Other  names  were  afterwards  given  to  it,  but
that  of  the  natives — Cuba — is  retained. It  wa.s
very  thickly  populat-ed  by  <i  docile  and  loving
copper-colored  race,  who  were  rightfully  called
by  themselves  The  Good. When,  in  the  winter
of  1509— 10,  Ojeda  was  sailing  from  Central  Amer-
ica to  Santo  Domingo  (see  OJeda)  with  some  of
his  followers,  his  vessel  was  stranded' on  the
southern  sliores  of  Cuba. He  and  his  crew  suf-
fered dreadfully  in  the  morasses,  aud  more  than
half  of  them  peri.shed. They  feared  the  natives,
to  whose  protection  persecuted  ones  in  Santo
Domingo  had  fled,  but  hunger  compelled  the
Spaniards  to  seek  for  food  among  them. These
suffering  Christians  were  treated  most  kindly  by
the  pagans,  aud  through  their  good  offices  Oje-
da was  enabled  to  reach  Jamaica,  then  settled
by  his  countrymen. He  had  built  a  chapel  in
Cuba,  and  oyer  its  altar-piece  he  placed  a  small
Flemish  painting  of  the  Virgin,  aud  taught  the
natives  to  worship  her  as  the  "  Mother  of  God."
Then  Ojeda,  on  reachiug  Santo  Domingo,  told  his
countrymen  of  the  abundance  of  precious  metals
in  Cuba,  when  Diego  Velasquez,  appointed  gov-
ernor of  Cuba  by  Diego  Columbus,  went  with
three  hundred  men  aud  made  an  easy  conquest
of  it. The  natives  had  kept  Ojeda's  chapel  swept
clean,  made  votive  offerings  to  the  Virgin,  com-
posed couplets  to  her,  and  sung  them  with  ac-
corapanimeuts  of  instrumental  music  as  they
danced  in  the  surrounding  groves,  and  tried  to
convince  their  piotis  cmiquerors  that  they  were
fellow-Christians,  but  in  vain. The  conquenus


made  slaves  of  them,  and  so  crnelly  worked  and
treated  them,  men  aud  women,  in  the  fields  and
mines,  that  in  less  than  fifty  years  only  a  few
natives  were  left,  and  their  (daces  were  par-
tially supplied  by  jiegro  slaves. Cruelty  was
the  rule  with  the  conquerors. Velasquez  found
there  a  rich  and  potent  cacique,  who  liad  fied
from  Hispaniola  to  avoid  slavery  or  deatb,  and
he  condennied  the  fugitive  to  the  flames. When
he  was  fasteued  to  the  stake,  a  Franciscan  friar,
laboring  to  convert  him,  promised  him  imme-
diate admittance  to  the  joys  of  heaven  if  he
would  embrace  the  Christian  faith,  and  threat-
ened him  with  eternal  torment  if  he  should  con-
tinue in  his  unbelief. 