THE CONQUEST OF CUBA.
In the month of September of the year 1510, the first Dominican friars,
four in number, arrived in Hispaniola from Spain under the leadership of
their Prior, Pedro de Cordoba, a man of gentle birth, distinguished
appearance, gracious manners, and great piety. He had exceptional gifts
as a preacher and, in selecting the men of his Order to accompany him, he
chose those who, to their exemplary life and zeal for conversions, united
facility in expounding Christian doctrine. Two, especially, out of his
company, were men of unusual ability—Fray Antonio de Montesinos and Fray
Bernardo de Santo Domingo.
One of the colonists, Pedro Lumbreras, gave the missionaries shelter, and
arranged to supply them with provisions, and the monks, without losing any
time, set to work to improve the habits and morals of the easy-going
Spaniards in the colony. The Viceroy being absent in the city of
Concepcion de la Vega at that time, the Prior went thither to announce
their arrival and pay his respects, accomplishing the tedious journey of
thirty leagues on foot, sleeping on the ground and living on bread and
water. He arrived at La Vega on a Saturday, and the next day, being
Sunday in the octave of All Saints, he preached a sermon on the glories of
paradise prepared for the saints, of which Las Casas says, “It was a
sermon so lofty and so divine that I held myself happy to hear it.” In
response to the Prior’s invitation at the close of his discourse, his
hearers sent their Indians, men, women, and children, to the church, after
dinner. The Prior, holding a crucifix in his hand, and assisted by
interpreters, then gave the Indians their first exposition of Christian
doctrine, beginning with the creation of the world and finishing with the
Crucifixion. This was the beginning of anything like a serious and
practical effort to carry out the reiterated instructions of the Spanish
sovereigns to instruct the Indians and convert them to Christianity.
In that same year, Las Casas took holy orders, and, though it is not clear
whether his ordination occurred before or after the memorable sermon of
Prior Pedro de Cordoba, it is evident that the impression he received from
that discourse powerfully influenced him at a critical moment of his life
and contributed to form the special vocation to which he afterwards
devoted himself.
His own description of his ordination is as follows:
“In this same year and in these same days, when the father, Fray Pedro de
Cordoba went to La Vega, a cleric called Bartholomew de Las Casas had sung
a new mass; he was a native of Seville and among the oldest [settlers] in
the island, and that was the first time that a new mass was sung in all
the Indies; on account of being the first, the event was celebrated with
great festivity by the Admiral [Don Diego Columbus] and everybody who was
in the city of La Vega; they comprised a large number of the inhabitants
of the island, for it was smelting time, when each brought his gold with
his Indians to have it melted, all meeting together as people do to make
payments, in the places where fairs are held in Castile; as there were no
gold coins, they made certain pieces in imitation of castellanos and
ducats, different sorts in the same smelting, where the King’s fifth was
melted and paid; these coins they offered [to the new priest] while others
made arrieles(24) to offer. Reales were current, and many of these were
presented, all of which the newly ordained priest gave to his god-father,
save a few gold pieces that were especially well made. There was one
notable feature of this first mass with which the clergy present were not
satisfied; namely, there was not a drop of wine in the whole feast,
because no ship having arrived from Castile since a long time, there was
none in the entire island.”
The newly ordained priest entered immediately and zealously upon his
duties, one of the first of which he considered to be the continuation of
the religious instruction to the Indians he had seen so admirably
initiated by Fray Pedro de Cordoba. He speedily acquired great fame
throughout the colony both for his virtues and his learning, and his
influence over the natives was established once and for ever.
