[1038] [There were a hundred copies of these printed. They are:—
1. Memorial de Don Diego Colon sobre la conversion de las gentes de las Yndias. With an Epistle to Dr. Reinhold Pauli. It is Diego Colon’s favorable comment on Las Casas’s scheme of civilizing the Indians, written at King Charles’s request. Cf. Stevens, Hist. Coll., i. 881.
2. Carta, dated 1520, and addressed to the Chancellor of Charles, in which Las Casas urges his scheme of colonization of the Indians. Mr. Stevens dedicates it to Arthur Helps in a letter. Cf. Stevens, Hist. Coll., i. 882; the manuscript is described in his Bibl. Geog., no. 598.
3. Paresçer o determinaciō de los señores theologos de Salamanca, dated July 1, 1541. This is the response of the Faculty of Salamanca to the question put to them by Charles V., if the baptized natives could be made slaves. Mr. Stevens dedicates the tract to Sir Thomas Phillipps. Cf. Stevens, Hist. Coll., i. 883.
4. Carta de Hernando Cortés. Mr. Stevens, in his Dedication to Leopold von Ranke, supposes this to have been written in 1541-1542. It is Cortes’ reply to the Emperor’s request for his opinions regarding Encomiendas, etc., in Mexico. Cf. Stevens, Hist. Coll., i. 884.
5. Carta de Las Casas, dated Oct. 22, 1545, with an abstract in English in the Dedication to Colonel Peter Force. It is addressed to the Audiencia in Honduras, and sets forth the wrongs of the natives. Cf. Stevens, Hist. Coll., i. 885. The manuscript is now in the Huth Collection, Catalogue, v. 1,681.
6. Carta de Las Casas to the Dominican Fathers of Guatemala, protesting against the sale of the reversion of the Encomiendas. Mr. Stevens supposes this to have been written in 1554, in his Dedication to Sir Frederick Madden. Cf. Stevens, Hist. Coll., i. 886. A set of these tracts is worth about $25. The set in the Cooke Sale (vol. iii. no. 375) is now in Harvard College Library; another set is shown in the Murphy Catalogue, no. 488, and there is one in the Boston Public Library.—Ed.]
[1039] Field, p. 219.
[1040] Vol. i. p. 160.
[1041] [Harrisse, Notes on Columbus, says volumes i. and ii. are in the Academy; but volume iii. is in the Royal Library. Cf., however, the “Advertencia preliminar” of the Madrid (1875) edition of the Historia on this point, as well as regards the various copies of the manuscript existing in Madrid.—Ed.]