BISHOP OF CHIAPA
Charles V was in Germany when the little company arrived in Madrid, but
Las Casas found many old friends, and at once set about his business
with his usual zeal and energy. When he was not preaching, interviewing
officials, traveling, or busy in some way about matters concerning his
beloved Indians, he was writing a book, "The Destruction of the Indies,"
which, however, was not published until twelve years afterward.
The clerico's old opponent, Bishop Fonseca, was dead, and there was now
a much better spirit in the council, so that it proved easier than ever
before for him to secure the legislation he desired. The Pope had also
recently issued a Bull forbidding all good Catholic subjects to make
slaves of the Indians, and this was a great help to Las Casas. Some new
laws were passed for their benefit, among them one that forbade any lay
Spaniards to enter The Land of War for five years. This royal order was
solemnly proclaimed, at Las Casas' request, from the steps of the
cathedral of Seville.
And now, his business being finished and the Franciscan and Dominican
monks he had procured for Guatemala being ready to sail, Las Casas
prepared to start back to the New World; but at the last moment he was
detained by the president of the Council of the Indies, who needed the
clerico's advice. The Dominicans were kept back with him, as he was
their vicar-general, but the Franciscans went, and with them Father Luis
Cancer, taking with him a copy of the new laws. These laws were a great
triumph for Las Casas, and their acceptance was due to his wonderful
personal influence.
The clerico was now seventy years old. He had crossed the ocean twelve
times. Four times he had gone to Germany to see the Emperor, and we must
remember that traveling then was a much more difficult and unpleasant
experience than anything we can conceive of now. In his case poverty
made it still more of a hardship. But none of these things mattered to
this earnest "apostle" if only he could lighten the hard lot of those
for whom he labored and suffered.
One Sunday evening, while he was in Barcelona, the Emperor's secretary
called on him to tell him that it was the royal wish to make him Bishop
of Cuzco, the largest and richest of all the dioceses in the New World.
But Las Casas would accept no reward for his work, and for fear he
should be urged, he left Barcelona. Not long after, however, the
diocese of Chiapa[2] was established, and the bishop appointed to it
having died on his way out, this bishopric was offered to Las Casas. In
contrast with the bishopric of Cuzco, it was the _poorest_ in the New
World,--so poor indeed that the Emperor had to help out the salary of
the bishop with a royal grant. Such a field, however, appealed far more
to the Protector of the Indians than the former one, and he accepted the
offer and was consecrated in Seville on the 8th of March, 1544, and at
once prepared to leave, taking with him forty-four Dominicans. The
voyage proved to be a very trying and dangerous one, but at length the
holy men arrived at San Domingo. The Dominicans came to meet the Bishop
and his companions and escorted them to the monastery, and the _Te Deum_
was sung in the church, in thanksgiving for their escape from so many
perils.
Hardly any in San Domingo, except the Dominicans, were glad to see the
protector of the Indians. The new laws were regarded as the ruin of the
colonies. Indignation meetings were held, and it was determined to
boycott the monks. This was a very serious calamity to the Dominicans,
for as they, like the Franciscans, belonged to what were known as the
mendicant orders, and depended for their daily bread upon what they
could beg, they were reduced to extremity.
Prayer was offered in the church night and day, and very soon the
Franciscans began secretly to send the Dominicans food from what they
themselves received, and an old negro woman offered to make a round
every day of the houses where there were people that did not share the
evil spirit of the rest of the town, and so their necessity was
relieved.
In spite of this condition of things, Las Casas went before the
_Audiencia_, and in the name of the King, summoned them to set free the
Indians. But Spanish subjects had a right to protest against any new
laws if they so desired, and when this was done, the laws were not
enforced until the protest had been either accepted or rejected.
