DE CISNEROS. THE JERONYMITE COMMISSIONERS
Las Casas was fully conscious of the hostility his mission was bound to
provoke, and how odious he would make himself, not only to the colonists,
but also to the members of the India Council, the courtiers, and to many
influential persons in Spain, all of whom had investments in the colonies
and drew incomes from the very abuses he was to combat; he therefore took
the precaution of drawing up a sworn and witnessed statement, ad perpetuam
rei memoriam, with the legal formalities dear to Spanish usage, in which
he recounted all the services of every kind that he had rendered in the
colonies. Lest obstacles might be put in the way of his departure, he
resorted to a little dissimulation and caused the report to be spread that
he intended to go to Paris to finish his law studies and take his degree
at the university there. The colonists, including the Governor, were
duped by this subterfuge and he departed in company with the Prior, who
took with him a deacon of his order, Fray Diego de Alberca. The first
stage of their journey was to Hispaniola, where the Prior was seized by a
severe illness, to which he succumbed in the town of San Juan de la
Maguana.
In the city of Santo Domingo, Las Casas encountered his old friend and
precursor in the defence of the Indians, Prior Pedro de Cordoba, to whom
he recounted all that had befallen him in Cuba, his newly found vocation,
and his intention to visit Spain and lay the case for the Indians before
the King. The Prior praised his resolution, but in wishing him all
success, he explained the situation he would find awaiting him in Spain,
where the all-powerful Bishop of Burgos, who was at the head of Indian
affairs, and the royal Secretary, Lope Conchillos, were entirely in favour
of the system of repartimientos and encomiendas, being themselves
shareholders in colonial enterprises. As not uncommonly happens, it was
on the estates of such absentee owners that the Indians were most cruelly
handled, being mercilessly overworked by overseers anxious to curry favour
at home by the remittance of ever-increasing revenues.
Although he was sufficiently impressed by what he heard, the zeal of the
new apostle was undiminished. The Dominican community in Hispaniola being
in sad need of funds, the Prior decided to profit by the occasion and to
send one of his monks with Las Casas to Spain to solicit aid. He chose
for this mission the same Fray Antonio de Montesinos, whose earnestness in
behalf of the natives rendered him a sympathetic companion, while his own
experience in handling the question in Spain, promised to be of great
assistance to Las Casas. They sailed in September, 1515, and after a
prosperous voyage arrived safely at Seville, where Montesinos lodged in
the monastery of his Order, while Las Casas was given hospitality by his
relatives.
The Archbishop of Seville at that time was Fray Diego de Deza, a Dominican
who stood high in King Ferdinand’s favour, and the first service
Montesinos rendered his companion was to present him to the Archbishop, to
whom he had already given some account of the objects which brought them
both to Spain, and of the zeal of Las Casas in a cause which the Dominican
Order had made peculiarly its own. It required no persuasion to enlist
the good offices of the Archbishop, who was in entire sympathy with their
undertaking and promptly furnished Las Casas with a warm letter to the
King, commending both the cause and its advocate. To facilitate his
approach to the King, he furnished Las Casas also with letters to
influential persons in the royal household.
No better beginning could have been desired, and Las Casas set out for
Plasencia where the King then was, arriving there a few days before
Christmas in the year 1515. Thanks to the counsels and information given
him by Montesinos, Las Casas knew something of the court and upon what
persons he might count, who might still be won over, and who were to be
avoided. Among these last, the most notorious and powerful opponents were
the Bishop of Burgos and the Secretary, Lope Conchillos. Whatever virtues
the former may have possessed they were certainly not of the apostolic
order and his appointment to the high office of President of the India
Council was one of the earliest and greatest calamities that overtook
American interests. Las Casas was careful, therefore, to defer meeting
these two personages and to refrain from disclosing the object of his
presence until he should have first secured a hearing from the King, whose
sympathy he hoped to enlist before his opponents could prejudice the
monarch against him. Again fortune favoured him, and two days before
Christmas he was closeted with the King, and explained in the fullest
detail the state of things in the islands; the extinction of the natives,
which was following rapidly on the barbarities and rapacity of the
Spaniards, and the violation of the royal provisions which the benevolence
of the late Queen and the sagacity of the King had decreed. He was astute
enough to couple with the argument that these iniquities lay heavily on
the royal conscience, the assurance that the revenues from the Indies
would infallibly diminish until they ceased altogether, unless these
crying abuses were corrected. In this conversation the charming
personality, cultivated intelligence, and earnest convictions of Las Casas
told powerfully, and he recounted horrifying incidents to the astonished
sovereign which, it may be rightly imagined, lost nothing in the recital
by such an eloquent and fervent advocate. Again he was completely
successful, for King Ferdinand promised him another and longer audience
before Easter in which he would go more fully into the matter. He slyly
notes in closing his own description of the audience and its results, that
neither Conchillos nor the Bishop of Burgos was much overjoyed when they
heard from the King what subject was under discussion.