Don Diego Columbus undertook in 1511 to conquer and settle the island of
Cuba, which had been discovered by his father, and, by virtue of the
privileges secured to him by the capitulations of Granada, he named Diego
Velasquez, a native of Cuellar and one of the oldest and most respected
colonists in San Domingo, commander of this enterprise. The expedition,
which consisted of three hundred men, amongst whom was Fernando Cortes,
landed at a port called Las Palmas in the province of Maici and the
conquest was quickly and easily effected, the natives being of a pacific
disposition and little skilled in the use of even such indifferent weapons
as they possessed. Thirty Spaniards in Jamaica, hearing of the events in
Cuba, took service under Velasquez, who appointed Panfilo de Narvaez as
commander under his orders. The campaign in Cuba was signalised by the
same massacres and cruelties which marked the advance of Spanish
civilisation throughout the Indies; the natives were pursued and torn to
pieces by fierce dogs, burned alive, their hands and feet cut off, and the
miserable, terrified remnant speedily reduced to a condition of hopeless
slavery. The so-called war ended with the execution of the Cacique
Hatuey, and in the early part of 1512, Diego Velasquez sent for Las Casas
to join him from Hispaniola. At that juncture there arrived in the port
of Baracoa a vessel commanded by Cristobal de Cuellas, who brought with
him his daughter, the promised bride of Velasquez. The Governor absented
himself for the celebration of his marriage, leaving his kinsman Juan de
Grijalva in command of fifty men during his absence, and charging Las
Casas to act as assistant and counsellor to Grijalva, who was a beardless
youth and, though of excellent disposition, was without experience. The
news of Las Casas’s presence quickly spread amongst the Indians of Bayamo,
who had fled in terror before the horses of Narvaez into the province of
Camaguey, and, feeling reassured and confident of protection, they now
began to return little by little, asking pardon for the opposition they
had made to the Spanish force and offering to assist and serve the
invaders. The veneration of the natives for Las Casas, their only friend,
was a most touching thing to see, for they trusted him without reserve,
believing him to be omnipotent and knowing him to be good; they called him
by the same title, Behique, which they gave to their own magicians and
both reverenced and feared him as being almost divine. As the tribes came
in, bringing gifts to the Spanish commander, they also brought offerings
to Las Casas and when assured by him that the past was pardoned and
forgotten, their confidence was completely restored.
Peace being thus established in the province of Bayamo, Velasquez sent
orders to Narvaez that he should advance into the province of Camague with
all the force he had, which, united to that of Grijalva, amounted to about
one hundred men, and that Las Casas should accompany the expedition.
The spiritual and martial forces seemed to work in harmony; Grijalva was
obedient to the counsels of Las Casas, and Narvaez, although a hardened
campaigner and a man of violent temperament, was not indifferent to the
priest’s influence, backed as he knew it to be by the warm personal
support of his Governor, Velasquez. Some thirty leagues from Bayamo, and
before entering the province of Camaguey, the expedition arrived at a town
called Cueyba, where they were well received by the Indians and where they
found, in a sort of chapel, a statue of the Blessed Virgin which had been
presented to the cacique some time before by Alonso de Ojeda who, after
shipwreck and untold hardships, had reached that place and been cared for
by the natives. Ojeda had carried this image for many weary days,
confiding in its protection to rescue him from the dangerous plight in
which he found himself, and some of his companions who were now with the
Narvaez party praised its beauty so highly to Las Casas that he conceived
the idea of offering to trade for it a very good Flemish statue of his
own. His proposal, however, was not agreeable to the cacique, who had, on
his part, become much attached to his own image, and the next morning when
Las Casas went to the little chapel, which the Indians kept nicely adorned
with cotton hangings and flowers, he was surprised to see that the statue
was missing from its customary place above the altar. Upon inquiry he was
told by the Indians that their chief, fearing that he would be forced to
accept Las Casas’s offer to exchange, had taken his statue and fled into
the forests to save it. There was even a fear that a general uprising
might result to defend the cherished statue, so Las Casas at once sent
messengers to the cacique to assure him that he not only no longer wished
to make the exchange but had decided to make him a present of his own
Flemish statue as well.
Twenty leagues beyond Cueyba the expedition entered the province of
Camaguey, and, at the entrance of the various towns, the Indians came out
to welcome the Spaniards, offering them provisions of fish, game, and
cassava. Las Casas called together the children everywhere and baptised
them, concerning which he afterwards said that many were thus destined for
glory in good time, for shortly afterwards there was hardly one of those
children left alive.
