Pocos Indios of Puerto Rico (1563)

A 1563 letter by the governor of Puerto Rico complained that the few Indians left on the island refused to work for whites. Part of the correspondence of colonial governors of Puerto Rico compiled by Alvaro Huerga in the first volume of Cartas de Gobernadores, one can surmise that the few Indians left on the island of Puerto Rico sought to live and work independently of the colonial elites. Unsurprisingly, they refused to work for whites for the meager wages offered. The only problem here is that one is left unsure if most of these "few Indians" were locals or emancipated Indian slaves still on the island, or perhaps a combination of the two.