INDIANS. THE BEGINNINGS OF SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE-TRADE
In the ever-memorable month of October, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed
on the shores of the New World he had discovered by sailing westward. To
this great undertaking Columbus had advanced through a long career during
which he had had unusual adventures and experiences in almost every part
of the known world. A Genoese by birth, he had studied at Pavia,(5) where
he had acquired some knowledge of Latin, and was introduced to the study
of those sciences to which his inclinations and his opportunities enabled
him later to devote himself. He knew the Atlantic Coast from El Mina in
Africa,(6) to England and Iceland,(7) and he had visited the Levant(8)and
the islands of the Grecian Archipelago.
Writing of himself to the Catholic sovereigns, he says that he had been a
sailor from his earliest youth, and curious to discover the secrets of the
world. This same impulse led him to the study of navigation, cosmography,
and kindred sciences, and his son Ferdinand states that the book which
most influenced his father was the _Cosmographia_ of Cardinal Aliaco in
which he read the following passage: Et dicit Aristoteles ut mare parvum
est inter finem Hispanicæ a parte Occidentis, et inter principium Indiæ a
parte Orientis. Et non loquitur de Hispaniâ citeriori quæ nunc Hispania
communiter dicitur sed de Hispaniâ ulteriori quæ nunc Africa dicitur.(9)
The illustrious Florentine, Paolo Toscanelli, definitely encouraged the
conviction Columbus had formed from his reading of Marco Polo’s
descriptions of Cipango, Cathay, and the Grand Khan, that the lands might
be reached by sailing west, and there was doubtless little the ancients
had written concerning the existence of islands and continents lying
beyond the Pillars of Hercules with which he was not acquainted.
The story of his attempts to secure the necessary means and authority for
undertaking his great enterprise does not belong to our present subject,
but before hearing his own description of what and whom he found in the
western hemisphere when first he landed there, it is necessary to consider
the arguments by which his friends finally prevailed on the sovereigns of
Castile to grant him their patronage. That they did this contrary to the
the counsels of the learned cosmographers of the age and in defiance of
contemporary common-sense, is in itself a most noteworthy fact which
testifies both to the singular qualities of Columbus and to the rare
sagacity of the Catholic Queen who, in her momentous decision, acted
alone, there being little in the scheme to commend it to the colder
temperament of King Ferdinand.
By almost no intellectual effort can we of to-day realise the chimerical
stamp which the proposition of Columbus bore, and which served to mark him
as an adventurer and a visionary or, to use a forceful Americanism, as a
“crank” in the estimation of sensible, practical people. He has himself
recorded that he believed he was acting under inspiration and was merely
fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah. The council of cosmographers summoned
by the Queen’s confessor, Fray Hernando de Talavera, to study the project
which Columbus, through the exertions of his friends, the Prior of Santa
Maria de la Rabida, and Alonso de Quintanilla, treasurer of the royal
household, had succeeded in presenting to the sovereigns, decided “that it
was vain and impossible, nor did it belong to the majesty of such great
Princes to decide anything upon such weak grounds of information.”(10)
Spain was at that time engaged in a costly war against the Moors, who
still held Granada; hard pushed as the sovereigns were for money to carry
on the necessary military operations, it is not strange that no funds were
forthcoming to finance the visionary schemes propounded by an obscure
foreigner. After some years of vain striving, Columbus was on the point
of quitting the country in despair, when two powerful allies
intervened—Cardinal Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, and Luis de Santangel,
who held the office of Receiver of Revenues of the Crown of Aragon.
It must have argued powerfully in favour of Columbus that he had won to
his support, not only several great ecclesiastics and the Duke of Medina
Celi, but also two of the most astute financiers of the realm,—Santangel
and Quintanilla, men not easily accessible to enthusiasms nor inclined to
encourage non-paying investments.
Whatever was the motive that prompted these men to take the project under
their protection, the Queen was primarily swayed by religious arguments,
which also with Columbus were as powerfully operative as his desire for
profit and glory.
