Alice J. Knight

“ Alvarado had carried on a terrible war in Guatemala. Thousands of Indians had been killed, tortured, and made slaves. The people of the district where Las Casas intended to try his experiment were a hardy, warlike race, and their country was a land of steep mountains, deep ravines, and many furious mountain torrents. They had fought desperately for their liberty. Three times the Spaniards had attempted to conquer them, and each time had been driven back. They were a terror to the white men, and not a Spaniard dared to go near them. It was rightly named The Land of War. ”

“ This was a great comfort, for the brothers were very fond of each other, and Columbus needed all the help he could get. He made Bartholomew governor of Hispaniola, but no governor could do very much with such a company of lawless adventurers as were these Spaniards. Like a great many people of to-day, they wanted to get rich quickly and without working. They spent their time in fighting, roaming about the country, abusing the Indians, and killing them and one another. At length the natives, exasperated beyond endurance, rose against them as before, and many Spaniards lost their lives. ”

“ Renteria was a quiet, thoughtful, unworldly man, humble and plain in his ways, though of considerable learning. Las Casas seems to have been very fond of him, though he tells us but little about him.
The two friends soon had a large house built, in which they lived happily for a year, using the enslaved Indians to cultivate the plantation and work the mines; for as yet neither of them had a thought that it was wrong to hold slaves, and believed that they were doing their duty to these natives by being kind to them and carefully instructing them in the truths of Christianity. ”

“ Las Casas had learned by this time that the desire for wealth must be considered in any plan that he might make if he wanted it to succeed, and he believed he knew of a way by which he could satisfy the King and at the same time carry out his design of converting the Indians by kindness. He thought he could find fifty men who would make the conversion and civilization of the Indians their first object. These fifty were to wear white dresses, with red crosses, so that the Indians would know them from other Spaniards. They were to teach the natives and protect them from all who would harm them. ”

“ Like the rest of the adventurers, he had come to seek his fortune in the New World, where there seemed such wonderful chances to grow rich. He obtained from the governor an estate of his own, took Indians as slaves, and sent some of them to work in the mines, though he did not abuse nor overwork them, as others did. For eight years he not only held Indians as slaves, but he was with Ovando during a second war against the natives in one of the provinces of Hispaniola, and saw terrible deeds of cruelty, yet never appears to have made a single protest. ”

“ Four Dominicans, who had been sent from Hispaniola to found a community, arrived in Cuba about this time. They and Las Casas preached constantly and earnestly on the sin of holding the natives in slavery; but although the Spaniards were frightened, they were not turned from their evil ways, and Las Casas resolved to go to Spain and see if he could not so present the matter to the King that the whole system of dividing up the Indians and their lands among the white men, [Pg 30] to be their property, might be done away with. ”

“ All unknowing, he was to enter a fight that would last his life long and [Pg 13] cost him all that he held dear while struggling to protect the gentle, helpless natives of the New World from the cruelty and oppression of the Spaniards, until he should come to be called Las Casas "The Protector of the Indians." He had marked out one path for himself; God was to point out to him quite a different one. It is good to know that he "was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." ”

“ LAS CASAS CHAPTER I BARTOLOMÉ THE YOUTH
Whenever we hear of a famous man,—whether he be artist, author, statesman, soldier, scientist, great traveler, or missionary,—we like to know what sort of a boy he was. ”

“ Just after Las Casas reached the Indies a man named Juan Bono, a shipmaster, arrived there with a shipload of Indians, whom he had kidnaped in the island of Trinidad. He himself told the clerico how it was done.
He had gone to the island with sixty men and told the Indians that they had come to live with them. The Indians received them kindly, brought them food, and, as Bono said himself, treated them like brothers. Bono told them that the white men would like a large house to live in, and the Indians at once went to work to build it for them. ”

“ The activity of Las Casas was marvelous. His longest work was his "History of the Indies." At the age of ninety he wrote a "Memorial on Peru," said to be one of his best, and two years later, in 1566, he went to Madrid to speak in person for the Indians of Guatemala. He had heard through the Dominicans that that province had been deprived of its governing body, so that the Indians had no chance of justice, having to go to Mexico if they wished to make any appeal. He was successful in this mission, and the Audiencia was restored to Guatemala. ”

“ God's providence brings such a life into the world, the memory of it must be cherished by mankind as one of its most precious and sacred possessions. For the thoughts, the words, the deeds, of such a man there is no death. ”

“ Pedro de Cordova sympathized heartily with Las Casas, though warning him that he would meet with many difficulties; but the man who is afraid to undertake a thing because of the difficulties in the way is not much of a man, [Pg 32] and Las Casas was only the more determined to keep on. The Dominicans were very poor and had never been able to finish their humble monastery building, so they sent Father Montesino, who had preached the famous sermon against slavery the year after their coming to Hispaniola, with Las Casas to Spain, that he might try to raise the money needed ”

“ They were used as slaves by the white men, being forced to cultivate the land for their conquerors and to work in the gold mines. The poor creatures, whose lives had been so simple as to require no hard labor, died by the thousands, and many were whipped to death or killed outright, so that in a little while that beautiful island became a place of great suffering, and the Spaniards were feared and hated by those gentle natives, who at their coming had been ready to welcome them as friends. ”

“ The bread of the needy is their life; he that defraudeth them thereof is a man of blood.
He that taketh away his neighbor's living slaveth him, and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a bloodshedder.
As Las Casas read these verses he seemed to hear the voice of God speaking to his heart. He remembered Montesino's sermon, he thought of all the cruelties and injustices from which the gentle, helpless Indians suffered. At last his [Pg 29] eyes were opened, and he saw plainly that it was neither right to take the lands and the property of the natives nor to hold them as slaves. ”