Nothing inspired more wonder in the Indians than the transmission of news
from one place to another by means of writing, and the letters the
Spaniards sent to one another excited the greatest awe amongst them. So
great had the influence of Las Casas amongst them become, that he had only
to send any piece of paper fastened to the end of a stick, carried by a
messenger who had been instructed to say what he wanted, for his orders to
be scrupulously obeyed; without the paper, the verbal message was shorn of
its authority, with the paper it commanded entire obedience. To forestall
excesses on the part of the soldiers, Las Casas hit upon the device of
sending a messenger ahead, carrying one of these papers, to tell the
Indians that the expedition was approaching and that he desired them to
have provisions ready and to vacate one part of their village which the
Spaniards might occupy. The messenger announced these dispositions, which
must be obeyed under pain of the Behique’s displeasure, and the Spaniards,
on their arrival, invariably found everything prepared for them and free
quarters in which to lodge. Narvaez agreed to give strict orders to his
men to keep to their own part of the village, and any one who violated
this command or sought to mix with the Indians was punished.
At a village called Caonao, one of the characteristic pieces of
inexplicable cruelty, that so frequently occurred, took place. Before
reaching that town, the expedition had stopped to eat in a dry river bed
(barranca), where there was a quantity of soapstone on which the men
sharpened their weapons. Upon entering the town and before taking
possession of their quarters, they found some two thousand Indians
peaceably squatting about the square, after their fashion, curious to see
them and observe the movements of the wonderful horses at which they never
tired of looking. While the provisions which the Indians had got ready
were being distributed, somebody—it was never discovered who—without cause
or rhyme or reason suddenly ran amok, drew his sword, and began slashing
right and left amongst the defenceless natives, and, as though crazed, the
other soldiers fell to work in the same fashion, so that, before one half
the Indians realised what was happening, the place was piled with dead and
wounded. Narvaez looked on unmoved, but Las Casas, who was not in the
square when the massacre began, hearing what was afoot, rushed thither in
rage and despair to stop the slaughter. “What do you think of what our
Spaniards have done?” Narvaez coolly asked him, and the priest in a fury
replied: “To the devil with you and your Spaniards.” He finally succeeded
in arresting the butchery, not forgetting, in the midst of all, to
administer baptism to the dying. His indignation on this occasion burst
all bounds and, from his own description, it may be inferred that his
language towards his countrymen was not in strict conformity with
sacerdotal usage. No sufficient explanation of this lamentable occurrence
has ever been given, but Las Casas says that if the man who began the
massacre was the one he suspected, he later met a dreadful death. It has
been alleged that a soldier mistook some movement of the crowd in pressing
forward to see the horses, for a beginning of hostilities, and, as there
had been a surprise practised on Narvaez’s men a short time before in
Bayamo, the man was seized with a sudden panic of fear that the little
force of one hundred men was about to be attacked and overcome by mere
force of numbers while off their guard, lost his head, and began to use
his sword; the others, seeing their comrade fighting, rushed into the
melee and before reason could get the upper hand, the mischief was done.
The natural consequence of this unprovoked massacre was a general flight
of the Indians from their towns, all who could, taking refuge in the
neighbouring islands.
