Las Casas Part 6

There the notary of the council came to him and respectfully presented a pet.i.tion from the townspeople, asking that they have confessors appointed. The Bishop a.s.sented and named two; but these not being acceptable, he chose two others, whose views were not very well known to the people, but whom he knew to be in sympathy with himself. The brother who was with him, not understanding the character of the men he had last appointed and thinking he was yielding to pressure, took hold of his vestments and cried:

"Let your lordship rather die than do this!"

At that a tumult broke out in the church, and the people would have a.s.saulted the speaker, if at that moment two monks of the Order of Mercy had not entered the building and succeeded in getting the Bishop and the offending father out in safety,--taking them to their convent.

Las Casas had walked all night, and the fatigue of the journey and the excitement of this meeting had left him much exhausted, but he was not yet to have rest.

He was seated in his cell, and the monks were giving him some refreshment, when a fearful uproar was heard outside, and the convent was found to be surrounded by armed men. Some of them forced their way into the Bishop's presence. At first there was such a noise that it was impossible to hear what it was all about, but at last it appeared that it was because the Indian sentinels had been bound and treated as prisoners.

Las Casas at once said that he alone was to blame for this, and explained that it was done for fear they should be suspected of favoring him.

Then a storm of abuse broke out against the Bishop, no feeling of respect for his office nor of consideration for his age restraining them.

Meanwhile, while this was going on within, a scene of violence was taking place in the courtyard. The mob attacked the negro who attended the Bishop in all his travels. This negro was of great stature and the Bishop in jest called him Juanillo (Little John). He had traveled three times across the continent with the Bishop, and always carried him in his arms when fording the swollen streams. Juanillo was wounded with a pike thrust and stretched on the ground. The monks rushed out to help him and two of them,--very strong young men,--succeeded in clearing the courtyard.

All this took place before nine o'clock in the morning. By noon there was a revulsion of feeling,--the minds of the citizens had entirely changed. The members of the council came humbly to the convent, asked the Bishop's pardon on their knees, and kissed his hands. They then carried him in festive procession to the house of one of the princ.i.p.al citizens, and sent him costly presents. Finally, they arranged a grand tournament in his honor.

It is doubtful if this sudden change in their treatment of him was especially gratifying to the Bishop, as it indicated fickleness and lack of depth in the people he had come to rule. Indeed neither he nor the monks had been in any way misled by this demonstration as to what was likely to happen in the future. While the peace lasted his adherents made haste to send plenty of provisions to the Bishop's house, lest he be starved out when it was over.

Las Casas was now about to go to Mexico, to attend a meeting of all the bishops in the New World, who were to confer concerning all questions concerning the Indians. While he was making his preparations, Juan Rogel,--the auditor appointed by the council at Gracias a Dios to see to the enforcement of the new laws,--arrived. He listened respectfully to all the Bishop had to say, and then advised him to hasten his departure.

"For," said he, "one of the reasons that has made these laws hateful in the Indies, is the fact that you have had a hand in them."

And Rogel went on to explain that he would be able to act with much more freedom in his absence.

Las Casas recognized the truth of this, and made all haste to get away.

He left his diocese just a year after he had entered it.

Although the news had not yet reached him, the Emperor had been obliged practically to revoke the new laws, because of the tumults and rebellions they had caused in his American possessions. We can imagine the Bishop's grief and dismay when he heard of this.

On arriving at the city of Mexico, where the episcopal council was to be held, there was such a tumult that one would have thought a hostile army was about to take possession of the place instead of one poor missionary bishop and four humble monks approaching the walls on foot. The authorities were obliged to write and ask Las Casas to delay his entrance a little, until they could quiet popular excitement.

The Bishop at length came into the city about ten o'clock one morning, and went at once to the Dominican monastery.

The synod or council that Las Casas had come to attend was composed of five or six bishops and the chief theologians and learned men of the colony. Las Casas soon became its leading spirit. Some very bold declarations were made in favor of the Indians, but the question of slavery was very unwillingly touched upon. However, the Viceroy, who was president of the meeting, finally appointed a special council to meet and discuss this matter. The result of the deliberations of both bodies on the subject was that all Indian slaves, except a few renegade rebels, had been enslaved unjustly, and that all personal service imposed upon those that were not slaves was unlawful.

Of course these conclusions could not be forced upon the country; but copies of them were distributed all over the province, in the hope that they might have an effect upon the minds of men.

Las Casas had now fully decided that he could do more for the Indians in Spain than in his diocese, especially as he could be kept constantly informed by the Dominicans as to what was going on. He therefore appointed a Vicar-General to take his place, and sailed from Vera Cruz in 1547, leaving the sh.o.r.es of America for the last time.

