not generally acknowledged. The crown officers wrote: " ... All are
not agreed on the point whether the governor should or should not be
elected among the residents of the island. For the country's good he
should, no doubt, be a resident."

Alonzo la Fuente was of a different opinion. He wrote in November,
1536: "It has been a great boon to take the appointment of governors
out of the Admiral's hands. As a rule, some neighbor or friend was
made supreme judge, and he usually proceeded with but little regard
for the island's welfare. All the rest were servants and employees of
the Admiral, which caused me much uneasiness, seeing the results.
Appoint a governor, but a man from abroad, not a resident." In the
following year he wrote regarding the elective system just introduced:
" ... If the alcaldes must take cognizance of everything, this will
become a place of confusion and disorder. A few will lord it over all
the rest, and the alcaldes themselves will but be their creatures."

The new system of government was unsatisfactory. Castro and
Castellanos asked for the appointment of a supreme judge in March,
1539, because an appeal to the authorities in la Española was made
against every decision of the alcalde. Alderman La Fuente and Martel
confirmed this in December, 1541. They wrote: " ... There is great
want of a supreme judge. More than fifteen homicides have been
committed in less than eight years, and only one of the delinquents
has been punished ..." In January, 1542, the city officers sent a
deputy to lay their grievances before the emperor, not daring to write
them "for their lives," and in February the island's attorney, Alonzo
Molina, stated the causes of the failure of the elective system to be
the ignorance of the laws of those in authority and the reduced number
of electors. "It is necessary," he said, "to name a mayor or governor