into America. The favorite sold his patent to some Genoese merchants for twenty-five thousand ducats, and they were the first who brought into a regular form that commerce for slaves between Africa and America which has since been carried on to such an amazing extent.

"But the Genoese merchants, (1518,) conducting their operations at first with the rapacity of monopolists, demanded such a high price for negroes that the number imported into Hispaniola made no great change upon the state of the colony. Las Casas, whose zeal was no less inventive than indefatigable, had recourse to another expedient for the relief of the Indians. He observed that most of the persons who had settled in America hitherto were sailors and soldiers employed in the discovery or conquest of the country-the younger sons of noble families, allured by the prospect of acquiring sudden wealth, or desperate adventurers, whom their indigence or crimes forced to abandon their native land. Instead of such men, who were dissolute, rapacious, and incapable of that sober, persevering industry which is requisite in forming new colonies, he proposed to supply the settlements in Hispaniola and other parts of the New World with a sufficient number of laborers and husbandmen, who should be allured by suitable premiums to remove thither. These, as they were accustomed to fatigue, would be able to perform the work to which the Indians, from the feebleness of their constitutions, were unequal, and might soon become useful and opulent citizens. But, though Hispaniola stood much in need of a recruit of inhabitants, having been visited at this time with the small-pox, which swept off almost all the natives who had survived their long-continued oppression, and though Las Casas had the countenance of the Flemish ministers, this scheme was defeated by the Bishop of Burgos, who thwarted all his projects.2

"Las Casas now despaired of procuring any relief for the Indians in those places where the Spaniards were already settled. The evil was become so inveterate there as not to admit of a cure. But such discoveries were daily making in the continent as gave high idea both of its extent and populousness. In all those vast regions there was but one feeble colony planted; and, except a small spot on the Isthmus of Darien, the natives still occupied the whole country. This opened a new and more ample field for the humanity and zeal of Las Casas, who flattered himself that he might prevent a pernicious system from being introduced there, though he had failed of success in his attempts to overturn it where it was already established. Full of this idea, he applied for a grant of the unoccupied country stretching along the seacoast from the Gulf

1 Herrera, dec. 1; lib. ii. c. 20. It is but just to remark, according to other writers,1. That the proposal to transport negroes from Africa, on this occasion, did not originate with Las Casas. He merely approved of the measure already suggested. 2. This measure, as he understood it, consisted, not in making slaves of those who were free, but merely in transporting to America those negroes who were already suffering a cruel slavery in their own country. 3. Whence it follows that the plan of Las Casas tended to ameliorate the condition of those unhappy Africans, and, far from being an oppressive or unjust policy, was entirely consistent with the humane and active zeal which he had displayed for the benefit of the American Indians. If his measures afterward degenerated by the cupidity of others into the abuses of the slave-trade, it was not the effect of any design or co-operation on his part. See Baluffi, L'America un tempo Spagnuola, p. 255, &c.; Henrion, Hist. des Missions Cath., tome i. p. 350, &c. T.

a Ibid., dec. 2, lib. ii. c. 21.

of Paria to the western frontier of that province now known by the name of Santa Martha. He proposed to settle there with a colony composed of husbandmen, laborers, and ecclesiastics. He engaged, in the space of two years, to civilize ten thousand of the natives, and to instruct them so thoroughly in the arts of social life that from the fruits of their industry an annual revenue of fifteen thousand ducats should arise to the king. In ten years he expected that his improvements would be so far advanced as to yield annually sixty thousand ducats. He stipulated that no soldier or sailor should ever be permitted to settle in this district, and that no Spaniard whatever should enter it without his permission. He even projected to clothe the people whom he took along with him in some distinguishing garb, which did not resemble the Spanish dress, that they might appear to the natives to be a different race of men from those who had brought so many calamities upon their country.' From this scheme, of which I have traced only the great lines, it is manifest that Las Casas had formed ideas concerning the method of treating the Indians similar to those by which the Jesuits afterward carried on their great operations in another part of the same continent. He supposed that the Europeans, by availing themselves of that ascendant which they possessed in consequence of their superior progress in science and improvement, might gradually form the minds of the Americans to relish those comforts of which they were destitute, might train them to the arts of civil life, and render them capable of its functions.

