Chapter 6 - LAS CASAS RETURNS TO SPAIN. NEGOTIATIONS. CARDINAL XIMENEZ DE CISNEROS. THE JERONYMITE COMMISSIONERS

Las Casas was fully conscious of the hostility his mission was bound to provoke, and how odious he would make himself, not only to the colonists, but also to the members of the India Council, the courtiers, and to many influential persons in Spain, all of whom had investments in the colonies and drew incomes from the very abuses he was to combat; he therefore took the precaution of drawing up a sworn and witnessed statement, ad perpetuam rei memoriam, with the legal formalities dear to Spanish usage, in which he recounted all the services of every kind that he had rendered in the colonies.

Lest obstacles might be put in the way of his departure, he resorted to a little dissimulation and caused the report to be spread that he intended to go to Paris to finish his law studies and take his degree at the university there. The colonists, including the Governor, were duped by this subterfuge and he departed in company with the Prior, who took with him a deacon of his order, Fray Diego de Alberca. The first stage of their journey was to Hispaniola, where the [pg 68] Prior was seized by a severe illness, to which he succumbed in the town of San Juan de la Maguana.

In the city of Santo Domingo, Las Casas encountered his old friend and precursor in the defence of the Indians, Prior Pedro de Cordoba, to whom he recounted all that had befallen him in Cuba, his newly found vocation, and his intention to visit Spain and lay the case for the Indians before the King. The Prior praised his resolution, but in wishing him all success, he explained the situation he would find awaiting him in Spain, where the all-powerful Bishop of Burgos, who was at the head of Indian affairs, and the royal Secretary, Lope Conchillos, were entirely in favour of the system of repartimientos and encomiendas, being themselves shareholders in colonial enterprises. As not uncommonly happens, it was on the estates of such absentee owners that the Indians were most cruelly handled, being mercilessly overworked by overseers anxious to curry favour at home by the remittance of ever-increasing revenues.

Although he was sufficiently impressed by what he heard, the zeal of the new apostle was undiminished. The Dominican community in Hispaniola being in sad need of funds, the Prior decided to profit by the occasion and to send one of his monks with Las Casas to Spain to solicit aid. He chose for this mission the same Fray Antonio de Montesinos, whose earnestness in behalf of the natives rendered him a sympathetic companion, while his own experience in handling the question in Spain, promised to be of great assistance to Las Casas. They [pg 69] sailed in September, 1515, and after a prosperous voyage arrived safely at Seville, where Montesinos lodged in the monastery of his Order, while Las Casas was given hospitality by his relatives.

The Archbishop of Seville at that time was Fray Diego de Deza, a Dominican who stood high in King Ferdinand's favour, and the first service Montesinos rendered his companion was to present him to the Archbishop, to whom he had already given some account of the objects which brought them both to Spain, and of the zeal of Las Casas in a cause which the Dominican Order had made peculiarly its own. It required no persuasion to enlist the good offices of the Archbishop, who was in entire sympathy with their undertaking and promptly furnished Las Casas with a warm letter to the King, commending both the cause and its advocate. To facilitate his approach to the King, he furnished Las Casas also with letters to influential persons in the royal household.

