The Project Gutenberg EBook of Las Casas, by Alice J. Knight This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Las Casas 'The Apostle of the Indies' Author: Alice J. Knight Release Date: November 24, 2007 [EBook #23613] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAS CASAS *** Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Last Edit of Project Info LAS CASAS "THE APOSTLE OF THE INDIES" Bartholome De Las Casas, Frontispiece BARTHOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS Frontispiece LAS CASAS "The APOSTLE of the INDIES" BY ALICE J. KNIGHT DEACONESS IN THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF AMERICA logo [Pg 1] THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 440 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Copyright, 1917, by The Neale Publishing Company TO MY FRIEND AND BISHOP, The Right Reverend Robert Lewis Paddock, D.D. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword CHAPTER I. Bartolomé the Youth II. A Bit of History III. A New World IV. A New Life V. Disappointments VI. The Knights of the Golden Spur VII. The Pearl Coast VIII. The Cloister IX. The Land of War X. Bishop of Chiapa XI. Revolt in Chiapa XII. At Court FOREWORD Early American history is full of interest and romance. Great figures move across the scene. Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Cortez, Alvarado, Pizarro,—every schoolboy is familiar with their names and deeds. But one man there is that stands out conspicuously among these heroes of discovery and conquest, one not bent on fame and glory, not possessed of that greed for gold that led to so much ruthless cruelty toward the natives of the New World,—a man consumed with one burning desire: to spend himself in the service of others, to protect and save the weak and helpless. What he himself might suffer in the performance of this work mattered not at all. Strange that to so many even the name of this man is unknown! Yet for more than fifty years no one either in all the New World or in Spain was more prominently before the eyes of all than was Las Casas, the great "Apostle of the [Pg 2] [Pg 3] [Pg 5] [Pg 7] Indies." Not only as a missionary, but as an historian, a philanthropist, a man of business, a ruler in the Church, he towers above even the notable men of that most remarkable time. His noble, self-denying, heroic life, spent in untiring service to God and man, is an inspiration and an example much needed in this materialistic, money-getting, ease-loving age. Alice J. Knight. Hood River, Oregon. June, 1917. LAS CASAS CHAPTER I BARTOLOMÉ THE YOUTH Whenever we hear of a famous man,—whether he be artist, author, statesman, soldier, scientist, great traveler, or missionary,—we like to know what sort of a boy he was. We are curious about his home, his school, his parents, his friends, and all the various influences that helped to make him the man he was. Such knowledge gives us a better understanding of his after life, and a fuller sympathy with his aims and achievements. Although I have headed this chapter "Bartolomé the Youth," we know comparatively little of Las Casas until he was about twenty-eight years old. In later life we find him impetuous, loving, tireless in energy, with a fiery temper that blazed out in quick wrath against all injustice and cruelty toward the weak and helpless, possessing a brilliant mind and great talents, never giving up striving against the wrong, and never knowing when he was beaten. These qualities he must have possessed in some measure as a boy, but, unfortunately, no historian has opened up for us those early pages. Bartolomé was born in the city of Seville, Spain, in the year 1474. We are not told the day of the month. Of his mother we know nothing, but his father was Pedro de Casaus. He was of French descent, but the family had lived in Spain for over two hundred years, and because of valuable aid given to one of the Spanish kings in the wars against the Moors, they had been ennobled, and after a time the name lost its French spelling and took the Spanish form, Las Casas. Bartolomé certainly lived in very interesting times. When he was between eighteen and nineteen years of age Columbus came to Seville on his return from his first voyage, which resulted in the discovery of the West India Islands. He brought with him many strange and wonderful things,—birds of brilliant color, such as had never been seen before, gold and pearls, and, most wonderful of all, six Indians. We can imagine the crowds of people who must have followed that little procession as it passed through the streets of the city, pushing and crowding one another to get a sight of the great Admiral and the men who had sailed with him over unknown waters, and especially of the painted red men, who were, I am sure, quite as curious on their part, and probably badly frightened besides. It is difficult for us to understand now how much courage it took in those times to put to sea in frail little caravels, which were all the adventurer had, and go sailing over the waste of waters, not knowing what was ahead of him, or if he would ever find land on the other side. The rude maps of that day still showed a great Sea of Darkness. Dragons and all sorts of frightful sea-monsters were pictured in the unexplored parts of the ocean, and the popular idea was that if the daring mariner should sail too far over the slope of the round globe, he might be drawn by force of gravitation into a fiery gulf and never come back to his friends again. So the men that thus ventured were heroes in the eyes of the people. Never had such a voyage been heard of as the great Admiral had made, and all, from the King and Queen to the little street boys, were eager to hear about it. Although he does not mention it, it is probable that Las Casas often saw Columbus in his father's house. Pedro de Casas, Bartolomé's father, and his uncle, Francisco de Penalosa, both went out with the Admiral on his second voyage. Columbus had then been made Viceroy of the Indies, and Bartolomé's father was on his staff, while his uncle commanded the soldiers. One of the Indians that Columbus brought home