1 Library 
 F, S. PHH_B:tlCK 
 
 5 1935 
 
 THE INDIAN POLICY OF SPAIN. 
 
 THE story of the relations between Spain and the natives of 
 her Western colonies is full of interest and instruction. 
 Like our own dealings with our Indians, it shows how the 
 kindly intentions of governments, expressed in beneficent legis- 
 lation, may be rendered nugatory when administration is 
 intrusted to unworthy hands or when sufficient influence is 
 brought to bear by those who profit from abuses. In view of 
 the responsibilities which the United States are assuming in 
 the remnant of Spain's colonial empire, a brief review of early 
 Spanish experiences may perhaps be not without wholesome 
 warning. 
 
 It is to Bartolome de las Casas that we owe most of our knowl- 
 edge of the seamy side of Spanish conquest and colonization. 
 Born, in 1474, of a good family in Seville, he had a university 
 training and acquired the grade of licentiate in laws. His 
 interest in the New World was inherited, for his father was one 
 of the companions of Columbus and returned to Spain in 1497. 
 In 1502, when Ovando was sent to Hispanola to replace Boba- 
 dilla, Bartolome accompanied him, and his career thenceforth 
 was irrevocably determined. At first, like his compatriots, he 
 seems to have taken little thought as to the unhappy fate of the 
 natives, but when, after entering the Church and taking orders, 
 he accompanied, in 1511, Diego Velazquez in the conquest of 
 Cuba, the ferocious cruelty of the invaders made such an impres- 
 sion on him that, after a short period of hesitation, he devoted 
 the rest of his prolonged life to the relief of the oppressed. For 
 this he was admirably fitted by nature and training. Though 
 hot-tempered, he was gifted with perseverance which no rebuff 
 or disappointment could outwear. Learned, eloquent and fear- 
 less, his sacred character gave him an influence all-important 
 in the Spanish courts of the period, which was enhanced by his 
 recognized disinterestedness. Single-handed, he time and again 
 overthrew the combinations organized by the powerful influ- 
 ences which he antagonized, but the evils of corrupt administra- 
 
 F I 4 l I 
 
I2O Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 tion were ineradicable and his triumphs in Spain were per- 
 sistently neutralized by defeats in the Caribbean. Neverthe- 
 less he struggled unweariedly to the last, and when advancing 
 age rendered active work impossible, his tireless pen was still 
 employed in the good cause. He died in 1566, at the ripe age 
 of 92, leaving unfinished MSS. on which he was laboring to the 
 end. His voluminous writings are the source of most of our 
 knowledge of the subject; some of his shorter tracts he gathered 
 together and printed in a small volume at Seville in 1552; the 
 rest he left to the care of posterity, and it is only of recent years 
 that those which have been preserved have seen the light, in 
 the Coleccion de Documentos ineditos para la Historia de Espana, 
 accompanied with illustrative documents, and a detailed biogra- 
 phy by Senor Fabie. The life of Las Casas was so intimately 
 bound up with the fate of the Indians that a clear understanding 
 of the influences which controlled their treatment by the 
 Spaniards can best be obtained by following his career. 
 
 In the little Seville volume the most noteworthy portion is 
 the Brevisima Relation de la destruycion de las Yndias, written 
 in 1542, for the instruction of Charles V and his advisers, who 
 were engaged in framing a new body of legislation for the 
 Indies. A more terrible story never shocked humanity. 
 Horrors are piled upon horrors until the sense becomes blunted 
 and one scarce realizes the savagery which had continued unin- 
 terruptedly in one region after another for half a century. 
 Doubtless there is eloquent exaggeration in the recital; Las 
 Casas was not a coldly scientific historian, but an advocate and 
 a preacher, who gathered hearsay evidence from all sources and 
 heightened the pathos of his narrative with his own warm sym- 
 pathies; but the general facts are corroborated by too many 
 contemporary authorities to justify the attempts at exculpation 
 which have been fashionable of late years. We may reasonably 
 doubt his accuracy when he says that since the discovery the 
 Spanish had destroyed, by cruelty and oppression, more than 
 twelve millions of Indians, including men, women and children, 
 and he verily thinks the number is more than fifteen millions; 
 nor is our confidence heightened when, in 1550, he asserts that 
 up to that time the destruction had increased to thirty millions 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 121 
 
 and in 1560 he puts the figure at forty millions, 1 but there can 
 be no question that the mortality by the sword and by the 
 inhuman slavery to which the Indians were reduced was fright- 
 ful. In 1517 a cooler statement by the Dominicans of His- 
 panola informs us that when the first count of the inhabitants 
 of the island was made they were found to number 1,100,000; 
 some years later a census reduced the figures to 16,000, and at 
 the time of writing there were but 10,000 left. 2 This is virtually 
 confirmed by Alonso de Zuazo, who had been sent out by Car- 
 dinal Ximenes with full powers of investigation, and who, in an 
 official report to Chievres, January 22, 1519, states that at 
 the discovery the population was 1,130,000, which had been 
 reduced to 11,000, and that these would disappear in three or 
 four years if no remedy was applied. 3 It was much the same in 
 Mexico, although the more warlike character of the natives and 
 the features of the country rendered the process slower. About 
 1595, Padre Mendieta compares the crowded towns and popu- 
 lous country which he had seen in the earlier days with the 
 deserted cities and rural solitudes that now everywhere met the 
 eye, and Bancroft informs us that at the close of the century it 
 was estimated that the Indians numbered only one-fourth of 
 what they had been at the time of the conquest. 4 
 
 The rapidity of the Spanish conquest is partially explained by 
 this ruthless extermination, for, as labor became scarce, slave- 
 hunting expeditions, attended with fearful loss of life, were 
 organized from Hispanola. Thus Puertorico fell a victim, then 
 Jamaica and then Cuba. By 1510 the Bahamas were virtually 
 depopulated, and the discovery of Florida was due to dis- 
 appointed slave-hunters, who found no one to carry off from the 
 Bahamas, and who pushed on to the mainland. 5 The Wind- 
 
 1 Brevtsima Relation (Ed. Venet., 1643, p. n) ; Las Casas, Historia de las 
 Indias, Lib. Ill, Cap. 137, 155 (Coleccidn de Documentos, Tom. XLVI, pp. 75, 
 164). 
 
 2 Hist, de las Indias, Lib. Ill, Cap. 94 (T. LXV, p. 338). Las Casas assumes 
 the original population of Hispanola to have been three or four millions (Ibid., 
 Cap. 19, T. LXIV, p. 452). 
 
 3 Col. de Doc., T. II, p. 353. 
 
 4 Mendieta, Hist. Edesiastica Indiana, p. 561 (Mexico, 1870). Bancroft, Hist, 
 of Mexico, II, 767. 
 
 5 Hist, de las Indias, Lib. Ill, Cap. 20 (Col. de Doc., T. LXIV, p. 457). 
 
122 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 ward Islands were raided in the same way, although the fierce 
 Carib cannibals were harder to capture. The coasts of Tierra 
 Firme were harried, and from Cuba to Yucatan the transit was 
 easy. All around the Caribbean the slave-hunter opened the 
 way to the Conquistador. Zuazo tells us that Ferdinand the 
 Catholic authorized this hideous traffic to remedy the lack of 
 labor, which was so scarce that an Indian duly branded as a slave 
 was known to have fetched the enormous price of eighty 
 ducats. 1 Indian slavery, in fact, was subsequently rendered 
 unlawful, except for crime, and the slave was designated by 
 branding in the face, though Las Casas told Philip II that the 
 royal branding-iron was promiscuously applied and that all 
 slaves thus marked ought to be adjudged free by the courts. 2 
 During the conquest of Central America and Mexico he says 
 that they were captured in numbers far beyond the capacity of 
 vessels to carry them away, and when brought down to the coast 
 an Indian would be exchanged for a cheese or a hundred for a 
 horse. 3 
 
 There were two causes at work in this extermination a tem- 
 porary one in the callous cruelty of the conquerors, and a per- 
 manent one in the brutal oppression which worked the unhappy 
 natives to death in the mines and fields and on the roads. The 
 Spaniards who sought the New World were largely of the 
 vilest class, either criminals escaping from justice or punished 
 by transportation. By the returning fleet of 1498, Columbus 
 begged the sovereigns to send out some good fraiks, rather, 
 as he says, to reform the faith of the Christians than to spread 
 it among the Indians, and in their formal memorial of 1517 the 
 Dominicans of Hispanola described the colonists as the most 
 infamous race of men that ever was known. 4 The secular 
 clergy who sought their fortunes in the New World were scarce 
 better, and could exercise no restraining influence. Even in 
 
 1 Col. de Doc., T. II, p. 355. 
 
 8 Recopiladtn de las Leyes de las Indias, Ley I, Tit. ii. Lib. VI. Fabie, Vida 
 (Col. de Doc., T. LXX, p. 165). 
 
 3 Brevisima Relacidn, p. 70. 
 
 *Hist. de las Indias, Lib. I, Cap. 155 (Col. de Doc. T. LXIII, p. 34*) J Lib. 
 Ill, Cap. 94 (T. LXV, p. 341). 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 123 
 
 1551, the Mexican Viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, in the 
 instructions drawn up for his successor, Luis de Velasco, says 
 that the clergy who come out are infamous, and if it were not 
 for the orders of the king and for baptism the Indians would 
 be better without them. 1 Colonists of this character, when 
 brought into contact with weak and submissive fellow-creatures, 
 were not likely to restrain their worst instincts, and they treated 
 the Indians with less compassion than if they were beasts of the 
 field. The merciless slaughter of war was followed by torture to 
 discover hidden treasure and with purposeless cruelty to gratify 
 pure bloodthirstiness. The edge of weapons was tested on 
 defenceless wretches and we hear of killing fat Indians to make 
 of their fat an ointment supposed to have peculiar virtues. We 
 might hope that these were fables, but the reckless disregard of 
 human life and suffering has left an imperishable linguistic 
 trace in the terrible word aperrear >to throw to the dogs, not 
 metaphorically, but literally, like the ad bestias mittere of the 
 Romans. The perros bravos or ferocious dogs, which were 
 brought by the colonists to aid them in hunting down Indians, 
 were the objects of the utmost terror to the natives, who were 
 frequently thrown to them to be torn to pieces, and children 
 were sometimes cut up and fed to them. 2 This denial of the 
 rights of humanity does not rest upon the assertions of those 
 who strove to protect the sufferers. Towards the close of the 
 sixteenth century, Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, Governor of 
 Margarita, a valiant captain, who had served for thirty years in 
 
 1 Col. de Doc. T. XXVI, p. 286. Oviedo (Quinquagenas de la Nobleza de 
 Espana I, 383) speaks of the licentiousness of the colonial clergy as inviting the 
 destruction of the colonies ; even as the marriage of the Greek priests had been 
 punished by their subjugation under the Turks. Cortes, who had at first asked 
 to have bishoprics erected, speedily changed his mind and requested Charles V 
 to send out only friars, for he said the priests of the Indians were held to such 
 rigid rules of modesty and chastity that if they should see the pomp and dis- 
 orderly lives of the Spanish hierarchy they would regard the Christian religion 
 as a farce and their conversion would be impracticable. Charles saw the wis- 
 dom of this and during the rest of his reign the bishops appointed belonged to 
 the religious orders and secular clergy were sparingly permitted to go to the 
 colonies (Torquemada, de la Monarquia Indiana, T. Ill, pp. 2, 3, Ed. 1723). 
 