The Spanish camp was established near Caonao and one day shortly after the
massacre an old Indian servant of Las Casas, called Camacho, came to him
to say that a young man about twenty-five years old and his younger
brother had returned and begged to be admitted as servants into his
household. This young Indian was baptised under the name of Adrianico and
served as interpreter and intermediary to induce the other Indians to
return to their villages, so that little by little some degree of peace
and tranquillity was established throughout the province. The Governor
quickly discovered that the simplest means of securing obedience was to
send a messenger bearing any bit of paper on a stick, to say in the name
of Las Casas whatever was to be done, and this became the means usually
employed to maintain order. Thousands of the natives were instructed and
baptised during this expedition. It was at this time that news was
received of the existence of several Spanish prisoners held by a cacique,
in the province of Havana, some hundred leagues distant, and Las Casas
sent his habitual Indian messenger carrying the sacred paper to tell that
cacique that the paper meant he was to send those prisoners at once, under
pain of the Behique’s severest displeasure. After the departure of this
messenger, the Spaniards struck their camp and went on to a place called
Carahale, which Las Casas named Casaharta on account of the abundance of
excellent provisions they received there; these seem to have consisted
principally of parrots, of which the Spaniards consumed no less than
10,000 beautifully plumaged birds in the brief period of fifteen days they
stopped there. Indeed, the amount the Spaniards ate amazed the frugal
natives, for it took more to feed a soldier for one day than an Indian
family required in a month, At this place there arrived one day a canoe,
in which were two Spanish women, in the costume of Mother Eve, one of them
about forty years old and the other eighteen. They were the prisoners
sent back from Havana by the cacique who had meanwhile received the magic
paper ordering their release. They described the slaughter of some
Spaniards upon their arrival at the port which, since that time, has
consequently been called Matanzas; several had managed to defend
themselves but had afterwards been hanged by a cacique on a ceiba tree,
leaving only the two women, whose lives were spared. This news so
irritated Narvaez that he ordered eighteen caciques who had come in
response to Las Casas’s papers, bringing food for the Spaniards, to be put
in chains, and but for the priest’s threat that he would have him severely
punished by Velasquez, and even report the case to the King, he would have
hanged them. Las Casas, by his vigorous and menacing attitude, secured
the immediate release of all the caciques but one, who was kept a prisoner
until Diego Velasquez joined the expedition and released him. (25)
At another village, a Spaniard, also a survivor of the Matanzas massacre,
was brought forward and delivered to the Spaniards by the cacique, who
declared he loved him and had treated him as his own son. Great rejoicing
celebrated the finding of this man, and both Las Casas and Narvaez
embraced the cacique with fervour. The Spaniard had nearly forgotten his
mother-tongue and was in all respects so entirely like the Indians in his
manners and ways that every one laughed a good deal at him. Little by
little he recovered the use of his Spanish and was able to give much
information concerning the country.
Upon the arrival of Diego Velasquez, whose bride had died very shortly
after her marriage, a town was founded on the banks of a large river,
called by the Indians the Arimao, where very rich gold-mines were
discovered. In this newly founded town of Xagua, as it was named, Las
Casas received a valuable repartimiento of land and Indians in recognition
of the services he had rendered during the expeditions, for, though he was
the enemy of all cruel treatment and the protector of the natives against
his callous-hearted countrymen, his conscience on the subject of
repartimientos was not yet fully awakened.
During his residence in the island of Hispaniola, Las Casas had been close
friends with a man named Renteria, whom he describes as a most virtuous,
prudent, charitable, and devout Christian, given entirely to the things of
God and religion and little versed in the things of this world, to which
he paid small attention; he was so open-handed by instinct that his
generosity was almost the vice of carelessness rather than a virtue. He
was pure and humble in his life and was a man of some learning, devoted to
the study of the Scriptures and commentaries to the Latin tongue, and was
a skilful penman. Pedro de la Renteria, to whom Diego Velasquez had given
the office of alcalde in the island of Cuba was a Biscayan, son of a
native of Guipuzcoa, and such was the intimacy between him and Las Casas
in Hispaniola that they shared their possessions in common, though in the
management of their affairs, it was the latter who took the direction
entirely, as being the more capable and practical of the two. (26)
Upon Pedro de la Renteria, the Governor conferred a repartimiento of lands
and Indians adjoining the one given to Las Casas and the two had their
business interests in common. Las Casas owns, with compunction, that he
became so absorbed at that time in developing his new estates and working
his mines that what should have been his principal care, the instruction
of the Indians, fell into the second place, though despite his temporary
blindness to his higher duties, he protests that, as far as their temporal
wants were concerned, he was humane and kind, both from his naturally
benevolent instincts and from his understanding of the law of God. This
we may easily believe to be the case and, though his zealous soul may
afterwards, when all his energies of body and mind were exclusively
dedicated to his apostolate, have found grounds for self-reproach for
neglecting the spiritual wants of his Indians at that time, it is more
than probable that, even so, his care of them might well have served as a
pattern to his fellow-colonists and more than satisfied the natives, who
adored him.