CHAPTER IV. - THE DOMINICANS IN HISPANIOLA. THE ORDINATION OF LAS CASAS. THE CONQUEST OF CUBA.

In the month of September of the year 1510, the first Dominican friars, four in number, arrived in Hispaniola from Spain under the leadership of their Prior, Pedro de Cordoba, a man of gentle birth, distinguished appearance, gracious manners, and great piety. He had exceptional gifts as a preacher and, in selecting the men of his Order to accompany him, he chose those who, to their exemplary life and zeal for conversions, united facility in expounding Christian doctrine. Two, especially, out of his company, were men of unusual ability—Fray Antonio de Montesinos and Fray Bernardo de Santo Domingo.

One of the colonists, Pedro Lumbreras, gave the missionaries shelter, and arranged to supply them with provisions, and the monks, without losing any time, set to work to improve the habits and morals of the easy-going Spaniards in the colony. The Viceroy being absent in the city of Concepcion de la Vega at that time, the Prior went thither to announce their arrival and pay his respects, accomplishing the tedious journey of thirty leagues on foot, sleeping on the ground and living on bread and water. He arrived at La Vega on a Saturday, and the next day, being Sunday in the octave of All Saints, he preached a sermon on the glories of paradise prepared for the saints, of which Las Casas says, "It was a sermon so lofty and so divine that I held myself happy to hear it." In response to the Prior's invitation at the close of his discourse, his hearers sent their Indians, men, women, and children, to the church, after dinner. The Prior, holding a crucifix in his hand, and assisted by interpreters, then gave the Indians their first exposition of Christian doctrine, beginning with the creation of the world and finishing with the Crucifixion. This was the beginning of anything like a serious and practical effort to carry out the reiterated instructions of the Spanish sovereigns to instruct the Indians and convert them to Christianity.

In that same year, Las Casas took holy orders, and, though it is not clear whether his ordination occurred before or after the memorable sermon of Prior Pedro de Cordoba, it is evident that the impression he received from that discourse powerfully influenced him at a critical moment of his life and contributed to form the special vocation to which he afterwards devoted himself.

His own description of his ordination is as follows:

"In this same year and in these same days, when the father, Fray Pedro de Cordoba went to La Vega, a cleric called Bartholomew de Las Casas had sung a new mass; he was a native of Seville and among the oldest [settlers] in the island, and that was the first time that a new mass was sung in all the Indies; on account of being the first, the event was celebrated with great festivity by the Admiral [Don Diego Columbus] and everybody who was in the city of La Vega; they comprised a large number of the inhabitants of the island, for it was smelting time, when each brought his gold with his Indians to have it melted, all meeting together as people do to make payments, in the places where fairs are held in Castile; as there were no gold coins, they made certain pieces in imitation of castellanos and ducats, different sorts in the same smelting, where the King's fifth was melted and paid; these coins they offered [to the new priest] while others made arrieles(24) to offer. Reales were current, and many of these were presented, all of which the newly ordained priest gave to his god-father, save a few gold pieces that were especially well made. There was one notable feature of this first mass with which the clergy present were not satisfied; namely, there was not a drop of wine in the whole feast, because no ship having arrived from Castile since a long time, there was none in the entire island."

The newly ordained priest entered immediately and zealously upon his duties, one of the first of which he considered to be the continuation of the religious instruction to the Indians he had seen so admirably initiated by Fray Pedro de Cordoba. He speedily acquired great fame throughout the colony both for his virtues and his learning, and his influence over the natives was established once and for ever.

Don Diego Columbus undertook in 1511 to conquer and settle the island of Cuba, which had been discovered by his father, and, by virtue of the privileges secured to him by the capitulations of Granada, he named Diego Velasquez, a native of Cuellar and one of the oldest and most respected colonists in San Domingo, commander of this enterprise. The expedition, which consisted of three hundred men, amongst whom was Fernando Cortes, landed at a port called Las Palmas in the province of Maici and the conquest was quickly and easily effected, the natives being of a pacific disposition and little skilled in the use of even such indifferent weapons as they possessed. Thirty Spaniards in Jamaica, hearing of the events in Cuba, took service under Velasquez, who appointed Panfilo de Narvaez as commander under his orders. The campaign in Cuba was signalised by the same massacres and cruelties which marked the advance of Spanish civilisation throughout the Indies; the natives were pursued and torn to pieces by fierce dogs, burned alive, their hands and feet cut off, and the miserable, terrified remnant speedily reduced to a condition of hopeless slavery. The so-called war ended with the execution of the Cacique Hatuey, and in the early part of 1512, Diego Velasquez sent for Las Casas to join him from Hispaniola. At that juncture there arrived in the port of Baracoa a vessel commanded by Cristobal de Cuellas, who brought with him his daughter, the promised bride of Velasquez. The Governor absented himself for the celebration of his marriage, leaving his kinsman Juan de Grijalva in command of fifty men during his absence, and charging Las Casas to act as assistant and counsellor to Grijalva, who was a beardless youth and, though of excellent disposition, was without experience. The news of Las Casas's presence quickly spread amongst the Indians of Bayamo, who had fled in terror before the horses of Narvaez into the province of Camaguey, and, feeling reassured and confident of protection, they now began to return little by little, asking pardon for the opposition they had made to the Spanish force and offering to assist and serve the invaders. The veneration of the natives for Las Casas, their only friend, was a most touching thing to see, for they trusted him without reserve, believing him to be omnipotent and knowing him to be good; they called him by the same title, Behique, which they gave to their own magicians and both reverenced and feared him as being almost divine. As the tribes came in, bringing gifts to the Spanish commander, they also brought offerings to Las Casas and when assured by him that the past was pardoned and forgotten, their confidence was completely restored.

Peace being thus established in the province of Bayamo, Velasquez sent orders to Narvaez that he should advance into the province of Camague with all the force he had, which, united to that of Grijalva, amounted to about one hundred men, and that Las Casas should accompany the expedition.

The spiritual and martial forces seemed to work in harmony; Grijalva was obedient to the counsels of Las Casas, and Narvaez, although a hardened campaigner and a man of violent temperament, was not indifferent to the priest's influence, backed as he knew it to be by the warm personal support of his Governor, Velasquez. Some thirty leagues from Bayamo, and before entering the province of Camaguey, the expedition arrived at a town called Cueyba, where they were well received by the Indians and where they found, in a sort of chapel, a statue of the Blessed Virgin which had been presented to the cacique some time before by Alonso de Ojeda who, after shipwreck and untold hardships, had reached that place and been cared for by the natives. Ojeda had carried this image for many weary days, confiding in its protection to rescue him from the dangerous plight in which he found himself, and some of his companions who were now with the Narvaez party praised its beauty so highly to Las Casas that he conceived the idea of offering to trade for it a very good Flemish statue of his own. His proposal, however, was not agreeable to the cacique, who had, on his part, become much attached to his own image, and the next morning when Las Casas went to the little chapel, which the Indians kept nicely adorned with cotton hangings and flowers, he was surprised to see that the statue was missing from its customary place above the altar. Upon inquiry he was told by the Indians that their chief, fearing that he would be forced to accept Las Casas's offer to exchange, had taken his statue and fled into the forests to save it. There was even a fear that a general uprising might result to defend the cherished statue, so Las Casas at once sent messengers to the cacique to assure him that he not only no longer wished to make the exchange but had decided to make him a present of his own Flemish statue as well.

Twenty leagues beyond Cueyba the expedition entered the province of Camaguey, and, at the entrance of the various towns, the Indians came out to welcome the Spaniards, offering them provisions of fish, game, and cassava. Las Casas called together the children everywhere and baptised them, concerning which he afterwards said that many were thus destined for glory in good time, for shortly afterwards there was hardly one of those children left alive.

Nothing inspired more wonder in the Indians than the transmission of news from one place to another by means of writing, and the letters the Spaniards sent to one another excited the greatest awe amongst them. So great had the influence of Las Casas amongst them become, that he had only to send any piece of paper fastened to the end of a stick, carried by a messenger who had been instructed to say what he wanted, for his orders to be scrupulously obeyed; without the paper, the verbal message was shorn of its authority, with the paper it commanded entire obedience. To forestall excesses on the part of the soldiers, Las Casas hit upon the device of sending a messenger ahead, carrying one of these papers, to tell the Indians that the expedition was approaching and that he desired them to have provisions ready and to vacate one part of their village which the Spaniards might occupy. The messenger announced these dispositions, which must be obeyed under pain of the Behique's displeasure, and the Spaniards, on their arrival, invariably found everything prepared for them and free quarters in which to lodge. Narvaez agreed to give strict orders to his men to keep to their own part of the village, and any one who violated this command or sought to mix with the Indians was punished.

