Among the principal opponents of his benevolence were Sepúlveda,—one of the leading men of letters and casuists of the time in Spain,—and Oviedo, who, from his connection with the mines and his share in the government of different parts of the newly discovered countries, had an interest directly opposite to the one Las Casas defended. These two persons, with large means and a wide influence to sustain them, intrigued, wrote, and toiled against him, in every way in their power. But his was not a spirit to be daunted by opposition or deluded by sophistry and intrigue; and when, in 1519, in a discussion with Sepúlveda concerning the Indians, held in the presence of the young and proud Emperor Charles the Fifth, Las Casas said, “It is quite certain, that, speaking with all the respect and reverence due to so great a sovereign, I would not, save in the way of duty and obedience as a subject, go from the place where I now stand to the opposite corner of this room, to serve your Majesty, unless I believed I should at the same time serve God,”[912]—when he said this, he uttered a sentiment that really governed his life and constituted the basis of the great power he exercised. His works are pervaded by it. The earliest of them, called “A very Short Account of the Ruin of the Indies,” was written in 1542,[913] and dedicated to the prince, afterwards Philip the Second;—a tract in which, no doubt, the sufferings and wrongs of the Indians are much overstated by the indignant zeal of its author, but still one whose expositions are founded in truth, and by their fervor awakened all Europe to a sense of the injustice they set forth. Other short treatises followed, written with similar spirit and power, especially those in reply to Sepúlveda; but none was so often reprinted, either at home or abroad, as the first,[914] and none ever produced so deep and solemn an effect on the world. They were all collected and published in 1552; and, besides being translated into other languages at the time, an edition in Spanish, and a French version of the whole, with two more treatises than were contained in the first collection, appeared at Paris in 1822, prepared by Llorente.
The great work of Las Casas, however, still remains inedited,—a General History of the Indies from 1492 to 1520, begun by him in 1527 and finished in 1561, but of which he ordered that no portion should be published within forty years of his death. Like his other works, it shows marks of haste and carelessness, and is written in a rambling style; but its value, notwithstanding his too fervent zeal for the Indians, is great. He had been personally acquainted with many of the early discoverers and conquerors, and, at one time, possessed the papers of Columbus, and a large mass of other important documents, which are now lost. He says he had known Cortés “when he was so low and humble, that he besought favor from the meanest servant of Diego Velasquez”; and he knew him afterwards, he tells us, when, in his pride of place at the court of the Emperor, he ventured to jest about the pretty corsair’s part he had played in the affairs of Montezuma.[915] He knew, too, Gomara and Oviedo, and gives at large his reasons for differing from them. In short, his book, divided into three parts, is a great repository, to which Herrera, and through him all the historians of the Indies since, have resorted for materials; and without which the history of the earliest period of the Spanish settlements in America cannot, even now, be properly written.[916]
But it is not necessary to go farther into an examination of the old accounts of the discovery and conquest of Spanish America, though there are many more which, like those we have already considered, are partly books of travel through countries full of wonders, partly chronicles of adventures as strange as those of romance; frequently running into idle and loose details, but as frequently fresh, picturesque, and manly in their tone and coloring, and almost always curious from the facts they record and the glimpses they give of manners and character. Among those that might be added are the stories by Vaca of his shipwreck and ten years’ captivity in Florida, from 1527 to 1537, and his subsequent government for three years of the Rio de la Plata;[917] the short account of the conquest of Peru written by Francisco de Xerez,[918] and the ampler one, of the same wild achievements, which Augustin de Çarate began on the spot, and was prevented by an officer of Gonzalo de Pizarro from finishing till after his return home.[919] But they may all be passed over, as of less consequence than those we have noticed, which are quite sufficient to give an idea, both of the nature of their class and the course it followed,—a class much resembling the old chronicles, but yet one that announces the approach of those more regular forms of history for which it furnishes abundant materials.
END OF VOL. I.
FOOTNOTES
[1] August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Ueber Dramatische Kunst, Heidelberg, 1811, 8vo, Vorlesung XIV.
[2] Augustin Thierry has in a few words finely described the fusion of society that originally took place in the northwestern part of Spain, and on which the civilization of the country still rests: “Reserrés dans ce coin de terre, devenu pour eux toute la patrie, Goths et Romains, vainqueurs et vaincus, étrangers et indigènes, maîtres et esclaves, tous unis dans le même malheur, oublièrent leurs vieilles haines, leur vieil éloignement, leurs vieilles distinctions; il n’y eut plus qu’un nom, qu’une loi, qu’un état, qu’un langage; tous furent égaux dans cet exil.” Dix Ans d’Études Historiques, Paris, 1836, 8vo, p. 346.
[3] Manuel Risco, La Castilla y el mas Famoso Castellano, Madrid, 1792, 4to, pp. 14-18.
[4] Speaking of this decisive battle, and following, as he always does, only Arabic authorities, Conde says, “This fearful rout happened on Monday, the fifteenth day of the month Safer, in the year 609 [A. D. 1212]; and with it fell the power of the Moslems in Spain, for nothing turned out well with them after it.” (Historia de la Dominacion de los Árabes en España, Madrid, 1820, 4to, Tom. II. p. 425.) Gayangos, in his more learned and yet more entirely Arabic “Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain,” (London, 1843, 4to, Vol. II. p. 323,) gives a similar account. The purely Spanish historians, of course, state the matter still more strongly;—Mariana, for instance, looking upon the result of the battle as quite superhuman. Historia General de España, 14a impresion, Madrid, 1780, fol., Lib. XI. c. 24.