Chapter 3

A NEW WORLD

When Las Casas arrived in Hispaniola with Ovando, the new governor, they were greeted by the news that a huge nugget of gold had been found, weighing thirty-five pounds. It was shaped like a flat dish, and to celebrate the discovery of such a treasure, a banquet was given and a roast pig served up on this novel platter. The nugget was sent to Spain, as a present to King Ferdinand, on the same ship as the infamous Bobadilla, the deposed governor, but the ship was wrecked in a terrible storm soon after leaving port, and both the nugget and the governor went down into the depths of the ocean.

Las Casas and his companion also heard that there had been another uprising of the Indians and that many had been captured and made slaves.

Queen Isabella had instructed Ovando that the Indians must be free, only paying tribute, as all Spanish subjects did, and that they should be recompensed for the work they did in the mines. The good Queen little knew how far her officers were from treating them as she had commanded.

Las Casas does not seem to have felt any particular pity for the Indians in the beginning. 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. This seems very strange when we think of what he said and did against slavery a few years later, and how his whole after life was spent in the service of these oppressed people. His eyes, however, were not yet opened, and he looked at things after the fashion of his time.

Ovando was a good governor, Las Casas says, "but not for Indians." He was a little, fair-haired man, gentle in manner, and most polite, but he made everybody understand that he intended to be obeyed. When any gentleman became troublesome, Ovando would invite him to dine with him, talk so pleasantly and flatteringly to his guest that he would think the governor must mean to do something very grand for him, and then, suddenly pointing down the harbor, would ask in which of the ships lying at anchor the gentleman would like to take passage for Spain. The poor man, confused and alarmed, yet afraid to protest, would very likely say that he had no money to pay his fare. Whereupon the very polite little governor would at once tell him not to let that trouble him, as he, Ovando, would provide the funds. And off the gentleman would have to go from the dinner table to the ship.

But although Ovando ruled the white men well, he was neither just nor kind to the Indians. He gave them out in lots of fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred, to those who wanted them, and the poor creatures were worked to death and abused without mercy. When, in desperation, they would rise against their tyrants, they were punished savagely, being burned alive, torn to pieces by bloodhounds, and drowned in the ocean or the rivers, even helpless little children often being treated in this way.

In 1510 four Dominican friars came over to Hispaniola and settled in San Domingo. The Sunday after their arrival one of them preached a sermon on the glories of heaven,--a discourse that Las Casas heard, and one that made a great impression on him. In the afternoon the Prior asked to have the Indians sent to the church to be taught; so they came,--men, women, and children; and this custom the Dominicans continued every Sunday afterward.

Some time in this same year Las Casas was ordained priest. We should like to know how he came to take this step, but he tells us nothing about it. He threw himself into his new duties with the same energy that he had used in his business, and began at once to teach the Indians, as the Dominicans were doing. Whatever he did, all his life long, he did with all his might, and very soon he became famous all over the island for his learning and goodness.

The little settlement of four Dominicans had increased by the end of the next year to twelve; nor had they been there many months before they began to have their eyes opened to the wrongs the Indians were suffering at the hands of the white men.

A Spaniard who had killed his wife in a fit of jealousy and had been hiding for two or three years, repenting of his crime and tired of living in concealment and fear, came to the Dominicans by night and begged them to take him in and let him stay with them as a lay brother. When they were convinced that the man was truly repentant they received him. He told them of the dreadful cruelties of which he and others had been guilty toward the natives, and the good fathers soon felt that they must look into the matter. This they did, and were not long in coming to the conclusion that it was a great evil to make slaves of the Indians and that they must do something to put a stop to it. So they fasted and prayed, and conferred together, and finally decided that one of their number, Father Antonio Montesino, should preach a sermon on the subject.

The week before the sermon was to be preached all the Dominicans went throughout the town and invited every one, from the governor down to the humblest citizen, to come to the church on the following Sunday, which was the First Sunday in Advent, to hear the sermon, which, they said, would be upon a new subject, interesting to all of them.

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. He told them plainly that by their oppression, their cruel tortures, and the forced labor in the mines to which they subjected these helpless people, they were killing the whole race, and he declared that they had no chance of salvation while they continued in such sin.