At a village called Caonao, one of the characteristic pieces of inexplicable cruelty, that so frequently occurred, took place. Before reaching that town, the expedition had stopped to eat in a dry river bed (barranca), where there was a quantity of soapstone on which the men sharpened their weapons. Upon entering the town and before taking possession of their quarters, they found some two thousand Indians peaceably squatting about the square, after their fashion, curious to see them and observe the movements of the wonderful horses at which they never tired of looking. While the provisions which the Indians had got ready were being distributed, somebody—it was never discovered who—without cause or rhyme or reason suddenly ran amok, drew his sword, and began slashing right and left amongst the defenceless natives, and, as though crazed, the other soldiers fell to work in the same fashion, so that, before one half the Indians realised what was happening, the place was piled with dead and wounded. Narvaez looked on unmoved, but Las Casas, who was not in the square when the massacre began, hearing what was afoot, rushed thither in rage and despair to stop the slaughter. "What do you think of what our Spaniards have done?" Narvaez coolly asked him, and the priest in a fury replied: "To the devil with you and your Spaniards." He finally succeeded in arresting the butchery, not forgetting, in the midst of all, to administer baptism to the dying. His indignation on this occasion burst all bounds and, from his own description, it may be inferred that his language towards his countrymen was not in strict conformity with sacerdotal usage. No sufficient explanation of this lamentable occurrence has ever been given, but Las Casas says that if the man who began the massacre was the one he suspected, he later met a dreadful death. It has been alleged that a soldier mistook some movement of the crowd in pressing forward to see the horses, for a beginning of hostilities, and, as there had been a surprise practised on Narvaez's men a short time before in Bayamo, the man was seized with a sudden panic of fear that the little force of one hundred men was about to be attacked and overcome by mere force of numbers while off their guard, lost his head, and began to use his sword; the others, seeing their comrade fighting, rushed into the melee and before reason could get the upper hand, the mischief was done. The natural consequence of this unprovoked massacre was a general flight of the Indians from their towns, all who could, taking refuge in the neighbouring islands.

The Spanish camp was established near Caonao and one day shortly after the massacre an old Indian servant of Las Casas, called Camacho, came to him to say that a young man about twenty-five years old and his younger brother had returned and begged to be admitted as servants into his household. This young Indian was baptised under the name of Adrianico and served as interpreter and intermediary to induce the other Indians to return to their villages, so that little by little some degree of peace and tranquillity was established throughout the province. The Governor quickly discovered that the simplest means of securing obedience was to send a messenger bearing any bit of paper on a stick, to say in the name of Las Casas whatever was to be done, and this became the means usually employed to maintain order. Thousands of the natives were instructed and baptised during this expedition. It was at this time that news was received of the existence of several Spanish prisoners held by a cacique, in the province of Havana, some hundred leagues distant, and Las Casas sent his habitual Indian messenger carrying the sacred paper to tell that cacique that the paper meant he was to send those prisoners at once, under pain of the Behique's severest displeasure. After the departure of this messenger, the Spaniards struck their camp and went on to a place called Carahale, which Las Casas named Casaharta on account of the abundance of excellent provisions they received there; these seem to have consisted principally of parrots, of which the Spaniards consumed no less than 10,000 beautifully plumaged birds in the brief period of fifteen days they stopped there. Indeed, the amount the Spaniards ate amazed the frugal natives, for it took more to feed a soldier for one day than an Indian family required in a month, At this place there arrived one day a canoe, in which were two Spanish women, in the costume of Mother Eve, one of them about forty years old and the other eighteen. They were the prisoners sent back from Havana by the cacique who had meanwhile received the magic paper ordering their release. They described the slaughter of some Spaniards upon their arrival at the port which, since that time, has consequently been called Matanzas; several had managed to defend themselves but had afterwards been hanged by a cacique on a ceiba tree, leaving only the two women, whose lives were spared. This news so irritated Narvaez that he ordered eighteen caciques who had come in response to Las Casas's papers, bringing food for the Spaniards, to be put in chains, and but for the priest's threat that he would have him severely punished by Velasquez, and even report the case to the King, he would have hanged them. Las Casas, by his vigorous and menacing attitude, secured the immediate release of all the caciques but one, who was kept a prisoner until Diego Velasquez joined the expedition and released him. (25)

At another village, a Spaniard, also a survivor of the Matanzas massacre, was brought forward and delivered to the Spaniards by the cacique, who declared he loved him and had treated him as his own son. Great rejoicing celebrated the finding of this man, and both Las Casas and Narvaez embraced the cacique with fervour. The Spaniard had nearly forgotten his mother-tongue and was in all respects so entirely like the Indians in his manners and ways that every one laughed a good deal at him. Little by little he recovered the use of his Spanish and was able to give much information concerning the country.

Upon the arrival of Diego Velasquez, whose bride had died very shortly after her marriage, a town was founded on the banks of a large river, called by the Indians the Arimao, where very rich gold-mines were discovered. In this newly founded town of Xagua, as it was named, Las Casas received a valuable repartimiento of land and Indians in recognition of the services he had rendered during the expeditions, for, though he was the enemy of all cruel treatment and the protector of the natives against his callous-hearted countrymen, his conscience on the subject of repartimientos was not yet fully awakened.

During his residence in the island of Hispaniola, Las Casas had been close friends with a man named Renteria, whom he describes as a most virtuous, prudent, charitable, and devout Christian, given entirely to the things of God and religion and little versed in the things of this world, to which he paid small attention; he was so open-handed by instinct that his generosity was almost the vice of carelessness rather than a virtue. He was pure and humble in his life and was a man of some learning, devoted to the study of the Scriptures and commentaries to the Latin tongue, and was a skilful penman. Pedro de la Renteria, to whom Diego Velasquez had given the office of alcalde in the island of Cuba was a Biscayan, son of a native of Guipuzcoa, and such was the intimacy between him and Las Casas in Hispaniola that they shared their possessions in common, though in the management of their affairs, it was the latter who took the direction entirely, as being the more capable and practical of the two. (26)

Upon Pedro de la Renteria, the Governor conferred a repartimiento of lands and Indians adjoining the one given to Las Casas and the two had their business interests in common. Las Casas owns, with compunction, that he became so absorbed at that time in developing his new estates and working his mines that what should have been his principal care, the instruction of the Indians, fell into the second place, though despite his temporary blindness to his higher duties, he protests that, as far as their temporal wants were concerned, he was humane and kind, both from his naturally benevolent instincts and from his understanding of the law of God. This we may easily believe to be the case and, though his zealous soul may afterwards, when all his energies of body and mind were exclusively dedicated to his apostolate, have found grounds for self-reproach for neglecting the spiritual wants of his Indians at that time, it is more than probable that, even so, his care of them might well have served as a pattern to his fellow-colonists and more than satisfied the natives, who adored him.



CHAPTER V. - THE SERMONS OF FRAY ANTONIO DE MONTESINOS. THE AWAKENING OF LAS CASAS. PEDRO DE LA RENTERIA

The company of four Dominican monks under their Prior, Pedro de Cordoba, had been increased until their community numbered twelve or fifteen men, the severity of whose rule had been much augmented in the New World in order to maintain the just proportion between their penitential lives and the hard conditions of the colony in which they lived. Their observation of what was happening around them and of the injustice and cruelty daily practised on the natives in defiance of the wishes of the Spanish sovereigns, forced upon them the duty of protesting against such violation of all laws, human and divine. They had received into their community, as a lay-brother, a man who, two years before, had murdered his Indian wife and had afterwards fled to the forests where he lived as best he could. The information furnished by this repentant criminal still further amplified the insight of the monks into the treatment meted out to the Indians and quickened their determination to attempt to stay the iniquities of their countrymen.

The first man to raise his voice publicly in America against slavery and all forms of oppression of the Indians was Fray Antonio de Montesinos, who preached to the colonists of Santo Domingo a discourse, of which unfortunately no full report now exists. The monks had made a point of inviting the Viceroy, the Treasurer, Passamonte, and all the officials to be present in church on the Sunday fixed for the sermon, and it was known throughout the colony that a matter of particular importance was to be the subject of the discourse, though no one suspected its nature. The text chosen was from St. John: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness," and the friar, who was blessed with the dual gifts of eloquence and moral courage, drove his arguments and admonitions home with such force that, though he was heard to the close without interruption, the principal persons of the colony held a meeting after church and decided that the preaching of such revolutionary doctrines must be silenced. They repaired to the monastery to make their protest, and to demand that Fray Antonio should retract or modify his words the following Sunday. The Prior received the angry deputation and, after listening to their demands, informed them that the discourse preached by Fray Antonio represented the sentiments of the entire Dominican community and had been pronounced with his full approbation. The colonists became only the more enraged at this answer and declared that, unless the preacher retracted, the monks should pack their goods and return to Spain, to which the prior with quiet irony replied: "Of a truth, gentlemen, that will give us little trouble"; which indeed was the fact, for Las Casas says that all they possessed of books, vestments, and clothing would have gone into two trunks. The most that the Prior would concede was that the subject should be treated again on the following Sunday.

Fray Antonio once more ascended the pulpit and before the assembled colony announced his text: "Repetam scientiam meam a principio et operatorem meum probabo justum" (Job xxxvi. 3). Not only did he repeat the sense of what he had already said, but he elaborated still more forcibly his theme, and ended by announcing that the sacraments of the Church would henceforth be refused to all who persisted in the evil courses he denounced, and defying his hearers to complain of him in Spain.