from the first expedition he gave to Pedro de Casas, but the good Queen would not allow these Indians to be kept as slaves, and insisted that they should be sent back at once. All six had been baptized at Barcelona, with the King and Queen,—Ferdinand and Isabella,—as godfather and godmother; and when, soon after this, one of them died, people said he was the first Indian to go to Heaven. Bartolomé's uncle remained in the Indies for three years, and returning, shortly afterward died in battle with the Moors. His father did not come home until 1500. While his father and uncle were away, Bartolomé was studying at the famous university of Salamanca, where he took his degree as doctor of laws just previous to his father's return. Very naturally, now that his education was finished, the young man's thoughts turned to the Indies. He seems to have [Pg 8] [Pg 9] [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 12] gone out, as did the other colonists, with the idea of making money. Wealth and power appeared very desirable things to possess. How little he dreamed of the future that was before him! He knew not that the time was coming when he should give up all that he had,—money, time, strength, and talents,—for the sake of the great, deathless principles of liberty, justice, and mercy. All unknowing, he was to enter a fight that would last his life long and cost him all that he held dear while struggling to protect the gentle, helpless natives of the New World from the cruelty and oppression of the Spaniards, until he should come to be called Las Casas "The Protector of the Indians." He had marked out one path for himself; God was to point out to him quite a different one. It is good to know that he "was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." CHAPTER II A BIT OF HISTORY When Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage, he left on the island of Hispaniola, now called Haiti, a little colony of about forty men. On his second voyage he sailed first to this same place, arriving in November, late at night. A salute was fired to let the settlers know that their friends had returned, but no answer came, and it was feared that something was wrong. Sure enough, when the voyagers went ashore in the morning they found eleven dead bodies and no living men. The fort had been destroyed and the tools and provisions were gone. This was a sad welcome; all the sadder because it need not have happened but for the evil doings of the colonists. After the departure of Columbus they had soon quarreled among themselves and had treated the inoffensive natives so cruelly that, unable to endure it, they had risen against the Spaniards and killed them all. Columbus at once went to work to build another little town, not far from the first, and called it Isabella. A church was erected, a number of houses built, and the whole surrounded by a strong wall. This being done, he placed his brother Diego in charge, and started off with three ships to make further explorations. On this voyage he coasted along the southern shore of Cuba, discovered Jamaica and a number of smaller islands, and sailed all around Hispaniola. But he was worn out with excitement and fatigue. Discovering new countries is hard work, and it is still harder to try to govern unruly and evil men. He became very ill, and was brought back to Isabella quite unconscious. When at length he came to himself he found his brother Bartholomew beside him. This was a great comfort, for the brothers were very fond of each other, and Columbus needed all the help he could get. He made Bartholomew governor of Hispaniola, but no governor could do very much with such a company of lawless adventurers as were these Spaniards. Like a great many people of to-day, they wanted to get rich quickly and without working. They spent their time in fighting, roaming about the country, abusing the Indians, and killing them and one another. At length the natives, exasperated beyond endurance, rose against them as before, and many Spaniards lost their lives. In the end, however, of course it was the Indians that suffered the most. They could not stand against the white men. Their bows and arrows would not pierce the soldiers' armor, and they ran in terror from the sight of a horse, an animal that they had never seen before. Twenty great bloodhounds were let loose upon them also, which tore them in pieces; and at length, in despair, they submitted to their enslavers. They were used as slaves by the white men, being forced to cultivate the land for their conquerors and to work in the gold mines. The poor creatures, whose lives had been so simple as to require no hard labor, died by the thousands, and many were whipped to death or killed outright, so that in a little while that beautiful island became a place of great suffering, and the Spaniards were feared and hated by those gentle natives, who at their coming had been ready to welcome them as friends. Many of the colonists grew dissatisfied because they were not getting rich as fast as they wished, and some returned to Spain with complaints of Columbus. Finally Francisco Bobadilla was sent out to look into matters. He treated the great Admiral very unjustly and cruelly, sending him back to Spain in chains; but in this action he far exceeded his instructions. Ferdinand and Isabella, grieved for the indignity that had been put upon the man who had given them a new country, caused him to be released at once, and recalled Bobadilla. Nicholas de Ovando was now appointed to rule Hispaniola, and it was with him that Las Casas went out, as we shall see in the next chapter. CHAPTER III A NEW WORLD [Pg 13] [Pg 14] [Pg 15] [Pg 16] [Pg 17] [Pg 18] When Las Casas arrived in Hispaniola with Ovando, the new governor, they were greeted by the news that a huge nugget of gold had been found, weighing thirty-five pounds. It was shaped like a flat dish, and to celebrate the discovery of such a treasure, a banquet was given and a roast pig served up on this novel platter. The nugget was sent to Spain, as a present to King Ferdinand, on the same ship as the infamous Bobadilla, the deposed governor, but