To-night the following occurred—an Indian came to me complaining that notwithstanding his certificate of freedom, given him by Gregorio Lopez, his owner kept him in slavery and treated him worse than a slave, sending [pg 231] him out with a donkey to carry and sell water. He showed me his certificate of freedom, in the presence of ten or twelve monks. I told him to go to-day to the Casa de Contractacion so that its officials might correct the abuse, and I sent a servant with him to show him the building—because if his master found out, he would keep him until he called in the officials. Finally his owner discovered him and took the letter and tore it up. He said “bring chains and put them on this dog.” The Indian escaped through a window and they cried after him, “Thief, thief,” so that somebody down below came and beat him, and stabbed him in the jaw. He managed to reach a place where some of my servants were, and they are trying to cure him: but he is dying. One of my servants went to the assistant to tell him what had happened, but the latter answered that he was not astonished that people killed the Indians, because they stole and did much harm. I beg Your Highness to note how destitute they are of any pity. With judges so cruelly unjust and tyrannical, Your Highness may imagine what sort of things happen over there [in the colonies] with the Spaniards against the Indians, when they dare do these things in Seville where, the other day a judge ordered an Indian to be stabbed to death.
fray bartholomew de las casas, Bishop of Chiapa.
The voyage began badly, for the San Salvador was poorly ballasted and only arrived at Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, after considerable difficulty and danger, on the 19th of July, and was detained there for ten days until the ship was made seaworthy. Some of the friars who were unfamiliar with sea-voyages conceived such mistrust of the [pg 232] San Salvador that they refused to again go aboard her, so it was necessary to distribute these nineteen timid souls amongst the other ships. The 30th of July saw the fleet again at sea, and the voyage to Hispaniola continued without any untoward incident, until the 9th of September, when they arrived in the harbour of Santo Domingo, where the same vessel on which Las Casas and the twenty-seven friars were, ran on a rock and came near being wrecked in sight of land: hardly was this disaster surmounted when she collided with another of the ships to the imminent peril of both, though, fortunately, with no great injury to either.
The Dominicans in Santo Domingo conducted the Bishop and his friars in solemn procession to the convent, where Te Deum Laudamus was sung.
In striking contrast to this affectionate reception was that which awaited him from the colonists. The New Laws were regarded as the ruin of the colonies and Las Casas was universally considered the inspirer, if not actually the framer of these laws, hence the indignation and hatred of the Spaniards against him and all Dominicans was at fever heat: meetings were held, in which it was resolved to boycott the friars and refuse them all alms or assistance. Seeing the odium he had unwittingly wrought upon his hosts, the Bishop was inclined to leave their convent and go to the Franciscans, but this was rightly considered as likely to spread the antagonism which had so far manifested itself against the Dominicans only. Even before things had reached this point, Las Casas had already written Prince [pg 233] Philip on the 15th of September, denouncing the cruelties which still went on unchecked and mentioning by name a number of officials who were unworthy to occupy the positions they held, because of the grave abuses they committed and tolerated.
On September 10th a letter which shows the state of public feeling towards the New Laws and the new Bishop was addressed to the Emperor by the principal colonists of Nicaragua.
The signers avow their surprise that their twenty-five or thirty years of services to the Crown should be rewarded by seeing their children disinherited, and declare that if the New Laws are put in force, despite their cries to high heaven for justice, it will only remain for many of them to die. Las Casas is denounced as an envious, vainglorious, and turbulent monk, who has been expelled from every colony in the Indies and whom even no monastery can tolerate. He is charged with bringing ruin on large numbers of people, solely because revengeful motives prompt him to injure certain individuals. It is also pointed out that he knows nothing about affairs in New Spain and the mainland, having spent all his life in Cuba and the islands.
However much Las Casas may have deplored the feeling his presence provoked and especially the rancour he had stirred up against his brethren, whose only offence lay in giving him hospitality, he did not allow his regrets on this score to arrest or modify the steps he intended to take to enforce obedience to the New Laws. Shortly after his arrival, he presented copies of the laws and of the [pg 234] other royal ordinances which he carried, to the Audiencia, asking that, in accordance with their provisions, all Indians then held in slavery should be liberated. Although the President, Cerrato, supported him, the other members of the Audiencia were one and all opposed. According to the current phrase, they agreed to obey the law, but declared they could not comply with it. They all held slaves themselves and the only result of the action of Las Casas was, that they sent their representatives to Spain to procure some reform in the more obnoxious articles of the code.
The presence of Las Casas in Hispaniola infused new courage into the Dominicans, who had been discouraged in recent years by the difficulty and hopelessness of contending against public opinion on the subject of the Indians and had consequently ceased to preach and agitate in their favour: some members of the community had even been affected by the prevalent opinion that the Indians were really a race of a different order, servile by nature, and destined by Providence to a life of subjection to their superiors. Learned arguments were found to sustain this opinion. The well-known chapters of Aristotle's Politics were quoted, the Scriptures were drawn upon, and, as not infrequently happens, many good men adopted the easier line of not contending with the views of the rich and powerful.
There now ensued a sort of revival of the old enthusiasm in the defence of the natives; sermons were preached which stirred up great wrath and provoked protest from the authorities. It was easy [pg 235] to adopt reprisals on the friars, and the colonists did not hesitate to do so, refusing alms and supplies to the convents. Threats of violence, even of shooting Fray Tomas Casillas, whose sermons had been particularly offensive, were not wanting, though fortunately they were not executed. The friars were reduced to the last extremity and, but for the charity of some few sympathisers and the generous aid of the Franciscan monks who fed them, they would have found themselves in want of the absolute necessaries of life in the midst of a hostile populace. At this juncture a notable conversion was effected by their preaching; a widow named Solano, who was reputed the richest person in the colony, came one day to the convent and declared that she was convinced of the truth of all the preachers had expounded concerning the iniquity of slavery and that she had in consequence resolved, not only to liberate her two hundred and more slaves, but to make restitution of her tainted wealth in as far as she could, by transferring her plantations to the Order, as her awakened conscience forbade her enjoyment of it. This event stirred the entire colony profoundly, and as the action of the friars was so clearly contrary to their own temporal interests as to place the sincerity of their convictions and the purity of their motive beyond question, a certain revulsion in public sentiment began to manifest itself. It is not recorded that anybody else followed the widow's example, but such a change was operated in the disposition of the better class of people that when the time for Las Casas and his friars to leave arrived, [pg 236] regret for their departure was expressed on all sides. On December 14th they embarked on what proved to be a long and tempestuous voyage, attended by many and great dangers; owing to the ignorance of the pilot, the Bishop himself had to take the wheel. Christmas was celebrated at sea, and it was not until the fifth of January that they finally landed at the port of Lazaro on the coast of Campeche. The first episcopal function performed by the Bishop in his new diocese was the pontifical celebration of the vigil and mass of the Epiphany, during which he delivered an earnest discourse on the one theme that furnished material for all his sermons and writings—the injustice and sin of slavery and the obligation resting on all Christian Spaniards to liberate their slaves in conformity with the laws of the Emperor, and to provide for their humane treatment and conversion, according to the law of God.