Amongst the men on whose startled ears these denunciations fell, were hidalgos of high birth, reduced by reckless courses to expatriate themselves in search of fortunes with which to return and resume their extravagances in Spain; contemptuous of all forms of labour, they passed their enforced exile in gambling, dicing, and debauchery in the company of their Indian mistresses, chosen among the native beauties. They alternately courted the favour of the Viceroy or intrigued against him as seemed most profitable to their interests; they displayed few of the virtues and most of the vices common to their class in Spain. Others belonged in the unfailing and numerous category of adventurers, ever ready to play a new stake in a new country; they constituted an equally reckless but more resourceful element in the colony, though their contribution to the moral tone of the community was likewise insignificant. Columbus had sought and obtained an authorisation to deport from Spain criminals under sentence of either partial or perpetual banishment, while other delinquents had had their sentences remitted on condition that they would emigrate to the Indies. So dissolute was the general tone of the colonies and so depraved the habits of many of the colonists that Columbus could, with sincerity, exclaim, "I vow that numbers of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water from God or man."

Las Casas, who loved sinners as much as he loathed sin, observed this motley population with a more tolerant eye and affirmed that even amongst those who had lost their ears, he still found sufficiently honest men; it was not difficult to lose one's ears in those days. The voice of Fray Antonio cried indeed in a moral wilderness! But however far these men had strayed from the true spirit of their religion, they had no intention of foregoing the ministrations of the church, and they clung tenaciously to the outward observance of forms and ceremonies as an offset against their lax conformity to its moral precepts.

To be thus placed between the ban of excommunication and the renunciation of their illegally held slaves, was an intolerable prospect. Appeal or protest to the Prior being useless, they despatched complaint to the King and chose for the bearer of it a Franciscan friar, Alonso de Espinal, who was instructed to unite his efforts to those of two other agents, who had already been sent to obtain an extension of the encomienda privileges. The Dominicans sent as their representative to contest the case, the offending preacher himself, some generous sympathisers having been found in the colony to furnish the money for the expenses of his journey.

The advocate for the colonists found all doors open to him and his way made easy, for there were not a few of the courtiers and other great personages in Spain who derived large profits from the abusive traffic in the Indies, but the Dominican was friendless and met with obstacles on every hand which barred his access to the King. He managed after some exercise of patience to outwit the gentlemen in attendance, and, forcing his way into the King's presence, begged to be heard. Upon receiving the royal permission to speak, the monk unfolded such a tale that the King sat stupefied with horror at his ghastly recital. "Did your Highness order such deeds to be done?" asked the monk. "No, by God, never on my life," replied the King. The immediate result of King Ferdinand's aroused conscience was, that a commission was formed to inquire into the case and to take information on which to base a report to his Majesty. The sense of this report was that the Indians were freemen, but must be instructed in the Christian religion; that they might be made to labour, but not in such wise as to hinder their conversion nor in excess of their strength; that they should have houses and be allowed sufficient time to cultivate their own lands; that they should be kept in touch with the Christians and that they should be paid wages for their work, which might be in clothing and furnishings rather than in money.

While the discussions inside the commission were going on, the agents of the colonists were active in presenting their side of the case. Fray Antonio was likewise losing no time, and was astonishingly successful in that he won over the very Franciscan whom the colonists had sent to plead their cause, and converted him into his staunch ally and supporter.

The outcome of this controversy was the code of laws promulgated at Burgos on Dec. 27, 1512, and known as the Laws of Burgos. They were afterwards considerably added to by another commission, in which the Prior, Pedro de Cordoba, who had come to Spain and seen the King, sat, and their provisions, had they been conscientiously carried out in the sense their framers designed, would have considerably ameliorated the condition of the Indians. They constitute the first public recognition of the rights of the Indians and an attempt, at least, to amend their wrongs.

Three years elapsed between the date of Fray Antonio's first courageous plea on behalf of the Indians and the entrance of Las Casas upon the active apostolate in their favour, to which the of his long life was devoted. There being no other priest at hand, Las Casas was invited to say mass and preach at Baracoa on the feast of Pentecost in 1514, and in searching the Scriptures for a suitable text he happened upon the following verses in the thirty-fourth chapter of Ecclesiasticus, which arrested his attention and started the train of reasoning destined to produce great results.

"He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ridiculous, and the gifts of unjust men are not accepted. The most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked; neither is He pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices."

"Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doeth as one that killeth the son before his father's eyes."

"The bread of the needy is their life; he that defraudeth him thereof is a man of blood."

"He that taketh away his neighbour's living, slayeth him; and he that defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a bloodshedder."

The perusal of these simply worded texts, replete with terrible significance, quickened the conscience of Las Casas more powerfully than the spectacle of actual enormities happening daily for years under his very eyes, though doubtless the influence of these many occurrences was cumulative and had led him, gradually and unconsciously, up to the state when but a touch was necessary to strip the last disguise from the heinous abuses practised in the colony. Until then he had been zealous in protecting the Indians against massacre and pillage, but to the injustice of the servitude imposed upon them, he was insensible, and he recounts humbly enough that he had himself once been refused the sacraments by a Dominican friar in Hispaniola—possibly the redoubtable Montesinos himself—because he was a slave-holder. He sustained a discussion on the subject with the obdurate monk, whom he describes as a worthy and learned man, but to little purpose, and the Dominican wound up by telling him that "the truth has ever had many enemies, and falsehood many defenders." Las Casas, though somewhat impressed by what had passed between them, took no heed of the admonition to release his Indians, and sought absolution from a more lenient confessor.

Much time and many terrible experiences were required to germinate and develop the seed the Dominicans had sown in his soul, but the day of fruition came with the peaceful preparation of a discourse suitable for the glorious feast of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, into whose perpetual custody were committed the doctrines of Christ, to be infallibly guarded. Instead of disbursing these spiritual treasures to the humble Indians amongst whom he lived as a superior being, almost deified in their simple minds, he had profited by their labours as selfishly as the most godless layman in the island, without making an effort to gather them into one fold, under one shepherd, which, as a Christian priest, should have been his chief occupation. But if the awakening was slow, it was complete, and Las Casas was not one to shrink from following his beliefs to their logical conclusions; not only was his newly formed conviction that the treatment accorded to the Indians was a flagrant violation of all justice, and one that merited condemnation in this world and condign punishment in the next, absolute, but the first consequence following from it, and which seemed to him imperative, was that he should forthwith set the example to his fellow-colonists of freeing his serfs; the second was the devotion of all his powers to making others see the wickedness of the system by which they profited, and the terrible moral responsibility they would incur by persisting in it. He formed his determination to preach this crusade in season and out and to henceforth use every weapon in defence of the downtrodden natives.

Although he treated his own Indians kindly, and he well knew that if he renounced his "encomienda" their condition would doubtless be worse under the power of their new owner than before, Las Casas perceived how impossible it would be to preach justice for the Indians while he himself held them in bondage.

He went to the Governor, Diego Velasquez, and opened his mind fully on the subject, declaring that as his conscience no longer permitted him to hold his Indians in subjection, he had come to surrender them; and, admonishing the Governor of his own grave responsibility, he announced that henceforth his mission would be to preach this doctrine. He desired for the moment that his resolution should not be made public until the return to Cuba of his friend and partner, Renteria, who was at that time absent in Jamaica buying pigs and farm seeds.

The Governor listened with amazement to this new and, to him, monstrous doctrine and, out of friendly interest for Las Casas, and possibly thinking that his present intentions might subside if the renunciation of his property could be deferred, he counselled him to go slowly, saying, "Look well, father, to what you are doing, lest you may repent, for before God I would wish to see you rich and prosperous." He urged him to take fifteen days for careful consideration of the matter and to then return and discuss his intentions. This did not suit the temper of Las Casas who answered: "My lord, I am much honoured by your desire for my prosperity and for all the other favours you do me; but consider, my lord, that the fifteen days have passed, and should I repent of my intention I have expressed to you and desire to hold the Indians, and should you, out of the regard you bear me, wish me to keep them or to renew your grant to me, may it please God to punish you severely, nor to pardon you this sin. I only beg your lordship that all this shall remain secret and that you will not grant the Indians to any one, until Renteria's return, so that his affairs may sustain no damage."

The Governor reluctantly agreed and his respect for Las Casas being much increased, he thenceforward forward consulted him in all that concerned the welfare of the Indians.

On the feast of the Assumption, Las Casas preached a sermon on the contemplative, as compared with the active life, in the course of which he yielded to an impulse to make his intention publicly known. Turning towards the Governor's seat, he said: "My lord, I give you permission to tell to all what we have privately agreed upon between us, and I avail myself of the same to announce it to all here present." He then launched into a fervid discourse upon the blindness, the injustice, the tyranny and cruelty that marked the colonists' treatment of the Indians, declaring that their salvation was to be despaired of unless they liberated their slaves and treated the natives humanely. The assembly was moved to mingled admiration and astonishment, for most of the colonists would as soon have thought it a sin to work their beasts of burden as their Indians, so deeply ingrained was their belief that the natives were created to serve them. Some were stimulated to sentiments of compunction, but not to the extent of imitating the preacher's heroic example of renouncing the source of his income in deference to his moral principles. (27)

While Las Casas was passing through these experiences in Cuba, his friend and partner, Renteria, was, by a singular coincidence, arriving at analogous convictions concerning the Indians and pondering upon the formation of some plan by which the diminishing remnant of them might be rescued from servitude and converted to the Christian religion. During lent of that year he made a retreat in a Franciscan monastery in Jamaica whither, as has been said, he had gone to procure farm stock. During this period of seclusion from temporal distractions, he came to the conclusion that the best means to benefit the natives would be to found several schools or colleges into which the Indian boys and younger men might be collected, and he formed the determination to go himself, if necessary, to Spain and seek royal approval and support for this project. Las Casas had meantime become so impatient of further delay in beginning his labours that, having made public his intentions, he abandoned his original idea of waiting for Renteria's return before starting for Spain. Although he was without funds and had no means of getting any save by the sale of a mare worth a hundred pesos of gold, he wrote to Renteria telling him that he was about leaving Cuba for Spain on business of great importance, so that, if his friend wished to see him before he started, he must hasten back from Jamaica. Renteria, in consequence, finished his business in the island and returned as quickly as possible to Cuba, where he was met upon landing by the Governor, Las Casas, and numerous others, for he was a very popular and much esteemed man in the colony. It was only when the two friends finally found themselves alone that an exchange of confidences became possible, and Renteria, yielding to the insistence of Las Casas, unfolded his plan for the establishment of Indian schools. Each in turn was surprised and gratified to learn the project of the other and, after some discussion and arguments, it was decided that, of the two, Las Casas was the one who must go to Spain. Renteria disposed of his Jamaica purchases and, out of the profits, furnished his friend with money enough to defray the expenses of what was foreseen would be a long and doubtless costly sojourn at court.