the ship was wrecked in a terrible storm soon after leaving port, and both the nugget and the governor went down into the depths of the ocean. Las Casas and his companion also heard that there had been another uprising of the Indians and that many had been captured and made slaves. Queen Isabella had instructed Ovando that the Indians must be free, only paying tribute, as all Spanish subjects did, and that they should be recompensed for the work they did in the mines. The good Queen little knew how far her officers were from treating them as she had commanded. Las Casas does not seem to have felt any particular pity for the Indians in the beginning. Like the rest of the adventurers, he had come to seek his fortune in the New World, where there seemed such wonderful chances to grow rich. He obtained from the governor an estate of his own, took Indians as slaves, and sent some of them to work in the mines, though he did not abuse nor overwork them, as others did. For eight years he not only held Indians as slaves, but he was with Ovando during a second war against the natives in one of the provinces of Hispaniola, and saw terrible deeds of cruelty, yet never appears to have made a single protest. This seems very strange when we think of what he said and did against slavery a few years later, and how his whole after life was spent in the service of these oppressed people. His eyes, however, were not yet opened, and he looked at things after the fashion of his time. Ovando was a good governor, Las Casas says, "but not for Indians." He was a little, fair-haired man, gentle in manner, and most polite, but he made everybody understand that he intended to be obeyed. When any gentleman became troublesome, Ovando would invite him to dine with him, talk so pleasantly and flatteringly to his guest that he would think the governor must mean to do something very grand for him, and then, suddenly pointing down the harbor, would ask in which of the ships lying at anchor the gentleman would like to take passage for Spain. The poor man, confused and alarmed, yet afraid to protest, would very likely say that he had no money to pay his fare. Whereupon the very polite little governor would at once tell him not to let that trouble him, as he, Ovando, would provide the funds. And off the gentleman would have to go from the dinner table to the ship. But although Ovando ruled the white men well, he was neither just nor kind to the Indians. He gave them out in lots of fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred, to those who wanted them, and the poor creatures were worked to death and abused without mercy. When, in desperation, they would rise against their tyrants, they were punished savagely, being burned alive, torn to pieces by bloodhounds, and drowned in the ocean or the rivers, even helpless little children often being treated in this way. In 1510 four Dominican friars came over to Hispaniola and settled in San Domingo. The Sunday after their arrival one of them preached a sermon on the glories of heaven,—a discourse that Las Casas heard, and one that made a great impression on him. In the afternoon the Prior asked to have the Indians sent to the church to be taught; so they came,— men, women, and children; and this custom the Dominicans continued every Sunday afterward. Some time in this same year Las Casas was ordained priest. We should like to know how he came to take this step, but he tells us nothing about it. He threw himself into his new duties with the same energy that he had used in his business, and began at once to teach the Indians, as the Dominicans were doing. Whatever he did, all his life long, he did with all his might, and very soon he became famous all over the island for his learning and goodness. The little settlement of four Dominicans had increased by the end of the next year to twelve; nor had they been there many months before they began to have their eyes opened to the wrongs the Indians were suffering at the hands of the white men. A Spaniard who had killed his wife in a fit of jealousy and had been hiding for two or three years, repenting of his crime and tired of living in concealment and fear, came to the Dominicans by night and begged them to take him in and let him stay with them as a lay brother. When they were convinced that the man was truly repentant they received him. He told them of the dreadful cruelties of which he and others had been guilty toward the natives, and the good fathers soon felt that they must look into the matter. This they did, and were not long in coming to the conclusion that it was a great evil to make slaves of the Indians and that they must do something to put a stop to it. So they fasted and prayed, and conferred together, and finally decided that one of their number, Father Antonio Montesino, should preach a sermon on the subject. The week before the sermon was to be preached all the Dominicans went throughout the town and invited every one, from the governor down to the humblest citizen, to come to the church on the following Sunday, which was the First Sunday in Advent, to hear the sermon, which, they said, would be upon a new subject, interesting to all of them. Of course every one was curious to hear what would be said, and when Sunday came the church was crowded. There was the governor, Diego Columbus, in his pew, with his wife,—a grand-niece of King Ferdinand,—and there were the officers of the colony, all the prominent citizens, in fact, everybody in the town. Father Montesino preached from the text: I am "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." [Pg 19] [Pg 20] [Pg 21] [Pg 22] He told the congregation that they were living in mortal sin because of their cruelty and their tyranny over the innocent natives. He told them plainly that by their oppression, their cruel tortures, and the forced labor in the mines to which they subjected these helpless people, they were killing the whole race, and he declared that they had no chance of salvation while they continued in such sin. You may be sure that Father Montesino's hearers were both frightened and angry at this bold sermon. All