“ Proud, stately Spaniards, in velvets and laces; blanketed Indians, silent and stolid; naked heathens, eager to see the man whom they knew as their protector! But Las Casas was glad to see them all, and [Pg 77] leaving the ship, they all went up together to the church, where after the service the Spaniards came to kiss the episcopal ring, and after them the Indians.
At first the Bishop was received with politeness and apparent kindness, but in spite of this all the Spaniards were resolved to resist the new laws and not to acknowledge Las Casas as their Bishop nor pay him their tithes. ”

“ What Las Casas wanted them to do, and what the law required also, was to take away all the Indians from the Spaniards and set them free. This meant to ruin the owners, since all they had came through the forced labor of the natives. The monks were not men of the determined character necessary for such an act, nor were they endowed with the courage to face the storm it would have brought about their ears. Few men are like the clerico, who was afraid of nobody. ”

“ Immediately upon their arrival, the Bishop came to the monastery and had a long conversation with the prince. So much struck was he with the Indian's knowledge of the Christian faith, and with his dignity and intelligence, that he asked Alvarado to come and see him also. Although this great captain held the [Pg 70] life of an Indian of no more worth than that of a dog, yet he was so pleased with the prince, that wanting to make him a present, but having nothing with him for that purpose, he took off his own red velvet cap and placed it upon Don Juan's head. ”

“ While in The Land of War Las Casas went further north, and whenever he returned was always welcomed. As the people became [Pg 69] Christian, he realized that in order to teach them, it would be necessary to get them together in towns, where many could be reached by one man. After much difficulty, this was accomplished and several such towns were built, Don Juan's town being called Rabinal.
After a time Las Casas sent for Luis Cancer, who when he came brought with him a contract, signed by the governor, securing the practical independence of the Indians of The Land of War. ”

“ In later life we find him impetuous, loving, tireless in energy, with a fiery temper that blazed out in quick wrath against all injustice and cruelty toward the weak and helpless, possessing a brilliant mind and great talents, never giving up striving against the wrong, and never knowing when he was beaten. [Pg 10] These qualities he must have possessed in some measure as a boy, but, unfortunately, no historian has opened up for us those early pages.
Bartolomé was born in the city of Seville, Spain, in the year 1474. ”

“ There had been for some time both Franciscan monks and Dominican fathers on the mainland of South America, working among the natives. Pedro de Cordova, the head of the Dominicans in the Indies, wrote to Las Casas at about this time, asking him to get the King to grant a certain territory on the mainland, where no white men except the Dominicans and Franciscans should be allowed to go ”

“ Not one of the one hundred and eighty kidnaped Indians was set free, and neither Bono nor any of the judges who had sent him was punished.
One day a priest came to the Protector of the Indians to tell him how the native laborers in the mines near San Domingo were abused. He said he had seen them lying in the fields, sick from overwork, covered with flies, and nobody cared enough to give them food or drink; but their owners allowed them to lie there and die in this way. Las Casas took him by the hand and led him to the fathers, to whom he repeated this story ”

“ That colonists should be sent out at the expense of the King and be cared for until they should be able to manage for themselves, when they should begin to pay tribute to the crown. In order to supply laborers, Las Casas suggested that each Spaniard should have permission to import twelve negro slaves. This he did because the Indians died by hundreds from the hard labor in the mines, while he had observed that the negroes endured it much better. ”

“ Holding it up, he said that this was the god of the Christians and called upon his people to dance before this god and worship him, and perhaps he would not allow the Spaniards to harm them.
Poor old chief! Driven from one hiding place to another, he was taken at last; and because he had tried to escape his oppressors and defend his people, he was condemned to be burned alive. When he was tied to the stake a Franciscan priest came up to him and told him that, although there was but little time, yet if he would believe the Christian faith and be baptized he would be saved. ”

“ Las Casas was the only priest on the island of Cuba, and at Pentecost (Whitsunday) he arranged to go and preach and say mass in the new town of Sancti Spiritus. In looking for a text, he came across some verses in the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, which made him stop and think whether after all he was right in making the Indians work for him as slaves. These are the verses:
He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ridiculous, and the gifts of unjust men are not accepted. ”

“ A church was erected, a number of houses built, and the whole surrounded by a strong wall. This being done, he placed his brother Diego in charge, and started off with three ships to make further explorations.
On this voyage he coasted along the southern shore of Cuba, discovered Jamaica and a number of smaller islands, and sailed all around Hispaniola. But he was worn out with excitement and fatigue. Discovering new countries is hard work, and it is still harder to try to govern unruly and evil men. He became very ill, and was brought back to Isabella quite unconscious. ”

“ Of course every one was curious to hear what would be said, and when Sunday came the church was crowded. There was the governor, Diego Columbus, in his pew, with his wife,—a grand-niece of King Ferdinand,—and there were the officers of the colony, all the prominent citizens, in fact, everybody in the town. Father Montesino preached from the text: I am "the voice of one crying in the wilderness."
He told the congregation that they were living in mortal sin because of their cruelty and their tyranny over the innocent natives. ”

“ When Las Casas heard of it, he insisted upon having provisions sent after them; but it was too late to benefit many of them, for numbers had died of the hardships suffered, and those who lived and stayed in the Indies proved a very bad addition to the white population.
Meanwhile, the Grand Chancellor had died, and Bishop Fonseca was again at the head of Indian affairs, much to the clerico's grief. Fonseca refused to do anything at all for the colonists, and as Las Casas would not allow them to go under such conditions of neglect, the plan fell through. ”