At this same juncture, the Dominican Prior in Santo Domingo sent four of his monks to establish a community in Cuba, choosing as their Prior, Fray Bernardo, who is described as both a pious and a learned man. The Governor of Cuba received these religious with great satisfaction, but to no one did their coming afford greater joy than to Las Casas. The Dominicans began a series of earnest and edifying sermons, in the course of which practical applications of Scripture texts were made to the actual condition of affairs in the colony; and, by using the information furnished them by Las Casas, the preachers were able to make very forcible home thrusts on the subject of the injustice of the system of serfage and the grave responsibility of those Spaniards who oppressed the Indians. These sermons disturbed the conscience of the colonists but not to the point of amending their evil system, so the chief result was a general feeling of dissatisfaction within themselves and one of intensified exasperation towards the preachers of such uncomfortable doctrine. The monks, on their part, realising that it was idle to combat with purely spiritual weapons a system of evils which everybody was interested in maintaining, perceived their only hope of success lay in having their hands strengthened by royal support, and accordingly their Prior decided to go to Spain with Las Casas, where they might co-operate in their undertaking.



CHAPTER VI. - LAS CASAS RETURNS TO SPAIN. NEGOTIATIONS. CARDINAL XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. THE JERONYMITE COMMISSIONERS

Las Casas was fully conscious of the hostility his mission was bound to provoke, and how odious he would make himself, not only to the colonists, but also to the members of the India Council, the courtiers, and to many influential persons in Spain, all of whom had investments in the colonies and drew incomes from the very abuses he was to combat; he therefore took the precaution of drawing up a sworn and witnessed statement, ad perpetuam rei memoriam, with the legal formalities dear to Spanish usage, in which he recounted all the services of every kind that he had rendered in the colonies. Lest obstacles might be put in the way of his departure, he resorted to a little dissimulation and caused the report to be spread that he intended to go to Paris to finish his law studies and take his degree at the university there. The colonists, including the Governor, were duped by this subterfuge and he departed in company with the Prior, who took with him a deacon of his order, Fray Diego de Alberca. The first stage of their journey was to Hispaniola, where the Prior was seized by a severe illness, to which he succumbed in the town of San Juan de la Maguana.

In the city of Santo Domingo, Las Casas encountered his old friend and precursor in the defence of the Indians, Prior Pedro de Cordoba, to whom he recounted all that had befallen him in Cuba, his newly found vocation, and his intention to visit Spain and lay the case for the Indians before the King. The Prior praised his resolution, but in wishing him all success, he explained the situation he would find awaiting him in Spain, where the all-powerful Bishop of Burgos, who was at the head of Indian affairs, and the royal Secretary, Lope Conchillos, were entirely in favour of the system of repartimientos and encomiendas, being themselves shareholders in colonial enterprises. As not uncommonly happens, it was on the estates of such absentee owners that the Indians were most cruelly handled, being mercilessly overworked by overseers anxious to curry favour at home by the remittance of ever-increasing revenues.

Although he was sufficiently impressed by what he heard, the zeal of the new apostle was undiminished. The Dominican community in Hispaniola being in sad need of funds, the Prior decided to profit by the occasion and to send one of his monks with Las Casas to Spain to solicit aid. He chose for this mission the same Fray Antonio de Montesinos, whose earnestness in behalf of the natives rendered him a sympathetic companion, while his own experience in handling the question in Spain, promised to be of great assistance to Las Casas. They sailed in September, 1515, and after a prosperous voyage arrived safely at Seville, where Montesinos lodged in the monastery of his Order, while Las Casas was given hospitality by his relatives.

The Archbishop of Seville at that time was Fray Diego de Deza, a Dominican who stood high in King Ferdinand's favour, and the first service Montesinos rendered his companion was to present him to the Archbishop, to whom he had already given some account of the objects which brought them both to Spain, and of the zeal of Las Casas in a cause which the Dominican Order had made peculiarly its own. It required no persuasion to enlist the good offices of the Archbishop, who was in entire sympathy with their undertaking and promptly furnished Las Casas with a warm letter to the King, commending both the cause and its advocate. To facilitate his approach to the King, he furnished Las Casas also with letters to influential persons in the royal household.

No better beginning could have been desired, and Las Casas set out for Plasencia where the King then was, arriving there a few days before Christmas in the year 1515. Thanks to the counsels and information given him by Montesinos, Las Casas knew something of the court and upon what persons he might count, who might still be won over, and who were to be avoided. Among these last, the most notorious and powerful opponents were the Bishop of Burgos and the Secretary, Lope Conchillos. Whatever virtues the former may have possessed they were certainly not of the apostolic order and his appointment to the high office of President of the India Council was one of the earliest and greatest calamities that overtook American interests. Las Casas was careful, therefore, to defer meeting these two personages and to refrain from disclosing the object of his presence until he should have first secured a hearing from the King, whose sympathy he hoped to enlist before his opponents could prejudice the monarch against him. Again fortune favoured him, and two days before Christmas he was closeted with the King, and explained in the fullest detail the state of things in the islands; the extinction of the natives, which was following rapidly on the barbarities and rapacity of the Spaniards, and the violation of the royal provisions which the benevolence of the late Queen and the sagacity of the King had decreed. He was astute enough to couple with the argument that these iniquities lay heavily on the royal conscience, the assurance that the revenues from the Indies would infallibly diminish until they ceased altogether, unless these crying abuses were corrected. In this conversation the charming personality, cultivated intelligence, and earnest convictions of Las Casas told powerfully, and he recounted horrifying incidents to the astonished sovereign which, it may be rightly imagined, lost nothing in the recital by such an eloquent and fervent advocate. Again he was completely successful, for King Ferdinand promised him another and longer audience before Easter in which he would go more fully into the matter. He slyly notes in closing his own description of the audience and its results, that neither Conchillos nor the Bishop of Burgos was much overjoyed when they heard from the King what subject was under discussion.

Diego Velasquez was well aware that Las Casas would spare no means to carry on his propaganda and that his first step would doubtless be to engage the attention of the Admiral, Diego Columbus, whose lieutenant Velasquez was, and that of the King as well, if he could reach him. He wrote therefore to the Treasurer, Passamonte, who in turn wrote to Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos warning them of what was on foot.

The monks of the Dominican Order were, in those days, to be found in many posts of influence, not the least of which was that of confessor to the King, and to Fray Tomas de Matiencio, the ghostly father of King Ferdinand, Las Casas did not fail to go at the outset. Matiencio had already shown pronounced sympathy with the cause of the Indians and was, therefore, to be counted upon as a firm ally, both because of his personal convictions and for motives of solidarity with his Order. Through his confessor, Ferdinand sent to tell Las Casas that he should preceed him to Seville and wait for his arrival there, when the promised audience would be granted him; the King's departure was fixed for the fourth day after Christmas, so it may be seen that this affair did not drag just then at the Spanish court. The confessor also advised Las Casas not to avoid the Bishop of Burgos and Conchillos; but, on the contrary, to go openly to both and to explain as frankly to them as he had done to the King, the exact condition of the Indians, the motives which had prompted him to intervene, and the measures he judged necessary to stop the depopulation and ruin of the colonies. Matiencio reasoned that, as the matter must ultimately come into the hands of these two men, and as they had to be reckoned with, it was far wiser to give them the fullest information at the outset, hoping also that Las Casas's moving description of the sufferings the Indians endured might modify their opposition. This counsel did not accord with the plan of Las Casas but he allowed his judgment to be overruled by the royal confessor's advice and sought out Conchillos as being the less intractable of the two. The letter from the Archbishop of Seville procured him a courteous reception and had he come seeking a benefice or some preferment from the King, he might have counted upon the favour and assistance of the Secretary to advance his suit, but, as he piously phrases it, he had, by divine mercy, been rescued from the darkness in which, like all the others, he had wandered, a lost man, and was liberated from all desire for any temporal benefits. Save the gracious words and courtly blandishments which Conchillos showered upon him, nothing resulted from the interview.