 2 See a letter of the Dominicans of Hispafiola to Chievres (Col. de Doc. 
 LXX, 423), also one of Las Casas, Jan. 20, 1535, to the Council of the Indies 
 (Ibid., p. 464). 
 
124 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 the New World, wrote a work in defence of his fellow-colonists 
 against the accusations of Las Casas, the whole texture of which 
 reveals profound unconsciousness that the Indian had any claim 
 to consideration as a human being. He sees nothing to reprove 
 in the good missionary who, after preaching on the pains of 
 purgatory, offered to exhibit them to any who were curious. 
 Two Indians presented themselves, whom he bound to a stake, 
 build a circle of wood around them, set it on fire and roasted 
 them to death. For this freak he was tried by his archbishop, 
 but on protesting that it was by mistake that he had neglected 
 to rake away the fire in time, he was sent back to the mission 
 to resume his pious labors. Still more significant is a hideous 
 story which he tells to illustrate his thesis, that the sufferings of 
 the Indians were mostly attributable to the mistaken tenderness 
 shown to them by the chapetones a derisive name applied to 
 newly arrived officials from Spain, who had not had time 
 enough to become hardened. In an Indian village named 
 Hontibon, near Santafe de Bogota, a Spanish soldier quarrelled 
 with a native and struck him repeatedly in the face. The vil- 
 lagers collected at the cries of the sufferer and their aspect was 
 so threatening that the soldier surrendered and was bound and 
 carried somewhat roughly before the judge in Santafe. The 
 latter, in place of scolding the Indians for their audacity, actually 
 reproved the soldier, fined him and imprisoned him for a few 
 days. Burning to avenge himself, he bought a cross-bow and 
 fifty arrows; on a night of full moon he stationed himself at a 
 bridge on the high-road near Hontibon and when an Indian 
 passed he asked him whence he came. If the answer was "from 
 Hontibon" he was forthwith despatched and his corpse flung 
 into the river. When the fifty arrows had each its victim the 
 soldier used his sword, and at sunrise, his vengeance being 
 glutted, he mounted his horse and escaped to Peru. Now all 
 this slaughter, Machuca argues, would have been avoided if the 
 judge had only done his duty in punishing the Indians. 1 
 
 Destructive as was this supreme contempt for the lives of 
 the subject race, the leading source of misery and extermination 
 was the system of enforced labor. The Spaniard who went to 
 
 1 Machuca, Discorsos Apoldxicos (Col. de Doc. LXXI, 228, 301). 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 125 
 
 the colonies did not go to support himself, but to be supported 
 b*y the labor of others. As Machuca candidly says, in his 
 argument to prove that the Indians were not wantonly de- 
 stroyed, the Spaniards will not settle in an unoccupied land, no 
 matter how healthy or how rich in gold and silver, but they go 
 where there are Indians, although the land may be poor and 
 unhealthy, for if they have not Indians to work for them they 
 cannot enjoy what the land produces and to take possession 
 of it would be of no benefit. 1 Now the alleged object, steadily 
 asserted throughout the Spanish conquest, was the propagation 
 of the faith. In the momentous bull Inter c&tera of Alexander 
 VI, May 4, 1493, bestowing on the sovereigns of Castile all 
 lands discovered in the Western world, the sole motive alluded 
 to is the spread of the Gospel and the bringing of the heathen 
 into the fold of Christ. 2 In the codicil executed by Queen 
 Isabella, November 23, 1504, three days before her death, she 
 declares that her intention in obtaining the papal bull was to 
 propagate the faith, and she charges her husband and children 
 to regard this as the main object and to take the utmost care 
 that the Indians be treated justly and sustain no wrong. 3 So 
 on all occasions the moral and spiritual elevation of the natives 
 was asserted to be the motive of the extension of Spanish dom- 
 ination. It was not easy to reconcile this with the system 
 of repartimientos or encomiendas allotting Indians to Spaniards 
 to work the mines and cultivate the fields of their masters, 
 which commenced even under Columbus in 1496, and spread 
 in its development like a upas tree over all the Spanish colonies. 4 
 The theologians, however, were as usual equal to the occasion 
 and their dialectics sufficed to quiet all scruples of conscience. 
 Isabella was firmly resolved that her new vassals should be 
 freemen; when, in 1498, the returning fleet brought six hun- 
 dred Indians as slaves, of whom two hundred were given to the 
 shipmasters to pay the freight on the rest, she was justly indig- 
 nant; she ordered them all to be surrendered, under pain of 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 220. 
 
 8 Mag. Bullar. Roman, I. 454 (Ed. Luxemb.). 
 
 3 Mariana, Hist, de Espaita, Ed. 1796, Tom. IX. Append., p. xxvi. 
 
 4 Fabie, Vida (Col. de Doc. LXX, 377). 
 
126 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 death, and she gathered them together and sent them home 
 one of them, by a curious coincidence, being a boy given to 
 Bartolome de Las Casas by his father. 1 Yet even Isabella's 
 scruples gave way to the arguments that the Indians were per- 
 versely idle; idleness was a sin, and to eradicate it by the gentle 
 enforcement of industry brought progress in the path of Chris- 
 tian virtue. Moreover, conversion was impossible unless the 
 Indians associated with Christians; this they would not do 
 willingly and some coercion was imperative. When, therefore, 
 in 1502, Isabella sent Ovando to the West Indies to replace 
 Bobadilla, while her instructions were emphatic that the free- 
 dom of the Indians should be maintained and that they should 
 be protected from all wrong like her vassals of Castile, she 
 followed these with a letter, December 20, 1503, empowering 
 him to order the caciques each to supply a given number of men 
 who were to be made to work, as freemen and not as slaves, at 
 such reasonable wages as he might designate; they were .to 
 receive instruction on Sundays and feast-days; they were to be 
 well treated and any one wronging them was to be fined 10,000 
 maravedis. Ovando availed himself of this to assign to each 
 of his Spaniards a cacique with his subjects, so that all, men, 
 women and children, were practically reduced to slavery, and 
 although there was an admonition to instruct them in the faith, 
 this was purely formal. 2 The system was legalized by Ferdi- 
 nand in cedulas of August 14, and November 12, 1509, ordering 
 that as soon as natives are reduced to obedience the governor 
 shall allot them among the settlers, each of whom shall have 
 charge of those assigned to him, protecting them, providing 
 a priest to instruct and administer the sacraments to them and 
 training them in civilization. 3 Thus was inaugurated the sys- 
 tem of repartimientos or encomiendas, which remained as the 
 organization of the Spanish colonies. It mattered little what 
 humane regulations might be prescribed by the sovereigns; the 
 colonies were distant; the colonists were eager in the pursuit 
 
 *Hist. de las Indias, Lib. I, Cap. 155 (Col. de Doc. LXIII, 340). Fabie, Vida 
 (ubi sup., p. u). 
 
 * Hist, de las Indias, Lib. II, Cap. 13, 14 (Col. de Doc. LXIV, 71, 81). 
 3 Recopilacidn, Leyes i, 2, Tit. viii, Lib. VI. 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 127 
 
 of wealth and utterly unscrupulous as to the means of gaining 
 it; the Indians were slaves in all but name, without the protec- 
 tion afforded by ownership; under the lash they were worked 
 beyond their strength with insufficient food, nor was there 
 decent consideration for women big with child or exhausted 
 by child-birth, and it is not surprising that they melted away 
 like hoar-frost in the sun. The mining of the precious metals 
 cost its millions, but perhaps even more deadly were the tasks 
 imposed on them as carriers, for the islands afforded no native 
 beasts of burden, imported horses were too valuable to be 
 employed in such work, and all transportation was performed 
 by Indians, who were overloaded and goaded till they perished. 
 There is doubtless exaggeration in one of the accusations 
 brought against Fernando Pizarro during his trial in Madrid 
 that he had slain more than twenty thousand infants torn from 
 the breasts of their mothers in order to use the latter in carrying 
 supplies for his troops, but the formulation of such a charge in 
 a legal prosecution shows that it was not considered at the 
 time to be an improbability. 1 When Machuca reproaches the 
 Indians with their proneness to suicide and infanticide, he merely 
 exhibits to us their hopeless despair for themselves and their 
 offspring. 2 
 
 The civilizing intercourse with Christians, whereby Isabella 
 hoped to spread the faith, was evidently a failure; in the frenzied 
 pursuit of wealth the encomendero gave his wretched bondsmen 
 no leisure for religious instruction, and the hatred which he 
 excited naturally extended to his religion. As Juan Fernando 
 de Angelo, Bishop of Santa Marta, wrote to Charles V about 
 1540, "In these parts there are no Christians, but only demons 
 * * * * as for the Indians, nothing is more abhorrent to 
 them than the name of Christians, whom they call in their lan- 
 guage yares, which means demons, and they are right, for the 
 works which are wrought here are not of Christians, nor of men 
 
 1 Fabie, Vida (Col. de Doc. LXX, 236). This employment as carriers was 
 recognized as one of the most cruel hardships inflicted on the Indians. Las 
 Casas recurs to it frequently and the sovereigns in vain endeavored to suppress 
 or to limit it. See Recopilacidn, Leyes 6-18, Tit. xii, Lib. VI. 
 
