CONTROVERSIES
As has been heretofore explained, Las Casas perceived that his efforts to
obtain support for his project would come to naught, unless it could be
made plain to the Council that some material benefit would accrue to the
royal revenues; he therefore turned his attention to forming a plan which
should comprehend the conversion of the Indians by gentle and peaceful
means and likewise yield a profit to the Crown. He conceived the idea of
forming a species of order of knighthood, whose members were to be known
as Knights of the Golden Spur. They were to number fifty selected men,
each of whom should furnish two hundred ducats, which he deemed would
amount to a sufficient sum for the expenses of founding the colony. The
knights were to wear a dress of white cloth, marked on the breast with a
red cross, similar to the cross of Calatrava, but with some additional
ornamentation. The purpose of this costume was to distinguish them in the
eyes of the Indians from all other Spaniards.
A grant of one thousand leagues of coast, beginning one hundred leagues
above Paria, and with no limits in the hinterland, was asked for the
colony, in return for which concession a payment of fifteen thousand
ducats was promised to the Crown during the first three years, which sum
should afterwards become an annual income until the seventh year; from the
seventh to the tenth year, the income would be thirty thousand ducats, and
beginning with the eleventh year, it would reach the sum of sixty
thousand. The foundation of three fortified towns, with at least fifty
Spaniards in each, was promised within the first five years. The religious
propaganda was to be carried on by twelve Franciscan and Dominican friars,
whom Las Casas was to be allowed to choose: for this purpose the King was
asked to solicit the necessary faculties from the Holy See. Such, in
brief, was the plan which Las Casas conceived for spreading civilisation
on the American coast and winning the Indians to Christianity. His own
jurisdiction within the conceded territory was to be absolute, and all
Spaniards whatsoever were to be forbidden by royal command, and under pain
of severe penalties, to cross its borders. The only discoverable road to
liberty lay through absolutism, under a benevolent despot.
The most obvious flaw in this scheme was the difficulty—amounting indeed
to impossibility—of finding the fifty knights. Las Casas, like many
enthusiasts and reformers, failed to reckon with the realities of human
nature. His colony was to be a Utopia, peopled by lofty-minded Spaniards,
who were free from the prevalent thirst for gold, and only preoccupied in
cultivating sentiments of the purest altruism: mixed with them were to be
gentle-mannered Indians, in whom shone all the qualities of primitive man,
unspoiled by contact with the evils of civilisation, and who were
thirsting to know the truth and to embrace it. These idyllic barbarians
were to furnish the human material on which the knights were to exercise
their virtues and all were to be thus united in bonds of loving fraternity
and disinterested industry, under the benign government of a dozen monks,
who had long since renounced this world and who would give their exclusive
attention to leading their flock from a terrestrial into the celestial
paradise. A Fra Angelico might have grouped these interesting types into a
picture of soul-stirring beauty. Even had the fifty been found, all with
the proper dispositions and in harmonious unanimity of purpose, there was
little chance that they would remain unaffected by the unbalancing and
corrupting influences of a new country, where they would be absolute
masters over an inferior race of people. Many excellent men of the highest
principles and best intentions went from Spain to America in those times,
but few resisted the temptations which beset them.
Las Casas kept his plan a profound secret until he had secured the
approbation of the new Chancellor, Gattinara, and that of several of the
influential Flemings. It was then laid before the India Council, where it
was met with a storm of objection and ridicule. It was promptly shelved,
and not all the urging of Las Casas, the discontent of the Flemings, nor
even the efforts of the Chancellor himself to induce the Bishop of Burgos
to study the matter, sufficed to have it taken into serious consideration.
The different features, as they became known, provoked mirth, and much fun
was made of the white robes, red crosses, and golden spurs of the knights.
