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

accusation of having encouraged and shared in the man-hunts in the Lucayan islands and the enslavement of the captured natives. The Jer

s nearing its end and hence worked their Indians to death, sparing neither women nor children, so as to get all the profit they could out of them before they lost them. Charges and counter-charges were sent [pg 93] to Spain, the Jeronymites complaining of Las Casas and he in turn denouncing them to Cardinal Ximenez, though many of his letters were intercepted and never reached their destination. Things had come to such a pass that the only hope of remedy lay in Las Casas returning to Spain

influences surrounding the King in his distant Flemish court. He had written with characteristic frankness advising the King not to bring a Flemish household with him into Spain, and as soon as the date for the royal journey was fixed, the Cardinal s

s enemies had not been entirely in vain, for he found the Cardinal's mind somewhat influenced b

egard and recognition for his services. Cardinal Ximenez breathed his last a few hours after reading this heartless communication and Las Casas was left to begin anew his life as a courtier and to cultivate the good-will of

rle

nand Slema, made in 1778 a

king him to invite a body of theologians to determine whether or no such an affirmation was in accordance with Catholic doctrine, and to send him a copy of the decision. Thirteen doctors of theology and other [pg 95] ecclesiastical authorities replied with four or five signed conclusions, the last of which defined that all who held or propagated that error should be condemned to the stake as heretics. This was a weapon in Las

Chièvres, or by the Spaniards, Xevres, who had formerly been the King's governor, and Jean Salvage, a learned priest who was Dean of the University of Louvain. The latter's name was corrupted by the Spaniards into Juan Selvagio, and he held the office and title of Grand Chancellor, both hitherto unknown in Spain. These Flemings were odious to the Spaniards, who resented the

y some French Franciscans from Picardy, whom he had known in the Indies and who were friends of the Chancellor, he soon found himself upon terms of some friendliness with him. The Chancellor found great interest in listening to al

translated the contents into Latin, adding his own observations or objections to the different reports or proposals, and then returned them to the Chancellor, who was delighted to have such expert assistance in dispatching complicated affairs, in which he was himself unpractised. From the Chancellor's favour to that [pg 97] of the King was but a step, and the cha

with special earnestness, that his mind might be illumined by divine grace to perceive what course he must follow. He next drew up his plan, but perhaps in no act of his long career is there less evidence of the action of divine guidance

n) was to lodge and feed them, their passage to Hispaniola was to be given them and their food furnished for one year. Any of the emigrants who, at the expiration of the first year, found themselves incapacitated on account of the climate to support themselves, should be entitled to further assistance in the form of a royal loan. Lands were to be given them gratis and also the requisite farming implements for wo

accusation made by a reputable historian against Las Casas is found in Robertson's History of America, vol. iii., Year 1517, in which he charges the apostle of the Indians with having proposed to Cardinal Ximenez to purchase a sufficient number of negroes from the Portuguese settlements on the coast of Africa and to transport them to America in order that they might be employed as slaves in working in the mines and tilling the ground. Cardinal Ximenez however, when solicited to encourage the commerce, peremptorily rejected the proposition because he perceived the iniq

ion of Las Casas is seen upon examination to reduce itself to this: he advised that Spanish colonists in America should be allowed the privilege, common in Spain and Portugal, of employing negro slave labour on their properties. Since Spaniards might hold African slaves in Spain, it implied no approval of slav

rwards ceased to deplore. Retributive justice has followed these attempts of several lesser contemporaries of Robertson to asperse the character of one of the purest, noblest, and most humane of men, and while d

gro slavery into America is a passage in Herrera's Historia de las Indias Occidentals, w

ew proposition was approved by the Cardinal of Tortosa, Adrian, by the Grand Chancellor, and the Flemish ministers. The Chamber of Commerce at Seville was consulted to learn what number of Africans, Cuba, Santo Domingo, San Juan [Puerto Rico], and Jamaica would require. It was replied that it would be sufficient to send four thousand. This answer being almost immediately made known by some intriguer to the Flemish governor of Bressa, this courtier obtained the monopoly of the trade from the sovereign and sold it to some Genoese for twenty-five thousand ducats on condition that during eight years no other license should be granted by the King. This arrangement was extremely harm