 2 Col. de Doc. LXXI, 227. 
 
128 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 endowed with reason, but of demons." 1 It mattered little that 
 the sovereigns were careful, in the commissions and instructions 
 issued to the Conquistadores, to keep ever before them that 
 their first duty was to evangelize the heathen ; few missionaries 
 at first went over seas and these found the conditions too 
 adverse for success. It is true that in the voyage of 1 500, two 
 Franciscans sailed, who boasted that they baptized three thou- 
 sand Indians in the first port of Hispanola ' at which they 
 touched; 2 other Franciscans accompanied Ovando in 1502, but 
 they did nothing to convert the Indians or to alleviate their 
 miseries. 3 It was not until 1510, when Fay Pedro de Cordova 
 arrived with two fellow Dominicans, to be joined shortly after- 
 wards by ten or twelve more, that any sustained attempt was 
 made to give religious instruction, and we are told that on the 
 afternoons of Sundays and feast-days, multitudes flocked to hear 
 the good frailes, who had won general regard by their austere 
 simplicity. Filled with profound compassion for the sufferings of 
 the helpless creatures whom they had come to convert, they felt, 
 after a residence of about a year, that it was their duty to utter 
 the first protest against the abominations existing around them. 
 After anxious prayer and discussion they drew up a sermon 
 which Pedro de Cordova ordered Anton Montesino, a fervid 
 and fearless preacher, to deliver on the fourth Sunday in 
 Advent, 1511, and to it they invited the admiral, Diego Colon, 
 and all the royal officials and jurists. The sermon was a terrify- 
 ing one, exposing the wickedness of the Spaniards and assuring 
 them that they had no more chance of salvation than so many 
 Turks. It created great excitement; in the afternoon the offi- 
 cials assembled in the residence of the admiral, who accom- 
 panied them to the humble Dominican house, where the frailes 
 were required, under threat of expulsion from the island, to 
 preach a sermon of recantation. They professed readiness to 
 go at any moment, but finally promised that Montesino should 
 endeavor to satisfy them on the next Sunday. Word of the 
 expected revocation was passed around and the whole popula- 
 
 l -Brevisima Relacidn^ p.\8i. 
 
 
 
 5 Chron. Glassberger, ann. 1500 (Ad Claras Aquas, 1887). 
 
 3 Hist, de las Indias, Lib. Ill, Cap. 5, 14 (Col. de Doc. LXIV 372, 423). 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 129 
 
 tion crowded into the church; Montesino mounted the pulpit 
 and delivered a denunciation more fiery than before, telling 
 them that the brethren would no more receive them to confes- 
 sion and absolution than so many highway robbers, and that 
 they might write home what they pleased to whom they 
 pleased. 1 
 
 The fury of the colonists found vent in letters to the court 
 describing the fearful scandal caused by the Dominicans, who 
 consigned them all to hell because they employed the Indians 
 in the mines as the king had ordered a doctrine destructive 
 of the royal power and revenues, for twenty per cent, of the 
 product went to the crown. This caused great disturbance at 
 home, where powerful officials were interested in the abuses in 
 the colony. Conchillos, the royal secretary, was one of these, 
 and so was Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos, who enjoyed Ferdi- 
 nand's confidence and had the control of Indian affairs. Ferdi- 
 nand summoned the Dominican provincial of Castile and 
 ordered him to repair the scandals caused by his frailes or he 
 would see to it himself. 2 
 
 A still more effective measure of the colonial government was 
 the sending to Spain of the Franciscan superior, Alonso del 
 Espinal, whose principal convent was supported by an allot- 
 ment of Indians. When the Dominicans heard of this they 
 resolved to send Montesino to plead the cause of the natives; 
 with no little difficulty they begged enough provisions for his 
 voyage and the two frailes sailed in different ships. Espinal 
 hurried to the court, where he was received as an angel of light 
 and Ferdinand ordered that he should be admitted to audience 
 at all times. Montesino first reported to his provincial and 
 when he reached the court he found every avenue closed. The 
 usher persistently refused him admittance to the king, till one 
 day, when the door was opened to let some one out, he forced 
 his way in and read to Ferdinand a long memorial recounting 
 the slaughters and cruelties and miseries inflicted on his subjects. 
 
 Ubid., Lib. II, Cap. 54; Lib. Ill, Cap. 3, 4, 5 (Col. de Doc. LXIV, 273, 
 361 sqq.). 
 
 2 Ibid. (LXIV, 370). 
 9 
 
130 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 Ferdinand was astonished and moved and willingly granted the 
 request of Montesino to apply a remedy. 1 
 
 The time had evidently arrived to frame a systematic body 
 of laws regulating the relations between colonists and natives 
 in the widening sphere of Spanish domination. To accomplish 
 this Ferdinand summoned to Burgos, where the court was then 
 residing, a conference of learned doctors and masters of law and 
 theology. They were for the most part well-meaning men, but 
 at their head was Bishop Fonseca and they were surrounded 
 by courtiers interested in the preservation of abuses, while the 
 Indians had no advocate but Montesino, until near the close of 
 the proceedings, when he was joined by Pedro de Cordova, who 
 had hurried to Spain on receiving the letters written by his 
 provincial at Ferdinand's order. The result was a foregone 
 conclusion, but there is instruction in the theological argu- 
 ments by which the royal conscience was soothed. Fray Ber- 
 nardo de Mesa, one of the king's preachers, presented a thesis 
 in which he proved dialectically that although the Indians were 
 free, yet idleness was one of the greatest evils under which they 
 suffered and it was the duty of the king to relieve them of it, 
 and, as they were prone to it, absolute liberty was injurious to 
 them. Besides, they were naturally inconstant, being islanders, 
 and the moon is the mistress of the waters surrounding them. 
 He therefore concluded that it was necessary to hold them in 
 some kind of servitude to cure their vicious inclinations and 
 constrain them to industry, and this was in conformity with the 
 goodness of God. Another royal preacher, the Licenciate 
 Gregorio, reached the same result with learned citations from 
 Aristotle, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, St. Antonino of Florence, and 
 Agostino da Ancona, and the fate of helpless millions was made 
 to turn on scholastic word-spinning such as this. The confer- 
 ence resulted in seven propositions which, while recognizing 
 the freedom of the Indians and their right to humane treat- 
 ment, concluded that they must be subjected to coercion and be 
 kept in communication with the Spaniards in order to promote 
 their conversion and when these points were once admitted 
 
 1 Ibid., Cap. 6 (LXIV, pp. 376 sqq.). 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 131 
 
 everything depended on the administration of greedy officials 
 at a distance of fifteen hundred leagues. 1 
 
 On the basis thus laid down a council was assembled which 
 proceeded to frame thirty-two laws known as the Laws of 
 Burgos, promulgated December 27, 1512 for the regulation of 
 the existing and all future colonies. They embodied the prin- 
 ciple that the Indians must be rescued from idleness by enforced 
 labor, to be paid for at the rate of a ducat a year, and even the 
 caciques were to be made to work at light tasks. The failure 
 of their conversion was attributed to their having been allowed 
 to live in their homes and villages, so they were required to be 
 brought to the residence of their masters, but at least one-third 
 were to be drafted to the mines. There were various humani- 
 tarian regulations introduced, but, as there was no adequate 
 machinery provided for their enforcement, they were of course 
 nugatory. Just as the code was being completed Pedro de 
 Cordova arrived; he saw that it meant the destruction of the 
 Indians and so informed Ferdinand, who empowered him to 
 modify the laws at his pleasure and promised that he would see 
 them obeyed, but Pedro shrank from the responsibility and the 
 Indians lost their only chance. Ferdinand, however, ordered 
 a revision by a junta with Bishop Fonseca at its head and the 
 royal confessor, Tomas de Matienza, as one of its members. 
 Before this body Pedro de Cordova appeared and argued, but to 
 no effect; it reported to the king, under God and conscience, 
 that he was fully justified in making the Indians work and in 
 granting their services to whom he pleased. Thus the project 
 was adopted, with a few trifling additions, so that the whole, 
 as Las Casas tells us, was iniquitous and cruel, with some laws 
 that were impossible and others that were worse than bar- 
 barous. 2 
 
 As the keepers of the royal conscience had decided that it 
 was for the service of God that the king should partition out 
 the Indians, the courtiers at once applied for grants. Bishop 
 Fonseca obtained 200 serfs in each of the four islands, Secretary 
 Conchillos secured 1,100 in all and numerous others 200 apiece. 
 
 1 Ibid., Cap. 8, 9, 12 (LXIV, pp. 386, 392, 410). 
 
 2 Ibid., Cap. 13, 15, 16, 17 (LXIV, pp. 417 sqq.). 
 
132 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 Moreover, all the royal officials in the islands, and the judges of 
 appeal, who were sent there in 1511 and 1512, received allot- 
 ments in addition to their salaries, so that the system was 
 buttressed in the court, while in the colonies those who should 
 have restrained its abuses profited by them. The courtiers sent 
 out agents to work their Indians, which they did inexorably and 
 pitilessly; as the wretches died off they claimed that the number 
 should be made up; as there were not enough to go around 
 a new deal would be made and those, who had not influence 
 were stripped; these, seeing that they were liable at any time 
 to lose their serfs, thought it better to work them to death, and 
 in this frenzied covetousness no laws protecting the natives 
 were observed. 1 Zuazo, writing in 1519, attributes their 
 destruction to the allotments, aggravated by the successive 
 distributions which greedy courtiers succeeded in having made. 
 Under these they were shifted from one master to another and 
 from the mountains to the lowlands and vice versa, resulting in 
 their perishing by thousands through disease. 2 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when Las Casas undertook what 
 was to prove his life-work. He had returned from Cuba deeply 
 impressed with the cruelty of the conquest, and when Pedro de 
 Cordova came back from Spain they consulted together as to 
 the remedy. Pedro told him that nothing could be done so 
 long as Ferdinand lived, for he placed entire confidence in 
 Fonseca and Conchillos, and they as well as other members 
 of the royal council held too many Indians to consent to any 
 reform. The ardor of Las Casas, however, was not to be 
 balked; he sailed in September, 1515, and in Seville Archbish6p 
 Deza gave him a letter to Ferdinand with which in December 
 he went to Plasencia. December 23, he had an audience in 
 which he dwelt eloquently on the atrocities inflicted on the 
 Indians; the king promised redress; he was about starting for 
 Seville, and when there he would consider the matter thoroughly. 
 At Seville Las Casas awaited his coming, only to receive the news 
 of his death, January 23, 1516. It is a tribute to Ferdinand's 
 character that Las Casas regards this as a great misfortune for 
 the Indians, for he felt confident that the king would have put 
 an end to their wrongs. 3 
 
 1 Ibid. Cap. 19 (p. 450). 2 Col. de Doc. II, 35L 3 Ibid., Cap. 84 (LXV, 277). 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 133 
 