His reception by the Bishop of Burgos was of a totally different order and, though it is to be lamented that this prelate did not possess more of the virtues becoming his state, it must be noted in his favour that hypocrisy was wanting in his unlovely character. Amongst other atrocities which Las Casas brought to his attention was the death of seven thousand Indian children within three months, on which he dwelt, hoping to touch some humane chord in the Bishop. He was deceived. "Look what an ignorant fool you are!" exclaimed his lordship. "What is this to me or what to the King?" This rough answer goaded his patience beyond control and Las Casas shouted in reply: "That all these souls perish is nothing to you and nothing to the King! Oh, Eternal God! then to whom is it anything?" With this he left the Bishop's presence.

The activity of Las Casas, his earnestness and his eloquence produced immediate effects, for he forced Indian affairs upon the languid attention of indifferent people and aroused so much interest in them that they became a topic of general discussion. He recounted his experiences to Archbishop Deza on his return to Seville, and begged him to arrange that both Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos should be present at the audience the King had promised him, so that he might put the case fully, for he desired to charge them directly in the royal presence with responsibility for the massacres and cruelties to the Indians and for the damage done to the royal interests by their maladministration of the colonies. His project for this dramatic encounter was forestalled, and all the hopes born of the royal assurances given him at Plasencia were dashed by the news that reached Seville of the death of King Ferdinand, which occurred at Madrigalegos on January 23, 1516.

This sudden stoppage of his carefully planned campaign was discouraging enough to Las Casas but he was not disheartened, and resolved to set out at once for Flanders where the young King Charles then was and to present his plans to the monarch before he arrived in Spain.

King Ferdinand's last will designated Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros as regent of the kingdom until his successor's arrival in Spain.

In a century prolific in great men, Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros was among the greatest. Descended from an honourable family, he entered the Church, where a career of great promise opened before him. At an early age, however, he quit the secular priesthood for the cloister and became a monk of the Franciscan Order, in which the austerity of his observance of that severe rule of life and the vigour of his intellect advanced him to the position of a Provincial.

Much against his own inclination, he had accepted the post of confessor to Queen Isabella and from thence forward he became, in spite of himself, a dominant figure in the political and ecclesiastical affairs of the realm. The Queen raised him to the primatial see of Toledo, which carried with it his elevation to the Roman purple. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo was the richest and most important person in Spain, after the sovereign; but promotion to this lofty dignity, with its obligations to the pomp and magnificence imposed by the usage of the times, in no way modified the austerity of Cardinal Ximenez's life. He still wore the rough habit of St. Francis under his purple and he patched its rents with his own hands. Amidst palatial surroundings he slept on the floor or on a wooden bench—never in a bed—and he held strictly to the diet of a simple monk. No man was less of the world than he, though none was more in it or knew it better. He became as renowned for his wisdom and ability in conducting affairs as he had long since been for his sanctity, and the confidence which the King and Queen reposed in him caused him to be admitted to their counsels on all the most important matters of government.



Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros

From a relief preserved in the Universidad Central. Photo by J. Laurent & Co., Madrid

When the death of King Ferdinand occurred, the Cardinal was nearly eighty years of age, yet he accepted and assumed the regency imposed upon him by the King's testament. Adrian of Utrecht, Dean of the University of Louvain, who had resided for some months at the court of King Ferdinand in the quality of ambassador from Prince Charles, produced full powers from the young sovereign, which conferred upon him the regency after Ferdinand's death. Cardinal Ximenez acknowledged him without delay, and a joint regency was instituted in which Adrian's part was merely nominal, as the actual government was carried on exclusively by the Cardinal.

It could hardly have been otherwise, for Adrian, as a foreigner, was unpopular in Spain, where he exercised no influence; he did not even speak Spanish and being, moreover, of a scholarly disposition, little used to the intricacies of affairs of state, he was doubtless glad enough to shelter himself behind the powerful figure of his masterful colleague. The Cardinal was adored by the people; the sanctity of his life, the integrity of his character, the superlative order of his genius, and his princely munificence made him more powerful than any sovereign. Some of the great nobles who had imagined that the regency of an aged monk would favour the designs of their invasive ambitions were sharply checked by the energy of the new regent, who had organised an efficient body of troops in his own pay and speedily made it apparent that Spain had a ruler with whom it was perilous to trifle. One incident in the contest he sustained in defence of the crown's prerogatives against the encroachments of the feudal nobles, illustrates his character. The Duke of Infantado, the Grand Admiral of Castile, and the Count of Benevente came as representatives of the nobles, to inquire into the nature of the powers by which the regent exercised such absolute authority. After hearing them courteously, the Cardinal produced the late King's testament and its formal ratification by the absent King Charles. As they raised some objections to the extent of the powers these documents gave him, he led them to a window of his apartment commanding a view of a large encampment of soldiers and artillery, saying, "There are the powers I have received from his Catholic Majesty, by which I govern and shall continue to govern Castile, until the King, my master and yours, shall take possession of his kingdom." This answer both astonished and silenced them and they withdrew convinced of the futility of conspiracies against a man so well prepared and so determined.

The supreme object of his regency was to consolidate the union of the various kingdoms and principalities of the peninsula into one state—in other words to create a nation. This he did, and thus laid the foundations of Spain's greatest power and glory, for he delivered the kingdom to the young monarch in a more prosperous condition than it had ever before enjoyed, and with the royal authority more widely extended and more firmly grounded than any other Spanish sovereign had ever possessed it.

The regency of Cardinal Ximenez did not last two years, yet such was the permanent character of his beneficent influence upon the national development, that the memory of his services is still undimmed in Spain. Amongst the statesmen of his times, he was facile princeps and he enjoys the unique distinction of being the only prime-minister in history who was regarded as a saint by his own contemporaries. (28)

To this ascetic and autocratic but not unkindly statesman Las Casas decided to address himself, and he proceeded to Madrid to acquaint the two regents with the abuses prevailing in the Indies and to announce his intention of going to Flanders unless the necessary measures for the relief of the oppressed Indians could be devised in Spain before the King arrived. He drew up a statement of the case in Latin, which he submitted to the Ambassador Adrian, and another, identical, in Spanish, for Cardinal Ximenez. The gentle-hearted Fleming was horrified by what he read of the atrocities perpetrated in the King's name in the colonies, and repairing to the apartment of Cardinal Ximenez, who lodged in the same palace, asked him if such enormities were possible. As the Cardinal already had plenty of information on the subject from his brother Franciscans, he replied that all that Las Casas stated was true and that there was even more besides. He signified to Las Casas that his proposed journey to Flanders was unnecessary as he would himself provide means in Madrid for correcting the abuses in the colonies. There began at once a series of conferences to which Cardinal Ximenez summoned his colleague in the regency, the licentiate Zapata, Dr. Carbajal, and the distinguished jurist Dr. Palacios Rubios; in the course of these debates Las Casas fully exposed the evils of the colonial administration and proposed the measures which, in his judgment, were necessary to remedy them. The Cardinal-regent always had by him as a consultor the Bishop of Avila, who was also of his Order, but he rigorously excluded the obnoxious Bishop of Burgos from all participation in Indian affairs, to the no small perturbation of that prelate. Las Casas relates a significant incident that happened during one of these conferences, illustrating the means employed by his opponents to confute his statements. Cardinal Ximenez ordered the Laws of Burgos, which, since 1512, were supposed to be in full force in the Indies for the protection of the natives, to be read aloud; upon reaching one of the articles, the reader falsified the text; Las Casas, who knew every line of those acts by heart, objected and the Cardinal ordered the reader to repeat; he did so in the same language, whereupon Las Casas once more objected, saying, "The law does not say that." The Cardinal, rendered impatient by the repeated interruption, turned to Las Casas and remarked with severity, "Either be silent or look well to what you say." "Your Eminence may take my head off if what this clerk is reading be truly found in that law," replied Las Casas promptly. Taking the articles from the hands of the reader he showed his Eminence that the sense had not been correctly read. The confusion of the clerk, whom Las Casas refuses to dishonour by naming him in his history, was complete. The outcome of these discussions was that Las Casas, Dr. Palacios Rubios, and Fray Antonio de Montesinos (who had meanwhile arrived in Madrid) were deputed by the Cardinal-regent to draft a project of laws which would sufficiently protect the Indians and secure fair government in the colonies. By common consent of his collaborators, the task of framing these laws was left exclusively to Las Casas. His propositions were:

1. Unconditional liberty for the Indians; 2. Suppression of both repartimientos and encomiendas; 3. Some provisions for assisting the Spaniards to work their properties profitably without recurring to the oppressive and abusive systems they had hitherto employed.

Both Fray Antonio and Dr. Palacios Rubios approved these articles and the latter somewhat added to and improved them, recomposing them in the proper legal terminology of the time, after which they were again submitted, discussed, and in some unimportant details, amended, in the above-mentioned council presided over by the Cardinal, The next important step was to place the execution of these new provisions in the hands of trusted delegates who would apply them rigorously and in the sense designed by the council, for there had been no lack of excellent decrees, having the same end in view, but which had, in the past, been rendered null and of no effect, through the connivance of the colonial authorities, to whom their execution had been entrusted. Las Casas, for the best of motives, declined having any part in designating such officers and in consideration of certain rivalries existing between the Franciscan and Dominican Orders, especially in Indian affairs, the Cardinal finally decided to confide the necessary powers to the monks of St. Jerome, an Order which had thus far taken no part in colonial affairs. Upon receiving the Cardinal's notification of this intention, the General of that Order, who resided at San Bartolome de Lupiano, summoned a chapter of all the priors of Castile, in which twelve monks were designated, amongst whom the regent might make his selection. Four priors came to Madrid to notify this result to his Eminence, and one afternoon the two regents, accompanied by the entire court, rode out to the monastery of St. Jerome near the Buen Retiro Gardens, where they lodged, to receive the formal answer of the chapter. Las Casas was, of course, present, and the regents were received by the monks in the sacristy of the church, which had been appropriately prepared for the great occasion. Cardinal Ximenez addressed the assembly, highly commending the willingness of the Jeronymites to undertake such a meritorious task, and then ordered that Las Casas be summoned to hear the result.

