The arrival of Don Nicholas de Ovando's fleet at Hispaniola was an event of the greatest importance to the colony. The first news that greeted the new arrivals was that of the discovery of a huge nugget of gold, the largest yet found and which, in fact, was never again equalled in size until the rich lodes in California were tapped in 1849, for it weighed thirty-five pounds and was valued at 3600 pesos in the money of that time.
This famous nugget was found eight or nine leagues from the settlement of San Domingo, by an Indian girl, who, while resting from her labours, idly turned up the soil with an instrument she held, and thus brought to light the wonderful treasure. The Governor appropriated it for the King, paying its value to the two owners of the mine. The jubilant Spaniards used the nugget, which was shaped like a broad, flat dish, to serve up a roast sucking-pig at a banquet given in honour of the occasion, saying that no king ever feasted from such a platter. Las Casas remarks that as for the miserable Indian girl who found it, we may without sin suppose that they never gave her so much as a [pg 32] red silk petticoat, and lucky was she indeed if she got even a mouthful of the pig!
The second piece of glad news the colonists communicated was, that owing to a recent uprising of the Indians in a certain province, they had been able to enslave a goodly number of the rebels. Such occasions rejoiced their hearts, over the profits they thus derived from the struggles of the unhappy natives to recover their freedom, and it may likewise without sin be supposed that their ingenuity was not barren in suggesting devices for provoking such lucrative revolts.
In the instructions delivered to Ovando, as well as in the Queen's verbal behests to him before sailing, the sovereigns sought to remedy the abuses under which the Indians suffered. The Queen explicitly laid down the fundamental principle that “all the Indians in Hispaniola are and should be free from servitude; nor should they be molested by any one, but should live as free vassals, governed and protected as are the vassals of Castile.” They were to pay a tribute—all Spanish vassals were taxed—and they were to work in the gold-mines but for their labour they were to receive a daily wage. The Queen's obvious intention was that the government should, in some measure at least, be carried on for the benefit of the Indians it was instituted to govern. The orders describing the measures to be taken for the instruction and conversion of the natives were equally clear and imperative.
Ovando was authorised to permit the importation into Hispaniola of negroes who were born slaves, [pg 33] belonging to Christian owners. 19 They were consequently brought to the colony in such numbers that the Governor soon wrote to Spain, advising that the traffic in African slaves be stopped, as the negroes constantly escaped and took refuge in the forests and mountains, taking with them also many Indians. These negroes were for the most part born in Andalusia of slave parents, who had been brought there by the Portuguese who had carried on the slave-trade since early in the fifteenth century.
The first official action of the new Governor was to institute an inquiry into the administration of his predecessor, Bobadilla, against whose harsh and arbitrary treatment of him, Columbus had filed complaints. The Admiral had meanwhile been received by the sovereigns, and Queen Isabella's compassionate heart had been much grieved by the sad accounts of the indignities put upon him, the confiscation of his properties, the violation of the rights solemnly conferred upon him and his heirs under her signature, and finally the supreme outrage of his deposition and his return to Spain wearing the chains of a common malefactor. Francisco de Bobadilla had far outstripped the limits of the sovereign's intentions as well as those of his own authority and had, by his treatment of Columbus, violated the commonest sentiments of justice and humanity. Ovando made full restitution of the confiscated properties, and the rights and privileges guaranteed to Columbus were once more recognised and made valid. The latter organised [pg 34] his fourth and last expedition to America, which sailed on the ninth of May, 1502, 20 and arrived at Hispaniola after a prosperous voyage, on the twenty-ninth of June. Bobadilla set sail for Spain on board the same ship which carried the famous gold nugget, but neither arrived, as the vessel was overtaken by a violent hurricane, and was lost when barely forty hours out from port. Thus perished one whose iniquities have caused his name to be handed down to eternal execration in the pages of American history.
Such was the condition of the colony in Hispaniola, when Bartholomew de Las Casas, then a young licentiate, twenty-eight years of age, arrived there. The purpose of his coming was no different from that of the other gentlemen-adventurers who were bent on acquiring speedy fortunes in a land of supposed riches that formed the theme of fabulous and alluring tales, which often enough had but slender foundation in fact. As his father had already acquired properties in the island, it is probable that Bartholomew came to assume the direction of them. There is nothing to show that he was at that time especially impressed or moved by the sad condition of the Indians and the violation of their rights; on the contrary, he procured slaves, worked them in the mines, and attended to the cultivation of his estates with the energy he employed in every undertaking to which he put his hand. He says himself that during eight years of Ovando's governorship, this "pestilential disorder" [pg 35] took root without there being a man who spoke or heeded or thought anything about it, notwithstanding that such multitudes were being sacrificed, that out of the infinite number of the inhabitants of whom the Admiral first wrote to the Catholic sovereigns, there perished more than nine tenths in that brief period. 21
He took part in the second war against the Cacique Cocubanó22 in the province of Higuey, of which he afterwards wrote the most horrifying description. He related incredible cruelties, concluding thus: “All these deeds, and others foreign to all human nature did my own eyes witness, and I do not now dare to recount them, being hardly able to believe myself, lest perhaps I may have dreamed them.” Throughout these massacres Las Casas, young, enthusiastic, generous-hearted, noble-minded, and with his naturally keen sensibilities refined and sharpened by the best education of his times, appears to have played his part with the others, neither better nor worse than they, equally blind to the injustice and tyranny practised upon the inoffensive and defenceless Indians and only eager for his share of the profits derived from their sufferings. The contradiction is as flagrant as in the case of the great Admiral who initiated the system which brought all these horrors in logical sequence. The war in Higuey finished with the capture of the unfortunate Cocubanó, whom Ovando caused to be hanged at San Domingó instead of allowing [pg 36] him to be torn to pieces with pincers as the Spaniards demanded should be done. Such was the quality of mercy in that Governor's heart.
