Chapter 18

COLONIES. ARRIVAL IN CHIAPA

Before sailing to take possession of his diocese, Las Casas addressed the following letter of farewell to Prince Philip (afterwards Philip II.), then governing in the name of the Emperor, his father:

VERY HIGH AND VERY POTENT LORD: I received two letters simultaneously from Your Highness: the date of the last was April 1st and accompanying it was the Royal cedula concerning the passage from Hispaniola to Honduras for the monks whom Your Highness is sending to those provinces. For all of which I kiss your Royal hands and for your kindness in granting that the bulls should be sent so promptly as to reach me in time to serve at my consecration, which, by divine grace, took place here in San Pablo on Passion Sunday as I already wrote Your Highness the day after. I trust to God our Lord that this dignity, to which, by divine Providence, our lord and sovereign the Emperor has elevated me, despite any unworthiness and inability to support it, may prove a sufficient instrument for better fulfilling my old desires to do the will of God, of which God has deigned to make use in those countries. It is His will that His Holy Faith should be preached and that the beings he has created and redeemed should know Him and that His predestined ones should be saved and His Majesty and Your Highness receive great services. Concerning the two hundred and fifty ducats which Your Highness granted me, the officials of this house have not yet obtained them, but I hope they will seek them and supply them in the end, though it may be with difficulty, because everybody is aware that His Majesty has no money in this house and that so many demands daily arise that there is not a man who will lend a maravedi to His Majesty. In truth, this is very injurious to His Majesty’s service and to the greatness of his imperial State, because, according as his enemies learn that this house is rich or is in want of money—so will they either fear him or presume to cause him annoyances. In order that this house should always enjoy confidence to guarantee the above mentioned, it seems that Your Highness ought to command that, just as they keep account of what is spent in keeping an army and in feeding those who are actually in attendance, night and day, on the royal and imperial person of His Majesty and on Your Highness, so also should it be provided that when this house has a surplus of twenty or thirty thousand ducats, it should be reported to have one or two hundred thousand. Such sums should never, on account of any other necessity, be lacking here, for they would be useful for many things and by the credit they would give, the greatest wants could be met. I shall report, as Your Highness ordered, the number and names of the friars now sailing, as soon as we are all united, God willing, at San Lucar.

Up to now I think we have forty-three. I am in hopes of more going from this province, from which we have seven or eight. But all those who are going, do not want to separate from those who come from Castile or to go to any other part of the Indies except where the latter do: the men from here are very virtuous and religious people. The number I have said we have here would have been greater, had not some six or eight of those whom we brought from Castile stayed behind. I think that some were afraid and others were detained by reasonable obstacles: the latter, we hope will follow us when the causes are removed. I beg Your Highness to order the Provincial, who is now appointed to this province and who was formerly Prior of San Pablo in Valladolid, a true servant of God, and very zealous for God’s honour and for the salvation of the Indians, to be induced to continually send monks to those parts, as I firmly believe he will amply comply.

This house of San Pablo in Seville being very necessary for the religious Your Highness will be sending to the Indies, and having great expenses on account of the poverty and want of this city, where everything costs a third more than in Valladolid—which is frightful—I humbly beseech Your Highness always to remember it by gifts and by such alms as it may be possible to bestow on it: especially out of the funds of the dead. For I hold it to be as necessary to give alms to the house, and just as beneficial to the souls of the dead—to whom the fund belongs—as it is to give for the maintenance of the friars who go to preach the gospel in those parts where the deceased unrighteously amassed the riches they left behind them. Your Highness may believe that the protection and good treatment shown here to the friars, tend to dispel their fears of the labours which friars in the Indies usually sustain. Without such encouragement everything would be just the contrary, and some would be frightened and discouraged, as has heretofore happened. Certainly, up to the present, great have been the care and comfort that our companions, servants of God, have received here from the provincial and the prior. Twenty or twenty-two have been given shelter here. I therefore beg Your Highness to bear this in mind, should there be an occasion in the future to grant them any favour or alms. In this city and throughout Andalusia there is a large number of Indians held unjustly as slaves; and when the licentiate Gregorio Lopez was here by order of His Majesty, they kept many Indians imprisoned after the order was given for their release, some being hidden and others taken into the country and elsewhere. I have even been told by a man who knows—to clear his conscience—that there was a great deal of bribery and corruption among wicked people, who used three or four or ten ducats to outrage God, stealing the liberty of the Indians and thus leaving many in perpetual slavery: they also hid the truth by threatening the Indians who showed themselves and by other means, such as withholding facts from the licentiate Gregorio Lopez which he could not divine, but which should have been told him. The only remedy for such injustices, according to the officials of this house who are very good people as far as I can see and who have consciences, is that Your Highness should order to be proclaimed throughout Andalusia that all those who have Indians must bring or send them to this house within a certain time, otherwise they shall all be considered as free; adding other penalties for noncompliance. According to the provision made by His Majesty, there should be an immediate settlement of the pretensions of those who allege a title by purchase, which allows them to hold an Indian as a slave until it is ascertained from whom he was first acquired; for they stole them all and sold them when they arrived here. Any such Indian should not remain in their possession but should be placed where he could earn enough to clothe himself and save sufficient to return to his country—because they subject him to a thousand oppressions and cruelties. I have seen things of that sort daily since my arrival. San Pablo is crowded with Indians who think that I can take them or can relieve their captivity and the torments they suffer. And their masters, discovering this by their absence promptly beat them and put them in irons, even those whom the licentiate Gregorio Lopez left neither in slavery nor free. Not to prolong this letter, I do not relate many other things to Your Highness.

