If this missing prototype of the Historie was among Ferdinand's books in his library, which had been removed from his house in 1544 to the convent of San Pablo in Seville, and was not removed to the cathedral till 1552, it may also have happened that along with it he used there the De Imagine Mundi of Pierre d'Ailly, Columbus's own copy of which was, and still is, preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina, and shows the Admiral's own manuscript annotations.
It was in the chapel of San Pablo that Las Casas had been consecrated as bishop in 1544, and his associations with the monks could have given easy access to what they held in custody,—too easy, perhaps, if Harrisse's supposition is correct, that they let him take away the map which Toscanelli sent to Columbus, and which would account for its not being in the library now.
His opportunities.
We know, also, that Las Casas had use of the famous letter respecting his third voyage, which the Admiral addressed to the nurse of the Infant Don Juan, and which was first laid before modern students when Spotorno printed it, in 1823. We further understand that the account of the fourth voyage, which students now call, in its Italian form, the Lettera Rarissima, was also at his disposal, as were many letters of Bartholomew, the brother of Columbus, though they apparently only elucidate the African voyage of Diaz.
In addition to these manuscript sources, Las Casas shows that, as a student, he was familiar with and appreciated the decades of Peter Martyr, and had read the accounts of Columbus in Garcia de Resende, Barros, and Castañeda,—to say nothing of what he may have derived from the supposable prototype of the Historie. It is certain that his personal acquaintance brought him into relations with the Admiral himself,—for he accompanied him on his fourth voyage,—with the Admiral's brother, son, and son's wife; and moreover his own father and uncle had sailed with Columbus. There were, among his other acquaintances, the Archbishop of Seville, Pinzon, and other of the contemporary navigators. It has been claimed by some, not accurately, we suspect, that Las Casas had also accompanied Columbus on his third voyage. Notwithstanding all these opportunities of acquiring a thorough intimacy with the story of Columbus, it is contended by Harrisse that the aid afforded by Las Casas disappoints one; and that all essential data with which his narrative is supplied can be found elsewhere nearer the primal source.
Character of his writings.
This condition arises, as he thinks, from the fact that the one engrossing purpose of Las Casas—his aim to emancipate the Indians from a cruel domination—constantly stood in the way of a critical consideration of the other aspects of the early Spanish contact with the New World. It was while at the University of Salamanca that the father of Las Casas gave the son an Indian slave, one of those whom Columbus had sent home; and it was taken from the young student when Isabella decreed the undoing of Columbus's kidnapping exploits. It was this event which set Las Casas to thinking on the miseries of the poor natives, which Columbus had planned, and which enables us to discover, in the example of Las Casas, that the customs of the time are not altogether an unanswerable defense of the time's inhumanity and greed.
As is well known, all but the most recent writers on Spanish-American history have been forced to use this work of Las Casas in manuscript copies, as a license to print such an exposure of Spanish cruelty could not be obtained till 1875, when the Historia was first printed at Madrid.