Baffled by the inertia of the Council and the failure of his powerful
friends to obtain serious attention for his project, Las Casas had
recourse to other influences. The oppression of the Indians and the
violation of their rights as free men not only revolted the humanitarian
instincts of their Protector, they offended justice and constituted a
grave crime against morality, by which the King was inculpated and for
which he would have to answer at the bar of divine justice. No utilitarian
ends could justify criminal means, and that Indian slavery was profitable
to the Crown was in no sense a palliation of its essential wickedness.
The King’s confessor, as keeper of the royal conscience, had already in
Ferdinand’s time been prevailed upon to explain to his Majesty the grave
responsibility he incurred in tolerating a state of things so contrary to
divine and natural laws. Now Las Casas, in his extremity, turned to the
court preachers, who were eight in number, laying before them the entire
case as a problem in morals, upon which it was within their duty as the
spiritual instructors of the sovereign to pronounce. The part which these
ecclesiastics took in the matter was brief but not unimportant nor without
results Two of them were secular priests, the brothers Luis and Antonio
Corodele, both religious and learned men, doctors of the University of
Paris; another was Fray Miguel de Salamanca, also a doctor of Paris; there
was Father Lafuente of the University of Alcalá, a Franciscan, Fray Alonso
de Leon, an Augustinian, Fray Dionisio, and two others whose names Las
Casas was not able to recall when writing his history some forty years
after these events occurred. This body of learned men represented
everything that was most authoritative in theological and canonical
opinion of the times and constituted a most formidable ally against the
Bishop and Council. Meetings of the eight preachers and Las Casas were
held in the convent of Santa Catalina, at which several other men of
importance assisted, one of whom was Fray Alonso de Medina, of the
Dominicans; while another, a Franciscan friar who had spent much time in
the Indies, is described as a brother of the Queen of Scotland. These
meetings, which were secret, were held at the same hour of the day as the
sittings of the India Council.
Religious dogma was held in that age to be axiomatic and incontrovertible;
all science was interpreted through the medium of the one universal
science of theology, and the civil law of the times drew its sanction from
the principles of canon law, from which indeed it was scarcely separable.
Just as it was sought to sustain Galileo’s proposition concerning the
revolution of the earth by an appeal to theology, and just as theologians
were considered competent to pronounce on the soundness of the theories of
Columbus, so was it admitted, with far greater reason, to be within their
competence to pronounce upon the question of the extension of slavery in
the Indies, although that matter was treated as one of secular policy,
belonging to the India Council. Kings and governments contended, when
they could, for the exercise of their royal powers in temporal matters,
independently of the spiritual control, but the line of distinction was a
fine one, not easily drawn, and the basis of Spain’s claim to the Indies
and to the exercise of jurisdiction in America was the Bull of Alexander
VI. issued in May, 1493. The express condition on which the Pope granted
the Bull was, that the conversion of the Indians should be the primary
care of the Spanish government, and this condition was so clear and
binding that it amounted to a reservation to the Pope of an oversight of
the means to be adopted for that end. As it was within the recognised
power of the Pope to grant such rights and jurisdiction, and to attach
conditions thereto, it was equally within his power to annul or withdraw
them if the Spanish sovereigns failed to fulfil those conditions. Hence
the government of the Indies, in all that pertained to the moral
well-being and religious instruction of the natives, was, beyond question,
within the legitimate exercise of ecclesiastical control. The exposition
of the case by Las Casas, supported by the mass of evidence he was able to
furnish and the testimony of the Scotch Franciscan and others, convinced
the theologians that their duty, both to religion and to the King bound
them to intervene and to correct abuses in open violation of the declared
intentions of the sovereigns from the time of Isabella that the Indians
should be free men, whose conversion to Christianity was their first duty.
The theologians bound themselves by a common oath, that no opposition
should discourage them, and that each and all of them would not desist
from their single and united efforts, until success had crowned them. It
was decided that the first step should be to exhort the members of the
Council: this failing of result, they would address their remonstrances to
the Chancellor, after him to M. de Chièvres, who was nearest the person of
the King, and in the last resort the monarch himself should be made to
understand his responsibility. Should nothing come of their exhortations,
they bound themselves to preach openly against the government, instructing
the public conscience on the subject and assigning to the King his just
share of the wrong-doing.