I likewise beg Your Highness to order some relief that is final and not indefinite, for the men who were thus left neither slaves nor free: because I do not know what relief it can be considered, to leave them neither free nor slaves until they die; for meanwhile, they are daily treated worse and worse by those who call them slaves and dogs, because they consider that the licentiate Gregorio Lopez approved of their captivity, etc., tying their hands the more tightly. I have seen what I state ever since I came here. Your Highness would both laugh at and abominate the spice dealers of this city, who barter spices for Indians and for gold (as it is they who mostly own them), and their fierceness in making war on the Indians, that makes them to seem like dummy lions, painted. What I wish Your Highness would do to protect all such Indians as are left neither slaves or freemen and all who are bound in any way, would be to oblige their owners to exhibit a receipt of the sale: because it is clear to every one, save to those whose perceptions God has allowed to be weakened by their malice, audacity, and ambition, that there has never been a war in all the Indies for which there was any real authority given by His Majesty or by his royal predecessors. The royal instructions on this point have never been heeded, as I have seen and on my conscience affirm, and as all those violaters admit. Consequently, as there was never just cause, it follows that all the wars were unjust and that no Indians could have been justly enslaved: all the more so since the Spaniards attacked them in time of peace and captured millions of them. This being the real truth, Your Highness should order that all such owners be obliged to prove the title of him who sold any such Indian, and so on back till the first one who stole or treacherously captured him is unearthed. In the meantime the Indians should be taken from them and placed as above indicated, all of which should be done within a limited time, so that the legal proceedings would not last eternally; and when they are finished the said Indian should be declared free.

But what I would take on my conscience and would answer for to God on my deathbed is, that Your Highness should proclaim throughout this kingdom that all the Indians here must be free—because in truth they are just as free as I am. In this Casa de Contractacion, outside its judges and officials such as the treasurer, accountant, and agents, who seem to me to be those I have mentioned above, and some few minor officials, I see there is little zeal or kindness for the Indians, and I observe such disinclination to accomplish anything in their favour, that however small may be the pendulum, they work it with as much effort as though it were a tower they had to move.

Truly I think Your Highness must order everything to be done gratis and willingly;—or if not, then pay somebody who will do it. There is very great need here for somebody to help these poor Indians, being as they are, in great want and more than miserable, because they do not know how to ask for justice. They have been so intimidated and thrust down into the very abyss that they dare not complain. I do not find a single man who will take pity on them: but on the contrary, every on persecutes, terrorizes, and despises them. And I am sure God will execute justice and exact vengeance for all this. It would be well if Your Highness would order a salary to be paid some man who would act as their lawyer in the House, commanding all necessary authority to be attached to his office, and that the officials should help him in it. If it is necessary to consult His Majesty for this, do not let these poor wretches suffer for want of protection as they have always done. There is a porter in this House, a good man who, according to what I have seen and the officials told me, has repeatedly taken pity on them, and I beseech Your Highness to grant me and all the Indians the favour of ordering him to be appointed as protector of all the Indians in this Kingdom and of their affairs in this House, authorising him to report all the happenings of any importance to Your Highness and to the Royal Council of the Indies. Let this power be given to Diego Collantes, porter of the said House; and to ensure his using it the more faithfully until Your Highness pleases to grant him a salary, I will pay him twenty ducats yearly, so that he may do his duty in the said office. The truth is, that although he is a good man, the position needs a man with much more authority but for the present he would suffice. Juan de la Quadra, who was secretary to the licentiate Gregorio Lopez while he was here, spoke to me about these matters. He seems to me an honest, upright person and one who feels deeply the crimes committed in this city against the Indians. He is writing to Your Highness on the subject and I beseech Your Highness to order some remedy provided for the actual necessities. He informs me that he is writing in the sense of what I said above.