Diego Velasquez was well aware that Las Casas would spare no means to
carry on his propaganda and that his first step would doubtless be to
engage the attention of the Admiral, Diego Columbus, whose lieutenant
Velasquez was, and that of the King as well, if he could reach him. He
wrote therefore to the Treasurer, Passamonte, who in turn wrote to
Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos warning them of what was on foot.
The monks of the Dominican Order were, in those days, to be found in many
posts of influence, not the least of which was that of confessor to the
King, and to Fray Tomas de Matiencio, the ghostly father of King
Ferdinand, Las Casas did not fail to go at the outset. Matiencio had
already shown pronounced sympathy with the cause of the Indians and was,
therefore, to be counted upon as a firm ally, both because of his personal
convictions and for motives of solidarity with his Order. Through his
confessor, Ferdinand sent to tell Las Casas that he should preceed him to
Seville and wait for his arrival there, when the promised audience would
be granted him; the King’s departure was fixed for the fourth day after
Christmas, so it may be seen that this affair did not drag just then at
the Spanish court. The confessor also advised Las Casas not to avoid the
Bishop of Burgos and Conchillos; but, on the contrary, to go openly to
both and to explain as frankly to them as he had done to the King, the
exact condition of the Indians, the motives which had prompted him to
intervene, and the measures he judged necessary to stop the depopulation
and ruin of the colonies. Matiencio reasoned that, as the matter must
ultimately come into the hands of these two men, and as they had to be
reckoned with, it was far wiser to give them the fullest information at
the outset, hoping also that Las Casas’s moving description of the
sufferings the Indians endured might modify their opposition. This
counsel did not accord with the plan of Las Casas but he allowed his
judgment to be overruled by the royal confessor’s advice and sought out
Conchillos as being the less intractable of the two. The letter from the
Archbishop of Seville procured him a courteous reception and had he come
seeking a benefice or some preferment from the King, he might have counted
upon the favour and assistance of the Secretary to advance his suit, but,
as he piously phrases it, he had, by divine mercy, been rescued from the
darkness in which, like all the others, he had wandered, a lost man, and
was liberated from all desire for any temporal benefits. Save the
gracious words and courtly blandishments which Conchillos showered upon
him, nothing resulted from the interview.
His reception by the Bishop of Burgos was of a totally different order
and, though it is to be lamented that this prelate did not possess more of
the virtues becoming his state, it must be noted in his favour that
hypocrisy was wanting in his unlovely character. Amongst other atrocities
which Las Casas brought to his attention was the death of seven thousand
Indian children within three months, on which he dwelt, hoping to touch
some humane chord in the Bishop. He was deceived. “Look what an ignorant
fool you are!” exclaimed his lordship. “What is this to me or what to the
King?” This rough answer goaded his patience beyond control and Las Casas
shouted in reply: “That all these souls perish is nothing to you and
nothing to the King! Oh, Eternal God! then to whom is it anything?” With
this he left the Bishop’s presence.
The activity of Las Casas, his earnestness and his eloquence produced
immediate effects, for he forced Indian affairs upon the languid attention
of indifferent people and aroused so much interest in them that they
became a topic of general discussion. He recounted his experiences to
Archbishop Deza on his return to Seville, and begged him to arrange that
both Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos should be present at the audience
the King had promised him, so that he might put the case fully, for he
desired to charge them directly in the royal presence with responsibility
for the massacres and cruelties to the Indians and for the damage done to
the royal interests by their maladministration of the colonies. His
project for this dramatic encounter was forestalled, and all the hopes
born of the royal assurances given him at Plasencia were dashed by the
news that reached Seville of the death of King Ferdinand, which occurred
at Madrigalegos on January 23, 1516.
This sudden stoppage of his carefully planned campaign was discouraging
enough to Las Casas but he was not disheartened, and resolved to set out
at once for Flanders where the young King Charles then was and to present
his plans to the monarch before he arrived in Spain.
