A NEW WORLD
When Las Casas arrived in Hispaniola with Ovando, the new governor, they
were greeted by the news that a huge nugget of gold had been found,
weighing thirty-five pounds. It was shaped like a flat dish, and to
celebrate the discovery of such a treasure, a banquet was given and a
roast pig served up on this novel platter. The nugget was sent to Spain,
as a present to King Ferdinand, on the same ship as the infamous
Bobadilla, the deposed governor, but the ship was wrecked in a terrible
storm soon after leaving port, and both the nugget and the governor went
down into the depths of the ocean.
Las Casas and his companion also heard that there had been another
uprising of the Indians and that many had been captured and made slaves.
Queen Isabella had instructed Ovando that the Indians must be free, only
paying tribute, as all Spanish subjects did, and that they should be
recompensed for the work they did in the mines. The good Queen little
knew how far her officers were from treating them as she had commanded.
Las Casas does not seem to have felt any particular pity for the Indians
in the beginning. Like the rest of the adventurers, he had come to seek
his fortune in the New World, where there seemed such wonderful chances
to grow rich. He obtained from the governor an estate of his own, took
Indians as slaves, and sent some of them to work in the mines, though he
did not abuse nor overwork them, as others did. For eight years he not
only held Indians as slaves, but he was with Ovando during a second war
against the natives in one of the provinces of Hispaniola, and saw
terrible deeds of cruelty, yet never appears to have made a single
protest. This seems very strange when we think of what he said and did
against slavery a few years later, and how his whole after life was
spent in the service of these oppressed people. His eyes, however, were
not yet opened, and he looked at things after the fashion of his time.
Ovando was a good governor, Las Casas says, "but not for Indians." He
was a little, fair-haired man, gentle in manner, and most polite, but he
made everybody understand that he intended to be obeyed. When any
gentleman became troublesome, Ovando would invite him to dine with him,
talk so pleasantly and flatteringly to his guest that he would think the
governor must mean to do something very grand for him, and then,
suddenly pointing down the harbor, would ask in which of the ships lying
at anchor the gentleman would like to take passage for Spain. The poor
man, confused and alarmed, yet afraid to protest, would very likely say
that he had no money to pay his fare. Whereupon the very polite little
governor would at once tell him not to let that trouble him, as he,
Ovando, would provide the funds. And off the gentleman would have to go
from the dinner table to the ship.
But although Ovando ruled the white men well, he was neither just nor
kind to the Indians. He gave them out in lots of fifty, or a hundred, or
five hundred, to those who wanted them, and the poor creatures were
worked to death and abused without mercy. When, in desperation, they
would rise against their tyrants, they were punished savagely, being
burned alive, torn to pieces by bloodhounds, and drowned in the ocean or
the rivers, even helpless little children often being treated in this
way.
In 1510 four Dominican friars came over to Hispaniola and settled in San
Domingo. The Sunday after their arrival one of them preached a sermon on
the glories of heaven,--a discourse that Las Casas heard, and one that
made a great impression on him. In the afternoon the Prior asked to have
the Indians sent to the church to be taught; so they came,--men, women,
and children; and this custom the Dominicans continued every Sunday
afterward.
Some time in this same year Las Casas was ordained priest. We should
like to know how he came to take this step, but he tells us nothing
about it. He threw himself into his new duties with the same energy that
he had used in his business, and began at once to teach the Indians, as
the Dominicans were doing. Whatever he did, all his life long, he did
with all his might, and very soon he became famous all over the island
for his learning and goodness.
The little settlement of four Dominicans had increased by the end of the
next year to twelve; nor had they been there many months before they
began to have their eyes opened to the wrongs the Indians were suffering
at the hands of the white men.
A Spaniard who had killed his wife in a fit of jealousy and had been
hiding for two or three years, repenting of his crime and tired of
living in concealment and fear, came to the Dominicans by night and
begged them to take him in and let him stay with them as a lay brother.
When they were convinced that the man was truly repentant they received
him. He told them of the dreadful cruelties of which he and others had
been guilty toward the natives, and the good fathers soon felt that
they must look into the matter. This they did, and were not long in
coming to the conclusion that it was a great evil to make slaves of the
Indians and that they must do something to put a stop to it. So they
fasted and prayed, and conferred together, and finally decided that one
of their number, Father Antonio Montesino, should preach a sermon on the
subject.
The week before the sermon was to be preached all the Dominicans went
throughout the town and invited every one, from the governor down to the
humblest citizen, to come to the church on the following Sunday, which
was the First Sunday in Advent, to hear the sermon, which, they said,
would be upon a new subject, interesting to all of them.
Of course every one was curious to hear what would be said, and when
Sunday came the church was crowded. There was the governor, Diego
Columbus, in his pew, with his wife,--a grand-niece of King
Ferdinand,--and there were the officers of the colony, all the prominent
citizens, in fact, everybody in the town. Father Montesino preached from
the text: I am "the voice of one crying in the wilderness."
He told the congregation that they were living in mortal sin because of
their cruelty and their tyranny over the innocent natives. He told them
plainly that by their oppression, their cruel tortures, and the forced
labor in the mines to which they subjected these helpless people, they
were killing the whole race, and he declared that they had no chance of
salvation while they continued in such sin.