CHAPTER XII

AT COURT

Father Luis Cancer and Father Ladrada were both with Las Casas in Spain.

One of the first things Las Casas did, with the approval of the Prince, was to organize a missionary expedition to Florida, with Father Luis Cancer at the head of it. There this faithful friend and devoted missionary soon after met his death at the hands of the Indians.

While in Chiapa the Bishop had written a little book of instructions to his clergy. Formal objection to its teachings was laid before the Council of the Indies, and its author was summoned to come before that body and explain himself. This he did to their entire satisfaction, though not to that of his enemies, who engaged the most famous theologian and lawyer in Spain, Juan Gines Sepulveda, to dispute the position of Las Casas and answer his arguments. Sepulveda had written a treatise upholding the conquest of the New World by war. The Council of the Indies would not allow this book to be published, but Las Casas had asked them to allow it to be submitted to the universities of Salamanca and Alcala for their opinion. This opinion proved to be against it.

Las Casas now undertook to answer Sepulveda's arguments and defend the freedom of his Indians. The war of words waxed fast and furious, and the controversy attracted so much attention that the Emperor ordered the India Council to a.s.semble at Valladolid, to decide whether a war of conquest might justly be carried on against the Indians. The Emperor himself presided, and Las Casas and Sepulveda argued the question before them all. It appears to have been a drawn battle; but at length the Council decided in favor of Sepulveda. The Emperor and the officials of the government, however, must have been of another opinion, for Sepulveda's book was suppressed. At the time of this controversy Las Casas was seventy-six years old.

Soon after this Las Casas resigned his bishopric and the Emperor granted him a pension. He made his home in the Dominican college of St. Gregory, at Valladolid, where his old friend Father Ladrada was with him.

And now, after having labored for the Indians for so many years, crossing and recrossing the ocean, traveling over hundreds of miles of wild country on foot, like St. Paul, "in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea,"

he might be seen, day after day and night after night, sitting at his desk, writing letters, memorials, and pamphlets in defense of his beloved Indians. He kept up a constant correspondence with all parts of the New World, and when he heard of any new outrage on the part of the Spaniards against the natives, he at once brought it to the attention of Prince Philip, now regent of the kingdom.

At the end of the year 1551 a number of Dominicans and Franciscans having been induced through his appeals to go out to the Indies, Las Casas went to Seville to see them off. For some reason they were delayed there for ten months, and during that time he was kept busy editing a number of his works, keeping two printing-presses going all the time.

Las Casas must have had a wonderful const.i.tution. His hard life in a tropical country had neither weakened his body nor impaired his mind.

All his time from the day of his return to Spain to the time of his death was spent in defense of the Indians; and through his untiring efforts their condition was much improved in Mexico and elsewhere.

Laws had already been pa.s.sed which allowed the _encomiendas_, as the grants of land and Indians in Spanish America were called, to be held in a family only during two lifetimes. They then reverted to the crown.

Thus the Indians were being gradually emanc.i.p.ated. There were also officers appointed to protect the interests of the crown in the reversion, so that it was no longer possible to repeat the horrors of Hispaniola.

When Las Casas heard that the proposal had been made to allow the holders of _encomiendas_ to get possession of them in perpetuity, he went at once to the King and succeeded in preventing it. As Fiske says:

"It is worth remembering that pretty much the only praiseworthy thing Philip ever did was done under Las Casas' influence."

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.

This was the last work of Las Casas. In July of that year, while still in Madrid, he was taken ill and died after a short illness, at the age of ninety-two.

As he lay dying, his brethren, the Dominicans, kneeling about the bed and reciting the prayers for the dying, he begged them to persevere in their defense of the Indians, and asked them to join him in prayer that he might be forgiven any remissness on his part in the fulfillment of his mission. He was beginning to tell them how he came to enter upon this work when his spirit departed.

Thousands of people attended the funeral of Las Casas. He was buried in Madrid, in the convent chapel of "Our Lady of Atocha."

In early American history there is no one who stands on a level with this remarkable man. Many bitter enemies he had, it is true; such a man,--fearless, outspoken, able, never to be silenced when he was convinced of the righteousness of his cause,--was bound to have. Never during the many years of his long life, did the Indians lack a friend to plead in their behalf. Amid the cupidity, cruelty, and injustice of the Spaniards in the New World his character shines like a star in the darkness of night. We can't do better in closing than to quote the words in which Fiske speaks of him:

"In contemplating such a life as that of Las Casas, all words of eulogy seem weak and frivolous. The historian can only bow in reverent awe before a figure which is, in some respects, the most beautiful and sublime in the annals of Christianity since the Apostolic age. When now and then in the course of the centuries G.o.d'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. The sphere of their influence goes on widening forever. They bud, they blossom, they bear fruit, from age to age."