The boyish enthusiasm of Las Casas's character appears on this occasion, for, consumed with impatience, tortured by hopes and fears, he had waited outside in the upper cloister as long as he could stand it and had then finally descended a staircase which brought him unexpectedly to the sacristy door, just in time to hear that he was being searched for; some one asked him if he knew Las Casas, to which he meekly replied, "I am he." As he could not get in at that door, he had to go round through the church, which obliged him to traverse the choir, where all the great people of the court in attendance on the regents were waiting and who, so Las Casas observes, were all glad to see him, except perhaps the Bishop of Burgos. This hour of Las Casas's triumph was complete; on his knees before the Cardinal-regent, in the presence of the assembled Priors of Castile and the entire court, he heard, with ill-repressed tears, the announcement that all he had most earnestly striven and prayed for was now to be realised and that he himself was designated to confer with the General of the Jeronymites concerning the choice of the men who were to execute the new laws in the Indies. The Cardinal, who unbent to few, treated Las Casas with genial familiarity and when the latter declared that he did not need the money his Eminence had provided for his expenses, as he had enough of his own, he smilingly observed, "Go to, father, I am richer than you."

Not a moment of time was wasted, and that very evening Las Casas received his instructions and twenty ducats for the expenses of his journey to Lupiano, whither he set out the following morning. One of the twelve monks amongst whom the selection was to be made was in that monastery, and the General had him called and presented him to Las Casas, who was as pleased with his robust appearance, which promised to support the physical hardships of colonial life, as he was with all that he heard of his virtues and learning, though his face was as ugly a one as ever a man had; this was Fray Bernardino de Mazanedo, the Prior of Mejorada, and he was selected as one of the commission; Luis de Figueroa and the Prior of St. Jeromino in Seville were finally agreed upon between Las Casas and the General to complete the number.

No sooner had the Jeronymite monks arrived in Madrid than the agents of the colonists, and all those who were interested in maintaining the encomiendas and repartimientos, whose suppression meant the diminution of their incomes, laid instant siege to them. Las Casas was abused and even threatened in the public streets, and a well organised campaign of calumny and misrepresentation was set actively in motion. The Indians were represented as lazy, filthy pagans, of bestial morals, no better than dogs, and fit only for slavery, in which state alone there might be some hope of instructing and converting them to Christianity. Las Casas was flouted as a fanatic, bent on destroying the Spanish colonies, and as an enemy of his country's interests. So adroitly were these and other arguments presented, and so overwhelming was the mass of testimony favourable to the colonists that constantly reached the Jeronymites from all sides, that they began to be ill-affected towards Las Casas and to disregard his suggestions. Dr. Palacios Rubios was so disturbed by their new inclination, that after conversations with them, in which their changed views were plainly manifested, he declared it would be disastrous to send such men; he forthwith determined to stop their departure, if possible, before it was too late.

Cardinal Ximenez fell seriously ill at this time and Palacios Rubios sought access to him in vain. As soon as his Eminence had sufficiently convalesced to attend to business, he ordered the final instructions to be given to the Jeronymites and their departure to be hastened. One of the orders directed them, upon arriving in Hispaniola, to at once annul the encomiendas held by members of the Royal Council for the Indies. This struck a hard blow at Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos amongst others, for the former lost eleven hundred Indians and the latter eight hundred, (29) nor from that time forth did any member of the Council openly hold property in slaves, though Las Casas was sceptical as to whether they did not continue to have private interests. Another similar order obliged all judges and royal officials in the colonies to surrender their slaves. The general sense of the instructions furnished to the Jeronymites for their guidance was in conformity with the ideas of Las Casas and the articles were indeed drawn up by him, although certain concessions which did not meet with his approval had been made to public opinion, and the important property-owners in the colonies were sufficiently powerful at court to obtain some modifications and to suppress some provisions in favour of the Indians, which seriously hampered the original proposals. In spite of the declaration formally set down in the will of Isabella the Catholic that the Indians were and must be considered free men, the contrary opinion had come to prevail, and in the beginning of his negotiations in Spain Las Casas himself had not ventured to insist too much or too openly on this point, until one day, when in conversation with Cardinal Ximenez, he queried by what principle of justice the Indians were held in subjection. His Eminence answered with some vivacity: "With no justice, for are they not free men? And who can doubt they are free?" From thenceforward Las Casas sustained this opinion unflinchingly.(30) The licentiate Zuazo of Seville was appointed to accompany the Jeronymites and to open an inquiry (tomar la residencia) into the administration of the colonial officials. The powers of the friars were the fullest possible and enabled them to inquire into all matters touching the welfare of the Indians and to correct abuses, but they were not "governors" as has been supposed and stated by many writers, but rather overseers, charged to ensure the proper execution of the laws which had been enacted to protect the natives.

As soon as the instructions were delivered to the Jeronymites, Las Casas received the following order from the Cardinal-regent:

"The Queen and the King. Bartholomew de Las Casas, priest, native of the city of Seville, and resident of the island of Cuba which is in the Indies."

"For as much as we are informed that you have been and are resident in those parts for a long time, from which you know and are experienced in their affairs, especially in what touches the well-being and usefulness of the Indians, and you know and are acquainted with their life and conversation from having dwelt with them, and because we know your good zeal in our Lord's service, from which we hope that you will execute with all diligence and care what we shall charge and command you and will see to what contributes to the welfare of the souls and bodies of the Spaniards and Indians who live there; by these presents we command you to repair to those regions of the said Indies, such as the islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, San Juan, and Jamaica as well as to the mainland; and you shall advise, inform, and give your opinion to the pious Jeronymite fathers whom we despatch to effect the reformation of the Indies, and to other persons who may assist them in this, concerning everything which touches the liberty, good treatment and welfare of the souls and bodies of the said Indians in the said islands and mainland; and that you shall write to us giving information concerning everything that may be done or should be done in the said islands; and that you shall do everything required for our Lord's service; for all of which we give you full power, with all its casualties, dependencies, emergencies, annexes, and connexes; and we command our Admiral and appellate judges and all other justices whatsoever of the said Islands and Tierrafirma that they protect you and cause this power to be protected and that they shall not oppose or go contrary to its form and tenor nor consent that such be done at any time or in any way under pain of our displeasure and of 10,000 maravedis for each person who may act to the contrary."

"Done at Madrid the 17th day of September in the year 1516 F. Cardinalis, Adrianus Ambasiator—By command of the Queen and the King her son, our sovereigns, the governors in their name. George de Baracaldo."

In addition to this full power, Las Casas was given the title of Protector-General (or Procurator-General) of all the Indians, to which office an annual salary of one hundred dollars was attached, an amount which, for the times, was a considerable one.

Though everything now seemed ready for the departure of the Jeronymites and Las Casas, the members of the Council still advanced objections to the instructions which Palacios Rubios had drawn up for the licentiate Zuazo, who had been deputed to take the residencia of the colonial judges; it was feared that some severe decisions might be given on acts which these latter had performed in the interests of the members of the India Council, whose tools they were. Las Casas employed his usual direct tactics to overcome these delays and brought the matter to the Cardinal's notice. His Eminence summoned the licentiate Zapata and Dr. Carbajal into his presence and ordered them to sign Zuazo's papers; they obeyed, but contrived to affix a mark in cipher to their signatures which would enable them later to complain to the King that the regent had forced them to sign.

In taking leave of the Cardinal, Las Casas frankly declared that he feared the Jeronymites had been so tampered with and influenced before starting on their mission, that more evil than good was to be apprehended from their action. The Cardinal, nonplussed for an instant by these forebodings, exclaimed, "Whom then can we trust?" quickly adding, "Go on and do you look out for everything."

This unpromising joint-commission sailed from San Lucar on November 11, 1516, but in separate vessels, the Jeronymites keeping aloof from Las Casas, who they contrived should not embark on the same ship with themselves. Their vessel reached Hispaniola thirteen days earlier than the other, which had been obliged to stop at Puerto Rico to discharge freight.