Meanwhile, Las Casas himself wrote to the Emperor, and both he and
others of the Dominicans preached constantly against slavery and the
wrongs done the Indians. Naturally, these sermons increased the hatred
against them. In the midst of these troubles, however, the friars were
astonished and delighted to receive a visit one day from a rich widow,
said to be the richest person in the colony, who came to tell them that
their sermons had convinced her that it was a sin to hold the Indians in
bondage, and she had resolved to free hers (she had more than two
hundred); and because she now felt that her money had been made wrongly,
she was about to make over her plantation to the order. This caused a
great sensation in the town. Then, too, seeing the Dominicans holding to
their convictions, directly against their own interests, after a time
made many people rather ashamed of themselves, and little by little the
hostility died away, so that when the time came for Las Casas and his
monks to leave, some of the Spaniards even expressed regret.
They sailed early in December, and this voyage also proved a trying one.
It was very stormy, and their pilot turned out to be so ignorant that
the Bishop himself had to take the wheel; for this truly wonderful man
could sail a ship, work a plantation, write books, plead a case in
court, perform the duties of a bishop, and at the same time fight
unceasingly for the oppressed.
The returning Dominicans had a terrible trip, and it was January before
they landed at the port of Lazaro, in his own diocese. The Spaniards and
the Christian Indians came out at once to the ship to greet the Bishop.
It must have been a queer crowd: Proud, stately Spaniards, in velvets
and laces; blanketed Indians, silent and stolid; naked heathens, eager
to see the man whom they knew as their protector! But Las Casas was glad
to see them all, and leaving the ship, they all went up together to the
church, where after the service the Spaniards came to kiss the episcopal
ring, and after them the Indians.
At first the Bishop was received with politeness and apparent kindness,
but in spite of this all the Spaniards were resolved to resist the new
laws and not to acknowledge Las Casas as their Bishop nor pay him their
tithes. This was very awkward, for Las Casas found himself thus unable
to pay the captain of the ship in which he and the monks had come, but
the friars sold a part of the goods they had brought with them, the
parish priest loaned the Bishop some money, and he gave his note for the
rest. So that difficulty was settled.
Their troubles had only begun, however. It was not a great distance to
Ciudad Real, where they wished to go, but it was impossible to carry
their provisions and the equipment for the church by land, so they
loaded their baggage on an old, flat-bottomed boat, to go by sea; and
twelve of the fathers, with a number of others, went in it. Two days
later the Bishop and the rest were ready to sail on a faster boat; but
just as they were about to embark, word came that the other boat had
been wrecked and nine of the fathers and twenty-seven laymen drowned.
Those who had been saved were staying in an Indian village near the
shore, and everything they possessed had been lost.
The remaining monks were so alarmed that at first they refused to go by
sea, but Las Casas finally persuaded them that, as the skies were clear
and their boat a strong, new one, they were in no danger, and the party
set out. It was a very sad and downcast little body of men, however. All
one night and day they sat, without eating or speaking. When they
reached the place where the other boat had been wrecked, the captain
pointed out the spot, and the Bishop recited the prayers for the dead.
Then he ordered food to be prepared, called them all to come to the
table, and set the example by himself eating and talking cheerfully all
the time, until his companions' courage was restored.
A gale coming up, the party took refuge behind an island, where they lay
for a long time before they could go on; and then, because some of them
were still afraid, they divided into two bodies,--the Bishop, his
faithful friend and constant companion, Father Ladrada, and two other
monks, remaining on the boat, and the rest proceeding by land.
The town of Chiapa was the Indian town of the diocese; Ciudad Real, the
Spanish town. It was to the latter that the Bishop went first. The
people received him cordially and showed him every outward form of
respect. He found but few priests in the whole diocese, four of them in
and about Ciudad Real. Of these, one was quite young and had no
particular charge, one traveled about from one town to another,
baptizing the Indians for the money it brought him; one was a partner in
a sugar plantation and spent more time attending to this business than
to his clerical duties, and another collected from the owners of
plantations and slaves taxes and tribute paid to the crown. The Bishop
took all these into his house, to keep them in order, paying them a
small salary and giving them their meals at his own table.
