One of the most important achievements of Bishop Ubite was the transfer of the cathedral from Baracoa to Santiago. For this change he gave two reasons. One was, that Baracoa was an unhealthful spot; in which he was surely in error. The other was, that Santiago was a larger and more important place, indeed, the chief city of the island; in which he was quite correct. The transfer was authorized by the civil government in October, 1522, and plots of land were granted to the Bishop for the sites of the new cathedral and of the houses of the Bishop and other clergy. These latter were the same plots which are still occupied by ecclesiastical buildings, in the heart of the city of Santiago de Cuba.
This change of the site of the cathedral was doubtless to the advantage of the church. It was probably profitable, also, to the good Bishop personally. Following it he became the proprietor of extensive lands, of great herds of cattle, and of a number of Negro and Indian slaves. He interested himself to good effect in seeing to it that the civil government provided from its third of the tithes abundant funds for church building, and thus secured the erection of two churches at Trinidad, one at Sancti Spiritus, and one at Havana, a place even at that early date rising rapidly in importance.
Bishop Ubite reigned over the diocese until April, 1525, and then, in circumstances which are obscure and for reasons not clearly apparent, took the extraordinary step of resigning his see. The office remained vacant until early in 1527, when Miguel Ramirez was appointed to it. This third Bishop was, like each of his predecessors, a Dominican. He was officially styled not only Bishop but also Protector of the Indians, with the purpose of making him a sort of check upon the Repartidor. He did not arrive at Santiago until the fall of 1528, when he promptly made up for the delay by plunging into both industrial and political activities. Like Bishop Ubite, he was an extensive land owner, cattle-raiser and slaveholder.
Bishop Ramirez appears to have been a great meddler into politics, particularly as a hot partisan of Gonzalo de Guzman. He came into conflict more than once with the royal treasurer, Hurtado, and was denounced by that austere censor as a scandalous disturber of the peace. This characterization was provoked by the Bishop's attitude and conduct toward Vadillo's investigation of Guzman's administration; and it is probably not unjust to assume that the Bishop's attitude and conduct were due to the fact that Vadillo had seized a lot of gold which had been mined by the husband of the Bishop's niece. Vadillo made this seizure on two grounds: That the nephew-in-law was a mere figure-head for the Bishop himself, who had no legal right to engage in gold-mining; and that the gold in question properly belonged to the royal treasury and therefore should be turned over to Hurtado. At any rate the Bishop was furious, and strove to restrain, with threats of excommunication, witnesses from testifying against Guzman in the inquests which Vadillo was conducting. Vadillo was not at all alarmed or abashed by the episcopal wrath, but proceeded to look into the affairs of the church as well as the civil government, and among other reforms ordered the Bishop and clergy to stop charging for funeral masses higher fees than those which were charged in Hispaniola. At this the Bishop seems quite to have lost his head. He began a denunciatory tirade against Vadillo in the cathedral, at which the latter contemptuously turned his back upon the speaker and walked out of the building. Then the Bishop excommunicated him. Vadillo made appeal to the King, and the King, after careful consideration and investigation, compelled the Bishop to withdraw the excommunication, and in addition gave his royal approval to all that Vadillo had done with respect to the church.
In the first clash between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, therefore, the former were victorious. Nevertheless, the church exerted much and steadily increasing influence, particularly in matters relating to the Indian natives. And these matters were of much importance. Although the repartimiento system, adopted early in the administration of Velasquez, was designed and supposed to put all the natives under government control, it failed to do so. Among those apportioned to the colonists as serfs—practically slaves—dissatisfaction and resentment widely prevailed, and insurrections sometimes occurred. But by no means all the natives were thus apportioned. Some fled to mountain fastnesses, and others, perhaps the majority, to the small islands or Keys off the Cuban coast, whence they became known as Key Indians. They used these islands, moreover, not alone as places of refuge but also as bases from which to make depredatory raids upon the mainland of Cuba, to the great detriment and disturbance of the Spanish settlers.
So numerous, extensive and disastrous did these raids become that Velasquez in 1523 commissioned Rodrigo de Tamayo to organize a military and naval expedition against the Key Indians, and to kill or capture them all. This programme was not fully carried out, but it was sufficiently executed to abate the troubles and to secure peace on the coasts for several years. Tamayo's commission was renewed by Altamarino, as a matter of form, there being then no need of action; and when in the administration of Gonzalo de Guzman there was some recrudescence of hostilities, the royal government specially authorized the waging of a campaign which should bring the last of the Key Indians into subjection. The new outbreaks did not, however, prove sufficiently serious to call for or to warrant strenuous action.
The scene of trouble was, however, shifted from the coast to the interior of the island. Several numerous companies of Indians, securely lodged among the mountains, began hostilities, raiding the very suburbs of Santiago itself. They were known as Cimarrons, or Wild Indians, to distinguish them from the serfs and slaves. Their pernicious activities began in 1529, and in the following year their operations were so extensive and persistent as to simulate civil war. Manuel de Rojas organized a force and led it against them with much success, and would probably have soon made an end of the troubles had he not been restrained by Guzman. The governor was probably jealous of the ability, popularity and rising influence of Rojas, and was not willing that he should gain the prestige which complete victory would confer upon him. So he called him back in circumstances which would, he thought, discredit Rojas and make his campaign seem a failure. Vadillo during his brief administration sought to end the troubles by pacific and conciliatory overtures, but failed.
It was thus left for Rojas, on becoming governor in succession to Guzman, to take up again the work from which he had been recalled by his predecessor. This he did to much effect at the end of 1532. He sent a strong force against the mountain fastness of Guama, the foremost chieftain of the Cimarrons, and completely defeated him, putting him to flight and almost extirpating his band. Shortly after this victory of Rojas's, Guama was killed by one of his own few remaining followers. Rojas then sent his troops to disperse Cimarron bands near Bayamo, and Baracoa, which they did with much success, so that peace and security were pretty well restored throughout the island.
This left unsettled, however, the other and in some respects more important and more trying phase of the Indian question, namely, the treatment and disposal of the "tame" Indians, who for years had been in a state of practical slavery under the repartimiento system. It will be recalled that at the beginning they were placed under the protection of the Jeronimite Order of monks; a protection which did not effectively protect. In fact, within a dozen years of the foundation of the system the Jeronimites were more oppressors than protectors, and were chiefly engaged in making what pecuniary profit they could out of their hapless wards. On this account their nominal protectorate was formally abolished by the crown, in 1526, and Gonzalo de Guzman was made repartidor with powers equal to those which Velasquez had exercised. Indeed, his powers were even more absolute than those of Velasquez, since the supreme court of Hispaniola was deprived of jurisdiction over him in his administration of Indian affairs. Later the Bishop, Ramirez, was made co-repartidor with him.
There then arose a protracted and bitter rivalry between the governor and Bishop on the one side and the municipal alcaldes on the other, for the exercise of powers of inspection of and supervision over the labor of the natives. Both sides appointed inspectors, whose functions clashed. Appeal was made to the crown, with the result that the dispute was decided in favor of the alcaldes, who were authorized to appoint inspectors, which the governor and Bishop were forbidden to do. As is usual in such cases, the objects of the contention were the chief sufferers. Indeed, so wretched became their plight that some inkling of the truth reached the ears of the King, who thereupon commissioned a Provincial of the Franciscan Order to go from Hispaniola to Cuba, to investigate charges of