honor to the brave man who dared to preach it and to the little company of his brethren who stood with him! It was the first voice raised in the new world against slavery. That afternoon the citizens had a meeting at the governor's house and appointed a committee to visit and rebuke the preacher. However, this accomplished nothing, as neither Father Montesino, the Prior of the little community, nor any of the brotherhood was at all moved by their threats, and all they obtained from the Dominicans was an agreement that Father Montesino should preach again the next Sunday and endeavor to please his congregation as far as his conscience would permit. The committee told everybody that the Father was going to retract, and again the next Sunday the church was crowded to hear Montesino eat his own words. But, instead of the humble apology that was expected, his auditors received a more terrible rebuke than before, Montesino threatening them with eternal torments if they continued to illtreat the Indians, or engage in the slave trade. Angry as the Spaniards were, they could do nothing, for the good fathers minded their blustering and threats not at all. Las Casas was partly in sympathy with the Dominicans, but he thought they went too far. He believed the Indians should be treated kindly, but saw no harm in slavery; for all that, however, he did not forget the sermon. The next year Diego Columbus decided to conquer the island of Cuba, and he appointed Diego Valasquez, one of the most respected colonists in San Domingo, commander of the expedition. Valasquez was a warm friend of Las Casas', and after a time sent for him to act as his chaplain. This war against the helpless and innocent natives was as cruel as all the others. They were chased and torn to pieces by bloodhounds; they were burned alive; their hands and feet were cut off, and those that were not killed were made slaves. Forced to work beyond their strength in the gold mines, half starved and beaten, their lives were full of misery, without a gleam of hope, and in despair numbers of them,—sometimes whole villages at a time,—committed suicide. One story is told that makes us smile, although it is so sad. A whole village of Indians resolved to hang themselves and so escape their sufferings. In some way their master learned of their intention and came upon them just as they stood ready to carry it out. "Go get me a rope, too," he said to them; "for I must hang myself with you." He told them they were so useful to him that he must go where they were going, so that they might still labor for him. They, believing that they could not free themselves from him even in the future life, sadly gave up their plan, and went to work again. Las Casas did all he could to protect the Indians, and soon became known as their friend, and won their entire trust. They called him "Behique," which was the name they gave their magicians, and regarded him with awe. As the natives had no written language, the way in which the Spaniards conveyed information to one another by means of mysterious marks on paper seemed a kind of magic to them. When the expedition was approaching a town, Las Casas would send a messenger in advance, carrying a paper scrawled all over and hidden in a hollow reed. The messenger would show the paper to the Indians and tell them that the Christians were coming and the father wanted them to furnish so many huts for them to sleep in, so much food for them to eat, and so on, adding: "If you do not, Behique will be much displeased." So great was their confidence in him that they would at once obey his commands, which they believed the messenger had read from the paper, and in this way Las Casas was able to save them from the dreadful massacres that had so often wiped out whole villages. But one day a terrible thing occurred. Valasquez had gone away to be married and had appointed a Spaniard, named Pamfilo de Narvaez, commander in his absence. The soldiers,—about three hundred in number,—drew near a village called Caonao, and stopped to eat in the dry bed of a river, where there were a great many stones on which they sharpened their swords. When, at length, they entered the town some two thousand natives were gathered together, all sitting peacefully on the ground to look at the wonderful strangers and especially to see the horses, at which they were never tired of gazing. About five hundred others were busy in one of the huts, preparing food for the Spaniards, as Las Casas had told them to do. Suddenly one of the soldiers drew his sword,—why, nobody ever knew,—and began slashing right and left at the defenseless Indians. Instantly the others followed his example, and before half of the Indians had realized what was happening, the place was piled with dead bodies. Las Casas, who was not present at the moment, hearing what was going on, in a white heat of rage rushed out into the square to stop the slaughter; but before he succeeded in doing this many hundred helpless men, women, and children had been butchered. Not long after this dreadful event Valasquez returned to Cuba, and, the whole island being now subdued, he proceeded to found a number of towns and to divide the land and the Indians among the Spaniards. Las Casas and a dear friend of his, Pedro de Renteria, who had lived near him in Hispaniola, received together a whole village of Indians, and with them the land they had owned,—some of this land being the very best on the island. Renteria was a quiet, thoughtful, unworldly man, humble and plain in his ways, though of considerable learning. Las [Pg 23] [Pg 24] [Pg 25] [Pg 26] [Pg 27] Casas seems to have been very fond of him, though he tells us but little about him. The two friends soon had a large house built, in which they lived happily for a year, using the enslaved Indians to cultivate the plantation and work the mines; for as yet neither of them had a thought that it was wrong to hold slaves, and believed that they were doing their duty to these natives by being kind to them and carefully instructing them in the truths of Christianity. CHAPTER IV A NEW LIFE Las Casas was the only priest on the island