 This was the first of a long series of disappointments, which 
 would have disheartened a man of less tenacity of purpose, but 
 Las Casas forthwith resolved to go to Flanders and win over 
 to his views the young sovereign Charles. His first move, how- 
 ever, was to Madrid, where he presented a memorial in Spanish 
 to Cardinal Ximenes, and one in Latin to Cardinal Adrian, the 
 governors of Spain, in the absence of the new king. Adrian was 
 horrified at what he read and asked Ximenes if it could be true. 
 Ximenes confirmed it and then advised Las Casas not to go to 
 Flanders, for they would settle the matter to his satisfaction in 
 Spain. Bishop Fonseca was deprived of authority and the two 
 cardinals discussed the question with Las Casas, resulting in his 
 being commissioned to draw up a plan for the relief of the 
 Indians, which he did on the basis of abolishing the repartimien- 
 tos and making provision to enable the Spaniards to live by 
 honest labor. This was accepted by Ximenes, who asked Las 
 Casas to undertake the task of finding persons suited to carry 
 it into effect. This he was unable to do, and the cardinal con- 
 cluded to intrust the matter to monks of the Geronimite order, 
 so as to avoid the attrition inevitable between Dominicans and 
 Franciscans. Twelve were selected, out of whom Las Casas 
 chose three, but while the necessary papers and despatches were 
 being drawn up, the enemy got hold of them; they held aloof 
 from Las Casas, and when they reached Hispafiola they fell 
 completely under the influence of the colonists. They made 
 no attempt to execute the plan, which if it could have been 
 carried out in good faith, would have resulted in a flourishing 
 and industrious community, where settler and native could live 
 together in amity. There was an unfortunate clause, however, 
 added by the royal council, providing for the continuance of the 
 repartimientos in case it should be found that the Indians could 
 not be settled in agricultural villages. This was decided against 
 them in advance; the plan was never even tried, and when the 
 kinsmen of the Geronimites followed them and were shrewdly 
 given good allotments of Indians in Cuba by Diego Velazquez, 
 there was no further hope of improvement. 1 It was not the 
 first nor the last practical application of a formula, dear to the 
 
 1 Ibid., Cap. 85-95 (LXV, 281 sqq.). 
 
134 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 colonists when unpopular decrees reached them from over sea 
 obedezcase pero no se cumpla let it be obeyed, but not enforced. 
 
 Ximenes had sent Las Casas at the same time to Hispanola 
 with a kind of supervisory power which proved ineffective. His 
 letters to the cardinal were intercepted and, finding himself 
 unable to accomplish anything, he resolved to return to Spain. 
 In May, 1517, he sailed and in fifty days he reached Aranda de 
 Duero, where he found Ximenes breathing his last. The 
 youthful Charles, however, had just arrived to take possession 
 of his kingdom and Las Casas lost no time in making his way 
 to the court. He speedily recognized that everything was in 
 the hands of the Flemish counsellors and favorites, and he 
 attached himself to the chancellor, Jean Le Sauvage, who took 
 him into favor and soon relied upon him for everything con- 
 nected with the Indies. An incident, at this time, which might 
 have exercised a controling influence on the destinies of the 
 New World, illustrates perfectly the government of the young 
 monarch. News came of the discovery of Yucatan, or Mex- 
 ico. The Admiral of Flanders, Adolf of Burgundy, promptly 
 asked Charles to bestow it on him as a fief, with Cuba as 
 a base from w r hich to colonize it; the favorite Chievres had 
 charge of royal grants and favors and, as neither he nor his 
 master knew anything about the Indies, the request was granted 
 as readily as if it were a piece of meadow land. The admiral 
 sent to Flanders and in due time there arrived at San Lucar 
 five vessels loaded with Flemings to colonize the new territory. 
 Meanwhile Las Casas had informed Diego Colon of this 
 infringement on his rights; Colon made reclamation and the 
 chancellor informed the admiral that the grant could not be 
 confirmed until the suit was decided, which Colon had brought 
 to enforce the claims derived from his father, to all lands dis- 
 covered and to be discovered. Most of the Flemings brought 
 to San Lucar died, and the rest returned home; but had Mexico, 
 Central America and Cuba been settled from Flanders and 
 Holland the history of America might have been vastly dif- 
 ferent. 1 
 
 Le Sauvage brought Las Casas to the favorable notice of 
 Charles, who ordered them to draw up a plan of reform. This 
 
 1 Ibid., Cap. 95, 99-101 (LXV, 343, 364 sqq.). 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 135 
 
 Las Casas eagerly undertook and reproduced his previous 
 project with some amendments. One of these was to carry 
 to the colonies numbers of industrious peasants and start them 
 there with a view to building up a self-supporting population. 
 This came to nothing, as we shall see; but a more fateful one 
 was the suggestion of permitting the importation of a few 
 negroes. Cardinal Adrian and the chancellor approved his 
 plan and all seemed to promise fair, although Bishop Fonseca 
 had regained his position, it was supposed by bribing Chievres. 
 The court moved to Saragossa and Las Casas followed it, but 
 fell sick by the way; on his recovery Fonseca was disabled for 
 five weeks, causing further postponement, and then the chan- 
 cellor Le Sauvage died, early in July, 1518, after which Fonseca 
 regained his former influence. Again Penelope's web was 
 unravelled and the work had to be commenced anew. 1 
 
 The suggestion as to negro slaves, however, had taken root 
 and grown like other evil weeds. It had come to Las Casas 
 from colonists who had told him that if they could get license 
 to import ten or a dozen negroes they would willingly release 
 their Indians. The idea apparently was floating in the air of 
 Hispanola, for Zuazo, in his letter of January 22, 1519, to 
 Chievres, says that the importation of negroes is a necessity, 
 and he 'asks, if it cannot be made general, that at least he should 
 have authority to issue licenses for bringing in a hundred from 
 Spain; they should be from 15 to 20 years of age, of both sexes, 
 and should be allowed to choose their masters for a term of not 
 over one year, the masters being married settlers. By this time, 
 moreover, after an abortive attempt in 1505-6, the sugar indus- 
 try was beginning to establish itself, and the want of more 
 athletic labor about the mills than that of Indians was 
 making itself felt. On its face there was nothing about the 
 project to alarm the most sensitive conscience. Under the 
 treaty of Tordesillas the trade with Africa was reserved to the 
 Portuguese; they were in the habit of bringing negroes to 
 Spain as slaves, and there would seem to be nothing cruel in 
 transferring a few of these to the West Indies, where the climate 
 more nearly approached that of their native land. The sugges- 
 
 1 Ibid., Cap. 102, 103 (LXV, 380 sqq.). 
 
136 Yale Review. 
 
 tion of Las Casas was that licenses each for the importation of 
 a dozen negroes should be issued, but when asked how many 
 in all would be wanted, he replied that he could not tell. The 
 questipn was then put to the Casa de Contratacion of Seville, 
 which regulated the colonial trade, and it estimated the num- 
 ber at four thousand for the four islands. The chance afforded 
 for jobbery was seized at once, and a Flemish favorite, the 
 Governor of Bresse, begged and obtained from Charles the 
 right to issue these licenses. This he promptly sold for 25,000 
 ducats to some Genoese speculators, who made it a condition 
 that no more licenses should be sold for eight years. Las 
 Casas says that they cleared nearly 300,000 ducats by the opera- 
 tion, but this is manifestly an exaggerated estimate, for he else- 
 where tells us that they sold them at about eight ducats a head. 
 It was long before Las Casas recognized his mistake: as late 
 as 1535, in a letter to the Council of the Indies, he suggested 
 that five or six hundred negroes he sent to each of the islands 
 and be parcelled out, a few to each settler, or that free licenses 
 be issued to import them. Towards the close of his life, how- 
 ever, he bitterly repented his error and recognized that he had 
 only perpetuated the slavery which he had labored to abolish. 
 He would not for the world, he says, have made so grievous a 
 mistake; he had supposed that the negroes in Spain had been 
 justly enslaved, but he doubts whether his ignorance and care- 
 lessness will excuse him before the divine judgment. The trade 
 grew rapidly and, writing about 1560, he says that there had 
 been some 40,000 carried to Hispanola and 100,000 to the 
 Indies, for the sugar mills required them in increasing numbers, 
 and from the profits derived from licenses and dues the king 
 had built the alcazares of Madrid and Toledo. The Portuguese, 
 who had long been stealing negroes in Guinea, were stimulated 
 to greater activity in their nefarious traffic, and the natives made 
 war with each other to capture slaves for sale. In Hispanola 
 they died rapidly from overwork, and from the liquor which 
 they made from the cane-juice, while many escaped to the 
 mountains, after killing their masters, and became Cimarrones 
 or Maroons, so that the people lived in constant dread. 1 
 
 ! Ibid., Cap. 102, 129 (LXV, 379; LXVI, 28) ; Tom. LXX, p. 484; Tom. II, 
 PP- 370, 374- 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 137 
 
 For a moment after the death of Le Sauvage, Las Casas was 
 in despair, but hope revived when La Mure, a nephew of 
 Charles's favorite chamberlain La Chaulx, manifested an inter- 
 est in the Indians which strengthened rapidly under Las Casas's 
 eloquence. La Chaulx was induced to listen to him and became 
 his warm supporter in fact, the Flemings as a rule, favored 
 him, possibly as a part of their antagonism to the Spaniards. 
 With their assistance the plan of inducing industrious peasants 
 to emigrate was taken up and ample powers were conferred 
 on Las Casas to carry it out. He set about it with his accus- 
 tomed vigor and it promised well, but again his hopes were 
 dashed. He was induced to appoint as his assistant a gentle- 
 man named Berrio, to whom a commission was given placing 
 him under the orders of Las Casas, but after it was signed by the 
 king Bishop Fonseca secretly altered it, rendering him inde- 
 pendent. After working together for a short time Berrio cut 
 loose, went to Andalusia and collected some two hundred 
 tramps and vagabonds, whom he took to Seville and handed 
 over to the Contratacion. Las Casas had not yet given it 
 instructions, but it shipped these choice colonists to Hispanola, 
 where no preparations had been made for them; most of them 
 perished and the rest took to evil courses. After such a begin- 
 ning there was small hope of success and Las Casas abandoned 
 the scheme when he learned that the Geronimites had sold the 
 royal plantations out of which the immigrants were to receive 
 allotments and when he found that Bishop Fonseca and the 
 Council refused to make the promised provision for their tem- 
 porary support. 1 
 
 Still indefatigable in spite of these repeated disappointments, 
 he found favor in the eyes of the new Chancellor Gattinara, with 
 whom he speedily evolved a more daring scheme. Abandoning 
 the islands, he resolved to try whether the peaceful colonization 
 of new territory might not solve the problems which had thus 
 far baffled Spanish statesmanship. Tierra Firme the north 
 coast of the Southern continent had been scarcely touched, 
 although Pedro de Cordova with his Dominicans and some 
 Franciscans had established a few missionary stations there. 
 