Action followed swiftly upon the adoption of this resolution, and the
India Council, under the presidency of the redoubtable Bishop of Burgos,
was stupefied by the apparition of the theologians at one of its sittings.
Fray Miguel de Salamanca, after asking for permission of the President,
made the following brief but energetic discourse: “Most illustrious
gentlemen and most reverend sir: It has been certified to us, the
preachers of the King our lord, by persons whom we are forced to believe,
and it also appears to be notorious, that men of our Spanish nation in the
Indies commit great and unheard-of evils against the natives of those
parts; such as robberies and murders, thereby giving the greatest offence
to God and bringing infamy on our holy faith, and by which such an
infinite number of people have perished that large islands and a great
part of the mainland are now depopulated, to the great ignominy even of
the Royal Crown of Spain; for the Holy Scripture testifies that in the
multitude of the people consists the dignity and honour of the King, and
in their diminution is his ignominy and dishonour. We have marvelled at
this, knowing the prudence and merits of the illustrious persons who
compose the Council for the government of those countries, to whom God
appears to have confided such a great world as they are said to
constitute, and for which they will have to render a strict account; on
the other hand, learning that there can have been no reason why those
nations, which lived peaceably in their countries, owing us nothing,
should have been destroyed by us, we know not what to say, nor do we find
any one to whom to impute such irreparable evils, other than to those who
until now have governed them. Since it is incumbent upon us, by virtue of
the office we hold at court, to oppose and denounce everything that is an
offence and a dishonour to the Divine Majesty and to souls and, to the
extent of our powers, to exhort until all such be extirpated, we have
decided, before adopting other measures, to come before your lordships and
make our purpose known, and to supplicate you to consent to explain to us
how it has been possible to permit such a great evil without remedying it;
and that since it has not until now been stopped—for it goes on to-day
with full license—you should devise means to remedy it. It is manifest
that by so doing, your lordships will receive signal recompense, while by
refusing, you will, on the contrary, receive terrible torments, for you
bear on your shoulders the heaviest and most dangerous burden, if you well
consider it, of any men in the world to-day. We likewise beseech your
lordships, with all due humility and reverence, not to attribute our
coming to temerity, but to accept and judge it by the spirit that has
prompted it, which is the wish to act according to God’s precepts as we
are obliged to do.”
The Council—composed of such dignitaries as the Grand Commander of
Castile, Don Garcia de Padilla, the distinguished man of letters, Peter
Martyr, Francisco de los Cobos, and others—listened aghast to this speech,
which was followed by a moment of silence that none of them felt prepared
to break. The Bishop, whose wrath had waxed during the discourse, rose
with an air of great authority and majesty to reply.
“Great indeed,” he said, “has been your presumption and daring to come to
correct the Council of the King. Casas must be at the bottom of this; who
puts you, the King’s preachers, to meddle in government affairs which the
King entrusts to his Councils? The King does not maintain you for this,
but to preach the Gospel.”
The rebuke fell flat, nor were the theologians one whit overawed by the
Bishop’s high tone, for which they were not unprepared. Father Lafuente,
who answered, began with a pun: “There is no Casas here but the Casa
[house] of God, in which we officiate and for whose support and defence we
are bound and ready to stake our lives. Does it appear presumption to your
lordship that eight doctors of theology, who might properly address a
whole General Council on matters of faith and government of the universal
Church, should come to admonish a Council of the King? We may admonish
the King’s Councils for what they do wrong, for by our office we belong to
the King’s Council, and hence, gentlemen, we come here to admonish you and
to require you to correct those most misguided and unjust actions,
committed in the Indies to the perdition of souls and the offence of God.
And if you do not correct these things, gentlemen, we shall preach against
you as against those who do not keep the laws of God, nor act for the
advantage of the King’s service. This, gentlemen, is to fulfil and to
preach the Gospel.”
