In 1506, Ovando's recommendation was adopted; but in part only. The introduction of negroes from Africa was prohibited, while the colonists were permitted to bring over Christian negroes born in Spain. The king gave a special license for a few Africans to work in the mines, where they would not come in contact with the natives. Mr. Bancroft, in the fifth chapter of his History of the United States, is quite indignant at the royal hypocrisy; he, too, has the disease of natural equity and rights of man in the cerebellum. This historian observes:
"The Spanish government attempted to disguise the crime by prohibiting the introduction of slaves who had been born in Moorish families. … But the idle pretence was soon abandoned. … King Ferdinand himself (1510) sent fifty slaves to labor in the mines."
The same chapter fifth is full of precious reading to those who are curious to learn how facts sometimes may be interpreted, and history made up.
These are the reasons why Cardinal Ximenes was opposed to the trade, as explained by his biographers; and these, also, for the repugnance of Las Casas to it, as stated several times in his works. But the cardinal determined to raise revenue from the traffic; he thereupon, in 1516, stopped the trade until he could arrange the duties to be levied. For this stoppage, Dr. Robertson fired off an eulogium, which was not applicable. Washington Irving eagerly sought out the chapter in Herrera, referred to by the doctor, and was duly disgusted on finding that Ximenes was not thinking about sublime moral sentiments, but about money. The biographer of Columbus was much perplexed; he could only console himself for the discrepancy by remarking that, "Cardinal Ximenes in fact, though a wise and upright statesman, was not troubled with scruples of conscience on the question of natural rights." How a cardinal can be an upright man without an invariable delicacy of conscience, wherewith to decide justly at all times, surpasses common comprehension. The excuse for Ximenes is about equal to the compliment for John Smith, if it were said that the ubiquitous John is an exemplary member of society when he is sober.
On second thoughts, Mr. Helps, after all, may be entitled to higher rank, by comparison with other authors, than on first impression is accorded to him. His home is in a hemisphere where historical questions, purely American, are receding more and more from public consideration; while most of the other gentlemen belong to this side of the Atlantic, where such subjects are rising in the horizon, and claiming greater attention. If facts, then, of the first magnitude are Overlooked in the new world, how many more will be overlooked in the old? If they do these things in the green tree at Boston, what shall be done by a Dryasdust in London?
Space does not permit an examination of other faults of less gravity attributed to Las Casas. It is said that, when he wrote his Brief Account, he exaggerated in over-stating the immense extent of the destruction among the aborigines; that his excited feelings and tender sensibilities had led him astray by the unparalleled atrocities perpetrated in his presence. But on the contrary, it was the magnitude of these atrocities which excited his feelings and shocked his sensibilities. Every word in the Brief Account can be maintained; furthermore, it will be found his statement in that tale of horror is not only true, but falls short of all the truth. Foreign nations, jealous and dreading the greatness of Spain, eagerly translated and published the Account. It soon appeared in print in English, in French, in Dutch, and Latin; it would have also been presented in German, if a German literature had been in existence: Caricature pictures embellished the pages, depicting scenes in the many modes of torture practised upon the Indians, upon the simple, innocent, confiding, naked men and women, upon little boys and girls, scarce beyond infancy.
These unheard-of crimes sent a thrill throughout Christendom, and set a stigma for cruelty on the Castilian name. The Spanish people, proverbial for their honesty, humanity, and integrity, acting with little wisdom, denied the correctness of the account; consequently, they were required to make good their denial. This being impossible, the nation took vengeance on the memory of Las Casas, when in his grave. But the conduct was foolish; the nation was no more responsible for the outrage on the natives, than it is responsible for a gang of desperadoes and outlaws in the mountain, who let loose their bull-dogs on kids and lambs in the Sierra Morena. Consequently, the name of Las Casas was held up to national execration, wherever was spoken the beautiful idiom of Castile. The learned looked upon his virtuous exertions with cold suspicion; literature became tinctured with it; the church, catching the tone of public opinion in the Iberian peninsula, withheld her recognition and recompense; thus ignoring perhaps her greatest ornament and benefactor in modern times. In the course of years, his name passed almost into oblivion in Spain when the asperity died out. But among the officials in Spanish America, hatred to him was imperishable. So far down, even in 1811, the Consulado of the City of Mexico denounced him as a "most illustrious Spanish declaimer, who wished to make himself renowned at the expense of the true national glory; and if he followed it some time, he gained at last the merited odium of posterity and the contempt of all honest and right-minded foreigners." At the same moment, nearly thirty millions of the native population, the descendants of those whom he was mainly instrumental in saving from slavery and consequent destruction, sent forth daily their grateful hymns in praise of his virtues, and in their orisons besought the heavenly grace to grant sweet repose to his imperishable soul.
Well does he deserve their gratitude. At the beginning, Las Casas was a missionary unto the missions; he taught the clergy first that the natives were intellectual beings like themselves; he organized the movement for the extirpation of slavery; he instructed them how to appeal to the conscience of the dying man holding fellow-men in bondage; he ordered them to refuse the sacraments to the strong, who approached the holy altar; he reported the plan for the missionary government to the sovereigns in Spain; he organized it in America; and originated the method by which the docile creatures were collected into communities or pueblos, far removed from the white race; he laid down the rules for the hours of labor and repose, for their instruction and for their civilization. He instituted the regulations for the guidance of the priests, and instilled into them the duty of watching over their flock at all times, in all places; to shield them from oppression; to alleviate their distress in sickness; to soothe them in affliction; to counsel them when in health; to be their guide, comforter, and friend. Nor has one of his teachings been changed or set aside. They remain to this day in full vigor in every pueblo, from the furthest confines of California to the most remote mission of Paraguay. When he passed away from earth, at the extreme age of ninety-two, the spirit with which his zeal was animated, was caught up by the priesthood who sat at his feet to listen to his inspired words. The germ he planted in their bosom grew with their growth, strengthened with their strength. A world was redeemed, and an humble monk from Seville, a truly God-fearing man, Bartoleme Las Casas, was their redeemer.
The time has gone by when the European mind can do him justice. Colonial affairs of the Western continent have no longer an interest in that quarter. His native land has thrown him off. It is only in America the greatness of his achievement can be portrayed, the lustre of his fame renewed. Nor can this pleasing task be accomplished in Spanish America, where as yet a provincial literature prevails. It must come, if come at all, from out of our own republic. More than one half of the immense, wide-spreading territory of the United States once belonged to Spain; and Spanish missionary institutions, laws, customs, and manners underlie the Anglo-Saxon historical, legislative, and judicial superstructure of a later period. Jurists are now in search, groping in the dark, for the clue to that seemingly inextricable labyrinth of civilization on which Spanish-American history is founded, and from whence contemporaneous laws and customs are derived, in order to elucidate intricate principles daily arising in the adjudication of titles to lands.