By detaching themselves from Las Casas at the very outset, the three Jeronymites doubtless intended to affirm the impartial and independent attitude essential to the judicial character of their mission. They were not carried to the Indies on any such wave of righteous zeal and indignation as bore the impetuous reformer on its crest. They were cloister-bred men, cautious and prudent in their decisions and deliberate in their acts, and they doubtless felt that for them to arrive in company with Las Casas would be to prejudice the impartiality of their proceedings in the eyes of all the colonists. They were sent to the colonies to carry out instructions of a most delicate and difficult nature and it was their obvious preference to fulfil their mission, as far as possible, without friction. In this exercise of caution, Las Casas beheld weakness and even treachery. His passionate nature chafed and raged at the deliberateness with which these impassive monks moved, and he was not slow to denounce them as having been won over by the blandishments of the colonial officials to betray the mission with which they were entrusted. His passion for justice, associated as it was with unrealisable ideals, refused to take account of the multifarious difficulties in the way of the reforms on which his heart was set, and he despised the obstacles to their consummation, through which he would have crashed, regardless of the consequences. Despite the sincerity of these one-sided views of the great Protector, it must be conceded that the problems confronting the Jeronymites were complex and difficult of solution. The prompt and reckless execution of their instructions would have overturned the entire economic system of the colonies which, however unjust in its principles, was the established condition of things, and would have certainly brought financial ruin as the first consequence. The situation was one which called for all their circumspection if the Jeronymites were to make their authority effective and their decisions operative. They were the first of all the men sent by the Spanish government to effect reforms in the colonies, whose intention to discharge their duty was conscientious, though Las Casas does not even admit this in their favour, for he declares that they had relatives in the islands whom they desired to benefit, and that in writing to the Governor of Cuba they even signed themselves as his "chaplains," which seemed to him conclusive proof of their too subservient attitude towards the higher colonial authorities.

The Jeronymites, however, had been furnished with two sets of instructions and it was within their discretion to guide their policy according to either, as their judgment formed on the spot might dictate. The first set of instructions was in conformity with the plan drawn up by Las Casas and Palacios Rubios; the second was provided in case the result of their investigations showed the full application of the first to be inexpedient, for Cardinal Ximenez, though sympathising with the ideas of Las Casas, was not led by him, but viewed the situation, as he did every other that concerned the welfare of the Spanish realm, from the standpoint of a statesman trustee for the absent sovereign.

The first measures of the Jeronymites were in the right direction, but they were far too timid and temporising to satisfy the expectations of Las Casas; the conditions he had foreseen were only too prompt in declaring themselves, for the Jeronymites showed themselves somewhat insensible to the crying abuses which he incessantly pressed upon their attention. They did not give full credit to all of his representations and even ignored many of the proofs he adduced. They had failed to find the picture he had drawn in Spain of the Indians an entirely accurate one, and they resisted his reiterated demand that they should scrupulously obey the injunction to at once deprive all royal judges and officials of their encomiendas. The exasperation of Las Casas at this time pushed him to excesses which aroused such a storm of ill-feeling and hostility against him that his good friends the Dominicans feared for his life and insisted that he should come to live with them in their monastery, where he would be safer from any violence his enemies might attempt. Whether it was feasible to proceed in the drastic manner demanded by Las Casas is open to doubt. It is evident that the colonists would have offered an obstinate resistance, to combat which the three Jeronymites had nothing but the moral force of their commission. Even with our present facilities for rapid communication, it is not always easy for the central authority to control its agents and ensure the faithful execution of its intentions. In the sixteenth century, time and distance influenced powerfully the action of the government representatives. Their instructions were made complex, voluminous, in the effort to cover every possible emergency, but no foresight sufficed for the purpose, while the legal system in use opened many loopholes for evading or postponing the application of unpopular measures. An appeal from a royal commissioner's decision, to the India Council or to the King, entailed a delay of many long months or even years, during which each party contested every point. The outcome of such proceedings was problematical but the resisting party was always certain of the one positive advantage of delay.



CHAPTER VII. - LAS CASAS AND CHARLES V. THE GRAND CHANCELLOR. NEGRO SLAVERY. EVENTS AT COURT.

As soon as Zuazo arrived, nearly three months after the Jeronymites, Las Casas immediately lodged against members of the audiencia, an accusation of having encouraged and shared in the man-hunts in the Lucayan islands and the enslavement of the captured natives. The Jeronymites, whose every act was now one of opposition to Las Casas, showed much annoyance at this impeachment of the royal functionaries. They solicited divers opinions, addressing themselves to the accused officials, who naturally exculpated themselves, to the Franciscan monks, who were not over-friendly to the Indians, and to the Dominicans, who were their warm advocates. Much discussion ensued, and meanwhile the perplexed Jeronymites did nothing, so that matters continued as they had been before their arrival, except that the sufferings of the Indians were augmented by their owners, who feared that the encomienda system was nearing its end and hence worked their Indians to death, sparing neither women nor children, so as to get all the profit they could out of them before they lost them. Charges and counter-charges were sent to Spain, the Jeronymites complaining of Las Casas and he in turn denouncing them to Cardinal Ximenez, though many of his letters were intercepted and never reached their destination. Things had come to such a pass that the only hope of remedy lay in Las Casas returning to Spain to file complaints against the very men he had himself caused to be sent to the Indies and in whose impartiality and humanity he had placed all his hopes. Both the Dominicans and Franciscans, for once in accord in this business, addressed letters to the King and the Cardinal in defence of Las Casas, armed with which he sailed in May, 1517, for Spain and within fifty days arrived at Aranda de Duero, where he found his friend and protector, the Cardinal-regent, stricken with a serious illness.

The arrival in Spain of the young King, Charles I.—better known in history under his imperial title of Charles V.,—after repeated postponements was now confidently expected. During his regency, Cardinal Ximenez had been frequently embarrassed by the influences surrounding the King in his distant Flemish court. He had written with characteristic frankness advising the King not to bring a Flemish household with him into Spain, and as soon as the date for the royal journey was fixed, the Cardinal set out to meet his arriving sovereign, travelling as fast as his age and infirmities would allow. He had arrived at Aranda de Duero, where he was seized with an illness of such a mysterious character that his friends hinted that he had been poisoned.

In the one interview which Las Casas obtained, he perceived that the machinations of his enemies had not been entirely in vain, for he found the Cardinal's mind somewhat influenced by the representations which had reached him from the Jeronymites and the agents of the colonists.

Charles V. landed at Villaviciosa in Asturias on September 13, 1517. Among his first acts was the dispatch of a letter to the Cardinal, in which the latter was dismissed to his diocese with a few perfunctory expressions of regard and recognition for his services. Cardinal Ximenez breathed his last a few hours after reading this heartless communication and Las Casas was left to begin anew his life as a courtier and to cultivate the good-will of the all-powerful Flemish favourites. He was fortunate, at this time, in securing the friendship of a brother of Fray Antonio de Montesinos, named Reginaldo, who was also a Dominican and proved a staunch and resourceful ally.



Charles V.

From an engraving by Ferdinand Slema, made in 1778 after the portrait by Titian

Influences and arguments which sound strange enough in twentieth-century ears were powerful, and likely to be employed with dangerous success in Spain at that time. One of the members of the Council having asserted to Fray Reginaldo that the Indians were incapable of conversion, the friar submitted this proposition to the Prior of San Esteban in Salamanca, one of the most learned and influential men in the Dominican order, asking him to invite a body of theologians to determine whether or no such an affirmation was in accordance with Catholic doctrine, and to send him a copy of the decision. Thirteen doctors of theology and other ecclesiastical authorities replied with four or five signed conclusions, the last of which defined that all who held or propagated that error should be condemned to the stake as heretics. This was a weapon in Las Casas's hands which circumstances might make formidable; it was no trifling thing to be arraigned before the tribunal of the Inquisition on a charge of holding heretical doctrines, for neither rank nor calling availed to protect the offender, and it is somewhat astonishing that no reference to use of this "opinion" being made by Las Casas in any given case is found in the records of his struggle for the liberty of the Indians.

King Charles, even in his boyhood, was of a grave and thoughtful temperament, reserved and observant in an unusual degree, but however richly endowed with gifts which promised him a glorious reign, he necessarily left the administration of his government very largely under the direction of his advisers, of whom the two most influential were William de Croy, commonly called Chievres, or by the Spaniards, Xevres, who had formerly been the King's governor, and Jean Salvage, a learned priest who was Dean of the University of Louvain. The latter's name was corrupted by the Spaniards into Juan Selvagio, and he held the office and title of Grand Chancellor, both hitherto unknown in Spain. These Flemings were odious to the Spaniards, who resented their high rank and influence and looked upon them as rapacious foreigners, who were controlling national affairs to the exclusion of those who had better claims, while they enriched themselves out of the Spanish treasury: none of them so much as spoke the national language and even the King's first task was to master Spanish in order to converse with his own subjects.

As the Grand Chancellor had control of the department of justice, it was to him that Las Casas first got himself presented. He was well received and afforded opportunities to state his case, and, as he produced letters given him by some French Franciscans from Picardy, whom he had known in the Indies and who were friends of the Chancellor, he soon found himself upon terms of some friendliness with him. The Chancellor found great interest in listening to all that Las Casas had to tell him, and it is not to be doubted that the latter's habitual earnestness when on this subject was increased by the evident sympathy of his listener, upon whose support the fate of his projects depended.