You may be sure that Father Montesino's hearers were both frightened and angry at this bold sermon. All honor to the brave man who dared to preach it and to the little company of his brethren who stood with him! It was the first voice raised in the new world against slavery.

That afternoon the citizens had a meeting at the governor's house and appointed a committee to visit and rebuke the preacher. However, this accomplished nothing, as neither Father Montesino, the Prior of the little community, nor any of the brotherhood was at all moved by their threats, and all they obtained from the Dominicans was an agreement that Father Montesino should preach again the next Sunday and endeavor to please his congregation _as far as his conscience would permit_.

The committee told everybody that the Father was going to retract, and again the next Sunday the church was crowded to hear Montesino eat his own words. But, instead of the humble apology that was expected, his auditors received a more terrible rebuke than before, Montesino threatening them with eternal torments if they continued to illtreat the Indians, or engage in the slave trade.

Angry as the Spaniards were, they could do nothing, for the good fathers minded their blustering and threats not at all. Las Casas was partly in sympathy with the Dominicans, but he thought they went too far. He believed the Indians should be treated kindly, but saw no harm in slavery; for all that, however, he did not forget the sermon.

The next year Diego Columbus decided to conquer the island of Cuba, and he appointed Diego Valasquez, one of the most respected colonists in San Domingo, commander of the expedition. Valasquez was a warm friend of Las Casas', and after a time sent for him to act as his chaplain.

This war against the helpless and innocent natives was as cruel as all the others. They were chased and torn to pieces by bloodhounds; they were burned alive; their hands and feet were cut off, and those that were not killed were made slaves. Forced to work beyond their strength in the gold mines, half starved and beaten, their lives were full of misery, without a gleam of hope, and in despair numbers of them,--sometimes whole villages at a time,--committed suicide. One story is told that makes us smile, although it is so sad.

A whole village of Indians resolved to hang themselves and so escape their sufferings. In some way their master learned of their intention and came upon them just as they stood ready to carry it out.

"Go get me a rope, too," he said to them; "for I must hang myself with you." He told them they were so useful to him that he must go where they were going, so that they might still labor for him. They, believing that they could not free themselves from him even in the future life, sadly gave up their plan, and went to work again.

Las Casas did all he could to protect the Indians, and soon became known as their friend, and won their entire trust. They called him "Behique," which was the name they gave their magicians, and regarded him with awe. As the natives had no written language, the way in which the Spaniards conveyed information to one another by means of mysterious marks on paper seemed a kind of magic to them. When the expedition was approaching a town, Las Casas would send a messenger in advance, carrying a paper scrawled all over and hidden in a hollow reed. The messenger would show the paper to the Indians and tell them that the Christians were coming and the father wanted them to furnish so many huts for them to sleep in, so much food for them to eat, and so on, adding: "If you do not, Behique will be much displeased." So great was their confidence in him that they would at once obey his commands, which they believed the messenger had read from the paper, and in this way Las Casas was able to save them from the dreadful massacres that had so often wiped out whole villages.

But one day a terrible thing occurred. Valasquez had gone away to be married and had appointed a Spaniard, named Pamfilo de Narvaez, commander in his absence. The soldiers,--about three hundred in number,--drew near a village called Caonao, and stopped to eat in the dry bed of a river, where there were a great many stones on which they sharpened their swords. When, at length, they entered the town some two thousand natives were gathered together, all sitting peacefully on the ground to look at the wonderful strangers and especially to see the horses, at which they were never tired of gazing. About five hundred others were busy in one of the huts, preparing food for the Spaniards, as Las Casas had told them to do. Suddenly one of the soldiers drew his sword,--why, nobody ever knew,--and began slashing right and left at the defenseless Indians. Instantly the others followed his example, and before half of the Indians had realized what was happening, the place was piled with dead bodies. Las Casas, who was not present at the moment, hearing what was going on, in a white heat of rage rushed out into the square to stop the slaughter; but before he succeeded in doing this many hundred helpless men, women, and children had been butchered.

Not long after this dreadful event Valasquez returned to Cuba, and, the whole island being now subdued, he proceeded to found a number of towns and to divide the land and the Indians among the Spaniards. Las Casas and a dear friend of his, Pedro de Renteria, who had lived near him in Hispaniola, received together a whole village of Indians, and with them the land they had owned,--some of this land being the very best on the island.

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.