No better beginning could have been desired, and Las Casas set out for Plasencia where the King then was, arriving there a few days before Christmas in the year 1515. Thanks to the counsels and information given him by Montesinos, Las Casas knew something of the court and upon what persons he might count, who might still be won over, and who were to be avoided. Among these last, the most notorious and powerful opponents were the Bishop of Burgos and the Secretary, Lope Conchillos. Whatever virtues the former may have possessed they were certainly not of the apostolic [pg 70] order and his appointment to the high office of President of the India Council was one of the earliest and greatest calamities that overtook American interests. Las Casas was careful, therefore, to defer meeting these two personages and to refrain from disclosing the object of his presence until he should have first secured a hearing from the King, whose sympathy he hoped to enlist before his opponents could prejudice the monarch against him. Again fortune favoured him, and two days before Christmas he was closeted with the King, and explained in the fullest detail the state of things in the islands; the extinction of the natives, which was following rapidly on the barbarities and rapacity of the Spaniards, and the violation of the royal provisions which the benevolence of the late Queen and the sagacity of the King had decreed. He was astute enough to couple with the argument that these iniquities lay heavily on the royal conscience, the assurance that the revenues from the Indies would infallibly diminish until they ceased altogether, unless these crying abuses were corrected. In this conversation the charming personality, cultivated intelligence, and earnest convictions of Las Casas told powerfully, and he recounted horrifying incidents to the astonished sovereign which, it may be rightly imagined, lost nothing in the recital by such an eloquent and fervent advocate. Again he was completely successful, for King Ferdinand promised him another and longer audience before Easter in which he would go more fully into the matter. He slyly [pg 71] notes in closing his own description of the audience and its results, that neither Conchillos nor the Bishop of Burgos was much overjoyed when they heard from the King what subject was under discussion.

Diego Velasquez was well aware that Las Casas would spare no means to carry on his propaganda and that his first step would doubtless be to engage the attention of the Admiral, Diego Columbus, whose lieutenant Velasquez was, and that of the King as well, if he could reach him. He wrote therefore to the Treasurer, Passamonte, who in turn wrote to Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos warning them of what was on foot.

The monks of the Dominican Order were, in those days, to be found in many posts of influence, not the least of which was that of confessor to the King, and to Fray Tomas de Matiencio, the ghostly father of King Ferdinand, Las Casas did not fail to go at the outset. Matiencio had already shown pronounced sympathy with the cause of the Indians and was, therefore, to be counted upon as a firm ally, both because of his personal convictions and for motives of solidarity with his Order. Through his confessor, Ferdinand sent to tell Las Casas that he should preceed him to Seville and wait for his arrival there, when the promised audience would be granted him; the King's departure was fixed for the fourth day after Christmas, so it may be seen that this affair did not drag just then at the Spanish court. The confessor also advised Las Casas not to avoid the Bishop of Burgos and Conchillos; but, on the [pg 72] contrary, to go openly to both and to explain as frankly to them as he had done to the King, the exact condition of the Indians, the motives which had prompted him to intervene, and the measures he judged necessary to stop the depopulation and ruin of the colonies. Matiencio reasoned that, as the matter must ultimately come into the hands of these two men, and as they had to be reckoned with, it was far wiser to give them the fullest information at the outset, hoping also that Las Casas's moving description of the sufferings the Indians endured might modify their opposition. This counsel did not accord with the plan of Las Casas but he allowed his judgment to be overruled by the royal confessor's advice and sought out Conchillos as being the less intractable of the two. The letter from the Archbishop of Seville procured him a courteous reception and had he come seeking a benefice or some preferment from the King, he might have counted upon the favour and assistance of the Secretary to advance his suit, but, as he piously phrases it, he had, by divine mercy, been rescued from the darkness in which, like all the others, he had wandered, a lost man, and was liberated from all desire for any temporal benefits. Save the gracious words and courtly blandishments which Conchillos showered upon him, nothing resulted from the interview.

His reception by the Bishop of Burgos was of a totally different order and, though it is to be lamented that this prelate did not possess more of the virtues becoming his state, it must be noted in his favour [pg 73] that hypocrisy was wanting in his unlovely character. Amongst other atrocities which Las Casas brought to his attention was the death of seven thousand Indian children within three months, on which he dwelt, hoping to touch some humane chord in the Bishop. He was deceived. "Look what an ignorant fool you are!" exclaimed his lordship. "What is this to me or what to the King?" This rough answer goaded his patience beyond control and Las Casas shouted in reply: "That all these souls perish is nothing to you and nothing to the King! Oh, Eternal God! then to whom is it anything?" With this he left the Bishop's presence.