The licentiate Bartolomé Ortiz did not bring his Indians to be registered within the period intimated to him and says that he protested against the sentence before this Royal Council, also with regard to other Indians whom he held as slaves, despite the fact that they were free. Amongst these was an Indian woman who was beyond question free, and had been declared free by Gregorio Lopez, who left orders for her to be sent at the licentiate’s expense to the island of Cuba from whence he brought her. Ortiz also appealed from this decision. As I asked that she might now be given the letter and order of Your Highness permitting her to return with this fleet, Ortiz presented a statement showing that his case was at present in appeal before this Royal Council.

I beseech Your Highness not to permit these appeals and delays in cases which are favourable to the liberty of the Indians and of everybody in the world, because there will be no end to them nor will a single Indian ever obtain his liberty. I beg that Your Highness will order this Indian woman and the others to be liberated and allowed to return to their country.

It is indeed a great weight on my conscience to leave the Indians in this country, because, as they only mix with servants and other unmanageable and vicious persons and see the taverns full of loose people, without order or restraint, and other public places full of bad examples, it must happen that they, being human, will follow the example of their companions. In their own country, on the contrary, they live much better than here, even if there are not so many Christians. I beseech Your Highness to issue such orders that not one man of them may remain here.

It would also be well if Your Highness ordered an explanation of the proclamation that you commanded to be published throughout all the Indies, prohibiting the officials of India House from receiving Indians into this kingdom: also instructions as to what they must do to forbid this traffic, under penalty of death, to ship captains and sailors, so that no one would dare to bring an Indian, nor allow one to be brought here. Let them know that they are forewarned in such cases.

Thinking there was nothing doubtful in the cedulas Your Highness sent for the departure of these religious I did not care to exhibit the cedula until the very end, in case we took besides the forty, an excess of stores, etc. Now that I have shown it to the officials, they maintain that, as it does not expressly state that those above the number of forty should be provided for out of the funds of the dead, but from the money in the charge of the treasurers, they do not intend to provide for more than the forty, lest they should have to pay out of their own pockets. I beseech Your Highness graciously to order this settled at once, so that we shall not be forced to leave behind the religious we hope to embark, in addition to the forty. And let this be done soon, for we are only waiting for good weather. The heavy rains which have fallen daily have prevented the launching of two or three of the vessels. To-day the river from its source has abated. Our Lord prosper and grant a long and happy life to Your Highness. Amen. Seville 20th April 1544. Your humble servant who kisses Your Royal hands.

To-night the following occurred—an Indian came to me complaining that notwithstanding his certificate of freedom, given him by Gregorio Lopez, his owner kept him in slavery and treated him worse than a slave, sending him out with a donkey to carry and sell water. He showed me his certificate of freedom, in the presence of ten or twelve monks. I told him to go to-day to the Casa de Contractacion so that its officials might correct the abuse, and I sent a servant with him to show him the building—because if his master found out, he would keep him until he called in the officials. Finally his owner discovered him and took the letter and tore it up. He said “bring chains and put them on this dog.” The Indian escaped through a window and they cried after him, “Thief, thief,” so that somebody down below came and beat him, and stabbed him in the jaw. He managed to reach a place where some of my servants were, and they are trying to cure him: but he is dying. One of my servants went to the assistant to tell him what had happened, but the latter answered that he was not astonished that people killed the Indians, because they stole and did much harm. I beg Your Highness to note how destitute they are of any pity. With judges so cruelly unjust and tyrannical, Your Highness may imagine what sort of things happen over there [in the colonies] with the Spaniards against the Indians, when they dare do these things in Seville where, the other day a judge ordered an Indian to be stabbed to death.

FRAY BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS, BISHOP OF CHIAPA.

The voyage began badly, for the _San Salvador_ was poorly ballasted and only arrived at Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, after considerable difficulty and danger, on the 19th of July, and was detained there for ten days until the ship was made seaworthy. Some of the friars who were unfamiliar with sea-voyages conceived such mistrust of the _San Salvador_ that they refused to again go aboard her, so it was necessary to distribute these nineteen timid souls amongst the other ships. The 30th of July saw the fleet again at sea, and the voyage to Hispaniola continued without any untoward incident, until the 9th of September, when they arrived in the harbour of Santo Domingo, where the same vessel on which Las Casas and the twenty-seven friars were, ran on a rock and came near being wrecked in sight of land: hardly was this disaster surmounted when she collided with another of the ships to the imminent peril of both, though, fortunately, with no great injury to either.

The Dominicans in Santo Domingo conducted the Bishop and his friars in solemn procession to the convent, where Te Deum Laudamus was sung.