of Cuba, and at Pentecost (Whitsunday) he arranged to go and preach and say mass in the new town of Sancti Spiritus. In looking for a text, he came across some verses in the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, which made him stop and think whether after all he was right in making the Indians work for him as slaves. These are the verses: 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 the father's eyes. The bread of the needy is their life; he that defraudeth them thereof is a man of blood. He that taketh away his neighbor's living slaveth him, and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a bloodshedder. As Las Casas read these verses he seemed to hear the voice of God speaking to his heart. He remembered Montesino's sermon, he thought of all the cruelties and injustices from which the gentle, helpless Indians suffered. At last his eyes were opened, and he saw plainly that it was neither right to take the lands and the property of the natives nor to hold them as slaves. For Bartolomé Las Casas to see the right was always to do it. He resolved at once to give up his own Indians and to preach against enslaving them. He knew very well that if he did this they might, and probably would, fall into the hands of those who would not treat them so kindly, but he realized that he could not preach to others against slavery while he continued to possess slaves himself. Therefore he went at once to the governor and told him what he had resolved to do. The governor was very much astonished, and begged Las Casas to consider well what he was doing and at least to take fifteen days to think it over. But Las Casas refused to take even one day, saying that his mind was made up. Four Dominicans, who had been sent from Hispaniola to found a community, arrived in Cuba about this time. They and Las Casas preached constantly and earnestly on the sin of holding the natives in slavery; but although the Spaniards were frightened, they were not turned from their evil ways, and Las Casas resolved to go to Spain and see if he could not so present the matter to the King that the whole system of dividing up the Indians and their lands among the white men, to be their property, might be done away with. He wrote to his friend and partner Renteria, telling him that he was about to go to Spain on a very important mission, which he was sure would give him great joy when he heard what it was, and he asked him to hasten home, as otherwise he might not see him, it being necessary to leave at once. Renteria was in Jamaica, where he had gone to buy seed, stock and so on for their farm. While there he had stayed in a Franciscan convent during the season of Lent, and had given much time to prayer and meditation. For a long time he had been troubled about holding the Indians as slaves, but he had thought that if he and his partner were to give up the savages, they would only be worse off. Now, however, as he thought and prayed, a plan occurred to him: He would go to Spain and get permission to found schools, where the Indian children might be gathered in and taught, and thus some of them might be saved; for he saw clearly that if things kept on as they were, it would not be long before all the Indians on the islands would be destroyed. As soon as Renteria received Las Casas' letter he hurried home, wondering why his friend also wanted to go to Spain, and eager to tell him what he had in mind. Renteria was a very popular man, so when he landed, not only Las Casas was there to meet him but the governor and many other friends; therefore, it was night before the two partners had a chance to talk quietly together. Then each listened in astonishment to the plan of the other. Finally they decided that as the plan of Las Casas was the more important, and as he was a priest and of a noble family and could therefore more easily get a hearing at court, he should [Pg 28] [Pg 29] [Pg 30] [Pg 31] be the one to go. They sold everything that Renteria had brought from Jamaica,—even the farm itself being disposed of, —in order to raise money for the journey. Now, while the two friends had been occupied with these thoughts and plans, the Dominicans had been coming to the conclusion that they could do no good in Cuba, since they could not help the Indians and the Spaniards would not listen to them, and they decided to send one of their number with Las Casas to San Domingo,—from which port he was to sail for Spain,—for the purpose of asking for instructions from their superior, Pedro de Cordova. A young deacon went also, and all three soon started on their journey. The Dominican, however, was taken ill and died before the party reached San Domingo. Pedro de Cordova sympathized heartily with Las Casas, though warning him that he would meet with many difficulties; but the man who is afraid to undertake a thing because of the difficulties in the way is not much of a man, and Las Casas was only the more determined to keep on. The Dominicans were very poor and had never been able to finish their humble monastery building, so they sent Father Montesino, who had preached the famous sermon against slavery the year after their coming to Hispaniola, with Las Casas to Spain, that he might try to raise the money needed; and in 1515 they sailed. As soon as they arrived in Seville, Montesino introduced Las Casas to the good bishop of Seville, who did all he could to help him, giving him a letter to the King and to others of the court that might in all probability be interested. It would be too long a story to tell,—the chronicle of all that Las Casas went through in his struggles to right the wrongs of the Indians. Queen Isabella was now dead, and while he was in Spain King Ferdinand died also. Charles V, grandson of Ferdinand, was the heir to the throne, and during his minority the great Cardinal Ximenes acted as regent, while Charles' tutor Adrian was associated with the cardinal in the government. The man who had most to do with the affairs of the Indians was the Bishop of Burgos, Fonseca. As he himself had hundreds of slaves working for him in the gold mines of the islands, he was naturally not