Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings

ing the victorious campaign of the King, St. Ferdinand, knights from France, Germany, Italy, and Flanders swelled the ranks of the Spanish forces in Andalusia. Amongst t

ined to become numerous and illustrious. The name Casaus assumed with time the more Spanish form of Casas, though it continued to be spelled in both wa

one of the chapels of the cathedral. His son, Alfonso, is stated in the chronicles of Don Juan II. (1409) to have been appointed by the Infante, Don Fernando, to the lieutenancy of Castillo de Priego, "because he was a valiant man who could hold it well." The name

474. He himself speaks of Seville as his native city, and the popular tradition, which fixes the ancient suburb of Triana as his birthplace, was recognised in 1859 by the municipality o

, while he himself states1 that he was named Pedro, thus contradicting all his biographers from Remesal, who was the first, down to Don Antonio Fabié, whose admirable Vida y Escritos, published in 1879, was the last important contribution on this interesting subject. Zu?iga, in his Discurso de Ortices, assumed that Alonso de las Casas and Beatriz M

mez Carde?a, Veinticuatro de Seville, la Villa de Priego" in 1409, and his wife, Maria Fernandez Marmolejo. The children of this couple were Guillen, Isabel, Juan, Pedro, and Francisco, who is described in the

e original founder of the family had multiplied and, by the close of the fifteenth century, were divided into many prolific branches, hence the difficulty of identifying the unimportant father of an extraordinarily important son is not wonderful. Las Casas himself may be reasonably assumed to have kno

of Salamanca, the most celebrated in Spain, and which ranked high amongst the great seats of learning in Europe at that time. Jurisprudence was divided into the branches of Roman law as interpreted by the school of Bologna, and of canon law, the principles of which

ilful Thomistic scholar could have discerned the limits to the legitimate exercise of the royal authority which

sics which render his unexpurgated manuscripts wearisome enough to modern readers. He shared the defects of most of his contemporaries in this respect and followed the fashion common in his times. The training he received in the Spanish schools and the University, and which he [pg 6] afterwards perfected-as will be seen-by the studies he resumed after his profession in the Dominican Order, rendered formidable as an advocate one whom nature had endowed w

uired profitable interests in the island of Hispaniola. He returned to Spain in 1496, bringing w

nation that the Admiral should thus dispose of her new subjects without her leave and authority, and a royal order was published from Granada, where the court then was, commanding, under pain of death, that all those who had brought Indians t

roduced to our notice in the guise of a slave-holder, con

at Las Casas accompanied his father on the second voyage of Columbus in 1493 and brought back the Indian slave himself. Llorente, who has been followed by several modern writers, asserts that his first voyage to America was made with Columbus on his third expedition. He deduces this conclusion from a statement at the close of the Thirty Propositions which Las Casas addressed to the Royal India Council in 1547 and from a sentence in the First Motive of his Ni

opher

P. Mercuri after a

the publication of his history, Destruycion de las Indias, which had been composed ten years earlier, he speaks of his experience extending over more than fifty years, but in his Historia General, which is almost a diary of the first half of his life in America, the first voyage that he mentions is that of Don Nicholas de Ovando in 1502. Las Casas was most careful in describing every particular of the events in which he had a part and he nowhere mentions that he accompanied Columbus on any voyage, whereas he dwells at length upon t

badilla, whose administration gave cause for dissatisfaction in other respects, and to send Don Nicholas de Ovando to replace him. Ovando was at that time Comendador de Lares and was later raised to the supreme commandership of the Order of Calatrava. He is described as a most p

accusations against his predecessor and to dispose of the n

sail for America, being composed of thirty-two vessels on [pg 10] which were to sail some two thousand five hundred persons, many of whom

rous adventure which led him over garden walls into risky situations where he ended with broken bones, and was consequently left behind.

, La Rabida, with one hundred and twenty people on board, and scattered the remainder; some vessels were obliged to throw mos

back to the Spanish coast and gave rise to the rumour that the entire fleet was lost. This caused such a general sense of afflic

was thus brought up to its original complement. The commander divided his squadron in to two sections, the first of which, composed of the fastest vessels, he kept under his command, while the second was placed under co