Such a threat was no despicable one, and the members of the Council were
brought by it to a milder disposition than that disclosed by the testy
reply of their President to Fray Miguel’s opening discourse. Garcia
Padilla undertook the apology of the Council, protesting that many
excellent Provisions in favour of the Indians had emanated from that body,
whose intentions were good; he offered to submit these proofs of an
equitable disposition to the theologians, though he observed that their
presumption did not merit such courtesy. The tone of the discussion
softened considerably and it was decided that the various enactments of
the Council already in vigour and those it proposed to put in operation
should be presented to the theologians, who would later make known their
opinion of them. These comprised the Laws of Burgos published in 1512 and
the several amendments of Cardinal Ximenez. After hearing them read, the
theologians withdrew, saying they would present their opinion at another
sitting.
Fray Miguel was deputed to draw up in writing their conclusions, which he
did in the somewhat lengthy form common at that time, the substance of the
decision being that repartimientos and encomiendas were condemned
absolutely, as the principal and direct cause of the destruction of the
Indians; and second, that the only means for correcting the existing
abuses and to civilise and convert the Indians was to form towns of at
most twelve hundred householders. Las Casas was opposed to the remedy,
which he perceived to be not only without efficacy, but positively hurtful
to the Indians, who would only deteriorate under such unfamiliar
conditions. This divergence of opinion between Las Casas and the preachers
introduced disunion where unity was the sole source of strength, and the
inability to fix upon a remedy for the evils, which all were agreed cried
out for one, destroyed the force of the representations in favour of the
Indians. All were agreed that the actual state of things was intolerable,
but they could not agree upon the remedy to be adopted. In reality no
laws could cope with the situation. A weak, retrograde race of ignorant
people was suddenly brought into contact with the strong, active
Spaniards, who carried with them a civilisation to which the former were
inertly refractory. There was but the one possible outcome, which has
repeated itself throughout the world’s history—the weaker race had to go
under. Neither the Utopia of Las Casas nor the laws proposed by the
preachers nor any other conceivable arrangement could have saved them.
The laws enacted were already more than sufficient to protect the natives
from oppression and undue suffering, had their application been carried
out in the spirit in which they were framed. Even the system of
encomiendas might have been worked more rationally, and under it the
condition of the Indians need not have been a particularly bad one.
Paternal laws, paternally administered in the humane and religious spirit
preached by the Dominicans and Las Casas, might have furnished a remedy,
but the character of the Spanish colonists, the prevalent greed for
wealth, taken together with the indolent habits and temperament of the
Indians, opposed unsurmountable obstacles.
The zeal of Las Casas closed his eyes to these existing conditions, which
foredoomed his efforts to failure and the Indians to destruction.
Fortunately it was so, for he was thus enabled to continue his struggle
unflaggingly and to keep the Public conscience in Spain awake to the work
of justice to be accomplished. In this struggle lay the only hope of
protecting the defenceless natives from undue excesses, of opposing some
check to the injustice of the colonists, and of discharging the moral duty
that Christian Spain had assumed towards her humble subjects in the New
World.
Seeing the uselessness of further dealings with the preachers, Las Casas
dropped that learned body, of which nothing further was ever heard in
connection with Indian affairs.
He next adopted the bold policy of formally accusing the whole Council of
unfairness and partiality—a truly amazing act of courage on the part of a
simple priest, even though he felt himself supported by the sympathy of
the Chancellor and several of the King’s Flemish favourites. More
astonishing must it have been to the members of that august body, that the
sovereign should have ordered the impeachment to be taken into
consideration. This decision was procured through the influence of the
Chancellor, Gattinara, and bore with it the authorisation for Las Casas to
designate such persons as he deemed suitable, to sit in the Council with
those he had accused, and to thus ensure his affairs an impartial hearing.
At the same time M. de Laxao made known to him that the King desired such
persons to be selected from among the members of other royal councils.
