AT COURT
Father Luis Cancer and Father Ladrada were both with Las Casas in Spain.
One of the first things Las Casas did, with the approval of the Prince,
was to organize a missionary expedition to Florida, with Father Luis
Cancer at the head of it. There this faithful friend and devoted
missionary soon after met his death at the hands of the Indians.
While in Chiapa the Bishop had written a little book of instructions to
his clergy. Formal objection to its teachings was laid before the
Council of the Indies, and its author was summoned to come before that
body and explain himself. This he did to their entire satisfaction,
though not to that of his enemies, who engaged the most famous
theologian and lawyer in Spain, Juan Gines Sepulveda, to dispute the
position of Las Casas and answer his arguments. Sepulveda had written a
treatise upholding the conquest of the New World by war. The Council of
the Indies would not allow this book to be published, but Las Casas had
asked them to allow it to be submitted to the universities of Salamanca
and Alcala for their opinion. This opinion proved to be against it.
Las Casas now undertook to answer Sepulveda's arguments and defend the
freedom of his Indians. The war of words waxed fast and furious, and the
controversy attracted so much attention that the Emperor ordered the
India Council to assemble at Valladolid, to decide whether a war of
conquest might justly be carried on against the Indians. The Emperor
himself presided, and Las Casas and Sepulveda argued the question before
them all. It appears to have been a drawn battle; but at length the
Council decided in favor of Sepulveda. The Emperor and the officials of
the government, however, must have been of another opinion, for
Sepulveda's book was suppressed. At the time of this controversy Las
Casas was seventy-six years old.
Soon after this Las Casas resigned his bishopric and the Emperor granted
him a pension. He made his home in the Dominican college of St. Gregory,
at Valladolid, where his old friend Father Ladrada was with him.
And now, after having labored for the Indians for so many years,
crossing and recrossing the ocean, traveling over hundreds of miles of
wild country on foot, like St. Paul, "in perils of waters, in perils of
robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in
perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea,"
he might be seen, day after day and night after night, sitting at his
desk, writing letters, memorials, and pamphlets in defense of his
beloved Indians. He kept up a constant correspondence with all parts of
the New World, and when he heard of any new outrage on the part of the
Spaniards against the natives, he at once brought it to the attention of
Prince Philip, now regent of the kingdom.
At the end of the year 1551 a number of Dominicans and Franciscans
having been induced through his appeals to go out to the Indies, Las
Casas went to Seville to see them off. For some reason they were delayed
there for ten months, and during that time he was kept busy editing a
number of his works, keeping two printing-presses going all the time.
Las Casas must have had a wonderful constitution. His hard life in a
tropical country had neither weakened his body nor impaired his mind.
All his time from the day of his return to Spain to the time of his
death was spent in defense of the Indians; and through his untiring
efforts their condition was much improved in Mexico and elsewhere.
Laws had already been passed which allowed the _encomiendas_, as the
grants of land and Indians in Spanish America were called, to be held in
a family only during two lifetimes. They then reverted to the crown.
Thus the Indians were being gradually emancipated. There were also
officers appointed to protect the interests of the crown in the
reversion, so that it was no longer possible to repeat the horrors of
Hispaniola.
When Las Casas heard that the proposal had been made to allow the
holders of _encomiendas_ to get possession of them in perpetuity, he
went at once to the King and succeeded in preventing it. As Fiske says:
"It is worth remembering that pretty much the only praiseworthy
thing Philip ever did was done under Las Casas' influence."
The activity of Las Casas was marvelous. His longest work was his
"History of the Indies." At the age of ninety he wrote a "Memorial on
Peru," said to be one of his best, and two years later, in 1566, he went
to Madrid to speak in person for the Indians of Guatemala. He had heard
through the Dominicans that that province had been deprived of its
governing body, so that the Indians had no chance of justice, having to
go to Mexico if they wished to make any appeal. He was successful in
this mission, and the _Audiencia_ was restored to Guatemala.
This was the last work of Las Casas. In July of that year, while still
in Madrid, he was taken ill and died after a short illness, at the age
of ninety-two.
As he lay dying, his brethren, the Dominicans, kneeling about the bed
and reciting the prayers for the dying, he begged them to persevere in
their defense of the Indians, and asked them to join him in prayer that
he might be forgiven any remissness on his part in the fulfillment of
his mission. He was beginning to tell them how he came to enter upon
this work when his spirit departed.
Thousands of people attended the funeral of Las Casas. He was buried in
Madrid, in the convent chapel of "Our Lady of Atocha."
In early American history there is no one who stands on a level with
this remarkable man. Many bitter enemies he had, it is true; such a
man,--fearless, outspoken, able, never to be silenced when he was
convinced of the righteousness of his cause,--was bound to have. Never
during the many years of his long life, did the Indians lack a friend to
plead in their behalf. Amid the cupidity, cruelty, and injustice of the
Spaniards in the New World his character shines like a star in the
darkness of night. We can't do better in closing than to quote the words
in which Fiske speaks of him:
"In contemplating such a life as that of Las Casas, all words of
eulogy seem weak and frivolous. The historian can only bow in
reverent awe before a figure which is, in some respects, the most
beautiful and sublime in the annals of Christianity since the
Apostolic age. When now and then in the course of the centuries
God's providence brings such a life into the world, the memory of
it must be cherished by mankind as one of its most precious and
sacred possessions. For the thoughts, the words, the deeds, of such
a man there is no death. The sphere of their influence goes on
widening forever. They bud, they blossom, they bear fruit, from age
to age."