at all in favor of freeing them, and there were many like him who were striving as hard to prevent the liberation of the Indians as Las Casas was striving to bring it about. Among other attempts that were made to throw obstacles in the way of Las Casas was one that was rather amusing. Cardinal Ximenes, as they sat in council, ordered the old laws for the Indies to be read. The clerk who read them, coming to one that he knew his masters were not obeying, thought to shield them and hinder Las Casas by changing the wording; but, unfortunately for him, Las Casas knew the laws by heart, and he cried out: "The law says no such thing!" The clerk, being ordered to read it again, read it as before, when again Las Casas broke in: "The law says no such thing!" A third time the clerk was made to read it; a third time he persisted in his own way of wording, and a third time Las Casas interrupted by saying: "That law says no such thing!" The Cardinal, provoked by so many interruptions, rebuked him, when he exclaimed: "Your lordship may order my head to be cut off if what the clerk reads is what the law says." And snatching the book from the clerk, he proved that he was right. We cannot help thinking that if the clerk had known "the clerico," as he usually calls himself, a little better, he would not have dared to try such a trick. In spite of all obstacles, however, with the help of the Cardinal, new laws were finally passed for the Indies. By these laws the Spaniards were forbidden to divide the Indians among themselves and force them to work without reward. But the passing of the laws was only a part of the business. It was as true then as now that good laws are of little use unless there be wise and good men to enforce them; and the question now arose as to who should go out and put a stop to the evil system that had caused so much misery to these innocent and helpless people, and see that the new laws were obeyed. In those days the Church had great power over both rulers and people, and so it was not so strange as it would be in these days that the choice should have fallen on three monks of the order of St. Jerome. It was anything but a wise choice, however, for although these monks were good men, they were unused to any life but that of the convent, had had no experience in statesmanship and were, besides, rather timid of spirit. Before they sailed, the enemies of Las Casas filled their minds with distrust of him, and made them think that things in the islands were not as he had represented, so that they did not seem likely to do much good in their new office. However, the little company set sail at last, the three monks in one ship, Las Casas,—who had been given the official title of "Protector of the Indians," with charge and authority to look after all that concerned them,—in another, and Zuaco, a lawyer, appointed to help and advise them, followed a little later. [Pg 32] [Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 35] CHAPTER V DISAPPOINTMENTS "The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley." So it was in this case. When the Jeronimite fathers arrived in Hispaniola they failed to do what was expected of them. They did something, it is true; for they took from those officers of the court, who were not living in the Indies, all their Indian slaves and tried to give them to others who would treat them kindly; but they did not set them free, neither did they bring the judges to trial for their evil deeds. The clerico was of course very indignant with them, and we may be sure that he never gave them any peace, so that they must have learned to dread the very sight of him. He preached constantly, in the pulpit and on the streets, wherever he went, that the Indians must be free; and when Zuaco came, the two brought charges against the judges, causing them to be tried; but we do not know whether or not they were punished. Probably not. We must not be too hard upon the monks, however. It was no easy task they had been asked to perform. What Las Casas wanted them to do, and what the law required also, was to take away all the Indians from the Spaniards and set them free. This meant to ruin the owners, since all they had came through the forced labor of the natives. The monks were not men of the determined character necessary for such an act, nor were they endowed with the courage to face the storm it would have brought about their ears. Few men are like the clerico, who was afraid of nobody. Just after Las Casas reached the Indies a man named Juan Bono, a shipmaster, arrived there with a shipload of Indians, whom he had kidnaped in the island of Trinidad. He himself told the clerico how it was done. He had gone to the island with sixty men and told the Indians that they had come to live with them. The Indians received them kindly, brought them food, and, as Bono said himself, treated them like brothers. Bono told them that the white men would like a large house to live in, and the Indians at once went to work to build it for them. When it was nearly done, Bono invited all the natives to come and see it. Some four hundred of them came, all unarmed and quite unsuspecting and happy. When all were gathered in the house, the Spaniards surrounded it, and Bono told the Indians that they must give themselves up or they would be killed. Some of them tried to run away, some to resist, and in a few minutes the swords of the Spaniards had filled the place with the dead and dying. One hundred and eighty of them were put in chains and taken to the ship. About a hundred shut themselves up in another house and tried to defend themselves there, but the Spaniards set fire to it and the natives were all burned alive. This was the return Bono and his men made to the innocent, gentle Indians, who had been so kind to them. No wonder the heart of the clerico was on fire with indignation when he heard the story. He went at once to the three fathers and told them the dreadful tale. They listened, but did nothing,—as usual. Not one of the one hundred and eighty kidnaped Indians was set free, and neither Bono nor any of the judges who had sent him was punished. One day a