His choice fell upon Don Juan Manuel, Alonso Tellez, the Marquis de
Aguilar del Campo, the licentiate Vargas, and all the Flemings who had
seats in Councils. Besides these, the King desired that whenever the
affairs of Las Casas were to come under consideration, the voting members
of all other Councils, including those of War and of the Inquisition,
should be present. In virtue of this command, the Cardinal Adrian, who was
at that time Grand Inquisitor of Spain, sometimes assisted. This newly
constituted Council met rarely, owing to the pressure of public matters of
grave importance to the country, and the Bishop of Burgos, who was
mortally vexed by the royal decision in favour of Las Casas’s complaint,
was fertile in pretexts for creating delays. To counteract such
procrastination, the Grand Chancellor adopted the policy of citing the
Bishop to Council meetings without specifying the nature of the business
to be considered, and when the unsuspecting prelate appeared, expecting to
treat matters of state, he frequently had Las Casas and his Indian affairs
sprung upon him. The number of the Council being increased by the
admission of the new members from five to more than thirty, the Bishop was
powerless to oppose effective resistance, as he could only count on the
votes of his five original associates. Nor did the clipping of the
Bishop’s claws stop there, for whenever he appeared at Court, some of the
Flemings contrived, to his intense disgust, to bring the subject of the
Indies to the King’s attention, so that it only remained for him to appear
as rarely as possible.
The Council having consented to the projects of Las Casas, in spite of the
Bishop’s persistent opposition, orders were given for the necessary
authorisations for carrying out his proposed plan. At this juncture the
Bishop discovered an ally in the person of Gonzalez Fernandez de Oviedo,
author of the _Historia natural y moral de las Indias_, who had passed
much time in America and was highly esteemed as an authority in Indian
matters. Oviedo was presented to the Chancellor and explained his reasons
for condemning the plans of Las Casas but failed to change Gattinara’s
opinion. Representatives of the colonists in Cuba and Hispaniola spared
no effort to defeat their opponent, promising, if the concessions Las
Casas was asking were granted to them, to pay triple the income to the
Crown which the latter offered. This offer by the procurators of the
colonists was not ignored, and, by command of the King, was laid before
the Council for consideration. This led to further discussion, for Las
Casas was invited to respond to the counter proposals, which he did with
even more than his usual eloquence. A special meeting was called, before
which Las Casas was plied with questions and objections to his plans; but
if his enemies thought to find him lacking in ready response, they were
sadly deceived, for the promptness with which he disposed of every
objection, the clearness with which he answered every question, and the
earnestness with which he vindicated the cause of the Indians and flayed
their oppressors, ended by convincing even the most indifferent. The
brother of the Bishop, Antonio de Fonseca, challenged Las Casas for
unjustly accusing the members of the Council of killing the Indians,
whereas thanks to his measures such members had long since been obliged to
surrender their encomiendas; to this argument Las Casas retorted: “Sir,
their lordships have not killed _all_ the Indians, but they did kill an
infinite number while they had them, though the principal and greatest
destruction has been committed by individual Spaniards with the assistance
of their lordships.” It was obviously impossible to discuss in open
council with a man who talked thus, and when the Bishop himself, goaded to
impatience, exclaimed, “Well instructed indeed is a member of the King’s
Council who, because he is a member, finds himself in conflict with
Casas!” he got his answer from the imperturbable priest—“Better
instructed still is Casas, my lord, who, after having come two thousand
leagues at great risk and peril to save the King and his Council from
going to hell on account of the tyrannies and destructions of peoples and
kings which are perpetrated in the Indies, instead of being well received
and thanked for his service, is forced into conflict with the Council.”
This ended the discussion, and the concession already granted to Las
Casas, was ratified.
