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.