King Ferdinand’s last will designated Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros as
regent of the kingdom until his successor’s arrival in Spain.
In a century prolific in great men, Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros was among
the greatest. Descended from an honourable family, he entered the Church,
where a career of great promise opened before him. At an early age,
however, he quit the secular priesthood for the cloister and became a monk
of the Franciscan Order, in which the austerity of his observance of that
severe rule of life and the vigour of his intellect advanced him to the
position of a Provincial.
Much against his own inclination, he had accepted the post of confessor to
Queen Isabella and from thence forward he became, in spite of himself, a
dominant figure in the political and ecclesiastical affairs of the realm.
The Queen raised him to the primatial see of Toledo, which carried with it
his elevation to the Roman purple. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo was
the richest and most important person in Spain, after the sovereign; but
promotion to this lofty dignity, with its obligations to the pomp and
magnificence imposed by the usage of the times, in no way modified the
austerity of Cardinal Ximenez’s life. He still wore the rough habit of
St. Francis under his purple and he patched its rents with his own hands.
Amidst palatial surroundings he slept on the floor or on a wooden
bench—never in a bed—and he held strictly to the diet of a simple monk.
No man was less of the world than he, though none was more in it or knew
it better. He became as renowned for his wisdom and ability in conducting
affairs as he had long since been for his sanctity, and the confidence
which the King and Queen reposed in him caused him to be admitted to their
counsels on all the most important matters of government.
[Illustration: Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros]
Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros
From a relief preserved in the Universidad Central. Photo by J. Laurent &
Co., Madrid
When the death of King Ferdinand occurred, the Cardinal was nearly eighty
years of age, yet he accepted and assumed the regency imposed upon him by
the King’s testament. Adrian of Utrecht, Dean of the University of
Louvain, who had resided for some months at the court of King Ferdinand in
the quality of ambassador from Prince Charles, produced full powers from
the young sovereign, which conferred upon him the regency after
Ferdinand’s death. Cardinal Ximenez acknowledged him without delay, and a
joint regency was instituted in which Adrian’s part was merely nominal, as
the actual government was carried on exclusively by the Cardinal.
It could hardly have been otherwise, for Adrian, as a foreigner, was
unpopular in Spain, where he exercised no influence; he did not even speak
Spanish and being, moreover, of a scholarly disposition, little used to
the intricacies of affairs of state, he was doubtless glad enough to
shelter himself behind the powerful figure of his masterful colleague.
The Cardinal was adored by the people; the sanctity of his life, the
integrity of his character, the superlative order of his genius, and his
princely munificence made him more powerful than any sovereign. Some of
the great nobles who had imagined that the regency of an aged monk would
favour the designs of their invasive ambitions were sharply checked by the
energy of the new regent, who had organised an efficient body of troops in
his own pay and speedily made it apparent that Spain had a ruler with whom
it was perilous to trifle. One incident in the contest he sustained in
defence of the crown’s prerogatives against the encroachments of the
feudal nobles, illustrates his character. The Duke of Infantado, the
Grand Admiral of Castile, and the Count of Benevente came as
representatives of the nobles, to inquire into the nature of the powers by
which the regent exercised such absolute authority. After hearing them
courteously, the Cardinal produced the late King’s testament and its
formal ratification by the absent King Charles. As they raised some
objections to the extent of the powers these documents gave him, he led
them to a window of his apartment commanding a view of a large encampment
of soldiers and artillery, saying, “There are the powers I have received
from his Catholic Majesty, by which I govern and shall continue to govern
Castile, until the King, my master and yours, shall take possession of his
kingdom.” This answer both astonished and silenced them and they withdrew
convinced of the futility of conspiracies against a man so well prepared
and so determined.
The supreme object of his regency was to consolidate the union of the
various kingdoms and principalities of the peninsula into one state—in
other words to create a nation. This he did, and thus laid the
foundations of Spain’s greatest power and glory, for he delivered the
kingdom to the young monarch in a more prosperous condition than it had
ever before enjoyed, and with the royal authority more widely extended and
more firmly grounded than any other Spanish sovereign had ever possessed
it.
The regency of Cardinal Ximenez did not last two years, yet such was the
permanent character of his beneficent influence upon the national
development, that the memory of his services is still undimmed in Spain.