 1 Ibid., Lib. Ill, Cap. 104, 130 (LXV, 391 ; LXVI, 33). 
 
138 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 He asked for the control of this land, to be settled under his 
 direction, according to an elaborate and somewhat fantastic 
 plan, which he worked out in the minutest detail, and in return 
 for this he promised that in three years the king should derive 
 from it a revenue of 15,000 ducats, growing to 30,000 in six 
 years, and to 60,000 in ten years. It shows the confidence 
 which he had inspired that he obtained this grant, consisting of 
 three hundred leagues of the northern coast, from the Gulf of. 
 Paria to Santa Marta, and extending inland to the southern sea, 
 comprising in fact, well night half of South America. The 
 "capitulation" was signed by Charles, May 19, 1520, at Coruna, 
 two days before he sailed to assume the title of King of the 
 Romans. Las Casas owed this to the favor of Cardinal Adrian 
 and the Flemings, for Bishop Fonseca and the Council of the 
 Indies had fought the project bitterly and he had only been suc- 
 cessful at the last moment. 1 
 
 On the strength of such a grant as this he had no trouble in 
 raising the money requisite for the enterprise; the necessary 
 papers were made out for him, friends contributed an ample store 
 of beads, bells and other trinkets for trading with the Indians, 
 he gathered a sufficient number of industrious laborers, and on 
 November n, 1520, he set sail from San Lucar, full of hope, 
 for he had at his disposal a vast territory on which no Spaniard 
 could set foot without his permission and where he would have 
 free scope to realize his convictions that the Indians could be 
 converted and civilized by peaceful means. On his arrival at 
 Puertorico, however, disastrous news awaited him. Spaniards 
 engaged in the pearl fishery on Cubagna, one of the Leeward 
 Isles near the coast, being in want of Indians to carry on that 
 peculiarly deadly trade, had made a raid on the mainland for 
 slaves; the exasperated natives had retaliated by massacring the 
 Dominicans at Chiribichi and Maracapana, on whom he had 
 relied for the commencement of his work, and moreover, the 
 authorities of Hispanola, under pretext of avenging this, were 
 organizing a great slave raid in five vessels with three hundred 
 men. There was thus little chance for the peaceful colonizing 
 on which his scheme depended, but he waited in Puertorico to 
 
 1 Ibid., Cap. 131-141, 155 (LXVI, pp. 37 sqq., 164). 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 139 
 
 intercept and if possible arrest the expedition. When it came, 
 however, the captain refused to obey the royal power delegated 
 to Las Casas and proceeded on his errand of destruction. Las 
 Casas went on to Hispanola, where the authorities threw every 
 obstacle in the way of his plans, although they could not refuse 
 to issue the required proclamation forbidding, under pain of 
 death and confiscation, anyone to go to his territory without 
 his license. He was finally obliged to come to a compromise, 
 under which, in July, 1521, he set out for the coast in two vessels 
 laden with provisions and articles of barter. He landed in the 
 river Cumana, where Gonzalo de Ocampo was endeavoring to 
 found a Spanish settlement near a Franciscan mission, but his 
 people were starving, for the Spaniards on Cubagna kept the 
 whole coast in a state of alarm and the natives everywhere were 
 hostile. Ocampo's men gladly seized the opportunity to escape 
 and those whom Las Casas had brought refused to remain. 
 There was nothing to do but to land the goods, to the value 
 of 50,000 castellanos, and to let the people go. 1 
 
 It was evident that the peaceful conversion of the Indians 
 was impossible unless the raids on the coast could be stopped, 
 and for this it was necessary to invoke the royal authority. 
 After long and prayerful consideration Las Casas concluded to 
 appeal personally for this and he sailed for Hispanola; an ignor- 
 ant pilot carried him to leeward of Cape Beata and two months 
 were wasted in vainly beating against wind and current to get 
 back. Finally he abandoned the attempt and landed at 
 Yaquimo (Jacmel?) and made his way across the country to San 
 Domingo, where he learned that his colony had been destroyed 
 by the Indians, though most of his people had made their 
 escape. The blow was crushing; the lofty hopes which he had 
 cherished when leaving Spain, with half a continent at his dis- 
 posal, were irretrievably shattered, and it is no wonder that even 
 his iron tenacity of purpose gave way for a time. He wrote 
 to the king and while awaiting a reply, in 1523, he yielded 
 to the solicitations of the Dominicans and entered their order. 
 During his noviciate letters came from Cardinal Adrian and 
 the Flemings of the court telling him that if he would return 
 
 'Ibid., Cap. 156-8 (LXVI, pp. 165 sqq.). 
 
14 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 he should be received with greater favor then ever, but the 
 superiors of the convent withheld them and he took the irrevo- 
 cable vows. 1 
 
 After the agitations and disappointments of the last eight 
 years the peaceful existence of the convent was grateful and 
 Las Casas found repose in the study of theology and in writing 
 his "Historia Apologetica." It shows that the kindly inten- 
 tions of the Spanish rulers towards their Indian subjects were 
 not dependent upon his exhortations, that during this period 
 Charles V issued a decree, June 26, 1523, to the effect that no 
 one should injure the Indians in person or property; any one 
 striking or killing them or taking from them anything against 
 their will, except the legal tribute, or laying hands upon them 
 or seizing their wives or children, should be punished accord- 
 ing to the laws of Castile, and all royal officials were ordered 
 to use the most watchful care in ascertaining and punishing 
 wrongs committed upon them. 2 In 1523 also, he repeated to 
 Cortes an injunction which he had given to Diego Velazquez in 
 1518, forbidding him from making repartimientos of the 
 Indians. 3 They were thus fully recognized as free vassals of 
 the crown, like native Castilians, and the decree of 1523 was 
 reissued in 1543, 1582 and 1620. Another decree of November 
 9, 1526, repeated in 1530, 1532, 1540, 1542 and 1548, forbade 
 the enslaving of any Indian, even if captured in a just war; 
 all permissions to that effect, issued by local authorities, were 
 revoked; any one holding, buying, selling or exchanging an 
 Indian slave was punishable with forfeiture of all his property, 
 while the Indian was to be set free, and officials neglecting to 
 enforce this with all rigor were deprived of their offices and 
 mulcted in 10,000 maravedis. 4 Moreover, Charles caused a 
 
 1 Ibid., Cap. 158-160 (LXVI, pp. 180 sqq.). 
 
 2 Recopiladdn, Ley 4, Tit. x, Lib. VI. A practical commentary on this legis- 
 lation is the torture administered to Guatemozin and his chiefs at the demand 
 of the royal treasurer Julian de Alderete, to discover the treasure lost in the 
 Noche Triste. Alderete was a creature of Bishop Fonseca. Torquemada, Mon- 
 arquia Indiana, Tom. I, p. 574 (Ed. 1723). Cf. Obreg6n, Mexico Viejo, II 
 Serie, p. 9. 
 
 3 Solorzani de Indiarum Jure, Tom. II, p. 266 (Matriti, 1639). 
 
 4 Recop. Ley i. Tit. ii, Lib. VI. 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 141 
 
 collection of the laws relating to the Indies to be made, to which 
 were prefixed declarations of December 4, 1528, and August 
 24, 1529, stating that the object of the compilation was the con- 
 version and good treatment of the Indians, wherefore he ordered 
 the inviolable observance of the laws, especially those in their 
 favor, in spite of all supplications and appeals, and all viceroys, 
 governors, judges, etc., were threatened with confiscation, sus- 
 pension from office and punishment at the royal pleasure for 
 disobedience. 1 If the Indians were oppressed it evidently was 
 not through any lack of good intentions on the part of the 
 monarch, especially as Bishop Fonseca had died in 1524. 
 
 Yet was there no abatement of cruelty and oppression. 
 Cortes was trampling on Mexico, and Pizarro and Almagro 
 were on the point of starting for Peru, where they were to 
 earn an infamous immortality. The rumor of their project is 
 said to have roused Las Casas from his retirement, leading 
 him to visit Spain again, whence he returned with the decree 
 of 1530, which he carried in 1532 to Peru, where Pizarro and 
 Almagro received it obediently, promised to have it solemnly 
 proclaimed with additional penalties, and coolly went on with 
 their infernal work. 2 Thus restored to activity, Las Casas 
 speedily regained his former ardor. We hear of him, in 1533, 
 in Hispafiola as prior of the convent of Puerto de Plata, where 
 he created scandal by propagating, in his sermons and other- 
 wise, scruples of conscience as to. the treatment of the Indians 
 and forcing a moribund to execute a will manumitting those 
 whom he held, for which the judges complained bitterly of him 
 to the emperor. 3 In 1535 he was aroused to fresh zeal by a 
 report that in return for a loan of 300,000 or 400,000 ducats, 
 some 300 or 400 leagues of the coast of Tierra Firme had been 
 leased to the Germans for four years. This brought from him 
 a fiery letter to the Council of the Indies on their responsibility 
 for the destruction of the bodies and souls of the Indians, to 
 remedy which he proposed, in full detail, a plan for ejecting all 
 the conquistadores and placing the colonies in the hands of 
 bishops and friars with troops under their orders. 4 
 
 1 Recop. Ley 5, Tit. i, Lib. VI. 2 Fabie, Vida (Col. de Doc. LXX, 136-8). 
 3 Col. de Doc. LXX, 346. 4 Ibid., pp. 464-86. 
 