"But to the Bishop of Burgos and the Council of the Indies this project appeared not only chimerical, but dangerous in a high degree. They deemed the faculties of the Americans to be naturally so limited, and their indolence so excessive, that every attempt to instruct or to improve them would be fruitless. They contended that it would be extremely imprudent to give the command of a country extending above a thousand miles along the coast to a fanciful presumptuous enthusiast, a stranger to the affairs of the world and unacquainted with the arts of government. Las Casas, far from being discouraged with a repulse, which he had reason to expect, had recourse once more to the Flemish favorites, who zealously patronized his scheme, merely because it had been rejected by the Spanish ministers. They prevailed with their master, who had lately been raised to the imperial dignity, to refer the consideration of this measure to a select number of his privy counsellors. Las Casas having excepted against the members of the Council of the Indies as partial and interested, they were all excluded. The decision of men chosen by recommendation of the Flemings was perfectly conformable to their sentiments. They warmly approved of Las Casas's plan, and gave orders for carrying it into execution, but restricted the territory allotted him to three hundred miles along the coast of Cumana, allowing him, however, to extend it as far as he pleased toward the interior part of the country."

"This determination did not pass uncensured. Almost every person who had been in the West Indies exclaimed against it, and supported their opinion so confidently, and with such plausible reasons, as made it advisable to pause and to review the subject more deliberately. Charles himself, though accustomed at this early period of his life to adopt the sentiments of his ministers

1 Herrera, dec. 2, lib. iv. c. 2.

Gomara, Hist. Gener., c. 77; Herrera, dec. 2, lib. iv. c. 3; Oviedo, lib. xix. c. 5.

with such submissive deference as did not promise that decisive vigor of mind which distinguished his riper years, could not help suspecting that the eagerness with which the Flemings took part in every affair relating to America flowed from some improper motive, and began to discover an inclination to examine in person into the state of the question concerning the character of the Americans and the proper manner of treating them. An opportunity of making this inquiry with great advantage soon occurred, (June 20.) Quevedo, the Bishop of Darien, who had accompanied Padrarias to the continent in the year one thousand five hundred and thirteen, happened to land at Barcelona, where the court then resided. It was quickly known that his sentiments concerning the talents and disposition of the Indians differed from those of Las Casas; and Charles naturally concluded that, by confronting two respectable persons, who, during their residence in America, had full leisure to observe the manners of the people whom they pretended to describe, he might be able to discover which of them had formed his opinion with the greatest discernment and accuracy.

"A day for this solemn audience was appointed. The emperor, appeared with extraordinary pomp, and took his seat on a throne in the great hall of the palace. His principal courtiers attended. Don Diego Columbus, Admiral of the Indies, was summoned to be present. The Bishop of Darien was called upon first to deliver his opinion. He, in a short discourse, lamented the fatal desolation of America by the extinction of so many of its inhabitants; he acknowledged that this must be imputed, in some degree, to the extensive rigor and inconsiderate proceedings of the Spaniards, but declared that all the people of the New World whom he had seen, either in the continent or in the islands, appeared to him to be a race of men marked out by the inferiority of their talents for servitude, and whom it would be impossible to instruct or improve unless they were kept under the continual inspection of a master. Las Casas, at greater length and with more fervor, defended his own system. He rejected with indignation the idea that any race of men was born to servitude as irreligious and inhuman. He asserted that the faculties of the Americans were not naturally despicable, but unimproved; that they were capable of receiving instruction in the principles of religion as well as of acquiring the industry and arts which would qualify them for the various offices of social life; that the wildness and timidity of their nature rendered them so submissive and docile that they might be led and formed with a gentle hand. He professed that his intentions in proposing the scheme now under consideration were pure and disinterested; and, though from the accomplishment of his designs inestimable benefits would result to the crown of Castile, he never had claimed, nor ever would receive, any recompense on that account.

"Charles, after hearing both and consulting with his ministers, did not think himself sufficiently informed to establish any general arrangement with respect to the state of the Indians; but, as he had perfect confidence in the integrity of Las Casas, and as even the Bishop of Darien admitted his scheme to be of such importance that a trial should be made of its effects, he issued a patent, (1522,) granting him the district of Cumana, formerly mentioned, with full power to establish a colony there according to his own plan.'

1 Herrera, dec. 2, lib. iv. c. 3, 4, 5; Argensola, Annales d'Aragon, 74, 97; Remisal, Hist. Gener., lib. ii. c. 19-20.

"Las Casas pushed on the preparations for his voyage with his usual ardor. But, either from his own inexperience in the conduct of affairs, or from the secret opposition of the Spanish nobility, who universally dreaded the success of an institution that might rob them of the industrious and useful hands which cultivated their estates, his progress in engaging husbandmen and laborers was extremely slow, and he could not prevail on more than two hundred to accompany him to Cumana.

