The introduction of negroes into the Spanish islands of the West Indies can, therefore, hardly be called an accident. Negro servants were introduced into Spain by the Arabian and Moorish conquerors. From time immemorial negro “slaves” were the favorite household servants of the oriental Caucasians—not alone because they were the most docile and submissive of human beings, but because they were the most faithful and absolutely incapable of betraying their masters, and scarcely a Moorish family of consideration entered Spain without being accompanied by some of these trusty and favorite servants. The recent Portuguese discoveries and conquests on the African coasts had also brought many negroes into the Peninsula, and when Columbus and the Spaniards began their settlements in the New World, there were negroes to be found in almost every town in Spain. The conquest of the miserable natives of Hispaniola and Cuba, and their partition among the Spanish adventurers, failed to gratify their fierce desire for wealth, and from the brutality of their masters, the still lurking desire of these poor creatures for their former condition, or, it may have been, as declared by the Spanish writers, their original feebleness of constitution, they rapidly faded away in the mines and on the plantations, and more vigorous laborers became an absolute necessity, if cultivation, progress, and civilization were to be carried on in these islands. It was thus a material and industrial necessity, rather than any fancied humanity on the part of Las Casas and his friends in behalf of the Indians, that carried negroes into the Spanish islands. Some accompanied the earliest adventurers; they were seen to be safe, and to remain perfectly healthy when Spaniards themselves were constantly smitten down by the fierce suns and deadly malaria of the tropics, while instead of the drooping and listless air that distinguished the natives, these negroes were the most joyous and contented of human beings.