Nothing, however, was ever really ended in Spain in those days and too
many passions had been aroused, too many interests compromised, for the
enemies of Las Casas ever to acquiesce in his victory. The Bishop of
Burgos was the last man to accept such a defeat, and to his original
stubborn and interested opposition was now added a desire for vengeance on
his plain-spoken and successful opponent. From the material contained in
all the numberless petitions from the colonies which he had received at
various times, he drew up a memorial to the King, containing thirty
reasons why the concession granted to Las Casas should be refused. When
these thirty objections were ready the Bishop asked the Chancellor to
summon a special meeting of the Council, before which they were read. Las
Casas was not present at this meeting, but both Cardinal Adrian and the
Chancellor notified him and advised him to reply immediately. The
Chancellor’s request to the secretary of the Council, Cobos, to furnish
him a copy of the memorial meeting with no reply, he sent a formal demand
for the memorial to be delivered to him without further delay; no denial
was possible, but the Council only delivered him the document on the sworn
assurance that it should not leave his hands. Gattinara gave the required
promise, but invited Las Casas and M. de Laxao to supper at his house that
evening, and, laying the great dossier on the table, said to Las Casas,
“Now make your answer to these objections advanced against you.”
“How, my lord,” answered Las Casas; “they were three months in forging and
drawing them up, and after reading them at your convenience, it took your
lordship two months to get possession of them, and now I am to answer them
in the space of a Credo! Give me five hours and your lordship shall see
what I answer.”
As his promise prevented the delivery of the memorial to Las Casas, the
Chancellor arranged a table for him in his own apartment where he could
compose his reply, advising him to make it in the form of answers to
questions supposed to be addressed to him by the King. For four nights
Las Casas laboured on his composition until eleven o’clock, at which hour
he supped with the Chancellor and afterwards returned at midnight to his
lodging, not without fears for his personal safety, for his enemies were
as numerous as they were powerful and sufficiently unscrupulous to use any
means for silencing him.
No copy exists of these thirty objections and the answers made to them,
and Las Casas says that the originals were burned. From the little that
is known of the former, they seem to have been so frivolous and strained
that it is amazing the Council listened to them with patience or that the
Chancellor deemed them worthy of a reply. The first, for example, stated
that, as Las Casas was a priest, the King had no jurisdiction over him to
restrain his actions in the territory conceded him; the second asserted
that by his turbulence he had provoked grave scandals in Cuba; the third
pointed out the danger of his forming an alliance with the Venetians or
Genoese and delivering to them the profits of his colony; another accused
him of having deceived Cardinal Ximenez, and the thirtieth or last of all
oracularly stated that there were some secret things known about him of
such a damaging nature that they could only be confided to the King’s
private ear, and hence were not set down in writing. This ancient method
of Court intriguers everywhere, whose mysterious accusations can only be
made in secrecy, without the accuser’s identity being disclosed, is always
new and is ever useful in cases where the condemnation of the accused is
determined beforehand.
Fortunately the Chancellor loved the light, and Las Casas was furnished
the opportunity of seeing and refuting the accusations against him, which
he did with entire success, not only clearing himself of every charge
invented to discredit him, but, turning the tables on his detractors, he
threw a flood of light on the maladministration of the colonies and the
peculations from the royal revenues by the Spanish officials. This
crushing answer, which filled more than twelve sheets of paper, was read
at a special meeting of the Council, which the Chancellor had summoned
without letting its object be known, and reduced his enemies to humiliated
silence. The only observation which even the usually ready Bishop found
to offer was that the answer had been prepared for Las Casas by the Court
preachers. The feebleness of this must have struck all present, and the
Chancellor with fine irony asked: “You now hold that Micer Bartholomew is
so lacking in argument and discretion that he has to find somebody else to
answer for him? From what I have heard of him he is equal to this and to
more besides.”
Gattinara presented a full report of the proceedings to the King, with the
result that the grant and privileges already conceded to Las Casas were
fully confirmed. Skirmishing between him and the Bishop went on as usual
during the final settlement of the details with the Council and on one
occasion Las Casas exclaimed to him, “By my faith, my lord, you have
fairly sold me the Gospel and since it is paid for, now deliver it!”