The preface of his journal contains a review of of the year 1492, which
was signalised by the fall of Granada and the final expulsion, after seven
centuries, of the Moors from Spain. He recalls his petition to the Pope,
asking that learned Catholic doctors should be sent to instruct the Grand
Khan in the true faith, and to convert populous cities that were perishing
in Idolatry, to which his Holiness had vouchsafed no answer, after which
he continues:
“Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians and Princes, promoters of the
Christian religion, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet and of all
idolatries and heresies, thought to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the
aforementioned provinces of India to see the said princes, the cities, the
countries, their position and everything concerning them and the way that
should be adopted to convert them to our Holy Faith.”(11)
This passage reflects the mind and character of Columbus as he is
described by Las Casas; for even beyond the glory of penetrating the
world’s mysteries that so powerfully influenced him, he nurtured dreams of
religious propaganda, another crusade to recover the Holy Sepulchre, and
the conversion of all the heathen to the faith.
“He fasted with strictest observance on the fasts of the church; he
confessed and received communion frequently; he recited the canonical
hours like an ecclesiastic or a monk; most inimical to blasphemies and
oaths, he was most devoted to Our Lady and to the seraphic Father, St.
Francis…most jealous of the Divine honour, eager and desirous for the
conversion of these peoples, and that the faith of Jesus Christ should be
everywhere spread, and singularly given and devoted to God that he might
be made worthy to help in some way to win the Holy Sepulchre.”(12)
Patient, long-suffering, prone to forgive injuries, Columbus was a man of
courageous soul and high aspirations, always pervaded with infinite
confidence in Divine Providence and never failing in loyalty to the
sovereigns whom he served.
Such were the qualities of the man whose great discovery prepared the
scene on which Las Casas was to play the noblest part of all; such were
the influences which promised to shape his actions in conformity with the
intentions of the saintly Queen who sustained him. These influences are
seen to be first and always religious; religious in the prevailing
conception of a century, when the interpretation of the command “go ye and
teach all nations” admitted of no shirking an obligation laid by the
Divine command on each Christian, whether priest, king or subject. An
infallible Church provided the one ordained channel of divine grace and
salvation for mankind, dissent from which meant damnation, and hence into
that Church all nations must be gathered.
Bearing these conditions of the age and these convictions which dominated
both the Queen and Columbus well in mind, we shall later have occasion to
observe the startling contradiction of essential principles of
Christianity shown in the acts of the latter in his dealings with the
Indians; for he not only prepared the stage Las Casas was to tread, but he
likewise provided the tragedy of iniquity to be thereon enacted.
The first soil on which Columbus landed was that of a beautiful island
some fifteen leagues in length, fruitful, fresh, and verdant like a fair
garden, in the midst of which was a lake of sweet water. The weary eyes
of the mariners, strained for weeks to catch a glimpse of the despaired-of
land, were refreshed by the sight of this pezzo del cielo, and the landing
of Columbus was a scene of picturesque and moving simplicity in which were
not wanting the features of martial grandeur and religious solemnity,
furnished by steel-clad knights with drawn swords, bearing the royal
standard of Castile and the emblem of man’s salvation, before which all
knelt in a fervour of triumph and thanksgiving. Both as wondering
witnesses and interested actors in this memorable drama, there appeared
the natives of the island, transfixed in silent awe in the presence of
their mysterious guests. Columbus describes them as well-built, with good
features and beautiful eyes, but with hair as coarse as a horse’s mane;
their complexion was yellowish and they had their faces painted. They
were entirely naked and neither carried weapons nor understood the use of
such things.
“They ought,” he says, “to make faithful and intelligent servants, for I
perceive they very quickly repeat all that is said to them and I believe
they would very quickly be converted to Christianity as it appeared to me
that they had no creed.”
In another passage he writes: “As they showed us such friendship and as I
recognised that they were people who would yield themselves better to the
Christian faith and be converted more through love than by force, I gave
some of them some coloured buttons and some glass beads which they wore
around their necks, and many other things of small value, with which they
were delighted, and became so attached to us that it was a marvel to
behold.”
The natives were not slow to reciprocate these gifts and hastened to offer
the best of all they possessed to the Spaniards in return for their
trifling presents.
Indeed, since it is better to give than to receive, the Admiral describes
the natives of Marien as being of such a generous disposition that they
esteemed it the highest honour to be asked to give. What could be more
idyllic than his description of the people he found at Rio del Sol in
Cuba?—“They are all very gentle, without knowledge of evil, neither
killing nor stealing.” Everywhere he touched during his first voyage, he
and his men were welcomed as gods descended upon earth, their wants
anticipated, and such boundless hospitality showered upon them that
Columbus was touched by the gentleness and grace of the natives.
