3 - Repressing Smugglers: The Depopulations of Hispaniola, 1604–1606

Summary

This chapter analyzes the implementation of a plan the crown approved in August 1604 to depopulate by force the northern and western coasts of Hispaniola by destroying the existing villages and relocating their population to newly erected villages around Santo Domingo. The depopulations of Hispaniola were an attempt by the crown to impose order on a colony that in the previous two decades had been perceived as increasingly disorderly from the perspective of its extremely active contraband trade, but also from a social and religious perspective. Even though smuggling might have been the cause of the increasingly frequent alarms that reached Madrid during these years, the perception of religious and political impropriety, and the risks that these posed to the presumed religious purity and loyalty of Spanish vassals on the island might have been just as important (or arguably even more so) in spurring the Council of the Indies to action. This narrative, however, was fiercely challenged by the Hispaniola elites, who exculpated themselves of all wrongdoing while blaming any and all questionable behavior on landless peasants, whom they accused of leading all the smuggling efforts.