"Nothing, however, could damp his zeal. With this slender train, hardly sufficient to take possession of such a large territory, and altogether unequal to any effectual attempt toward civilizing its inhabitants, he set sail. The first place at which he touched was the island of Puerto Rico. There he received an account of a new obstacle to the execution of his scheme, more insuperable than any he had hitherto encountered. When he left America, in the year one thousand five hundred and sixteen, the Spaniards had little intercourse with any part of the continent except the countries adjacent to the Gulf of Darien. But, as every species of internal industry began to stagnate in Hispaniola when, by the rapid decrease of the natives, the Spaniards were deprived of those hands with which they had hitherto carried on their operations, this prompted them to try various expedients for supplying that loss. Considerable numbers of negroes were imported, but, on account of their exorbitant price, many of the planters could not afford to purchase them. In order to procure slaves at an easier rate, some of the Spaniards in Hispaniola fitted out vessels to cruise along the coast of the continent. In places where they found themselves inferior in strength they traded with the natives, and gave European toys in exchange for the plates of gold worn by them as ornaments; but wherever they could surprise or overpower the Indians, they carried them off by force and sold them as slaves.! In those predatory excursions such atrocious acts of violence and cruelty had been committed that the Spanish name was held in detestation all over the continent. Whenever any ships appeared, the inhabitants either fled to the woods, or rushed down to the shore in arms to repel those hated disturbers of their tranquillity. They forced some parties of the Spaniards to retreat with precipitation; they cut off others, and, in the violence of their resentment against the whole nation, they murdered two Dominican missionaries, whose zeal had prompted them to settle in the province of Cumana. This outrage against persons revered for their sanctity excited such indignation among the people of Hispaniola, who, notwithstanding all their licentious and cruel proceedings, were possessed with a wonderful zeal for religion and a superstitious respect for its ministers, that they determined to inflict exemplary punishment, not only upon the perpetrators of that crime, but upon the whole race. With this view they gave the command of five ships and three hundred men to Diego Ocampo, with orders to lay waste the country of Cumana with fire and sword, and to transport all the inhabitants as slaves to Hispaniola. This armament Las Casas found at Puerto Rico, in its way to the continent; and, as Ocampo refused to defer his voyage, he immediately perceived that it would be impossible to attempt the execution of his pacific plan in a country destined to be the seat of war and desolation.3

1 Herrera, dec. 3, lib. ii. c. 3.

2 Oviedo, Hist., lib. xix. p. 3. Herrera, dec. 2, lib. ix. c. 8, 9.

"In order to provide against the effects of this unfortunate incident, he set зail directly for St. Domingo, (April 12,) leaving his followers cantoned out among the planters of Puerto Rico. From many concurring causes, the reception which Las Casas met with in Hispaniola was very unfavorable. In his negotiations for the relief of the Indians, he had censured the conduct of his countrymen settled there with such honest severity as rendered him universally odious to them. They considered their ruin as the inevitable consequence of his success. They were now elated with hope of receiving a large recruit of slaves from Cumana, which must be relinquished if Las Casas were assisted in settling his projected colony there. Figueroa, in consequence of the instructions he had received in Spain, had made an experiment concerning the capacity of the Indians that was represented as decisive against the system of Las Casas. He collected in Hispaniola a good number of the natives, and settled them in two villages, leaving them at perfect liberty and with the uncontrolled direction of their own actions. But that people, accustomed to a mode of life extremely different from that which takes place wherever civilization has made any considerable progress, were incapable of assuming new habits at once. Dejected with their own misfortunes, as well as those of their country, they exerted so little industry in cultivating the ground, appeared so devoid of solicitude or foresight in providing for their own wants, and were such strangers to arrangement in conducting their affairs, that the Spaniards pronounced them incapable of being formed to live like men in social life, and considered them as children, who should be kept under the perpetual tutelage of persons superior to themselves in wisdom and sagacity.

"Notwithstanding all those circumstances, which alienated the persons in Hispaniola to whom Las Casas applied from himself and from his measures, he, by his activity and perseverance, by some concessions and many threats, obtained at length a small body of troops to protect him and his colony at their first landing. But upon his return to Puerto Rico he found that the diseases of the climate had been fatal to several of his people, and that others, having got employment in that island, refused to follow him. With the handful that remained, he set sail and landed in Cumana. Ocampo had executed his commission in that province with such barbarous rage, having massacred many of the inhabitants, sent others in chains to Hispaniola, and forced the rest to fly for shelter to the woods, that the people of a small colony, which he had planted at a place which he named Toledo, were ready to perish for want in a desolated country. There, however, Las Casas was obliged to fix his residence, though deserted both by the troops appointed to protect him and by those under the command of Ocampo, who foresaw and dreaded the calamities to which he must be exposed in that wretched station. He made the best provision in his power for the safety and subsistence of his followers; but, as his utmost efforts availed little toward securing either the one or the other, he returned to Hispaniola, in order to solicit more effectual aid for the preservation of men who, from confidence in him, had ventured into a post of so much danger. Soon after his departure, the natives, having discovered the feeble and defenceless state of the Spaniards, assembled secretly, attacked them with

1 Herrera, dec. 2, lib. x. c. 5.