“They are a loving uncovetous people, so docile in all things that I do
assure your Highness I believe in all the world there is not a better
people or a better country; they love their neighbors as themselves, and
they have the sweetest and gentlest way of speaking in the world and
always with a smile.”
When it came the turn of Las Casas to describe the Indians in the islands,
he wrote:
“All these infinite peoples were created by God the most simple of all
others, without malice or duplicity, most obedient and faithful to their
rulers, whom they serve; the most humble, patient, loving, peaceful, and
docile people, without contentions or tumults; neither factious nor
quarrelsome, without hatred, or desire for revenge, more than any other
people in the world.”
Such were the accounts of the New World given to the Catholic sovereigns
by Columbus on his return from his first voyage, and afterwards by Las
Casas in his terrible indictment of his countrymen’s destructive invasion
of those peaceful realms, peopled by innocent and genial heathen. Had
Shakespeare heard this fair report when he put the description of the
magic isle in the mouth of the King’s counsellor, Gonzalo?
I’ the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty;
All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour; treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of it’s own kind, all foison, all abundance
To feed my innocent people.(13)
Upon such virgin soil, Columbus felt confident that the gospel seed would
produce an abundant harvest and he says:
“I hold it for certain, Most Serene Princes, that by means of devout,
religious persons, knowing their language they would all quickly become
Christians and thus I hope in Our Lord that your Highnesses will provide
for this with much diligence to bring such numerous people into the Church
and convert them, as you have destroyed those who would not confess the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and that after this life (for we are all
mortal) you will leave your kingdoms in a very tranquil state, purified
from heresy and evil.”
Wonderful and humiliating is it to observe how little these first
impressions of the Indians and these elevated Christian aspirations
influenced his conduct in dealing with them, once he was master of their
destinies.
The declared purposes of the second voyage of 1493 were the colonisation
of the newly discovered countries, the conversion of the natives, and the
extension of his discoveries. Pope Alexander VI. had conferred the lands
thus far discovered and others to be discovered upon the sovereigns of
Castile and Leon, with the fullest rights over navigation, and imperial
jurisdiction over the western hemisphere. The Bull bestowing these
concessions was dated the fourth of May, 1493, in the first year of his
pontificate. An imaginary line, drawn from pole to pole and passing one
hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, separated the spheres of
Spanish and Portuguese exploration, and the Bull expressly laid down as
the principal reason for this grant, that the natives would be converted
to Christianity.(14)
The conditions imposed by the Pontiff corresponded perfectly to the
sincere desires of the Spanish sovereigns, who had, from their first
knowledge of the existence of the Indians, displayed the keenest and
tenderest zeal to provide for their welfare. They instructed Columbus to
deal lovingly with the Indians, to make them generous gifts, and to show
them much honour; and if perchance any one should treat them unjustly, the
Admiral should punish him severely.(15)
This second expedition was composed of 1500 men, of whom twenty were
horsemen; many knights and gentlemen, especially from Seville, and some
members of the royal household also went. The number of officials of
various grades appointed to exercise problematical functions in the new
colony exceeded the necessities of the case and gave promise of the many
dissensions and petty conflicts which were not slow in declaring
themselves. A priest, Father Buil, and other ecclesiastics were sent to
undertake the instruction and conversion of the Indians; in all, seventeen
ships left the Bay of Cadiz on September 25, 1493.(16) Upon his arrival at
Hispaniola, the Admiral found the little colony he had left there
completely exterminated, and learned from his friend the Cacique
Guacanagari that, after his departure for Spain, the Spaniards had fallen
to quarrelling amongst themselves and had scattered throughout the island,
provoking hostilities with the natives and had, in consequence, been
killed by a neighbouring chieftain, Caonabó, who also burned the tower the
colonists had built. The first report on the state of the new colony of
Isabella, which Columbus sent to Spain in January, 1494, was in the form
of an instruction to Antonio de Torres, receiver for the colony, whom Las
Casas describes as “a brother of the Governor of the Infante Don Juan, a
notable person, prudent and efficient for such a post.”(17) In this
notable document occurs the first mention of slavery in the New World.
