If the Jeronimite Fathers accomplished no great things in the Indies, they at least did little harm. Small-pox attended the herding of the natives in settlements, but it never prevailed to the extent represented. The fact that Fonseca held an encomienda of eight hundred Indians, the Comendador Conchillos one of eleven hundred, Vega one of two hundred, and other influential men at court other numbers, may have had something to do with the hostility manifested in that quarter toward Las Casas, who was unflinching to the end in denouncing the system as unjust, unchristian, and inhuman.
CASA DE CONTRATACION.
The office of Indian distributor was most important, and one in which the vital interests of the colonists were involved. It should have been filled by one of high integrity who would hold aloof from contaminating influences. Such was not Ibarra, who became offensively meddlesome in the affairs of the common council, and died under suspicious circumstances not long after, Lebron being sent out to take his place. When the Jeronimites countenanced negro slavery to relieve the Indians, the colonists were benignant; when they undertook civil service reform, some of them became furious, especially Pasamonte, who had been enriching himself as fast as possible while his patron lived, but who had now sunk into insignificance. The favorites of the Flemish ministers, such as Rodrigo de Figueroa, to whom was given charge of the Indian settlements, were now the recipients of the fat offices; and the fact of their being Flemish favorites was sufficient to array the colonists against them. It was not long before they succeeded in having the residencia of Figueroa ordered, and Lebron installed as overseer of Indians in his place. In 1518, Jimenez who sent the Jeronimites being dead and Fonseca once more manager, the monks were recalled to Spain, and the affairs of Española and of the Indies were left with the audiencia of Santo Domingo, acting in conjunction with the Consejo de Indias[V-13] in Spain, the Casa de Contratacion having more especial charge of commercial matters.
Many schemes for the benefit of the Indians filled the mind of Las Casas, who continued to labor for them indefatigably. One, originating with Pedro de Córdoba, was to set apart on the mainland one hundred leagues as a place of refuge for the savages, into which no Spaniards but priests might enter. This measure was opposed by Fonseca, who said: "The king would do well, indeed, to give away a hundred leagues without any profit to himself." After this Las Casas spent some time travelling through Spain and inducing Spaniards to emigrate to the Indies, but little that was beneficial came of it. Succeeding finally in enlisting the sympathies of the king's preachers in behalf of the Indians, a plan for founding a colony on the Pearl Coast was carried, and notwithstanding Oviedo appeared in opposition to his brother chronicler by offering a larger royalty, a grant of two hundred and sixty leagues was signed in May, 1520. Failing as a colonist, Las Casas retired for a time to the Dominican convent at Santo Domingo. After many years spent as missionary and preacher in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru, he was appointed bishop of Chiapas, where in the progress of this history we shall again meet him.
SUNDRY PROVISIONS.
Certain attention which the Indies were now receiving may be mentioned here. Some little attention was paid by the ever-watchful government to the welfare of society in these distant parts. The wearing of rich apparel in Española was forbidden by the king in 1523. The appellations of certain of the islands were undergoing change, so that in due time their aboriginal names were restored to Cuba and Jamaica, the authorities thereby evincing a good taste which rulers and explorers of other nations might well have profited by at a later period. In 1515 six loaves of sugar and twenty cassia fistula were taken by Oviedo to Spain. In 1517 the pope made bishops in the Indies inquisitors; and when in 1521-2 the bulls of Leo X. and Adrian VI. ordered the Franciscans to prepare for mission work in the New World, liberal concessions were made to friars going thence. After the death of Pedro de Córdoba, who had been appointed inquisitor of the Indies, authority became vested in the audiencia of Santo Domingo. Desirous of stimulating emigration, the emperor in 1522 granted further privileges to settlers in the Indies. Colonists were ordered to take their families to the New World under severe penalties for neglect. Licenses were revised, and regulations concerning the going to the New World of the religious orders as well as of all others were made to the utmost extent favorable, but friars found in the New World without a license must be sent forthwith to Spain. Then laws were made attempting to regulate the method of making war on Indians; and in 1523 it was decreed that idols should be destroyed and cannibalism prevented. Provision was made for the annual payment of thirty thousand maravedís for the support of a preceptor of grammar. And because of the heavy expenses of living, the emperor permitted the salaries of New World officials to be increased. The tribunals were likewise reorganized to fit the emergency and facilitate business. Directions were issued how gold chains should be made and dye-woods cut. It seemed to the emperor necessary in 1526 to issue orders facilitating the arrest of dishonest mercantile agents in the Indies, and to send Padre de Bobadilla, a provincial of the order of La Merced, to look after the baptism of the Indians. And as to the question of negroes, vexatious from the beginning, the emperor in 1523 revoked for a time the permission given in 1511 to send negroes as slaves to the Indies; and it was again ordered in 1526 that Indian slaves then in Spain should be returned to their country and treated as vassals.[V-14]
CHAPTER VI.