142 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 In 1536 we find him in Mexico, where, in derision of his 
 peaceful theories, the Spaniards proposed his trying them on 
 the province of Tuzulutlan, which from its rugged features and 
 excessive rainfall had resisted all attempts at invasion. He 
 accepted the challenge and entered into a formal agreement 
 with the president, Alonso Maldonado, who promised that if 
 the Indians should submit and pay such moderate tribute as 
 the land could afford in gold, cotton or maize, they should never 
 be subjected to repartimientos and encomiendas, and that for 
 five years no Spaniard should be allowed to enter the territory, 
 so that his missionary labors should be undisturbed. Las 
 Casas, with two frailes, succeeded in converting the cacique and 
 his people, but his work was cut short by a summons to Guate- 
 mala in 1538, for, as a Dominican, he was now subject to the 
 orders of his superiors. Maldonado, who was by no means an 
 admirer of Las Casas' s theories, in a letter to the king, October 
 1 6, 1539, freely described the success of the effort and his regret 
 that Las Casas should have been called off. In 1540 the agree- 
 ment was confirmed by Charles, and May i, 1543, he issued a 
 cedula promising that neither he nor his successors would ever 
 alienate the Indians of Tuzulutlan from the crown. In 1545 
 Las Casas, then Bishop of Chiapa, had the satisfaction of visit- 
 ing the province, when the Christian Indians and their caciques 
 received him joyfully in crowds. In honor of this peaceful 
 victory the name of Tuzulutlan, in 1 547, was changed to Vera 
 Paz; in 1560 it became the seat of a bishopric, which in 1605 
 was merged into that of Guatemala. 1 This was the one success 
 of Las Casas in his long and active career, but it is of supreme 
 importance as showing the truth of his postulate that men of 
 apostolic spirit could have peacefully spread Christianity and 
 civilization through the New World. 
 
 While in Guatemala, in 1539, Las Casas received instructions 
 from Charles to continue his good work in pacifying the 
 Indians, but he was anxious to interview the emperor and he 
 procured a mission to go to Spain and bring out more mem- 
 bers of his order. On his arrival he found that Charles was in 
 
 1 Fabi6, Vida (Col. de Doc. LXX, 144-53, 182-6, 487). Gams, Series Episco- 
 porum, p. 151. 
 
1899] Indian Policy ojf Spain. 143 
 
 Germany and to him wrote, December 15, 1540, that he had 
 matters of importance to communicate, wherefore he solicited 
 instructions to the Provincial of Castile to let him remain until 
 the emperor's return. 1 The conjuncture was favorable, for 
 Garcia de Loyasa, Archbishop of Seville, who was then presi- 
 dent of the Council of the Indies, regarded Las Casas with 
 much favor. It was resolved to reconsider the whole legislation 
 regarding the Indians, and during 1541 and 1542 numerous 
 conferences were held for the purpose of drafting new laws. As 
 a contribution to the discussion Las Casas wrote several tracts, 
 not printed until 1552, chief among which was his celebrated 
 "Brevisima relacion de da Destruycion de las Yndias," which 
 has been translated into almost every European language and 
 has formed the text of the discourses on the subject since then. 
 Another of the tracts consists of the eighth of a series of 
 remedies which, by order of the emperor, he laid before a con- 
 ference held at Valladolid in 1542. This, he says, is the princi- 
 pal remedy, without which all the rest would be useless, viz. 
 that the emperor shall cause an inviolable law to be passed by 
 the cortes and be sworn to in the most solemn manner by the 
 sovereign for himself and his successors, incorporating as free 
 vassals of the crown of Castile and Leon all Indians now or 
 hereafter subjected, who are never to be alienated or granted 
 in encomiendas to Spaniards. 2 
 
 There can be little doubt that Las Casas exerted efficient 
 influence on the character of the "New Laws/' wliich were 
 finally signed by Charles at Barcelona,, November 20, 1542, and 
 were sent not only to the viceroys and governors, but to the 
 superiors of the convents, so that their execution should be 
 supervised. While not all that he had asked for, they reflected 
 his views too faithfully to retain their place in permanent legis- 
 lation, for few traces of them are to be found in the final Reco- 
 pilacion, collected and promulgated in 1680. They prohibited 
 all slavery of Indians, whom they required to be treated as what 
 they were vassals of the crown of Castile; all existing slaves 
 were to be set free if the owners could not show legitimate title, 
 and the courts were ordered to appoint proper persons to con- 
 
 1 Col. de Doc. VIII, 555. 2 El Octavo Remedio (Venet., 1640). 
 
144 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 duct their cases and to be paid out of the fines. The reparti- 
 mientos and encomiendas were not abolished, but all new ones 
 were prohibited and existing ones were to lapse on the death 
 of the possessors, provision being made to compensate widows 
 and children out of the Indian tribute. 1 
 
 To appreciate the opposition excited by this project for the 
 extinction of the encomiendas, we must consider the peculiar 
 character of the Spanish conquests. They were not made by 
 the royal fleets and armies, at the expense and under the 
 direction of the crown, but by filibustering expeditions of 
 adventurers who put at risk their money and their lives in the 
 hope of profit, while the crown obtained the suzerainty of the 
 conquered territories, with one-fifth of the precious metals dis- 
 covered and a tribute from the Indians subdued. Ponce de 
 Leon, Vasco Nunez, Cortes, Pizarro, Alvarado, Hernando de 
 Soto, were adventurers of this type, with at most a royal license 
 granting them certain rights over what territory they might 
 acquire. When the conquest was made it was organized by 
 giving to each soldier, according to his merits and services, 
 an encomienda, or tract of land, with so many Indians, to be 
 held for two lives, after which it would lapse to the crown. The 
 indignation not unnaturally excited among those threatened 
 with the shortening of their tenures, is expressed with more 
 vigor than courtliness in a letter to the emperor from the 
 authorities of the city of Guatemala, September 10, 1543. They 
 had heard of the New Laws, but had not yet received them, and 
 they made haste to complain bitterly that their services are to 
 be rewarded by depriving them of the grants solemnly assured 
 to them. They had conquered the land at their own expense 
 without cost to the crown; they had been urged and ordered to 
 marry and are now encumbered with families, while their 
 children are to be left to starve by depriving them of the succes- 
 sion to the repartimientos, and all this to gratify the whims of 
 an ignorant and scandalous friar, whose vanity will not allow 
 him to be quiet and who had been driven from every place and 
 every convent that had been afflicted by his presence. 2 
 
 1 Brevfsima Relacidn, p. 135. Fabie, Vida (Col. de Doc. LXX, 159-61). 
 
 2 Col. de Doc. LXX, 529. 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 145 
 
 The crown was evidently in a false position. It had reaped 
 where it had not sown and now it was seeking to deprive the 
 laborers of all share in the harvest earned by their sweat and 
 blood. The original vice in the methods of conquest rendered 
 humanity to the Indians impossible. So lately as May 13, 1538, 
 Charles had authorized the "commendation," for two lives, of 
 Indian towns and villages to those who had deserved the 
 reward, 1 and it could not be expected that they would submit 
 quietly to this sudden change of policy, which meant ruin to 
 their families, while aggrandizing the crown. When Blasco 
 Nunez Vela endeavored to enforce the new laws in Peru, it 
 led to the revolt under Gonzalo Pizarro, and the same would 
 have been the result in Mexico had not Francisco Tello de 
 Sandoval prudently suspended them after publication. The 
 loss of all the colonies on the mainland was imminent and 
 Charles yielded. He was in Flanders, far removed from the 
 influence of Las Casas, and at Mechlin, October 20, 1545, he 
 issued a cedula revoking the provisions of 1542 on this sub- 
 ject. 2 The encomiendas thus were firmly established, and for 
 a hundred years they continued to be the subject of perpetual 
 legislation, mostly in the direction of protecting the Indians 
 from the abuses inherent in the system. Theoretically, as 
 described by Machuca, this was simply that all the Indians in 
 an encomienda should pay to the lord a tribute fixed by law, 
 in return for which he was required to establish and maintain 
 a "doctrina," or mission with a priest, to defend them in their 
 suits, to cure them in their maladies, to pursue and seize all 
 fugitives and to perform some other minor duties. 3 The statutes 
 
 1 Recop. Ley 3, Tit. viii, Lit. VI. 
 
 2 Solorzani de Indiarum Jure, II, 598. Garcilaso Inca, Hist. Gen. del Peru, 
 Lib. IV, Cap. vii, sqq. Recop. ubi sup. 
 
 3 Discursos Apoldxicos (Col. de Doc. LXXI, 260). The encomiendas had 
 originally been granted for two lives and there was naturally a constant pressure 
 for extending or perpetuating the benefice. In 1555 Antonio de Ribera was sent 
 to the emperor in Germany with an offer of six or seven millions of ducats if he 
 would render them perpetual in Peru. Las Casas protested vigorously but 
 Charles yielded, and by a cedula from Ghent, September 5, 1556, he conceded 
 the request ; the transaction, however, fell through owing to the impossibility of 
 raising so enormous a sum (Solorzano, II, 598). Yet it was recognized as a 
 
 10 
 
146 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 for their protection, in the constant reiteration of prohibitions 
 of oppression, are eloquent of the wrongs to which the defence- 
 less serfs were subjected, incurable by legislation, however benefi- 
 cent. That repeated decrees forbade all officials and churches 
 to hold encomiendas was evidently for the purpose of preventing 
 them from being interested in the violation of laws which they 
 were bound to enforce, but the necessity for re-enunciating 
 these decrees shows how little they were obeyed. 1 At the close 
 of the century Mendieta describes the encomiendas as the most 
 cruel infliction which threatens the destruction of the Indians, 
 who were compelled to forced labor with unsparing rigor. His 
 description of their conditions is deplorable, for their tasks were 
 exacted of them with merciless severity and they were treated 
 far worse than the negro slaves, whose cost was some protec- 
 tion. It was a serious obstacle to their conversion, for the 
 hatred thus aroused was especially directed to the ministers of 
 God as the accomplices of their ruthless oppressors. 2 In the first 
 quarter of the seventeenth century Fray Juan de Torquemada 
 describes the system as the total destruction of the Indians 
 through the forced labor imposed on them in the mines and 
 elsewhere, though he deems it more prudent not to enter into 
 
 hardship that the grandchildren of the conquerors should be disinherited and 
 sundry laws of 1555, 1559, 1576, 1588 and 1607 recite that in this way the 
 descendants of the original discoverers and settlers became impoverished, 
 wherefore it was ordered that a third life might be tolerated and then a fourth. 
 Finally the rule of four lives was adopted for all grants made up to 1607. 
 Those who subsequently obtained encomiendas endeavored to claim the benefit 
 of this, but Philip IV, in 1637, decreed that unless a longer term was specified 
 in the grant it should be deemed for two lives only (Recop. Leyes 14, 15, Tit. xi, 
 Lib. VI). They were in some sense military fiefs ; the encomiendero was held to 
 military service and was bound to keep horse and arms ; the holding passed to 
 the eldest son if there was one, and could never be sold or exchanged or 
 alienated and one-third of the revenue was paid to the crown (Ibid., Leyes 1-4, 
 8, 13, Tit. xi ; Leyes 38, 39, 44, Tit. viii ; Leyes 4, 8, Tit. ix, Lib. VI). The 
 Indians when gathered in pueblos or villages under this system were in some 
 sense predial serfs, for they could not leave the spot ; but there were also large 
 numbers of them de mita, who were employed in forced labor at the mines and 
 in transportation, in which their sufferings continued with little abatement (Leyes 
 16, 17, 22. 25, Tit. ix ; Tit. xii, Lib. VI). 
 