The Admiral directs Torres to inform the sovereigns that he has made
slaves of some Indians captured the cannibal islands, and has sent them to
Spain have them taught Spanish in order that they may later serve as
interpreters. The justification he advanced for this measure was that by
taking from their surroundings they would be cured of their cannibalism,
converted to Christianity, and their souls saved; besides which, if the
cannibals were thus converted, the Indians of the neighbouring islands,
who were peaceable and lived in fear of them, would conceive a still
higher regard for the Spaniards.
This reasoning doubtless commended itself to most people, but the
sagacious Queen instantly put her finger upon the flaw in the argument,
and on the margin of Columbus’s report is written her answer: “This is all
very well and so it must be done; but let the Admiral see whether it might
not be _there_ arranged to bring them to our Holy Catholic Faith and the
same with the Indians of those islands where he is.”
The next suggestion, despite any possible excellence of his motives, was a
frank proposal to establish a thriving trade in human flesh as barefaced
as could be made by the least scrupulous “blackbirder.” The Admiral,
always dwelling upon the spiritual welfare of the cannibal natives,
proposed that the more of them that could be captured, the better it would
be, and then, mingling temporal advantages to Spaniards with spiritual
blessings to the natives, he explained that the quantities of live stock
and other necessaries required by the colonists, might be paid for by the
sale of slaves sent back to Spain in the ships which would bring these
supplies several times a year to the colony. The sovereigns are to be
reminded that they may collect duties on this slave-trade, and an early
answer is desired in order that the arrangements for the new commerce may
be pushed forward.(18)
The Queen’s observation on this passage was not as positive as it might
have been and, though the proposition was evidently repugnant to her, she
merely directed that the matter be suspended for the present until some
other way of providing on the spot be found and that the Admiral should
report further. Columbus, however, did not wait to receive the royal
approval of his slave-trading schemes. During a voyage which resulted in
the discovery of Jamaica and other islands, he visited that of San Juan
(Puerto Rico) for the purpose of capturing more cannibals, and on his
return Hispaniola, where he had left his brother Don Diego in charge as
President and Don Pedro Margarite as Captain-General, he found affairs in
the worst possible condition owing to the foolish and inconsiderate
conduct of the colonists, which had converted the friendly natives into
hostile enemies and placed the very existence of the colony in jeopardy.
After some hostilities, a degree of tranquillity was established and
Columbus laid a tribute upon the entire population of the island which
required that each Indian above fourteen years of age who lived in the
mining provinces was to pay a little bell filled with gold every three
months; the natives of all other provinces were to pay one arroba of
cotton. These amounts were so excessive that in 1496 it was found
necessary to change the nature of the payment, and, instead of the gold
and cotton required from the villages, labour was substituted, the Indians
being required to lay out and work the plantations of the colonists in
their vicinity. This was the germ of the cruel and oppressive
repartimientos and encomiendas which were destined to depopulate the
islands and to bring an indelible stigma on the Spanish colonial system in
the Indies. In that year, 1496, Bartholomew Columbus sent three hundred
natives, who were convicted or accused of killing Spaniards, to Spain to
be sold as slaves. Though the Spanish sovereigns admitted a difference in
the status of such natives, there is nevertheless a letter of theirs
addressed to Bishop Fonseca, who was at the head of Indian affairs,
directing him to receive no money from the sale of Indians until
theologians and canonists had pronounced upon the question whether they
might with a good conscience, permit such Indians to be sold. No positive
decision is recorded, but order were given that all Indians taken in acts
of flagrant “rebellion” and found guilty should be sent to Spain. There
was but one fate awaiting them so that, if not formally approved, the
enslaving of Indians, accused of rebellion, was by this edict tolerated.
Another piece of colonial legislation was effected in 1497 by the issue of
a royal patent to the Admiral, authorising him to grant parcels of land in
the islands to the Spanish colonists; there is no mention in this grant of
repartimientos of Indians to work on the lands. The affairs of the colony
were not prospering, complaints against the Admiral were numerous, and the
situation was much complicated by the open rebellion of the chief justice,
Roldan, in which the unfortunate Indians found themselves, whether they
would or no, involved on one side or the other and, no matter which way
victory went, upon them it fell to pay the costs. Regular raids were
organised upon tribes and villages, on the pretext that a chief had not
performed the services required in lieu of tribute and had fled with his
people to the forests; pursuit followed and all who were captured were
considered rebels taken in open fight and were immediately dispatched in
the vessels of Columbus’s fleet, which had reached Hispaniola in August,
1498, to be sold as slaves in Spain. Still invoking the name of the Holy
Trinity, Columbus explained to the sovereigns that he could supply as many
slaves as the Spanish market required, estimating, according to his
information, that four thousand could be disposed of, the value of whom,
together with that of a shipment of logwood, would amount to 40,000,000
maravedis. The consignment mentioned consisted of six hundred slaves, of
whom one third was given to the masters of the ships to cover the carrying
charges.
