The life of the great Bishop was nearing its end. He had long outlived all his early contemporaries, he had enjoyed the confidence and respect of three of the most remarkable sovereigns, Ferdinand of Aragon, Charles V. and Philip II., all of whom had received his fearless admonitions, not only with docility, but had responded with cordial admiration. Cardinal Ximenez, Pope Adrian VI., the powerful [pg 305] Flemish favourites, the discoverers and conquerors from Columbus to Cortes and Pizarro, were all long since dead, and he had seen numbers of his most powerful enemies in disgrace and in their graves. The Spain on which he closed his aged eyes was a different country from that on which he had first, opened them; the colonial development in America, the Reformation in Germany, the rise of England—all these and a hundred events of minor but far-reaching importance, had changed the face of the world.
The illness which proved fatal to Las Casas overtook him in the convent of the Atocha in Madrid, and in the latter days of July, 1566, he died.[76] Only a few days before he breathed his last he wrote the following sentences, which were probably the last his prolific pen ever traced. They portray the character and aspirations of this great man more fully, perhaps, than any other of his multitudinous compositions.
“For the goodness and mercy of God chose to elect me as His minister, despite my want of merit, to strive and labour for the infinite peoples, the possessors and owners of those kingdoms of the countries we call the Indies, against the burdens, evils, and injuries such as were never seen or heard of, which we Spaniards brought upon them, contrary to all right and justice; and to restore them to their pristine liberty, of which they were unjustly [pg 306] despoiled; and to save them from the violent death which they still suffer, just as for the same cause, thousands of leagues of country have been depopulated, many in my own presence. I have laboured at the Court of the Castilian sovereigns, coming and going between the Indies and Spain many times during the fifty years since 1514, animated only by God and by compassion at beholding the destruction of such multitudes of rational, humble, most kind, and most simple men, all well adapted to accept our Holy Catholic Faith and moral doctrine, and to live honestly. God is witness that I have advanced no other reason. Hence I state my positive belief, for I believe the Holy Roman Church, which is the rule and measure of our faith, must and does hold that the Spaniards' conduct towards those peoples, their robberies, murders, usurpations of the territories of the rightful kings and nobles and other infinite properties, which they accomplished with such accursed cruelties—has been contrary to the most strictly immaculate law of Jesus Christ and contrary to natural right. It has brought great infamy on the name of Jesus Christ and of the Christian religion, entirely hindering the spread of the faith and irreparably injuring the souls and bodies of those innocent peoples. I believe that because of these impious and ignominious acts, perpetrated unjustly, tyrannously, and barbarously upon them, God will visit His wrath and ire upon Spain for her share, great or small, in the blood-stained riches, obtained by theft and usurpation, accompanied by such slaughter and annihilation of those peoples, unless she does much penance.”
This last profession of the faith he had kept unfalteringly for more than half a century, was his own supreme vindication and a warning to his countrymen. [pg 307]
A great concourse of people assembled for the obsequies of the venerable Bishop, which were celebrated by the Superior of the Monastery, Fray Domingo de la Para, and his mortal remains, clothed in modest episcopal vestments, with a wooden crozier in his hand, were laid to rest in the Capilla Mayor of the church of Atocha. [77]
The remains of great men are frequently denied a permanent resting place anywhere, and the frequent translations of their bodies not uncommonly end in their final whereabouts becoming a matter of dispute. Records are lost, graves are disturbed, witnesses are untrustworthy, and it finally becomes impossible to ascertain the last resting place of some great personage, whose whereabouts during almost every hour of his life were a matter of public interest and notoriety. Thus it has happened with the remains of this illustrious Spaniard and holy Bishop. According to a statement made by Juan Antolines de Burgos in his manuscript history of the city of Valladolid, [78] the bones of Las Casas were afterwards removed from the Atocha and buried in San Gregorio. The college buildings were in part alienated, thus necessitating another removal of the body, which was then buried in the cloister where the remains of the monks commonly found sepulture. In 1670, Fray Gabriel de Cepedo dedicated a work entitled Historia de la milagrosa y Venerable Virgin de Atocha to Charles II., in which he contradicts the statement of Juan Antolines by affirming that Las Casas rested [pg 308] at that time in the church of Atocha. He does this as one referring to a commonly known and undisputed fact and his published statement has never been contradicted. The old church of Atocha no longer exists, having been demolished to make way for a new edifice, still in process of construction.
The will of Las Casas was opened on July 31, 1566, at the instance of Fray Juan Bautiste, Procurator of the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid, he being the executor. It was found that Las Casas had left all his manuscripts to the college.[79] He requested the rector to have his vast correspondence, consisting of letters and reports sent to him by friars, missionaries, and others throughout all America and covering a period of many years, chronologically arranged and collected in the form of a book, as these documents [pg 309] would illustrate and confirm the truth of all he had alleged against the Spaniards and in favour of the Indians. “Let them be placed,” he wrote, “in the college library ad perpetuam rei memoriam, for should God decree the destruction of Spain, it may be seen that it is because of our destruction of the Indies, and His justice may be made apparent.”