priest came to the Protector of the Indians to tell him how the native laborers in the mines near San Domingo were abused. He said he had seen them lying in the fields, sick from overwork, covered with flies, and nobody cared enough to give them food or drink; but their owners allowed them to lie there and die in this way. Las Casas took him by the hand and led him to the fathers, to whom he repeated this story; but they only tried to excuse the cruelty of the mine owners. The heart of the clerico burned within him as he saw so much suffering and misery about him and could not get the three commissioners to put a stop to it. Something, he felt, must be done. The fathers had now been in the islands six months and things were no better than they had been before their coming; so he resolved to go again to Spain and seek a remedy for this state of things. When the fathers heard what he intended to do they were much alarmed, but as they could not stop him, they sent one of their number to Spain also, to speak on their behalf. For some time there had been on the island of Hispaniola a number of Franciscans,—or "Gray Friars," as they were sometimes called because of the color of their robes, just as the Dominicans were called "Black Friars," because they wore black and white. Both orders were sworn to poverty, and both did splendid missionary work in their day. The Franciscans had not always been in sympathy with Las Casas, but seem now to have been as anxious as he to have something done to set matters right. Some of them were well known to the Grand Chancellor, and they gave the clerico letters to that official, who was at once interested; and as Las Casas came to see more of him, the two became great friends. The Chancellor spoke to the King about the matter, and the King commanded that he and Las Casas should consult together and find a remedy for the evils of the Indies. The plan that they proposed was this: That colonists should be sent out at the expense of the King and be cared for until they should be able to manage for themselves, when they should begin to pay tribute to the crown. In order to supply laborers, Las Casas suggested that each Spaniard should have permission to import twelve negro slaves. This he did because the Indians died by hundreds from the hard labor in the mines, while he had observed that the negroes endured it much better. Afterward Las Casas [Pg 36] [Pg 37] [Pg 38] [Pg 39] [Pg 40] confessed with sorrow that he had done wrong in this, as it was no more right to hold the negroes in slavery than to so treat the Indians. The Bishop of Burgos, who was, you will remember, always bent on opposing the clerico in everything he undertook, laughed at this plan. He said he had been trying for years to get men to go out to the Indies and could not find twenty that were willing to venture. However, Las Casas was not stopped by this, and set to work at once to see what he could do. A man named Berrio was appointed to go with him and assist him; but this Berrio turned out to be anything but a help, refusing to obey the clerico's orders, and finally leaving him, without permission. Berrio got together about two hundred vagabonds, not at all the right sort of people for colonists, and sent them to Seville, to be shipped to the Indies. Las Casas was not informed of the matter, and as no one had any instructions with regard to these colonists, they were sent out with no supplies for their necessities. When Las Casas heard of it, he insisted upon having provisions sent after them; but it was too late to benefit many of them, for numbers had died of the hardships suffered, and those who lived and stayed in the Indies proved a very bad addition to the white population. Meanwhile, the Grand Chancellor had died, and Bishop Fonseca was again at the head of Indian affairs, much to the clerico's grief. Fonseca refused to do anything at all for the colonists, and as Las Casas would not allow them to go under such conditions of neglect, the plan fell through. But no sooner was he defeated in one scheme than he immediately began to devise another. There was no such thing as discouraging Las Casas. CHAPTER VI THE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN SPUR There had been for some time both Franciscan monks and Dominican fathers on the mainland of South America, working among the natives. Pedro de Cordova, the head of the Dominicans in the Indies, wrote to Las Casas at about this time, asking him to get the King to grant a certain territory on the mainland, where no white men except the Dominicans and Franciscans should be allowed to go; or, if he could not get it on the mainland, to try to secure some small nearby islands, saying that if the King would not do this it would be necessary to recall all the brethren of the Dominican order, as it was of no use for them to preach to the Indians when they saw all about them the Christians behaving as they did. Now when the clerico had spoken to Fonseca about this, the reply had been that there was no money in it for the King, so that Las Casas saw that if he was to get the grant, he must find a way to make it profitable to the King and his ministers. The Good Book says that "the love of money is the root of all evil," and certainly Las Casas was inclined to believe this as he thought of what wickedness it had led the Spaniards into in the New World. No wonder the Indians thought that gold was the white man's god. The clerico tells us of a certain Indian chief, who had fled before the Spaniards from Hispaniola to Cuba, and who, hearing that the Christians were coming there also, called his people together and told them that the reason why the Spaniards treated them so cruelly was because they had a god whom they greatly loved and adored, and it was to make them also love and serve him that they killed and enslaved them. He had a basket of jewels and gold near him. Holding it up, he said that this was the god of the Christians and called upon his people to dance before this god and worship him, and perhaps he would not allow the Spaniards to harm them. Poor old chief! Driven from one hiding place to