we allotted them land and planta-
tions, which three or four accepted of, but all the rest chose to be
eniployed as servants in the several families we had settled. And