As was the case elsewhere in the Continent,
one of the chief evils requiring stringent treatment was that of
smuggling. It was said, for instance, that in the early days half the
great gold output of the colony was smuggled abroad by way of the Rivers
Atrato and Hacha. The first Viceroy of New Granada caused forts to be
erected on these and other streams, with a view to stopping the illegal
traffic, and this measure mitigated the evil which nothing--in view of
the half-settled state of the country--could quite subdue.
So little under control was the greater part of New Granada, that the
good results of establishing a separate Viceroyalty only became apparent
slowly. The conquest of the Chibchas, effected as it was with all the
refinements of cruelty familiar to the _conquistadores_, had added
fierce resentment to the natural racial antipathy already existing in
the savage tribes of the country, and communication between provinces
and towns was difficult in all cases, while in many it was altogether
impracticable. There remained numerous bands of roving savages, fierce
and predatory, to render travel unsafe; and though the efforts of the
missionaries and others brought gentler ways to some in course of time,
the whole of the colonial era was characterized by the presence of
utterly fierce and vindictive bodies of aboriginals, while sufficient
reprisals were indulged in by the Spaniards to keep alive the flame of
hostility.
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