 1 Recop. Ley 12, Tit. viii, Lib. VI. 
 
 2 Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 519 sqq. 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 147 
 
 details. 1 The saintly Palafox, who, in the discharge of his 
 duties as bishop of Puebla, protector of the Indians and inspec- 
 tor-general of the tribunals, had traversed Mexico from shore 
 to shore and thus had special knowledge of the situation, in 
 1650 addressed to Philip IV a touching appeal to enforce the 
 laws for their protection; they were still subject to intolerable 
 abuses, including enforced labor, but their long-suffering was 
 such that they endured all in silence and rarely sought redress 
 for the most flagrant wrongs unless stimulated to it by some 
 Spaniard. 2 
 
 In the "New Laws" of 1542, Las Casas had again apparently 
 accomplished nearly all that he had sought, and in that year 
 he was offered the bishopric of Cuzco, which he refused. Then 
 the see of Chiapa fell vacant, which he accepted. The year 1543 
 was passed in getting his bulls from Rome and in selecting a 
 chosen band of forty-six Dominicans to accompany him, for 
 he was resolved to make full use of the power inherent in the 
 episcopal office to enforce the reforms which had been promised 
 in the new legislation. He was consecrated in Seville, March 
 30, 1544, and on July 10 he sailed from San Lucar, reaching 
 San Domingo September 9. He found that the New Laws 
 had not received the slightest attention; procurators had been 
 sent to Spain to labor for their repeal, and it was with great 
 difficulty that he obtained their publication without thereby 
 securing their observance. 3 It was the same when he reached 
 Campeachy, early in January, 1545, and so great was the 
 antagonism towards him that the people refused to receive him 
 as their bishop or to pay his salary and tithes, so that he had 
 no little trouble in raising money to defray a portion of the 
 charter of the vessels that brought him and his frailes. After 
 tribulations and losses he reached his episcopal city of Cuidad 
 Real de Chiapa, where in his modest cathedral he found but two 
 priests the dean, Gil Quintana, and canon, Juan Perera. His 
 sermons and exhortations as to the Indians were uttered to 
 deaf ears, but as Easter drew near he felt himself master of the 
 
 1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, T. I, p. 647. 
 
 2 Palafox, De la Naturaliza del India (Obras, Madrid, 1762, T. X, p. 451),. 
 8 Fabi6, Vida (Col. de Doc. LXX, pp. 161-71). 
 
148 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 situation. Paschal communion was a matter of obligation, 
 which no Spaniard of that day could possibly omit, while sacra- 
 mental confession and absolution were a condition precedent 
 to communion. As bishop he had complete control of the 
 confessional; he could determine who should hear confessions 
 and what sins he should reserve for absolution by himself 
 exclusively. He commenced by withdrawing all licenses to 
 hear confessions, except those of Quintana and Perera, and to 
 them he gave a list of cases reserved to himself, including not 
 only the servitude and ill-treatment of the Indians, but the 
 wealth acquired from them, which he classed as ill-gotten gains 
 requiring restitution before the sinner could hope for absolu- 
 tion. This practical denial of the Easter sacrament produced a 
 tumultuous agitation in which his life was threatened; Quintana 
 favored the slave-holders and ventured to absolve four of them 
 under his faculties as commissioner of the Santa Cruzada, for 
 which Las Casas excommunicated him; but the people so boy- 
 cotted the bishop and his Dominicans that they were in danger 
 of starvation and took refuge with the Indians of Chiapa, who 
 received them with rejoicing and earnestly sought conversion 
 and baptism. 1 
 
 Las Casas had summoned Marroquin, Bishop of Guatemala, 
 and Valdevieso of Nicaragua to meet him at Gracias a Dios, 
 the capital of the province, for the purpose of demanding of the 
 Audiencia, or royal court, the enforcement of the New Laws. 
 To keep this engagement he left his retreat among the Indians 
 and went to the capital, where the president Maldonado and the 
 judges treated him with contempt and called him a fool and a 
 madman. Nothing daunted, on October 22, 1545, he presented 
 a formal demand that he should be supported by the civil power 
 in his episcopal authority and that the New Laws should be 
 enforced; if this was not done within three months, he pro- 
 nounced on them a sentence of excommunication ipso jure. 
 They replied that they would issue orders to enforce his jurisdic- 
 tion and that they would obey the royal laws, but they appealed 
 from his sentence to the pope, they denied his power to excom- 
 municate them and threatened to report his excesses to the king 
 
 ., pp. 172-86, 53I-33- 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 149 
 
 in order that he might be properly punished. Both sides, in 
 fact, wrote to Spain accusing the other. Las Casas and 
 Valdevieso stated that the condition of the Indians was grow- 
 ing worse, that Maldonado and his kindred held allotments of 
 60,000 of them and of course he would not enforce the New 
 Laws; that the Bishop of Guatemala also held allotments, and 
 that they would resign their sees unless there were prospects of 
 improvement. Then news reached him that the people of 
 Cuidad Real had organized to seize his temporalities and pre- 
 vent his return. In spite of warnings that his life was at stake, 
 he set out and entered the town at night. There were stormy 
 and tumultuous proceedings, but his firmness triumphed, and 
 by Christmas he was carried in procession to a house that had 
 been prepared for him. 1 Bancroft Ubr 
 
 His stay was short. In 1544 Francisco Tello de Sandoval 
 had come to New Spain as msitador, or inspector-general, with 
 instructions to promulgate the New Laws, which he did, March 
 28, 1545. They were not enforced, however, owing to the 
 general opposition, and it was probably on this account that he 
 summoned all the bishops and superiors of convents to meet 
 him in Mexico. Towards the end of February, 1 546, Las Casas 
 set out, secretly resolving never to return. There was a notable 
 gathering of prelates and men of learning, who after many public 
 conferences laid down eight principles, which are noteworthy 
 as expressing the attitude of the Church on the policy of the 
 conquest. These state that the only object of the Holy See 
 in conceding the sovereignty of the Indies to Spain was the 
 propagation of the faith; that the heathen justly possess what 
 they hold, including their kingdoms, states, lordships and juris- 
 dictions; that conversion can only be accomplished by persua- 
 sion; that the Holy See, in granting the supreme overlordship 
 to Spain, did not intend to deprive the natives of their estates 
 and dignities and jurisdictions, or to concede anything that 
 would interfere with the evangelization of the land, and that the 
 Kings of Castile, in volunteering to provide for the diffusion of 
 the faith, were under obligation to defray all expenses necessary 
 for that purpose. Moreover on this basis was framed a formu- 
 
 id., pp. 182-201, 535-41. 
 
150 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 lary for confessors in absolving Spaniards, and a memorial was 
 drawn up to the king and the Council of the Indies so that its 
 principles might be embodied in legislation. In all this the 
 slavery of the Indians was not alluded to, at the express desire 
 of the viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, but a sermon of Las Casas 
 on the subject so moved him that he permitted it to be discussed 
 in meetings held privately and offered to forward to the king 
 their conclusions, which were that Indian slavery was unlawful, 
 except of those captured in the second war of Jalisco, and that 
 the enforced labor imposed on the natives was condemned. 1 
 
 Las Casas was determined to return to Spain. In preparation 
 for his absence he appointed, in November, 1546, aprovisorand 
 confessors to whom he sent the instructions to confessors agreed 
 upon in the conference of Mexico. These were so rigorous 
 that, when they became known, appeal was made to Prince 
 Philip, who in November, 1547, ordered them to be sent to 
 Spain for examination. The uncompromising and unpractical 
 character of these instructions renders easily intelligible 
 the fierce hatred which Las Casas excited among the colo- 
 nists. He had already, in 1543, expressed his views in a letter 
 to Charles V, in which he argued that all the wealth 
 acquired by the conquistadores and their successors was 
 robbery. From this it followed that they should be 
 stripped of it, except enough to sustain life; half of 
 this should be restored to those from whom it had been 
 taken or to their heirs, and the other half be used to send out 
 and establish industrious settlers who would render the colonies 
 flourishing. 2 Even this, however, was a compromise which he 
 outgrew and in the instructions to confessors he assumed that 
 not one of the conquistadores possessed rightfully a single 
 maravedi if he were rich as the Duke of Medina Sidonia 
 he could not with all his wealth make satisfactory restitution, 
 and his heirs were in the same condition. As a preliminary to 
 absolution, therefore, the penitent was required to make a valid 
 legal conveyance before a notary of all his property, to be dis- 
 tributed at the discretion of the confessor, who might allow as 
 alms to the heirs enough for a bare subsistence. Extravagant 
 
 1 Ibid., pp. 203-8. 2 Col. de Doc. LXXI, 422. 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 151 
 
 as may seem this violent transfer of all the wealth, real and 
 personal, of the colonies through the hands of the confessors,. it 
 was so rigidly deducible from the conclusions of scholastic 
 theology that all the doctors and theologians to whom the 
 instructions were submitted approved of them, as they were 
 bound to do. 1 In his zeal for the Indians, however, Las Casas 
 cast aside the system of composition for ill-gotten gains of 
 which the owner cannot be found, whereby the Church has 
 prudently in practice left an outlet for the more or less repentant 
 sinner, in order not to render confession "odious," and we have 
 seen that he excommunicated his dean Quintana for exercising 
 his power as commissioner of the Santa Cruzada, in which this 
 faculty of prescribing compositions in such cases has been a 
 source of abundant revenue. In his letter of 1543 to Charles 
 V, Las Casas had admitted this principle of composition by 
 advising that, in cases where the original owner or his heirs could 
 not be found, authority be obtained from the pope to com- 
 pound for one-half or one-fifth or one-sixth, according to the 
 degree of criminality involved, and that the immense sums thus 
 acquired be expended in spreading the faith and in establishing 
 peaceful and industrious settlers, after having expelled the 
 leaders of the conquistadores, such as Almagro. The synod of 
 Santafe de Bogota, in 1556, proposed a more thrifty solution of 
 the problem by deciding that the holders of encomiendas, who 
 had established missions in their lands and had paid their full 
 dues to the Church, could conscientiously retain all that they 
 had taken from the Indians, while those who had neglected to 
 do so ought to make restitution, because the reason for the 
 conquest was the spread of the faith. 2 
 
 It argues well for the Spanish monarchs that Las Casas never 
 lost their favor while maintaining and endeavoring to enforce 
 doctrines so revolutionary and so disturbing to the state, for 
 he applied them to the sovereign as well as to the subject. 
 His theories, imperfectly expressed in the Declaration of 
 
 ipabie, Vida (Col. de Doc., LXX, 307). 
 