THE GOVERNMENTS OF NUEVA ANDALUCÍA AND CASTILLA DEL ORO.
1506-1510.
Tierra Firme Thrown open to Colonization—Rival Applications—Alonso de Ojeda Appointed Governor of Nueva Andalucía, and Diego de Nicuesa of Castilla del Oro—Hostile Attitudes of the Rivals at Santo Domingo—Ojeda Embarks for Cartagena—Builds the Fortress of San Sebastian—Failure and Death—Nicuesa Sails for Veragua—Parts Company with his Fleet—His Vessel is Wrecked—Passes Veragua—Confined with his Starving Crew on an Island—Succor—Failure at Veragua—Attempts Settlement at Nombre de Dios—Loss of Ship Sent to Española for Relief—Horrible Sufferings—Bibliographical Notices of Las Casas, Oviedo, Peter Martyr, Gomara, and Herrera—Character of the Early Chroniclers for Veracity.
The voyages of Bastidas and Columbus completed the discovery of a continuous coast line from the gulf of Paria to Cape Honduras. In 1506 Juan Diaz de Solis, a native of Lebrija, and Vicente Yañez Pinzon took up the line of discovery at the island of Guanaja, where the admiral had first touched, and proceeding in the opposite direction sailed along the coast of Honduras to the westward, surveyed the gulf of Honduras and discovered Amatique Bay, but passed by without perceiving the Golfo Dulce which lies hidden from the sea. The object still was to find the much-desired passage by water to the westward. Continuing northerly along Yucatan, and finding the coast trending east rather than west, they abandoned the undertaking and returned to Spain. Meanwhile Juan Ponce de Leon was enriching himself by the pacification of Puerto Rico, preparatory to invading the mainland to the northward in search of the fountain of youth; in which sapient attempt he lost his money, and not long afterward his life, unfortunately never finding the liquid immortality that bubbled somewhere in the jungles of Florida.
And now ten years had elapsed since Cabot and Columbus first saw the western continent, the former in 1497, the latter in 1498, and although several attempts had been made, as yet there was no European settlement on any part of it. It was not that the thirst for western spoils was by any means assuaged; but Ferdinand was busy, and the experiences of Ojeda and Columbus on the mainland were not encouraging to the most chivalrous cupidity. Returned, however, from his Neapolitan wars in 1507, his disaffected nobles somewhat quieted, and the disputes attending Isabella's succession allayed, the king began to look about him. By the queen's testament he inherited one half the revenues of the Castilian colonies. And the king wanted money. It is a royal weakness. Then he remembered what Columbus had reported of the rich coast of Veragua; and although the licenses hitherto granted for private voyages had not proved very lucrative, and expenditures at Santo Domingo were too near receipts to be satisfactory, no better way seemed feasible than to throw open to colonization the mainland, or tierra firme, as the discovered portion of the continent now began to be called.[VI-1] Further than this, Ferdinand was well aware that if he would retain his western possessions he must occupy them; for stimulated by the success of Portugal and Spain, France, England, Holland, and Sweden had all awakened to oceanic enterprise. He had before this commissioned Ojeda to watch the inroads of the English at the north, and directed Pinzon to have an eye on the Portuguese and the pope's partition line at the south; now he was resolved to break the territory into kingdoms and provinces, and apportion them for government to such of his subjects as were able and willing to colonize at their own cost.