Amongst the statesmen of his times, he was facile princeps and he enjoys
the unique distinction of being the only prime-minister in history who was
regarded as a saint by his own contemporaries. (28)
To this ascetic and autocratic but not unkindly statesman Las Casas
decided to address himself, and he proceeded to Madrid to acquaint the two
regents with the abuses prevailing in the Indies and to announce his
intention of going to Flanders unless the necessary measures for the
relief of the oppressed Indians could be devised in Spain before the King
arrived. He drew up a statement of the case in Latin, which he submitted
to the Ambassador Adrian, and another, identical, in Spanish, for Cardinal
Ximenez. The gentle-hearted Fleming was horrified by what he read of the
atrocities perpetrated in the King’s name in the colonies, and repairing
to the apartment of Cardinal Ximenez, who lodged in the same palace, asked
him if such enormities were possible. As the Cardinal already had plenty
of information on the subject from his brother Franciscans, he replied
that all that Las Casas stated was true and that there was even more
besides. He signified to Las Casas that his proposed journey to Flanders
was unnecessary as he would himself provide means in Madrid for correcting
the abuses in the colonies. There began at once a series of conferences
to which Cardinal Ximenez summoned his colleague in the regency, the
licentiate Zapata, Dr. Carbajal, and the distinguished jurist Dr. Palacios
Rubios; in the course of these debates Las Casas fully exposed the evils
of the colonial administration and proposed the measures which, in his
judgment, were necessary to remedy them. The Cardinal-regent always had
by him as a consultor the Bishop of Avila, who was also of his Order, but
he rigorously excluded the obnoxious Bishop of Burgos from all
participation in Indian affairs, to the no small perturbation of that
prelate. Las Casas relates a significant incident that happened during
one of these conferences, illustrating the means employed by his opponents
to confute his statements. Cardinal Ximenez ordered the Laws of Burgos,
which, since 1512, were supposed to be in full force in the Indies for the
protection of the natives, to be read aloud; upon reaching one of the
articles, the reader falsified the text; Las Casas, who knew every line of
those acts by heart, objected and the Cardinal ordered the reader to
repeat; he did so in the same language, whereupon Las Casas once more
objected, saying, “The law does not say that.” The Cardinal, rendered
impatient by the repeated interruption, turned to Las Casas and remarked
with severity, “Either be silent or look well to what you say.” “Your
Eminence may take my head off if what this clerk is reading be truly found
in that law,” replied Las Casas promptly. Taking the articles from the
hands of the reader he showed his Eminence that the sense had not been
correctly read. The confusion of the clerk, whom Las Casas refuses to
dishonour by naming him in his history, was complete. The outcome of
these discussions was that Las Casas, Dr. Palacios Rubios, and Fray
Antonio de Montesinos (who had meanwhile arrived in Madrid) were deputed
by the Cardinal-regent to draft a project of laws which would sufficiently
protect the Indians and secure fair government in the colonies. By common
consent of his collaborators, the task of framing these laws was left
exclusively to Las Casas. His propositions were:
1.1. Unconditional liberty for the Indians;
2.2. Suppression of both repartimientos and encomiendas;
3.3. Some provisions for assisting the Spaniards to work their properties
profitably without recurring to the oppressive and abusive systems
they had hitherto employed.
Both Fray Antonio and Dr. Palacios Rubios approved these articles and the
latter somewhat added to and improved them, recomposing them in the proper
legal terminology of the time, after which they were again submitted,
discussed, and in some unimportant details, amended, in the
above-mentioned council presided over by the Cardinal, The next important
step was to place the execution of these new provisions in the hands of
trusted delegates who would apply them rigorously and in the sense
designed by the council, for there had been no lack of excellent decrees,
having the same end in view, but which had, in the past, been rendered
null and of no effect, through the connivance of the colonial authorities,
to whom their execution had been entrusted. Las Casas, for the best of
motives, declined having any part in designating such officers and in
consideration of certain rivalries existing between the Franciscan and
Dominican Orders, especially in Indian affairs, the Cardinal finally
decided to confide the necessary powers to the monks of St. Jerome, an
Order which had thus far taken no part in colonial affairs. Upon
receiving the Cardinal’s notification of this intention, the General of
that Order, who resided at San Bartolomé de Lupiano, summoned a chapter of
all the priors of Castile, in which twelve monks were designated, amongst
whom the regent might make his selection. Four priors came to Madrid to
notify this result to his Eminence, and one afternoon the two regents,
accompanied by the entire court, rode out to the monastery of St. Jerome
near the Buen Retiro Gardens, where they lodged, to receive the formal
answer of the chapter. Las Casas was, of course, present, and the regents
were received by the monks in the sacristy of the church, which had been
appropriately prepared for the great occasion. Cardinal Ximenez addressed
the assembly, highly commending the willingness of the Jeronymites to
undertake such a meritorious task, and then ordered that Las Casas be
summoned to hear the result.