f Hispaniola, permitted the importation of negro slaves. This was two years before Las Casas made his first voyage as a young man of twenty-eight to America, and in 1503, the same Ovando asked that no more negro slaves be sent to Hispaniola because they escaped

tially evil one, is a very different thing from the extension of its worst features in regions where it is unknown and amongst people ill-fitted to support its burdens. A small group of men, chiefly Dominican monks, with Las Casas at their head, courageously championed the cause of freedom [pg 104] and humanity in a century and amongst a people hardened to oppression and cruelty; they braved popular fury, suffered calumny, detraction, and abuse; they faced kings, high ecclesiastics, and all the rich and great ones of their day, incessantly and courageously reprimanding their injustice and demanding reform. Since the memorable day when Fray Antonio de Montesinos proclaimed himself "vox clamantis in deserto" before the astonished and incensed colonists of Hispaniola, the chorus of rebuke had swelled until it made itself heard, sparing none amongst the offenders against equity and humanity. The development of the collective moral sense of a people is only slowly progressive, and the betterment of racial conditions is more safely accomplished by evolution than revolution, hence if the moral vision of Las Casas did not detect the injustice practised on the negr

t realising with what injustice the Portuguese captured and enslaved them, and afterwards, not for everything in the world would he have

s to hold property in the flesh and blood of their fellow-men, conducted Las Casas directly to the necessary and generous convi

just as that of the Indians, the remedy he had counselled, that negroes should be brought so that the Indians might be freed, was no better, even though [pg 106] he believ

e to the negroes, for it was the frightful mortality amongst the cruelly driven Indians that rapidly reduced the numbers of labourers and made gaps which could only be filled by the importation of others from elsewhere. Under a more humane system, the Indians might still have laboured, but not in excess of their powers; their lives would not have been sacrificed or rendered unendurable, while the colonists would have become rich less rapidly; there would have been no shortage of w

cal research has long since dispersed the artificial clouds which misrepresentation caused to gather about the fame of the Protector of the Indians, and there now neither is,

each of these settlements, some thirty men should be stationed with a provision of various articles, such as the Indians prized, for trading purposes; also several missionary priests, whose occupation would be teac

e Grand Chancellor found useful, and partly, so Las Casas hints, because they had succeeded, by spending important sums of money, in recovering their former offices. At first the Bishop's opposition was mild enough, and he contented himself with pointing out that he had never been able to induce emigrants to go to the Indies and that Las Casas's scheme was unworkable. Las Casas, however, affirmed t

e, commonly used this familiar appellation in speaking of Las Casas. Before the court reached Zaragoza, the invalid was on his legs again and had rejoined the others, being received with great joy by the Grand Chancellor, 36 who was almost as enthusiastic as Las Casas himself in pushing forward the Indian reforms. Delay, however, was again caused at Zaragoza, where the King and court were established, by the illness of the ever-contrary Bishop of Burgos; while waiting there to resume business, a letter was sent to

[pg 110] merely observed that he had long

lows he had had to sustain. The Grand Chancellor, who owned to feeling indisposed on a Friday, became worse on Saturday, so that he had

c [himself] sank to the depths." The Chancellor's successor, named by the King pro tempore, was the Dean of Bisancio, a heavy, phlegmatic man who slept peacefully all through the sessions of the Council and only had sufficient perception to commend Las Casas for the zeal with which he pestered him day and night, remark

no friends or protectors inside and consequently obtained nothing, save what they were obliged for very shame's sake to concede him. Discouragement was too alien to his sanguine temperament, else he might, with some show of reason, have abandoned all hope of struggling successfully against such odds. The first decisive measure of the Bishop was to recall the Jeronymite fathers from their missio