another, he was taken at last; and because he had tried to escape his oppressors and defend his people, he was condemned to be burned alive. When he was tied to the stake a Franciscan priest came up to him and told him that, although there was but little time, yet if he would believe the Christian faith and be baptized he would be saved. He then told him as much as he could of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, and, having finished, asked him if he would believe and go to Heaven, where he would be happy evermore, saying that if he did not he would go to Hell. The chief thought for a moment and then asked if the Christians went to Heaven. The priest replied that those that were good did. The chief at once answered that in that case he did not wish to go to Heaven, where he would have these cruel people again; he would go to Hell. Las Casas had learned by this time that the desire for wealth must be considered in any plan that he might make if he wanted it to succeed, and he believed he knew of a way by which he could satisfy the King and at the same time carry out his design of converting the Indians by kindness. He thought he could find fifty men who would make the conversion and civilization of the Indians their first object. These fifty were to wear white dresses, with red crosses, so that the Indians would know them from other Spaniards. They were to teach the natives and protect them from all who would harm them. Each one was to contribute a certain sum of money, which was to be used to pay the expenses of the enterprise. For themselves, they were to have a fixed amount of the revenue and certain privileges, and they were to be called the Knights of the Golden Spur. The King was to have, after the first three years, a tribute, which would be increased year by year for ten years, and the Knights were to found three settlements in five years, were to build a fort in each, and were to explore the country for the King. He asked also that those Indians that had been taken away from this part of the country should be sent back to their homes. The Grand Chancellor thought very well of this plan, and told the clerico to lay it before the Council of the Indies. Of [Pg 41] [Pg 42] [Pg 43] [Pg 44] [Pg 45] course their bishop, Fonseca, was against it. The plan was not absolutely prohibited, however, but they delayed doing anything about it, until the clerico was nearly driven wild with anxiety and disappointment. It was the custom in those days to have certain of the clergy appointed preachers to the King. There were eight such preachers at the court of Spain. Las Casas thought perhaps these priests might do something to help, so he went to them and interested them in the scheme. They tried to do what they could, and even went one day before the Council of the Indies,—much to the astonishment of its members,—and having been given permission to speak, made a strong plea for the freedom of the Indies. But though they were listened to with courtesy, nothing came of it. For months Las Casas fought for this plan of his, which he felt would save at least some of the native people. They had been killed off by thousands on all the islands, and would soon perish on the mainland,—indeed, wherever the Spaniards went,—unless they could be made free. His enemies fought against his plan and against him, accusing him of everything, even of desiring to get the grant of territory for his own profit. Even his friends sometimes misunderstood him. One of them, a young lawyer, when he heard of rents to be paid to the King and of honors to be given to the Knights of the Golden Spur, said that this "scandalized" him, for it showed a desire for temporal things, which he had never suspected in the clerico. Las Casas, having heard of this, went to him one day and said: "Señor, if you were to see our Lord Jesus Christ ill-treated and afflicted, would you not implore with all your might that those who had Him in their power would give Him to you, that you might serve and worship Him?" "Yes," replied his friend. "Then, if they would not give Him to you, but would sell Him, would you redeem Him?" "Without a doubt." "Well, then, Señor, that is what I have done," replied Las Casas; "for I have left in the Indies Jesus Christ, our Lord, suffering stripes and afflictions and crucifixion, not once but thousands of times, at the hands of the Spaniards, who destroy and desolate these Indian nations." He then went on to tell his friend that, seeing that his opponents would sell him the Gospel, he had offered these inducements, buying the right to teach the Indians to serve and love the Lord Jesus Christ. Las Casas had now spent altogether four or five years at the court of Spain, trying to get something done for his Indians. He had spent also every cent of money he possessed, and endured every kind of opposition and abuse; but at last the papers were signed. The grant was now assured, though not so much land had been given as had been asked. A company of laborers was ready to go out with the clerico, and money had been loaned him for the expenses of the undertaking. Many little articles, also, were presented to him, to be used as gifts to the natives; and away he sailed to start the new work and to find in the Indies, he hoped, the fifty Knights of the Golden Spur. We shall see how he succeeded. CHAPTER VII THE PEARL COAST If you look on the map of South America, you will see up in the northeast corner the island of Trinidad, and close by, indenting the coast of the mainland, the Gulf of Para. Stretching west from about this point was what was called the Pearl Coast, and it was in this region that was situated the land that had been granted to Las Casas for his company of the Knights of the Golden Spur. Now while he was in Spain events had taken place in this territory that made the founding of a colony very difficult indeed. Both the Franciscans and the Dominicans had been trying to do missionary work among the natives, as we know, and both orders had monasteries there. For a time all went well, until a Spaniard named Ojeda, engaged in the pearl fishery, had come over from the isl...