The boyish enthusiasm of Las Casas’s character appears on this occasion,
for, consumed with impatience, tortured by hopes and fears, he had waited
outside in the upper cloister as long as he could stand it and had then
finally descended a staircase which brought him unexpectedly to the
sacristy door, just in time to hear that he was being searched for; some
one asked him if he knew Las Casas, to which he meekly replied, “I am he.”
As he could not get in at that door, he had to go round through the
church, which obliged him to traverse the choir, where all the great
people of the court in attendance on the regents were waiting and who, so
Las Casas observes, were all glad to see him, except perhaps the Bishop of
Burgos. This hour of Las Casas’s triumph was complete; on his knees
before the Cardinal-regent, in the presence of the assembled Priors of
Castile and the entire court, he heard, with ill-repressed tears, the
announcement that all he had most earnestly striven and prayed for was now
to be realised and that he himself was designated to confer with the
General of the Jeronymites concerning the choice of the men who were to
execute the new laws in the Indies. The Cardinal, who unbent to few,
treated Las Casas with genial familiarity and when the latter declared
that he did not need the money his Eminence had provided for his expenses,
as he had enough of his own, he smilingly observed, “Go to, father, I am
richer than you.”
Not a moment of time was wasted, and that very evening Las Casas received
his instructions and twenty ducats for the expenses of his journey to
Lupiano, whither he set out the following morning. One of the twelve
monks amongst whom the selection was to be made was in that monastery, and
the General had him called and presented him to Las Casas, who was as
pleased with his robust appearance, which promised to support the physical
hardships of colonial life, as he was with all that he heard of his
virtues and learning, though his face was as ugly a one as ever a man had;
this was Fray Bernardino de Mazanedo, the Prior of Mejorada, and he was
selected as one of the commission; Luis de Figueroa and the Prior of St.
Jeromino in Seville were finally agreed upon between Las Casas and the
General to complete the number.
No sooner had the Jeronymite monks arrived in Madrid than the agents of
the colonists, and all those who were interested in maintaining the
encomiendas and repartimientos, whose suppression meant the diminution of
their incomes, laid instant siege to them. Las Casas was abused and even
threatened in the public streets, and a well organised campaign of calumny
and misrepresentation was set actively in motion. The Indians were
represented as lazy, filthy pagans, of bestial morals, no better than
dogs, and fit only for slavery, in which state alone there might be some
hope of instructing and converting them to Christianity. Las Casas was
flouted as a fanatic, bent on destroying the Spanish colonies, and as an
enemy of his country’s interests. So adroitly were these and other
arguments presented, and so overwhelming was the mass of testimony
favourable to the colonists that constantly reached the Jeronymites from
all sides, that they began to be ill-affected towards Las Casas and to
disregard his suggestions. Dr. Palacios Rubios was so disturbed by their
new inclination, that after conversations with them, in which their
changed views were plainly manifested, he declared it would be disastrous
to send such men; he forthwith determined to stop their departure, if
possible, before it was too late.
Cardinal Ximenez fell seriously ill at this time and Palacios Rubios
sought access to him in vain. As soon as his Eminence had sufficiently
convalesced to attend to business, he ordered the final instructions to be
given to the Jeronymites and their departure to be hastened. One of the
orders directed them, upon arriving in Hispaniola, to at once annul the
encomiendas held by members of the Royal Council for the Indies. This
struck a hard blow at Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos amongst others,
for the former lost eleven hundred Indians and the latter eight hundred,
(29) nor from that time forth did any member of the Council openly hold
property in slaves, though Las Casas was sceptical as to whether they did
not continue to have private interests. Another similar order obliged all
judges and royal officials in the colonies to surrender their slaves. The
general sense of the instructions furnished to the Jeronymites for their
guidance was in conformity with the ideas of Las Casas and the articles
were indeed drawn up by him, although certain concessions which did not
meet with his approval had been made to public opinion, and the important
property-owners in the colonies were sufficiently powerful at court to
obtain some modifications and to suppress some provisions in favour of the
Indians, which seriously hampered the original proposals. In spite of the
declaration formally set down in the will of Isabella the Catholic that
the Indians were and must be considered free men, the contrary opinion had
come to prevail, and in the beginning of his negotiations in Spain Las
Casas himself had not ventured to insist too much or too openly on this
point, until one day, when in conversation with Cardinal Ximenez, he
queried by what principle of justice the Indians were held in subjection.
