[910] As in the Dialogue on Juan de Silva, Conde de Cifuentes, he says, “En este año en que estamos 1550”; and in the Dialogue on Mendoza, Duke of Infantado, he uses the same words, as he does again in that on Pedro Fernandez de Córdova. There is an excellent note on Oviedo, in Vol. I. p. 112 of the American ed. of “Ferdinand and Isabella,” by my friend Mr. Prescott, to whom I am indebted for the manuscript of the Quinquagenas, as well as of the Historia.
[911] There is a valuable life of Las Casas in Quintana, “Vidas de Españoles Célebres” (Madrid, 1833, 12mo, Tom. III. pp. 255-510). The seventh article in the Appendix, concerning the connection of Las Casas with the slave-trade, will be read with particular interest; because, by materials drawn from unpublished documents of unquestionable authenticity, it makes it certain, that, although at one time Las Casas favored what had been begun earlier,—the transportation of negroes to the West Indies, in order to relieve the Indians,—as other good men in his time favored it, he did so under the impression, that, according to the law of nations, the negroes thus brought to America were both rightful captives taken by the Portuguese in war and rightful slaves. But afterwards he changed his mind on the subject. He declared “the captivity of the negroes to be as unjust as that of the Indians,”—“ser tan injusto el cautiverio de los negros como el de los Indios,”—and even expressed a fear, that, though he had fallen into the error of favoring the importation of black slaves into America from ignorance and good-will, he might, after all, fail to stand excused for it before the Divine Justice. Quintana, Tom. III. p. 471.
[912] Quintana, Españoles Célebres, Tom. III. p. 321.
[913] Quintana (p. 413, note) doubts when this famous treatise was written; but Las Casas himself says, in the opening of his “Brevísima Relacion,” that it was written in 1542.
[914] This important tract continued long to be printed separately, both at home and abroad. I use a copy of it in double columns, Spanish and Italian, Venice, 1643, 12mo; but, like the rest, the Brevísima Relacion may be consulted in an edition of the Works of Las Casas by Llorente, which appeared at Paris in 1822, in 2 vols. 8vo, in the original Spanish, almost at the same time with his translation of them into French. It should be noticed, perhaps, that Llorente’s version is not always strict, and that the two new treatises he imputes to Las Casas, as well as the one on the Authority of Kings, are not absolutely proved to be his.
The translation referred to above appeared, in fact, the same year, and at the end of it an “Apologie de Las Casas,” by Grégoire, with letters of Funes and Mier, and notes of Llorente to sustain it,—all to defend Las Casas on the subject of the slave-trade; but Quintana, as we have seen, has gone to the original documents, and leaves no doubt, both that Las Casas once favored it, and that he altered his mind afterwards.
[915] “Todo esto me dixo el mismo Cortés con otras cosas cerca dello, despues de Marques, en la villa de Monçon, estando alli celebrando cortes el Emperador, año de mil y quinientos y quarenta y dos, riendo y mofando con estas formales palabras, a la mi fé andubé por alli como un gentil cosario.” (Historia General de las Indias, Lib. III. c. 115, MS.) It may be worth noting, that 1542, the year when Cortés made this scandalous speech, was the year in which Las Casas wrote his Brevísima Relacion.
[916] For a notice of all the works of Las Casas, see Quintana, Vidas, Tom. III. pp. 507-510.
[917] The two works of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, namely, his “Naufragios” and his “Comentarios y Sucesos de su Gobierno en el Rio de la Plata,” were first printed in 1555, and are to be found in Barcia, Historiadores Primitivos, Tom. I.
[918] The work of Francisco de Xerez, “Conquista de Peru,” written by order of Francisco Pizarro, was first published in 1547, and is to be found in Ramusio, (Venezia, ed. Giunti, folio, Tom. III.,) and in Barcia’s collection (Tom. III.). It ends with some poor verses in defence of himself.