Las Casas' manner of living as a bishop was no different from that which
he had practiced as a simple monk. His habit was rusty and patched and
he ate no meat, though it was provided for his guests: his forks and
spoons were of wood, and the dishes of plain earthenware. This simple
mode of life did not suit the priests, and two of them left his diocese.
All day Las Casas attended to the work of the diocese, and late into the
night he studied and wrote. At all times the Indians had free access to
him, coming to him with all their sorrows. Every day they would crowd
about him, their faces swollen with weeping and, kissing the hem of his
robe, would pour out to him the story of the cruelties from which they
suffered. The good Bishop suffered with them and often would be heard in
the night, sighing and groaning in his room.
Las Casas preached constantly against the enslaving of the Indians, and
rebuked the holders of slaves for their disregard of the new laws. He
ordered his clergy to refuse absolution and the sacraments to those who
would not obey, which order aroused the anger of the whole community
against him. His Dean disobeyed him and sided with the colonists. He was
petitioned, threatened, and abused. The children were taught couplets
against him, which they sang after him in the street. Some one even
discharged a gun into the window of his room one night, to frighten him.
All support was withdrawn from the Dominicans, and the Bishop's salary
was not paid.
Finally the Bishop arrested the Dean. In those days, when the Roman
Church was so powerful, bishops had a kind of episcopal marshal, and
usually there was also an episcopal jail, where ecclesiastical offenders
were confined. This arrest of the Dean stirred up a great commotion. A
crowd of people gathered around him, and he made a frantic effort to
escape, crying out:
"Help me! Gentlemen, help me!"
And he voiced all sorts of promises, if they would assist him. The
citizens being armed, in a few minutes the Dean was free; whereupon
sentinels were set at all the doors of the monastery, to prevent the
monks from going to the assistance of their Bishop, and a shouting mob
forced its way into his house.
One of the Dominicans and a knight of Salamanca, who chanced to be
there, met the riotous crowd and managed to quiet the tumult a little;
but the leaders burst into the Bishop's room, shouting at him, insulting
him, and even threatening to kill him.
Las Casas spoke not a word, but stood calmly looking at them until the
storm had spent itself, when quietly, with words of pity and
forgiveness, he dismissed them.
He now excommunicated the Dean. The monks were greatly alarmed for the
Bishop's life and begged him to leave and go to some place of safety,
but he said to them:
"Fathers, where would you have me go! Where shall I be safe as long as I
act in behalf of these poor creatures? Were the cause mine, I would drop
it with pleasure, but it is that of my flock, of these miserable
Indians, oppressed by unjust slavery."
While they were talking, four other Dominicans rushed in to tell the
Bishop that the man who had threatened to kill him,--the one that had
fired the shot to frighten him,--had been stabbed. At once Las Casas
rose, and sending for a surgeon and taking some of the brothers with
him, went to minister to the injured man. For hours they worked over
him, the Bishop ministering to him as to a brother; and so touched was
the man that he begged Las Casas' forgiveness with all his heart, and
was from that day one of the clerico's warmest friends.
The Bishop's salary was now refused him, all alms withdrawn from the
Dominicans, and when Indians were sent out into the province to beg for
them, the Spaniards seized whatever was brought in, and gave the bearers
a sound beating into the bargain, so that it was impossible to obtain
food in this way.
It now became absolutely impossible for the monks to live any longer in
Ciudad Real, and it was decided to go to the Indian town of Chiapa and
build a convent there; but before leaving the Bishop preached a sermon
in which the people were told plainly that it was because of the
hardness of their hearts and their sin in persisting to keep the Indians
as slaves, after the Dominicans had shown them the evil of it, that the
friars were going away.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Chiapa, the diocese of Las Casas, is now the Mexican State of
Chiapas, the southernmost State of Mexico, bordering on the present
Republic of Guatemala.