What influence could the noble elements of the Spanish character have, when theology, avarice, and lust controlled the conquest? Pure minds and magnanimous intentions went in the same ships with adventurers, diseased soldiers, cold and superstitious men of business, and shaven monks with their villanous low brows and thin inquisitorial smile. The average character speedily obtained ascendency, because the best men were to some extent partakers of it. Columbus was eager to make his great discovery pay well, to preserve the means of continued exploration. In one hand he lifted high the banner of possession with its promise of a cross, which direful irony fulfilled; with the other he kept feeding the ravenous nation with gold, to preserve its sympathy and admiration, that the supply of men and vessels should not fail. Las Casas himself, a just and noble man, the first advocate of the natural rights of men in the New World, soon found that the situation was too strong and cruel; his wishes and struggles went under before the flood of evil passions which swept the island. He maintained his fight against Indian slavery by not discountenancing negro slavery. And his fight was unavailing, because mercy had no legitimate place upon the new soil. The logic of events was with the evil majority, which was obliged at last to maintain its atrocious consistency in self-defence. He might as well have preached the benefits of Lenten diet to shipwrecked men upon a raft, insane with thirst and the taste of comrade's flesh. It was a Devil's problem, which is the kind that cannot hold back from its devilish conclusion.
But bad passions were not alone to blame. The Spanish notion of conversion desolated like avarice. The religious bodies which from time to time controlled the affairs of the island differed in their humanity and general policy: the Dominicans were friends of the Indian and haters of the turbulent oppressor; the Franciscans were the instruments of the bad men whose only ambition was to wring pleasure and fortune out of the Indian's heart; the monks of St. Jerome undertook in vain a neutral and reconciling policy. But they all agreed that the Indians must be baptized, catechized, and more or less chastised into the spirit of the gospel and conformity to Rome. The conquistadores drove with a whip, the missionaries with a dogma. The spirit of the nation and of the age sternly asked for theological conformity: it was seriously understood that a man should believe or burn. For one of those two things he was preordained. Everybody was convinced that a drop of water on the dusky forehead of these natives quenched the flames of hell. The methods used to get that holy drop applied lighted flames, to escape from which anybody would take his chance of the remoter kind.
The cacique Hatuey understood the Spaniards. He was the first man in the New World who saw by instinct what an after-age perceived by philosophical reflection. He should have been the historian of the Conquest. The Spaniards had destroyed his people, and forced him to fly to Cuba for safety. There he also undertook a conversion of the natives. "Do you expect to defend yourselves against this people," he said, "while you do not worship the same God? This God I know; he is more powerful than ours, and I reveal him to you." With this he shows them a little piece of gold. "Here he is; let us celebrate a festival to honor him, that his favor may be extended to us." The natives hold a solemn smoking around the Spanish God, which is followed by singing and dancing, as to one of their own Zemés. Having adroitly concentrated their attention in this way upon the article of gold, Hatuey the next morning reassembles the people and finishes his missionary labors. "My mind is not at ease. There can be no safety for us while the God of the Spaniard is in our midst. They seek him everywhere. Their devotion is so great that they settle in a place only for the convenience of worship. It is useless to attempt to hide him from their eyes. If you should swallow him, they would disembowel you in the name of religion. Even the bottom of the sea may not be too far, but there it is that we must throw him. When he can no longer be found with us, they will leave us in peace."
Admirable counsel, if the gold in veins, or their own blood, were not also the object of search. The natives collected all their gold and threw it into the sea. A party of Spaniards landing upon the island not long after, Hatuey was taken prisoner, and condemned to be burnt alive because he refused to be converted!
"Was conduct ever more affronting?
With all the ceremony settled!
With the towel ready"—
and all the other apparatus for a first-class baptism, and the annexation to Rome and heaven of a tribe! When he was tied to the stake, and a priest conjured him to profess Christianity and make a sure thing of paradise, he cut him short with,—
"Are there Spaniards in this place of delights of which you speak?"
"There are indeed, but only good ones."
"The best of them is good for nothing," said the cacique. "I would rather not go where I might have to meet them."
Dying, he had his preference.