His Eminence answered with some vivacity: “With no justice, for are they
not free men? And who can doubt they are free?” From thenceforward Las
Casas sustained this opinion unflinchingly.(30) The licentiate Zuazo of
Seville was appointed to accompany the Jeronymites and to open an inquiry
(tomar la residencia) into the administration of the colonial officials.
The powers of the friars were the fullest possible and enabled them to
inquire into all matters touching the welfare of the Indians and to
correct abuses, but they were not “governors” as has been supposed and
stated by many writers, but rather overseers, charged to ensure the proper
execution of the laws which had been enacted to protect the natives.
As soon as the instructions were delivered to the Jeronymites, Las Casas
received the following order from the Cardinal-regent:
“The Queen and the King. Bartholomew de Las Casas, priest, native of the
city of Seville, and resident of the island of Cuba which is in the
Indies.”
“For as much as we are informed that you have been and are resident in
those parts for a long time, from which you know and are experienced in
their affairs, especially in what touches the well-being and usefulness of
the Indians, and you know and are acquainted with their life and
conversation from having dwelt with them, and because we know your good
zeal in our Lord’s service, from which we hope that you will execute with
all diligence and care what we shall charge and command you and will see
to what contributes to the welfare of the souls and bodies of the
Spaniards and Indians who live there; by these presents we command you to
repair to those regions of the said Indies, such as the islands of
Hispaniola, Cuba, San Juan, and Jamaica as well as to the mainland; and
you shall advise, inform, and give your opinion to the pious Jeronymite
fathers whom we despatch to effect the reformation of the Indies, and to
other persons who may assist them in this, concerning everything which
touches the liberty, good treatment and welfare of the souls and bodies of
the said Indians in the said islands and mainland; and that you shall
write to us giving information concerning everything that may be done or
should be done in the said islands; and that you shall do everything
required for our Lord’s service; for all of which we give you full power,
with all its casualties, dependencies, emergencies, annexes, and connexes;
and we command our Admiral and appellate judges and all other justices
whatsoever of the said Islands and Tierrafirma that they protect you and
cause this power to be protected and that they shall not oppose or go
contrary to its form and tenor nor consent that such be done at any time
or in any way under pain of our displeasure and of 10,000 maravedis for
each person who may act to the contrary.”
“Done at Madrid the 17th day of September in the year 1516 F. Cardinalis,
Adrianus Ambasiator—By command of the Queen and the King her son, our
sovereigns, the governors in their name. George de Baracaldo.”
In addition to this full power, Las Casas was given the title of
Protector-General (or Procurator-General) of all the Indians, to which
office an annual salary of one hundred dollars was attached, an amount
which, for the times, was a considerable one.
Though everything now seemed ready for the departure of the Jeronymites
and Las Casas, the members of the Council still advanced objections to the
instructions which Palacios Rubios had drawn up for the licentiate Zuazo,
who had been deputed to take the residencia of the colonial judges; it was
feared that some severe decisions might be given on acts which these
latter had performed in the interests of the members of the India Council,
whose tools they were. Las Casas employed his usual direct tactics to
overcome these delays and brought the matter to the Cardinal’s notice.
His Eminence summoned the licentiate Zapata and Dr. Carbajal into his
presence and ordered them to sign Zuazo’s papers; they obeyed, but
contrived to affix a mark in cipher to their signatures which would enable
them later to complain to the King that the regent had forced them to
sign.
In taking leave of the Cardinal, Las Casas frankly declared that he feared
the Jeronymites had been so tampered with and influenced before starting
on their mission, that more evil than good was to be apprehended from
their action. The Cardinal, nonplussed for an instant by these
forebodings, exclaimed, “Whom then can we trust?” quickly adding, “Go on
and do you look out for everything.”
