Llorente says it is not strange that the apostle Las Casas, like other great and noble men, met with enemies and detractors. Some assailed him through prejudice, others merely from levity, and without reflection. Four principal reproaches have been brought against him:—
1. He is charged with gross exaggeration in his writings, as by the Spanish writers Camporicanes, Nuix, and Muñoz, and of course by those interested in excusing the work of conquest and devastation, who cannot justify themselves without impeaching Las Casas as an impostor. His sufficient vindication from this charge may be found in a mass of legal documents in the Archives, in the Records of the Council for the Indies, and in Government processes against wrongdoers. Herrera, who had seen these documents, says: “Las Casas was worthy of all confidence, and in no particular has failed to present the truth.” Torquemada, having personally sought for evidence in America, says the same. Las Casas, when challenged on this point, boldly affirmed: “There were once more natives in Hispaniola than in all Spain,” and that Cuba, Jamaica, and forty other islands, with parts of Terra Firma, had all been wrecked and made desolate. He insists over and over again that his estimates are within the truth.
2. Another charge was of imprudence in his ill-considered proceedings with the Indians. Allowance is to be made on the score of his zeal, his extreme ardor and vehemence,—an offset to the apathy and hard-heartedness of those around him. He was in a position in which he could do nothing for the Indians if he kept silence. He witnessed the reckless and defiant disobedience of the positive instructions of the King by his own high officers.
3. The third charge was of inconsistency in condemning the enslaving of Indians, and favoring that of negroes. This has already been disposed of.
4. The final charge was that he was consumed by ambition. Only a single writer had the effrontery to ascribe to Las Casas the desperate purpose of seizing upon the sovereignty of a thousand leagues of territory. The whole foundation of the charge was his attempt to plant a particular colony in the province of Cumana, near St. Martha, on Terra Firma. So far from claiming sovereignty for himself, he even denied the right of the King to bestow such sovereignty.
He was, says Llorente, blameless; there is no stain upon his great virtues. Indeed, not only Spain, but all nations, owe him a debt for his opposition to despotism, and for his setting limits to royal power in the age of Charles V. and the Inquisition.
Then follows Llorente’s translation into French of Las Casas’ Memoir on the Cruelties practised on the Indians, with the Dedicatory Letter addressed to Philip II., 1552. The Spaniards at Hispaniola and elsewhere forgot that they were men, and treated the innocent creatures around them for forty-two years as if they were famished wolves, tigers, and lions. So that in Hispaniola, where once were three millions, there remained not more than two hundred. Cuba, Porto Rico, and Jamaica had been wholly depopulated. On more than sixty Lucayan islands, on the smallest of which were once five hundred thousand natives, Las Casas says, “my own eyes” have seen but eleven.
These appalling enumerations of the victims of Spanish cruelty during half a century from the first coming of the invaders to the islands and main of America, are set before the reader in the figures and estimates of Las Casas. Of course the instant judgment of the reader will be that there is obvious and gross exaggeration in them. It remains to this day a debated and wholly undecided question among archæologists, historians, and explorers best able to deal with it, as to the number of natives on island and continent when America was opened to knowledge. There are no facts within our use for any other mode of dealing with the question than by estimates, conjectures, and inferences. A reasonable view is that the southern islands were far more thickly peopled than the main, vast regions of which, when first penetrated by the whites, were found to be perfect solitudes. The general tendency now with those who have pursued any thorough investigations relating to the above question, is greatly to reduce the number of the aborigines below the guesses and the once-accepted estimates. Nor does it concern us much to attempt any argument as to the obvious over-estimates made by Las Casas, or to decide whether they came from his imagination or fervor of spirit, or whether, as showing himself incredible in these rash and wild enumerations, he brings his veracity and trustworthiness under grave doubts in other matters.
Las Casas says that near the Island of San Juan are thirty others without a single Indian. More than two thousand leagues of territory are wholly deserted. On the continent ten kingdoms, “each larger than Spain,” with Aragon and Portugal, are an immense solitude, human life being annihilated there. He estimates the number of men, women, and children who have been slaughtered at more than fifteen millions. Generally they were tormented, no effort having been made to convert them. In vain did the natives, helpless with their feeble weapons, hide their women and children in the mountains. When, maddened by desperation, they killed a single Spaniard, vengeance was taken by the score. The Clerigo, as if following the strictest process of arithmetic, gives the number of victims in each of many places, only with variations and aggravations. He asserts that in Cuba, in three or four months, he had seen more than seven thousand children perish of famine, their parents having been driven off to the mines. He adds that the worst of the cruelties in Hispaniola did not take place till after the death of Isabella, and that efforts were made to conceal from her such as did occur, as she continued to demand right and mercy. She had done her utmost to suppress the system of repartimientos, by which the natives were distributed as slaves to masters.