BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS.
A steadily growing character, impressing itself more and more upon the affairs of the Indies as time went by, was that of Bartolomé de las Casas. Born at Seville in 1474, he conned his humanities at Salamanca, making little stir among the Gamaliels there, but taking the bachelor's degree in his eighteenth year. After a residence of about eight years in the Indies, having come with Ovando in 1502, he was admitted to priestly orders, from which time he takes his place in history. He was a man of very pronounced temperament and faculties, as much man of business as ecclesiastic, but more philanthropist than either; possessed of a burning enthusiasm, when once the fire of his conviction was fairly kindled, he gave rest neither to himself nor to his enemies. For every evil-minded man who came hither was his enemy, between whom and himself was a death-struggle. The Apostle of the Indies he was sometimes called, and the mission he took upon himself was to stand between the naked natives and their steel-clad tormentors. In this work he was ardent, ofttimes imprudent, always eloquent and truthful, and as impudently bold and brazen as any cavalier among them all. Nor was he by any means a discontented man. He sought nothing for himself; he had nothing that man could take from him except life, upon which he set no value, or except some of its comforts, which were too poor at best to trouble himself about. His cause, which was the right, gave breadth and volume to his boldness, beside which the courage of the hare-brained babbler was sounding brass.
When the attention of the church was first seriously drawn toward the amelioration of the condition of the Indians, which was in 1511, there were at Española some thirteen Dominicans, living with their vicar, Pedro de Córdoba, according to the strictest rules of the order, and likewise several Franciscans, among whom was Antonio de Espinal. The Dominicans began their protest by a sermon denouncing the course of the colonists, and when ordered to retract, they repeated their charges with still greater emphasis. The colonists sent agents to Spain to have the contumacious monks displaced, and among them Espinal; for the Franciscans, as much in a spirit of opposition to the Dominicans as to find favor with the laity, showed a leaning toward the repartimiento system, though they could not decently defend it. The Dominicans sent Antonio Montesino, he who had preached the distasteful sermon, all the Dominicans present having signed approval of it. To consider the matter, a junta was summoned in Spain, which pronounced the Indians a free people, a people to be Christianized, and not enslaved; they were innocent heathen, not infidel enemies like the Moors, or natural-born slaves like the negroes. Ferdinand and Fonseca were both earnest in obtaining this verdict, for so had said the king's preachers. Meanwhile Montesino encountering Espinal in Spain, won him over to the side of humanity. But all the same the repartimientos were continued, for they were fatherly protection only in theory, and the colonists went on scourging the poor red men.
In the occupation of Cuba, Pánfilo de Narvaez was named by Velazquez his lieutenant, and sent forth to subjugate other parts of the island. With Narvaez went Las Casas, who put forth almost superhuman exertions in vain to stay the merciless slaughter of the helpless and innocent. A warm friend of Las Casas was Velazquez' alcalde, Pedro de Rentería, who in the division of the spoils joined Las Casas in accepting a large tract of land, and a proportionate repartimiento of Indians. This was before Las Casas had seriously considered the matter, and he was at first quite delighted with his acquisition. But the enormity of the wrong coming upon him, his conversion was as decisive as that of St Paul. Like the Dominicans of Española, Las Casas began by preaching against repartimientos. In 1515 he sailed for Spain in company with Montesino, leaving his charge with certain monks sent over from Española by the prelate Córdoba. These Dominican brothers did what they could, but to such straits were the savages driven after the departure of Las Casas that to escape the bloodhounds and other evils set upon them by the Spaniards thousands of them took refuge in suicide. When Diego Colon arrived in 1509 there were left in Española forty thousand natives. A repartidor was appointed in the person of Rodrigo de Alburquerque to repartition the Indians, but when he arrived in 1514 there were but thirteen thousand left to divide. After proclaiming himself with great pomp, Alburquerque plainly intimated that bribery was in order, that he who paid the most money should have the best repartimiento. Afterward the Licentiate Ibarra, sent to Española to take the residencia of the alcalde Aguilar, was authorized to make a new partition. Large numbers of natives were given to the king's favorites in Spain, and the evil grew apace. Nor were affairs at Española mended by sending out so frequently new officials with new and conflicting powers.
THE JERONIMITE FATHERS.
Whatever hopes the monks may have derived from Ferdinand's benign reception, death cut short the proposed relief. Fonseca, now bishop of Búrgos, with coarse ribaldry dismissed the subject; but when Las Casas applied to the regent, Cardinal Jimenez, an earnest and active interest was manifest. Las Casas, Montesino, and Palacios Rubios were directed to present a plan for the government of the Indies, which resulted in sending thither three Jeronimite Fathers, Luis de Figueroa, Alonso de Santo Domingo, and Bernardino Manzanedo, monks of the order of St Jerome, being selected because they were free from the complications in which those of St Francis and St Dominic already found themselves involved in the New World. The Jeronimites were ordered to visit the several islands and inform themselves regarding the condition of the Indians, and adopt measures for the formation of native settlements. These settlements or communities were to be governed each by a cacique, together with an ecclesiastic; and for every two or three settlements a civil officer, called an administrator, having supreme power in the settlements, was to be appointed. The cacique, after obtaining the consent of the ecclesiastic, should inflict no higher punishment on his subjects than stripes; none should be capitally punished except under regular process of law. The matters of education, labor, tribute, mining, and farming were then treated, in all which the welfare of the natives was carefully considered, although the repartimiento system remained. Las Casas was named Protector of the Indians with a salary of one hundred pesos de oro. Zuazo, a lawyer of repute, was sent with the most ample powers to take a residencia of all the judges in the New World, and against his decisions there was to be no appeal.
The Jeronimites set out wrapped in mighty determinations. They would not even sail in the same ship with Las Casas, wishing to be wholly free. In this they were right; but unfortunately, on arriving among the wrangling colonists, and having the actual issues thrust upon them, they found themselves by no means infallible. Their measures were tame, and they soon found the Protector arrayed against them. The result was their open defence of the repartimiento system, as the only one by which Spain could colonize the Indies. The burden should be laid as lightly as possible on the shoulders of the natives, but they must be made to work. Las Casas set out in 1517 to enter his complaints at court, closely followed by an emissary of the Jeronimites to represent their side of the question; but they arrived in Spain only to find the regent dying. Had Charles V. remained in Flanders, and had the life of Cardinal Jimenez been spared to Spain and the New World a few years longer, it is certain that the cruelties to the Indians would many of them have been prevented, and it is doubtful if negro slavery would ever have been introduced into America.
DIVERS RULES AND RULERS.
Though the change of rulers which now occurred seriously clogged the wheels of government in Spain, the affairs of the Indies seemed directly to suffer little inconvenience therefrom. It was indeed a great change, Isabella and Ferdinand gone, Columbus and Jimenez also; and the presence of this young Charles, undemonstrative, thoughtful, cautious, even when a boy, and enveloped in a Flemish atmosphere that shut out all that was most beautiful in Spain, even Castile's liquid language, made it seem strange there even to Spaniards, made it seem a long, long time since the Moors were beaten and America discovered. The Indies, however, were far away, and so little understood by the Flemings that they did not trouble themselves much about them.
Las Casas was fortunate in winning the favor of the Flemish chancellor, Selvagius, but as in the two previous cases, scarcely was the friendly footing established when the great man died, and the bishop of Búrgos, whose influence in the government of the Indies had fallen low of late, was again elevated. All the measures that Las Casas had proposed to Selvagius fell to the ground—all save one, the only bad one, and one concerning which Las Casas afterward asserted that he would give all he possessed on earth to recall it; it was the introduction of negro slaves to relieve the Indians.