 2 Groot, Hist, eclesiastica y civil de Nueva Granada, Tom. I, App. II, p. 492. 
 This is stated to be derived from the first Mexican council, held in 1556, but 
 there is no such provision in the proceedings of the latter. 
 
152 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 Mexico in 1546, were that the King of Spain was merely over- 
 lord of the Indies, as the emperor was of Germany, and that 
 even the papal grant required free confirmation by the native 
 rulers to render it effective. The Indians were to be left to 
 their own institutions, under their caciques, while the Spanish 
 king was to be at the expense of maintaining and protecting the 
 friars sent for their conversion. Even for this service he was 
 debarred from exacting any tribute. In a letter of August, 
 I555> to Carranza, the subsequent Archbishop of Toledo, then 
 in England with Philip II, he asks whether there is no one who 
 will undeceive the sovereigns and make them understand that 
 they cannot levy a real of tribute from the Indians with a good 
 conscience. To reach these conclusions he did not hesitate, 
 in an age of absolute monarchy, to affirm the broad principle 
 that rulers are made for the people, not the people for the 
 rulers. 1 
 
 In 1547 Las Casas left the Indies for the last time. On his 
 arrival in Spain he was almost at once involved in his cele- 
 brated contest with Gines de Sepulveda, one of the leading 
 theologians of the time, which occupied him until 1550. 
 Sepulveda had been retained by the adverse interests and had 
 written a work entitled Democrites alter, to justify the subjuga- 
 tion of the Indians. The controversy was a bitter one, in which 
 Sepulveda endeavored to convict Las Casas of treason and 
 heresy, but it is only of interest to us here as furnishing evidence 
 that the conscience of the learned classes in Spain was more 
 sensitive on the subject than has generally been thought, for, 
 although Sepulveda stood forward as the defender of the royal 
 power and prerogative, his book was condemned by the uni- 
 versities of Alcala and Salamanca, permission to print it was 
 refused by both the Councils of State and of the Indies, and 
 when he sent it to Rome to be published its introduction into 
 Spain was prohibited. 2 Moreover, by command of the Council 
 of the Indies, Las Casas, in 1552, wrote a tract enumerating 
 the sufferings of the virtually enslaved Indians, and proving 
 that Spaniards so holding them were in mortal sin and incapable 
 
 1 Col. de Doc. LXXI, 386. Disputa con Septilveda, Princip. iv (Venet., 1645). 
 
 2 Disputa con Septilveda, Argomento, p. 174. 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 153 
 
 of absolution until they should release all who were not legally 
 in bondage. 1 To Las Casas may chiefly be attributed this 
 enormous ethical advance, since Ferdinand's theologians justi- 
 fied the Laws of Burgos. 
 
 In 1550 Las Casas resigned his bishopric. Advancing years 
 rendered him less able to perform active work in the cause to 
 which he had dedicated himself, but, until his death in 1566, 
 at the age of 92, he continued indefatigably with pen and 
 tongue to defend the defenceless Indians. He was in constant 
 correspondence with friends in the Indies, who kept him advised 
 of their sufferings, his indignation remained as hot as ever and 
 his zeal for their relief was unabated. Yet he was forced 
 sorrowfully to admit, in a letter to the Dominicans of Guate- 
 mala, in 1562, that in the sixty-one years during which he had 
 been a witness of Spanish tyranny, the oppression of the Indians 
 had gone on constantly increasing, which was a disheartening 
 outcome of his incessant labors and of the numerous laws which 
 had been enacted in their behalf. 2 It is no wonder that in what 
 was probably his last writing he foretold that the wrath of God 
 would be visited on Spain for the wicked and impious treat- 
 ment of the Indians, and that he bequeathed to the college 
 of San Gregorio in Valladolid his collection of letters, descrip- 
 tive of the cruelty practised on them, which he desired to be 
 carefully preserved in order that if the Lord should hereafter 
 destroy Spain the causes of his vengeance might be manifest. 3 
 
 The encomiendas, as we have seen, had become too deeply 
 rooted to be eradicated, and the kindly legislation which con- 
 tinued to be enacted was powerless to prevent the abuses 
 inseparable from it indeed, the repetition of prohibitions of 
 overtaxing and maltreating the natives are only of worth as 
 showing how vain was the effort to ameliorate the system and 
 how evitable were its evils under the lax and corrupt admin- 
 istration prevalent in the Spanish colonies. Philip II was con- 
 stant and earnest in his efforts to protect his Indian subjects. 
 In 1582 he ordered inspectors sent through all the provinces 
 
 1 Tratado sobre la materia de las Indias (Venet., 1657). 
 
 2 Col. de Doc. LXXI, p. 369. 
 
 3 Fabi6, Vida(Co\. de Doc. LXX, 235, 237). 
 
154 Yale Review. [Aug. 
 
 to reform abuses committed on them, and he instructed his vice- 
 roys and governors and judges constantly to report whatever 
 seemed to them to require remedy; in 1595 he decreed that 
 Spaniards who maltreated or injured Indians should be punished 
 more severely than if the offence were committed on Spaniards; 
 in 1596 he commanded all prelates to send detailed reports by 
 every fleet as to the condition of the natives whether they were 
 well or ill treated, whether they were increasing or diminishing, 
 whether the laws for their protection were observed or not 
 together with suggestions as to what could be done for their 
 improvement. 1 A decree of Philip IV prohibited all forced 
 labor and required satisfaction to be given to him and to the 
 world for their ill-treatment, which is against God and himself 
 and the total destruction of the empire. 2 As the Spanish con- 
 quests spread over South America, the most careful instructions 
 were issued to preserve the liberty of the Indians, and when in 
 1629, the Governor of Maranon sent some as slaves to other 
 places, saying that they had been lawfully enslaved, Philip IV 
 ordered their immediate release. 3 It was the same in the Philip- 
 pines; in 1609 Philip III gave instructions that on all public 
 works Chinese and Japanese should be hired; if they could not 
 be had in adequate numbers the voluntary service of the natives 
 might be accepted, but they were not to be compelled to labor 
 unless the safety of the state was at stake, for their freedom 
 was of greater moment than the convenience of the public or 
 any saving to the treasury. 4 Charles II, by a decree of June 
 12, 1679, ordered all Indian slaves in Peru and New Spain to 
 be set free; he had commanded this before, but the governor 
 of Chile had suspended it under various pretexts and he now 
 makes the order peremptory, for it is of supreme importance 
 that the Indians be treated lovingly and not be oppressed or 
 molested. 5 There was an organization of officials known as 
 Protectors of the Indians, whose function it was to see that 
 their rights were preserved, and to enforce those rights by 
 
 1 Recop. Leyes 7, 8, 21, Tit. x, Lib. VI. 
 2 Ibid., Ley 25, Tit. v ; Ley 2, Tit. x, Lib. VI. 
 
 3 Ibid., Ley 4, Tit. ii, Lib. VI. 4 Ibid., Ley 40, Tit. xii, Lib. VI. 
 
 5 Ibid., Ley 16, Tit. ii, Lib. VI. 
 
1899] Indian Policy of Spain. 155 
 
 judicial action, and these Protectors were instructed to keep 
 the home government constantly advised as to any infringe- 
 ment on the privileges of the natives and as to whether the 
 viceroys and courts did their duty in this respect. 1 The Sixth 
 Book of the Recopilacion de las Leyes de las Indias contains hun- 
 dreds of decrees manifesting this constant and anxious care of 
 the sovereigns for the welfare, temporal and spiritual, of the 
 native race committed to their charge; and the spirit in which 
 this compilation was made, in 1680, is revealed by the fact 
 that in the section devoted to the good treatment of the Indians 
 the first place is given to the earnest and touching codicil of 
 Queen Isabella, which is ordered to be observed by all officials 
 as of full legal and binding force. 
 
 The contrast between the kindliness which reigned in Madrid 
 and the oppression which prevailed throughout the colonies 
 illustrates the uselessness of legislation when its execution is 
 committed to defective or corrupt administration. 
 
 HENRY CHARLES LEA. 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 1 Ibid., Tit. vi.Lib. VI. 
 
THE TIN PLATE COMBINATION. 
 I. 
 
 "*HE excessive competition of the many tin-plate plants 
 * established under the hot-house influences of the tariff 
 of 1890, in company with rising prices of materials, has brought 
 about the formation of a combination known as the American 
 Tin Plate Company. Three things, tariff, low price of steel, 
 and low wages, fortunately meeting at the same time, made 
 possible the rapid growth of this industry. In 1890 there were 
 two or three plants struggling under great difficulties, barely 
 competing with foreign makers. The McKmley, Wilson, and 
 Dingley bills restricted this competition to such an extent, and 
 incited enterprise to such a degree, that 1898 saw forty-one 
 plants engaged in the industry with every promise of pros- 
 perity. 1 The transformation, just spoken of, was almost mar- 
 velous. The tariff, checking foreign competition, made it 
 possible for those engaged in the industry to construct their 
 mills and at the same time secure the double advantage of cheap 
 steel and low wages. The output increased rapidly from a few 
 hundred thousand pounds to hundreds of millions of pounds, 2 
 while the great imports of early years fell rapidly to less than 
 a third of what they had been in 1890. Meantime the English 
 industry suffered greatly. The American market was the one 
 great consumer of English tin. There had been some dis- 
 satisfaction with English methods and English manufacture, so 
 that the American producers had no opposition to fight and 
 overcome among the consumers of English tin in this country. 
 In fact, the purchasers of the commodity seemed ready to 
 welcome any movement likely to affect English prices. 
 
 The price during the period of English supply ranged above 
 $5.00 per box LC. 14x20 plates. Although the tariff added 
 some $1.62 to the price of English tin plate per box of 108 Ibs., 
 nevertheless so great was the influence of the loss of the 
 American market that the price f.o.b. at Liverpool fell to about 
 $2.40. 3 This in a way set a limit to the price of American tin 
 plate, so that the quotation in this country has remained below 
 five dollars. Since 1893 the price was pushed, under the 
 
 1 YALE REVIEW, vii, 302, Nov. 1898. The Tin Plate Industry. 2 Ibid., p. 313. 
 8 Eng. For. Office Report, No. 426, p. 9.