This unpromising joint-commission sailed from San Lucar on November 11,
1516, but in separate vessels, the Jeronymites keeping aloof from Las
Casas, who they contrived should not embark on the same ship with
themselves. Their vessel reached Hispaniola thirteen days earlier than
the other, which had been obliged to stop at Puerto Rico to discharge
freight.
By detaching themselves from Las Casas at the very outset, the three
Jeronymites doubtless intended to affirm the impartial and independent
attitude essential to the judicial character of their mission. They were
not carried to the Indies on any such wave of righteous zeal and
indignation as bore the impetuous reformer on its crest. They were
cloister-bred men, cautious and prudent in their decisions and deliberate
in their acts, and they doubtless felt that for them to arrive in company
with Las Casas would be to prejudice the impartiality of their proceedings
in the eyes of all the colonists. They were sent to the colonies to carry
out instructions of a most delicate and difficult nature and it was their
obvious preference to fulfil their mission, as far as possible, without
friction. In this exercise of caution, Las Casas beheld weakness and even
treachery. His passionate nature chafed and raged at the deliberateness
with which these impassive monks moved, and he was not slow to denounce
them as having been won over by the blandishments of the colonial
officials to betray the mission with which they were entrusted. His
passion for justice, associated as it was with unrealisable ideals,
refused to take account of the multifarious difficulties in the way of the
reforms on which his heart was set, and he despised the obstacles to their
consummation, through which he would have crashed, regardless of the
consequences. Despite the sincerity of these one-sided views of the great
Protector, it must be conceded that the problems confronting the
Jeronymites were complex and difficult of solution. The prompt and
reckless execution of their instructions would have overturned the entire
economic system of the colonies which, however unjust in its principles,
was the established condition of things, and would have certainly brought
financial ruin as the first consequence. The situation was one which
called for all their circumspection if the Jeronymites were to make their
authority effective and their decisions operative. They were the first of
all the men sent by the Spanish government to effect reforms in the
colonies, whose intention to discharge their duty was conscientious,
though Las Casas does not even admit this in their favour, for he declares
that they had relatives in the islands whom they desired to benefit, and
that in writing to the Governor of Cuba they even signed themselves as his
“chaplains,” which seemed to him conclusive proof of their too subservient
attitude towards the higher colonial authorities.
The Jeronymites, however, had been furnished with two sets of instructions
and it was within their discretion to guide their policy according to
either, as their judgment formed on the spot might dictate. The first set
of instructions was in conformity with the plan drawn up by Las Casas and
Palacios Rubios; the second was provided in case the result of their
investigations showed the full application of the first to be inexpedient,
for Cardinal Ximenez, though sympathising with the ideas of Las Casas, was
not led by him, but viewed the situation, as he did every other that
concerned the welfare of the Spanish realm, from the standpoint of a
statesman trustee for the absent sovereign.
The first measures of the Jeronymites were in the right direction, but
they were far too timid and temporising to satisfy the expectations of Las
Casas; the conditions he had foreseen were only too prompt in declaring
themselves, for the Jeronymites showed themselves somewhat insensible to
the crying abuses which he incessantly pressed upon their attention. They
did not give full credit to all of his representations and even ignored
many of the proofs he adduced. They had failed to find the picture he had
drawn in Spain of the Indians an entirely accurate one, and they resisted
his reiterated demand that they should scrupulously obey the injunction to
at once deprive all royal judges and officials of their encomiendas. The
exasperation of Las Casas at this time pushed him to excesses which
aroused such a storm of ill-feeling and hostility against him that his
good friends the Dominicans feared for his life and insisted that he
should come to live with them in their monastery, where he would be safer
from any violence his enemies might attempt. Whether it was feasible to
proceed in the drastic manner demanded by Las Casas is open to doubt. It
is evident that the colonists would have offered an obstinate resistance,
to combat which the three Jeronymites had nothing but the moral force of
their commission. Even with our present facilities for rapid
communication, it is not always easy for the central authority to control
its agents and ensure the faithful execution of its intentions. In the
sixteenth century, time and distance influenced powerfully the action of
the government representatives. Their instructions were made complex,
voluminous, in the effort to cover every possible emergency, but no
foresight sufficed for the purpose, while the legal system in use opened
many loopholes for evading or postponing the application of unpopular
measures. An appeal from a royal commissioner’s decision, to the India
Council or to the King, entailed a delay of many long months or even
years, during which each party contested every point. The outcome of such
proceedings was problematical but the resisting party was always certain
of the one positive advantage of delay.