To the estates (haciendas) of their royal Highnesses 500 Baltasar de Castro, the factor 200 Miguel Diaz, the chief constable 200 Juan Ceron, the mayor 150 Diego Morales, bachelor-at-law 150 Amador de Lares 150 Louis Soto Mayor 100 Miguel Diaz, Daux-factor 100 the (municipal) council 100 the hospitals 100 Bishop Manso 100 Sebastian de la Gama 90 Gil de Malpartida 70 Juan Bono (a merchant) 70 Juan Velasquez 70 Antonio Rivadeneyra 60 Gracian Cansino 60 Louis Aqueyo 60 the apothecary 60 Francisco Cereceda 50 40 other individuals 40 each 1,600 _____ 4,040 Distributed in 1509 1,060 _____ Total 5,100 These numbers included women and children old enough to perform some kind of labor. They were employed in the mines, or in the rivers rather (for it was alluvium gold only that the island offered to the greed of the so-called conquerors); they were employed on the plantations as beasts of burden, and in every conceivable capacity under taskmasters who, in spite of Ferdinand's revocation of the order to reduce them to slavery (September, 1514), had acted on his first dispositions and believed themselves to have the royal warrant to work them to death. The king's more lenient dispositions came too late. They were powerless to check the abuses that were being committed under his own previous ordinances. The Indians disappeared with fearful rapidity. Licentiate Sancho Velasquez, who had made the second distribution, wrote to the king April 27, 1515: " ... Excepting your Highnesses' Indians and those of the crown officers, there are not 4,000 left." On August 8th of the same year the officers themselves wrote: " ... The last smeltings have produced little gold. Many Indians have died from disease caused by the hurricane as well as from want of food...."