The affairs of Las Casas prospered and he grew rich, though it is difficult to believe that his yearly income from his properties amounted to 100,000 castellanos—an enormous sum, given the value of money at that time,—yet this is the figure he himself has given in his own writings. 23
Such being the attitude of a man of finer temperament during eight years passed amidst scene of rapacious ferocity, something must be admitted to explain the callousness of men of fewer sensibilities and lower moral standards, who found themselves far removed from the usual restraint of civilised society and confronted by many hard ships and severe disappointments. The moral and physical condition of the majority of these men was indeed deplorable. Many of them had staked all they could obtain on this great venture in the Indies, hallucinated by the craze for gold, of which they dreamed as lying, waiting to be picked up, in lands where pearls strewed the sands of the beach. Rapid exploitation of such sources of fabulous wealth and a speedy return to Spain, rather than the enterprises usually suggested to Anglo-Saxons by the term “colonisation,” had lured them over the mysterious ocean. Little thought was given to the pastoral and agriculture resources of a rich soil that would have yielded abundant crops in response to the simplest tillage [pg 37] and made of the islands a granary sufficient to feed all Spain. Unaccustomed to manual labour, ignorant of the simplest principles of mining, poorly supplied—when at all—with the necessary implements, they rushed to the mines with but scanty provision even of food; fevers seized them, strange diseases attacked them—most of all, disillusion confronted them; out of Ovando's 2500 men more than one thousand died within a brief period, in the most wretched manner. Those who had the courage and strength to work, barely made enough to feed themselves, for it not infrequently happened that after the royal fifth was deducted and other expenses met, the remainder, when divided, hardly gave to each colonist more than his daily, scanty living. The state of degradation into which they sank was pitiable and there is little cause to wonder that, in their brutalised condition, they took small account of the physical sufferings of the Indians and no interest at all in weighing their claims to liberty and just treatment. The few who did turn their attention to agriculture fared better, both as to the comforts of their surroundings and the profits they derived from their occupation; their Indians likewise led far easier lives than their fellows who worked for the miners. The vicious principles underlying slavery once established, innumerable abuses are bound to follow, and when responsibility for an iniquitous system is widely distributed, even the most humane unconsciously drift into acquiescence in continuous and monstrous acts of inhumanity, partly from want of strength to combat [pg 38] the established order of things and partly from the easy ability of each to shift his share of the blame for what his instincts condemn, onto the shoulders of others. Reforms left to the collective conscience of such a community are apt to languish. Such is man's nature that the most unnatural and abnormal conditions come to be tolerated by common acquiescence, until something—an event without or a stirring of his soul within—startles his better self into a realisation of his surroundings, the scales fall from his eyes which, having, he saw not, and in a flash, the iniquity of proceedings to which he has assented, in which he has shared, and by which he has profited, becomes manifest.
In the Indies a premium was placed on rebellion; the oftener the Indians could be goaded into open revolt, the more slaves could be acquired according to due process of law, and everybody's profits increased. To such profitable encouragement the colonists were not slow to respond and they were fertile in devices for rendering the lives of the Indians intolerable.
No champion was forthcoming to defend the helpless native or even to make his woes known; the tender-hearted Queen, who loved justice and hated iniquity, was remote and her beneficent intentions towards her humble subjects in the islands were inoperative. “The heavens are high and the Tzar is far” say the long-suffering mujiks, whose road to their “little father's” throne is barred by an army of interested bureaucrats. Tyranny is of divers sorts and one tyranny differs from another [pg 39] other in infamy, but the worst tyranny of all is the dual tyranny over both body and soul exercised collectively by irresponsible men over their fellows, and this was the tyranny of such slavery as prevailed in the Spanish colonies. The specious argument that the only way to convert the Indians was to keep them among the Spaniards, was constantly insisted upon in pious phrases meant to delude the Queen by a display of zeal in carrying out her plan for their conversion. Ovando wrote complaining of the desertion of the Indians, who escaped whenever they could from contact with the Spaniards and fled in numbers to the remotest recesses of the forests, facing starvation rather than endure their life in the settlements. And what wonder! for would any rational Indian voluntarily live amidst such surroundings and submit to such labour for the sole benefit of his tyrants? Nothing that the afflicted natives saw of the religion or the civilisation of the Spaniards could possibly attract them to either.
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 [pg 41] 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 [pg 42] 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 arrieles24 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 [pg 43] 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 [pg 44] 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 [pg 45] 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 [pg 46] 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 [pg 47] 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 [pg 48] 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 [pg 49] 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, [pg 50] 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 [pg 51] 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. [pg 52] 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.
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.
[pg 54]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 [pg 56] 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 [pg 57] 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 [pg 59] 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 [pg 60] 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 [pg 60] 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. [pg 61] 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 [pg 62] 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 [pg 63] 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 [pg 64] 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 [pg 65] 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 [pg 66] 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.