This friendship with the detested Flemings cost Las Casas dear with his own people, and made him more unpopular than ever. His opponents were obliged, however, to cease abusing him in their letters and official papers, for not only did the Chancellor openly befriend him, but he handed over to him most of the correspondence pertaining to Indian affairs. Las Casas translated the contents into Latin, adding his own observations or objections to the different reports or proposals, and then returned them to the Chancellor, who was delighted to have such expert assistance in dispatching complicated affairs, in which he was himself unpractised. From the Chancellor's favour to that of the King was but a step, and the charge of reforming Indian legislation, which Las Casas had held from Cardinal Ximenez, was renewed to him. This welcome news was given him one day by the Chancellor remarking in Latin, which was their habitual tongue, Rex dominus noster jubet quod vos et ego opponamus remedia Indiis; faciatis vestra memorabilia. Las Casas was quick to obey this congenial behest. (31)

It is indicative of the priority of importance which Las Casas habitually gave to spiritual over temporal aids, that he first had recourse to the priors of the religious orders, asking them to have their communities pray unceasingly and with special earnestness, that his mind might be illumined by divine grace to perceive what course he must follow. He next drew up his plan, but perhaps in no act of his long career is there less evidence of the action of divine guidance, for, in framing his project, he committed an error which he himself sincerely and frankly deplored with touching humility, and which has served all his detractors ever since as ground on which to bring a grave charge against him.

In obedience to the King's command conveyed to Las Casas through the Chancellor, he drew up a plan in which he proposed that labourers should be induced to emigrate to the Indies, by granting that each person, whether man or child, should have his expenses paid as far as Seville, the place of embarkation, at the rate of half a real per day. While waiting in Seville to start, the India House (Casa de Contractacion) was to lodge and feed them, their passage to Hispaniola was to be given them and their food furnished for one year. Any of the emigrants who, at the expiration of the first year, found themselves incapacitated on account of the climate to support themselves, should be entitled to further assistance in the form of a royal loan. Lands were to be given them gratis and also the requisite farming implements for working them, in which their rights as owners should be permanent and hereditary. A more liberal scheme of assisted emigration could hardly be imagined. Other inducements were held out to attract emigrants under the new regulations and Las Casas acceded to the request of certain of the colonists in Santo Domingo to ask the King's consent to the importation of negro slaves to replace the Indians who should be freed.

This recommendation cost Las Casas dearly enough and later exposed his reputation unjustifiable attacks, some of which even represented him as having introduced negro slavery into America; others as having been betrayed by blind zeal in favour of the Indians into promoting the slave-trade at the expense of the Africans. No one more sincerely deplored his course in this matter than he himself when he realised the significance of what he had done, and the sincerity and humility of his compunction should have sufficed to disarm his detractors. The most formal accusation made by a reputable historian against Las Casas is found in Robertson's History of America, vol. iii., Year 1517, in which he charges the apostle of the Indians with having proposed to Cardinal Ximenez to purchase a sufficient number of negroes from the Portuguese settlements on the coast of Africa and to transport them to America in order that they might be employed as slaves in working in the mines and tilling the ground. Cardinal Ximenez however, when solicited to encourage the commerce, peremptorily rejected the proposition because he perceived the iniquity of reducing one race of men to slavery when he was consulting about the means of restoring liberty to another. But Las Casas, from the inconsistency natural to men who hurry with headlong impetuosity towards a favourite point, was incapable of making the distinction. While he contended earnestly for the liberty of the people born in one quarter of the globe, he laboured to enslave the inhabitants of another region and in the warmth of his zeal to save the Americans from the yoke, pronounced it to be lawful and expedient to impose one still heavier on the African.

Language could hardly more completely travesty the facts, for Las Casas neither "laboured to enslave the inhabitants of another region" nor did he "pronounce it lawful" to increase slavery amongst the Africans. The moral aspect of the question of slavery was not under consideration and the recommendation of Las Casas is seen upon examination to reduce itself to this: he advised that Spanish colonists in America should be allowed the privilege, common in Spain and Portugal, of employing negro slave labour on their properties. Since Spaniards might hold African slaves in Spain, it implied no approval of slavery as an institution, to permit them to do the same in the colonies. Las Casas was engaged in defending a hitherto free people from the curse of a peculiarly cruel form of slavery, but had he regarded the institution as justifiable in itself, he would have modified the ardour of his opposition to its extension.

The truth plainly appears in the chronicles of the times and establishes beyond cavil exactly what Las Casas did, and under what circumstances and for what purposes he made the recommendation which he never afterwards ceased to deplore. Retributive justice has followed these attempts of several lesser contemporaries of Robertson to asperse the character of one of the purest, noblest, and most humane of men, and while discredit has overtaken the inventors and publishers of these falsehoods, the investigations of impartial historians, provoked by their enormity, have resulted in banishing such fables from historical controversy.

The original basis of the charge that Las Casas favoured the introduction of negro slavery into America is a passage in Herrera's Historia de las Indias Occidentals, written in 1598, thirty-two years after the death of Las Casas, and which reads as follows:

"As the licentiate Las Casas encountered much opposition to the plan he had formed for helping the Indians and seeing that the opinions he had published had produced no result, in spite of the extraordinary credit he enjoyed with the Flemish chancellor, Juan Selvagio, he had recourse to other means to attain the same ends. He asked in 1517 that the importation of Africans be permitted to the Spaniards settled in the Indies, in order to diminish the labour and sufferings of the Indians in the mines and on the plantations, and that a good number of labourers be enrolled in Spain who would emigrate to the Indies upon the conditions and with the advantages which he proposed. This new proposition was approved by the Cardinal of Tortosa, Adrian, by the Grand Chancellor, and the Flemish ministers. The Chamber of Commerce at Seville was consulted to learn what number of Africans, Cuba, Santo Domingo, San Juan [Puerto Rico], and Jamaica would require. It was replied that it would be sufficient to send four thousand. This answer being almost immediately made known by some intriguer to the Flemish governor of Bressa, this courtier obtained the monopoly of the trade from the sovereign and sold it to some Genoese for twenty-five thousand ducats on condition that during eight years no other license should be granted by the King. This arrangement was extremely harmful to the Population of the islands, especially to the Indians for whose benefit it had been granted; in fact had the trade been free, all the Spaniards might have engaged in it, but as the Genoese sold their right at a very high price few Spaniards were able to pay, and the importation of blacks was almost nil. The King was counselled to pay back the twenty-five thousand ducats from his treasury to the governor and recover his rights, which would pay him well and be of great advantage to his subjects. Unfortunately the King had little money then and, as he was left in ignorance of much concerning the affairs of the Indies, nothing of what was most important was done."

There is not a word in this passage which even refers to the introduction of negro slavery and Herrera in another passage (tom. i., dec. i., lib. iv., cap. xii.) states that a royal ordinance given on September 3, 1500, to Don Nicholas de Ovando, the Governor of Hispaniola, permitted the importation of negro slaves. This was two years before Las Casas made his first voyage as a young man of twenty-eight to America, and in 1503, the same Ovando asked that no more negro slaves be sent to Hispaniola because they escaped and lived amongst the natives whom they corrupted. (32) The number of negroes continued, nevertheless, to increase and repeated mention of their presence in the colonies is found in different passages throughout the history of Herrera and in other early writers.

Since the first half of the fifteenth century (about 1440) (33) the Portuguese had been engaged in bringing negroes from the west coast of Africa and selling them in Lisbon and Seville, so that during half a century before Las Casas appeared on the scene where he was destined to play so distinguished a part, Andalusia and the southern provinces of Spain were well provided with slaves and a flourishing trade was carried on. The condition of such slaves was not a particularly hard one and the children born in Spain of slave parents were Christians. Since this system was recognised by the laws of the kingdom, and indeed by those of all Christendom at that time, no additional injury would be done to the negroes by permitting Spaniards who might own them in Spain, to take them also to the colonies. Las Casas was a man of such humane temperament that oppression and injustice everywhere of whatever kind revolted him, but it can hardly be required, even of him, to be several centuries in advance of his times in denouncing a commonly accepted usage which presented, as far as we know, few crying abuses. Toleration of an established order, even though an essentially evil one, is a very different thing from the extension of its worst features in regions where it is unknown and amongst people ill-fitted to support its burdens. A small group of men, chiefly Dominican monks, with Las Casas at their head, courageously championed the cause of freedom and humanity in a century and amongst a people hardened to oppression and cruelty; they braved popular fury, suffered calumny, detraction, and abuse; they faced kings, high ecclesiastics, and all the rich and great ones of their day, incessantly and courageously reprimanding their injustice and demanding reform. Since the memorable day when Fray Antonio de Montesinos proclaimed himself "vox clamantis in deserto" before the astonished and incensed colonists of Hispaniola, the chorus of rebuke had swelled until it made itself heard, sparing none amongst the offenders against equity and humanity. The development of the collective moral sense of a people is only slowly progressive, and the betterment of racial conditions is more safely accomplished by evolution than revolution, hence if the moral vision of Las Casas did not detect the injustice practised on the negroes, simultaneously with his keen perception of that which was being perpetrated on the Indians, his failure cannot be justly attributed either to indifference to the lot of one race of people or to wilful inconsistency in seeking to benefit another at its expense. That his action was not understood in any such sense at the time, is conclusively proven by the fact that inconsistency was never alleged against him, nor employed as a polemical weapon in the heated controversies in which he was engaged during all his life with the keenest and most determined opponents to his views. Far afield indeed did his enemies wander, seeking for weapons both of attack and defence, and nothing that could be twisted into an offence against the public conscience or national interests escaped the keen eyes of the searchers. He was himself the first to perceive the error and contradiction into which he had inadvertently fallen, and forty years before Herrera's work was published, he had expressed his contrition for his failure to appreciate the conditions of African slavery, in the following passage, which occurs in the fourth volume (page 380) of his Historia General: