Conflict, violence, turmoil, untrammeled exploitation, and demographic devastation characterized the early Spanish Caribbean. Although these forces did not allow much space or support for accommodation, adaptation, or new approaches to interethnic coexistence, at a fairly early time some Spaniards sought alternatives to the coercive institutions that rapidly took shape to meet their labor needs. One possibility was to create communities of so-called ‘free’ Indians who would live and work under what historian Esteban Mira Caballos has called ‘una libertad tutelada,’ a sort of protective guardianship whose nature seems embodied in the name chosen for these communities: experiencias. The first royal governor of Hispaniola, frey Nicolás de Ovando, had permitted several caciques whom he considered to be the most ‘capable’ to govern their own people; but this attempt was short-lived, lasting only from 1508 to 1514 (Mira Caballos 2010, 349), as disillusion with the caciques Ovando had chosen quickly set in. In conjunction with reforms proposed by the Hieronymites, who exercised governing authority on the island in 1517–1519, Spaniards subsequently established a number of experimental communities in the Greater Antilles, most of them in Hispaniola. The focus here is on the experiencias created in Puerto Rico and Cuba, each of which had only one. From the time they began to occupy the large islands of the northern Caribbean, Europeans’ heavy reliance on indigenous labor and production and decision to expand and supplement their workforce by importing African slaves shaped their ambitions and choices. The results of Spaniards’ efforts to use and regulate indigenous and African labor in the islands are familiar: assignment of communities of native islanders to work for Spaniards in gold mines and agriculture in repartimientos (later called encomiendas) that rapidly decreased in size and usefulness as the result of native flight and devastating mortality; the importation of enslaved captives from elsewhere in the Caribbean and surrounding mainland who for the most part also succumbed to disease and mistreatment; and the substitution of enslaved Africans as the predominant skilled and unskilled workforce in the islands. Focusing on the outcome of these processes obscures our understanding of how both Spaniards and Indians perceived, confronted and, in some instances, tried to counter them. Early official attempts to provide regulations to protect the Indians and slow their demise, such as the promulgation of the Laws of Burgos (1512,

中文翻译：

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失败的实验：早期波多黎各和古巴的自由谈判

冲突、暴力、动荡、不受约束的剥削和人口破坏是早期西班牙加勒比地区的特征。尽管这些力量没有为适应、适应或种族间共存的新方法留出太多空间或支持，但在相当早的时候，一些西班牙人寻求替代迅速形成以满足其劳动力需求的强制性制度。一种可能性是创建所谓的“自由”印第安人社区，他们将在历史学家埃斯特班·米拉·卡巴洛斯 (Esteban Mira Caballos) 所说的“una libertad tutelada”下生活和工作，这是一种保护性的监护权，其性质似乎体现在为这些社区选择的名称中：经验。伊斯帕尼奥拉岛的第一任皇家总督弗雷·尼古拉斯·德·奥万多 (frey Nicolás de Ovando) 允许几位他认为最“有能力”管理自己人民的酋长；但这种尝试是短暂的，仅从 1508 年持续到 1514 年（Mira Caballos 2010, 349），因为对 Ovando 选择的酋长们的幻想破灭迅速开始。结合在岛上行使管理权力的 Hieronymites 提出的改革1517-1519 年，西班牙人随后在大安的列斯群岛建立了许多实验社区，其中大部分在伊斯帕尼奥拉岛。这里的重点是在波多黎各和古巴创造的体验，每个都只有一个。从他们开始占领加勒比海北部的大岛之时起，欧洲人对本土劳动力和生产的严重依赖以及通过进口非洲奴隶来扩大和补充劳动力的决定塑造了他们的雄心和选择。西班牙人在岛屿上使用和管理土著和非洲劳动力的努力结果众所周知：分配土著岛民社区为西班牙人在金矿和农业领域工作，repartimientos（后来称为 encomiendas）随着规模和效用迅速下降本土逃亡和毁灭性死亡的结果；从加勒比地区和周边大陆的其他地方输入被奴役的俘虏，他们大部分也死于疾病和虐待；以及取代被奴役的非洲人成为岛上主要的熟练和非熟练劳动力。关注这些过程的结果会掩盖我们对西班牙人和印度人如何看待、面对和在某些情况下试图反击他们的理解。