You may be sure that Father Montesino's hearers were both frightened and
angry at this bold sermon. All honor to the brave man who dared to
preach it and to the little company of his brethren who stood with him!
It was the first voice raised in the new world against slavery.
That afternoon the citizens had a meeting at the governor's house and
appointed a committee to visit and rebuke the preacher. However, this
accomplished nothing, as neither Father Montesino, the Prior of the
little community, nor any of the brotherhood was at all moved by their
threats, and all they obtained from the Dominicans was an agreement that
Father Montesino should preach again the next Sunday and endeavor to
please his congregation _as far as his conscience would permit_.
The committee told everybody that the Father was going to retract, and
again the next Sunday the church was crowded to hear Montesino eat his
own words. But, instead of the humble apology that was expected, his
auditors received a more terrible rebuke than before, Montesino
threatening them with eternal torments if they continued to illtreat the
Indians, or engage in the slave trade.
Angry as the Spaniards were, they could do nothing, for the good
fathers minded their blustering and threats not at all. Las Casas was
partly in sympathy with the Dominicans, but he thought they went too
far. He believed the Indians should be treated kindly, but saw no harm
in slavery; for all that, however, he did not forget the sermon.
The next year Diego Columbus decided to conquer the island of Cuba, and
he appointed Diego Valasquez, one of the most respected colonists in San
Domingo, commander of the expedition. Valasquez was a warm friend of Las
Casas', and after a time sent for him to act as his chaplain.
This war against the helpless and innocent natives was as cruel as all
the others. They were chased and torn to pieces by bloodhounds; they
were burned alive; their hands and feet were cut off, and those that
were not killed were made slaves. Forced to work beyond their strength
in the gold mines, half starved and beaten, their lives were full of
misery, without a gleam of hope, and in despair numbers of
them,--sometimes whole villages at a time,--committed suicide. One story
is told that makes us smile, although it is so sad.
A whole village of Indians resolved to hang themselves and so escape
their sufferings. In some way their master learned of their intention
and came upon them just as they stood ready to carry it out.
"Go get me a rope, too," he said to them; "for I must hang myself with
you." He told them they were so useful to him that he must go where they
were going, so that they might still labor for him. They, believing that
they could not free themselves from him even in the future life, sadly
gave up their plan, and went to work again.
Las Casas did all he could to protect the Indians, and soon became known
as their friend, and won their entire trust. They called him "Behique,"
which was the name they gave their magicians, and regarded him with awe.
As the natives had no written language, the way in which the Spaniards
conveyed information to one another by means of mysterious marks on
paper seemed a kind of magic to them. When the expedition was
approaching a town, Las Casas would send a messenger in advance,
carrying a paper scrawled all over and hidden in a hollow reed. The
messenger would show the paper to the Indians and tell them that the
Christians were coming and the father wanted them to furnish so many
huts for them to sleep in, so much food for them to eat, and so on,
adding: "If you do not, Behique will be much displeased." So great was
their confidence in him that they would at once obey his commands, which
they believed the messenger had read from the paper, and in this way Las
Casas was able to save them from the dreadful massacres that had so
often wiped out whole villages.
But one day a terrible thing occurred. Valasquez had gone away to be
married and had appointed a Spaniard, named Pamfilo de Narvaez,
commander in his absence. The soldiers,--about three hundred in
number,--drew near a village called Caonao, and stopped to eat in the
dry bed of a river, where there were a great many stones on which they
sharpened their swords. When, at length, they entered the town some two
thousand natives were gathered together, all sitting peacefully on the
ground to look at the wonderful strangers and especially to see the
horses, at which they were never tired of gazing. About five hundred
others were busy in one of the huts, preparing food for the Spaniards,
as Las Casas had told them to do. Suddenly one of the soldiers drew his
sword,--why, nobody ever knew,--and began slashing right and left at the
defenseless Indians. Instantly the others followed his example, and
before half of the Indians had realized what was happening, the place
was piled with dead bodies. Las Casas, who was not present at the
moment, hearing what was going on, in a white heat of rage rushed out
into the square to stop the slaughter; but before he succeeded in doing
this many hundred helpless men, women, and children had been butchered.
Not long after this dreadful event Valasquez returned to Cuba, and, the
whole island being now subdued, he proceeded to found a number of towns
and to divide the land and the Indians among the Spaniards. Las Casas
and a dear friend of his, Pedro de Renteria, who had lived near him in
Hispaniola, received together a whole village of Indians, and with them
the land they had owned,--some of this land being the very best on the
island.
Renteria was a quiet, thoughtful, unworldly man, humble and plain in his
ways, though of considerable learning. Las Casas seems to have been very
fond of him, though he tells us but little about him.
The two friends soon had a large house built, in which they lived
happily for a year, using the enslaved Indians to cultivate the
plantation and work the mines; for as yet neither of them had a thought
that it was wrong to hold slaves, and believed that they were doing
their duty to these natives by being kind to them and carefully
instructing them in the truths of Christianity.