In the same letter, Columbus asked that the colonists should be allowed to
use Indian labour for a year or two until their affairs should become more
settled and prosperous, and so satisfied was he with the equity of this
arrangement that he set it at once in operation without waiting for the
royal sanction of his plan. After two years of dissensions, Roldan and his
rebellious supporters were pacified and Columbus partitioned lands and
slaves among them with unstinted generosity. Those of Roldan’s adherents
who elected to remain in the colony received from the Admiral
repartimientos, consisting of a certain number of hillocks of cazabi (the
plant from which flour for cassava bread was made), which were placed in
charge of a cacique whose people were obliged to till them for the profit
of the holder. This was the second stage in the development of
repartimientos, viz., the Indians were bound to the land and forced to
cultivate it. Fifteen of the Roldan party, however, decided to return to
Spain, each of whom received from one to three slaves, whom they took back
with them in October, 1499.
The Queen’s proclamation issued at Seville, Granada, and elsewhere
ordering all holders of slaves given them by Columbus to return them
forthwith to Hispaniola under pain of death distinguished, however,
between such and the others who had been taken as prisoners of war and
sold into slavery. The distinction is a fine one and points to the
conclusion that even Queen Isabella admitted that some Indians might, for
defined causes, be enslaved, and that her assent was based upon some
pronouncement of the canonists and theologians to whom she had submitted
the question; but there is nothing to show that the slaves given to
Roldan’s followers were captured in any different way from the others.
This inconsistency, which so sadly weakens the noble character of the
royal proclamation and detracts from the merits of the Queen as an enemy
of slavery, could hardly have proceeded from her own inclinations but was
rather the outcome of some casuistry that constrained her action without
convincing her judgment. The Queen doubtless saw with pain and
disappointment that, owing to the Admiral’s measures and proposals, which
were in surprising contradiction with the lofty and pious principles he
professed, her own Catholic aspirations for the speedy conversion of the
Indians and the pacific extension of Spanish rule were being thwarted. The
noise of the controversies in which the sublime unreason of Columbus had
fortunately prevailed over the scientific opinions of the age, the
interest of the Queen, and all the circumstances of his first voyage had
fastened the attention of the Spanish and Portuguese courts upon his
expedition, excluding any hope that failure might escape notice. For he
had failed in his ultimate purpose. Instead of Cathay, the Grand Khan
ready to welcome Christianity and a short road to the wealth of the East,
he had found a few semi-tropical islands, producing parrots and cocoanuts
chiefly, and inhabited by harmless barbarians living in an idyllic state
of poverty and idleness. The enthusiasm aroused by his first voyage
subsided and his fame as an explorer was obscured by his incompetency as a
governor. He himself never lived to comprehend the real importance of his
discovery and he persisted in regarding the islands as the outposts of a
great Oriental empire. Having sailed to seek a short route to the ancient
East, Columbus was constrained to render his disappointing discovery
acceptable by making it profitable and, since the promised gold and rare
spices were not forthcoming, only the trade in slaves remained to furnish
immediate profits. In July, 1500, Francisco de Bobadilla sailed to
supersede Columbus, with full powers from the sovereigns, and had he gone
as a messenger of vengeance to chastise the Admiral’s moral backsliding,
he could not have enacted the rôle more consistently, for, from the moment
of his landing, his treatment of Columbus was ruthless, and an amazed
world was shortly furnished the humiliating spectacle of the great
Admiral, in chains, shipped back to the kingdom he had endowed with a
world. Bobadilla’s moral, social, and economic administration proved a
complete failure and his own excesses contributed to his speedy removal,
without his management of the colony having corrected the abuses he was
sent out to redress or having relieved the Indians from the bonds of
slavery which, in defiance of the sovereign’s commands, were being daily
riveted more securely upon them.
The justified protests of Columbus found a hearing, and the man who had
inflicted a supreme indignity upon him was recalled, Don Nicholas de
Ovando being appointed by a royal cedula of September 3, 1501, to succeed
him.