In 1542 and 1543 Las Casas largely influenced the royal decrees relating to the treatment of the Indians, which were signed by the monarch, Nov. 20, 1542, and June 4, 1543, and printed at Alcala in 1543 as Leyes y Ordenanças. This book stands as the earliest printed ordinances for the New World, and is rare. Rich in 1832 (no. 13) priced it at £21. (Cf. Bib. Am. Vet., no. 247; Carter-Brown, vol. i. no. 130; Sabin, vol. x. p. 320.) There were later editions at Madrid in 1585,[1055] and at Valladolid in 1603. Henry Stevens, in 1878, issued a fac-simile edition made by Harris after a vellum copy in the Grenville Collection, accompanied by a translation, with an historical and bibliographical introduction.
The earliest compilation of general laws for the Indies, entitled Provisiones, cedulas, instrucciones de su Magestad, was printed in Mexico in 1563. This is also very rare; Rich priced it in 1832 at £16 16s. It was the work of Vasco de Puga, and Helps calls it “the earliest summary of Spanish colonial law.” The Carter-Brown copy (Catalogue, i. 242) was sent to England for Mr. Helps’s use, there being no copy in that country, so far as known.
The next collection was Provisiones, cédulas, etc., arranged by Diego de Encinas, and was printed at Madrid in 1596. The work early became scarce, and Rich priced it at £5 5s. in 1832 (no. 81). It is in Harvard College and the Carter-Brown Library (Catalogue, vol. i. no. 502). The bibliography of the general laws, particularly of later collections, is sketched in Bancroft’s Central America, i. 285, and Mexico, iii. 550; and in chap. xxvii. of this same volume the reader will find an examination of the administration and judicial system of the Spaniards in the New World;[1056] and he must go chiefly to Bancroft (Central America, i. 255, 257, 261, 285; Mexico, ii. 130, 516, 563, etc.) and Helps (Spanish Conquest and Life of Las Casas) for aid in tracing the sources of the subject of the legal protection sought to be afforded to the natives, and the attempted regulation of the slavery which they endured. Helps carefully defines the meaning and working of the encomienda system, which gave in effect a property value to the subjection of the natives to the Conquerors. Cf. Spanish Conquest (Am. ed.), iii. 113, 128, 157, 212.
CHAPTER VI.
CORTÉS AND HIS COMPANIONS.
BY JUSTIN WINSOR,
The Editor.
GRIJALVA had returned in 1518 to Cuba from his Western expedition,[1057] flushed with pride and expectant of reward. It was his fate, however, to be pushed aside unceremoniously, while another was sent to follow up his discoveries. Before Grijalva had returned, the plan was formed; and Hernando Cortés distanced his competitors in suing for the leadership of the new expedition. Cortés was at this time the alcalde of Santiago in Cuba, and about thirty-three years old,—a man agile in mind, and of a frame well compacted for endurance; with a temper to please, and also to be pleased, if you would but wait on his wishes. He had some money, which Velasquez de Cuellar, the Governor, needed; he knew how to decoy the intimates of the Governor, and bait them with promises: and so the appointment of Cortés came, but not altogether willingly, from Velasquez.