In striking contrast to this affectionate reception was that which awaited him from the colonists. The New Laws were regarded as the ruin of the colonies and Las Casas was universally considered the inspirer, if not actually the framer of these laws, hence the indignation and hatred of the Spaniards against him and all Dominicans was at fever heat: meetings were held, in which it was resolved to boycott the friars and refuse them all alms or assistance. Seeing the odium he had unwittingly wrought upon his hosts, the Bishop was inclined to leave their convent and go to the Franciscans, but this was rightly considered as likely to spread the antagonism which had so far manifested itself against the Dominicans only. Even before things had reached this point, Las Casas had already written Prince Philip on the 15th of September, denouncing the cruelties which still went on unchecked and mentioning by name a number of officials who were unworthy to occupy the positions they held, because of the grave abuses they committed and tolerated.

On September 10th a letter which shows the state of public feeling towards the New Laws and the new Bishop was addressed to the Emperor by the principal colonists of Nicaragua.

The signers avow their surprise that their twenty-five or thirty years of services to the Crown should be rewarded by seeing their children disinherited, and declare that if the New Laws are put in force, despite their cries to high heaven for justice, it will only remain for many of them to die. Las Casas is denounced as an envious, vainglorious, and turbulent monk, who has been expelled from every colony in the Indies and whom even no monastery can tolerate. He is charged with bringing ruin on large numbers of people, solely because revengeful motives prompt him to injure certain individuals. It is also pointed out that he knows nothing about affairs in New Spain and the mainland, having spent all his life in Cuba and the islands.

However much Las Casas may have deplored the feeling his presence provoked and especially the rancour he had stirred up against his brethren, whose only offence lay in giving him hospitality, he did not allow his regrets on this score to arrest or modify the steps he intended to take to enforce obedience to the New Laws. Shortly after his arrival, he presented copies of the laws and of the other royal ordinances which he carried, to the Audiencia, asking that, in accordance with their provisions, all Indians then held in slavery should be liberated. Although the President, Cerrato, supported him, the other members of the Audiencia were one and all opposed. According to the current phrase, they agreed to _obey_ the law, but declared they could not _comply_ with it. They all held slaves themselves and the only result of the action of Las Casas was, that they sent their representatives to Spain to procure some reform in the more obnoxious articles of the code.

The presence of Las Casas in Hispaniola infused new courage into the Dominicans, who had been discouraged in recent years by the difficulty and hopelessness of contending against public opinion on the subject of the Indians and had consequently ceased to preach and agitate in their favour: some members of the community had even been affected by the prevalent opinion that the Indians were really a race of a different order, servile by nature, and destined by Providence to a life of subjection to their superiors. Learned arguments were found to sustain this opinion. The well-known chapters of Aristotle’s _Politics_ were quoted, the Scriptures were drawn upon, and, as not infrequently happens, many good men adopted the easier line of not contending with the views of the rich and powerful.

There now ensued a sort of revival of the old enthusiasm in the defence of the natives; sermons were preached which stirred up great wrath and provoked protest from the authorities. It was easy to adopt reprisals on the friars, and the colonists did not hesitate to do so, refusing alms and supplies to the convents. Threats of violence, even of shooting Fray Tomas Casillas, whose sermons had been particularly offensive, were not wanting, though fortunately they were not executed. The friars were reduced to the last extremity and, but for the charity of some few sympathisers and the generous aid of the Franciscan monks who fed them, they would have found themselves in want of the absolute necessaries of life in the midst of a hostile populace. At this juncture a notable conversion was effected by their preaching; a widow named Solano, who was reputed the richest person in the colony, came one day to the convent and declared that she was convinced of the truth of all the preachers had expounded concerning the iniquity of slavery and that she had in consequence resolved, not only to liberate her two hundred and more slaves, but to make restitution of her tainted wealth in as far as she could, by transferring her plantations to the Order, as her awakened conscience forbade her enjoyment of it. This event stirred the entire colony profoundly, and as the action of the friars was so clearly contrary to their own temporal interests as to place the sincerity of their convictions and the purity of their motive beyond question, a certain revulsion in public sentiment began to manifest itself. It is not recorded that anybody else followed the widow’s example, but such a change was operated in the disposition of the better class of people that when the time for Las Casas and his friars to leave arrived, regret for their departure was expressed on all sides. On December 14th they embarked on what proved to be a long and tempestuous voyage, attended by many and great dangers; owing to the ignorance of the pilot, the Bishop himself had to take the wheel. Christmas was celebrated at sea, and it was not until the fifth of January that they finally landed at the port of Lazaro on the coast of Campeche. The first episcopal function performed by the Bishop in his new diocese was the pontifical celebration of the vigil and mass of the Epiphany, during which he delivered an earnest discourse on the one theme that furnished material for all his sermons and writings—the injustice and sin of slavery and the obligation resting on all Christian Spaniards to liberate their slaves in conformity with the laws of the Emperor, and to provide for their humane treatment and conversion, according to the law of God.