The activity of Las Casas, his earnestness and his eloquence produced immediate effects, for he forced Indian affairs upon the languid attention of indifferent people and aroused so much interest in them that they became a topic of general discussion. He recounted his experiences to Archbishop Deza on his return to Seville, and begged him to arrange that both Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos should be present at the audience the King had promised him, so that he might put the case fully, for he desired to charge them directly in the royal presence with responsibility for the massacres and cruelties to the Indians and for the damage done to the royal interests by their maladministration of the colonies. His project for this dramatic encounter was forestalled, and all the hopes born of the royal assurances given him at Plasencia were dashed by the news that reached Seville of the [pg 74] death of King Ferdinand, which occurred at Madrigalegos on January 23, 1516.

This sudden stoppage of his carefully planned campaign was discouraging enough to Las Casas but he was not disheartened, and resolved to set out at once for Flanders where the young King Charles then was and to present his plans to the monarch before he arrived in Spain.

King Ferdinand's last will designated Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros as regent of the kingdom until his successor's arrival in Spain.

In a century prolific in great men, Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros was among the greatest. Descended from an honourable family, he entered the Church, where a career of great promise opened before him. At an early age, however, he quit the secular priesthood for the cloister and became a monk of the Franciscan Order, in which the austerity of his observance of that severe rule of life and the vigour of his intellect advanced him to the position of a Provincial.

Much against his own inclination, he had accepted the post of confessor to Queen Isabella and from thence forward he became, in spite of himself, a dominant figure in the political and ecclesiastical affairs of the realm. The Queen raised him to the primatial see of Toledo, which carried with it his elevation to the Roman purple. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo was the richest and most important person in Spain, after the sovereign; but promotion to this lofty dignity, with its obligations to the pomp and magnificence imposed by the [pg 75] usage of the times, in no way modified the austerity of Cardinal Ximenez's life. He still wore the rough habit of St. Francis under his purple and he patched its rents with his own hands. Amidst palatial surroundings he slept on the floor or on a wooden bench-never in a bed-and he held strictly to the diet of a simple monk. No man was less of the world than he, though none was more in it or knew it better. He became as renowned for his wisdom and ability in conducting affairs as he had long since been for his sanctity, and the confidence which the King and Queen reposed in him caused him to be admitted to their counsels on all the most important matters of government.

Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros

From a relief preserved in the Universidad Central. Photo by J. Laurent & Co., Madrid

When the death of King Ferdinand occurred, the Cardinal was nearly eighty years of age, yet he accepted and assumed the regency imposed upon him by the King's testament. Adrian of Utrecht, Dean of the University of Louvain, who had resided for some months at the court of King Ferdinand in the quality of ambassador from Prince Charles, produced full powers from the young sovereign, which conferred upon him the regency after Ferdinand's death. Cardinal Ximenez acknowledged him without delay, and a joint regency was instituted in which Adrian's part was merely nominal, as the actual government was carried on exclusively by the Cardinal.

It could hardly have been otherwise, for Adrian, as a foreigner, was unpopular in Spain, where he exercised no influence; he did not even speak Spanish and being, moreover, of a scholarly disposition, [pg 76] little used to the intricacies of affairs of state, he was doubtless glad enough to shelter himself behind the powerful figure of his masterful colleague. The Cardinal was adored by the people; the sanctity of his life, the integrity of his character, the superlative order of his genius, and his princely munificence made him more powerful than any sovereign. Some of the great nobles who had imagined that the regency of an aged monk would favour the designs of their invasive ambitions were sharply checked by the energy of the new regent, who had organised an efficient body of troops in his own pay and speedily made it apparent that Spain had a ruler with whom it was perilous to trifle. One incident in the contest he sustained in defence of the crown's prerogatives against the encroachments of the feudal nobles, illustrates his character. The Duke of Infantado, the Grand Admiral of Castile, and the Count of Benevente came as representatives of the nobles, to inquire into the nature of the powers by which the regent exercised such absolute authority. After hearing them courteously, the Cardinal produced the late King's testament and its formal ratification by the absent King Charles. As they raised some objections to the extent of the powers these documents gave him, he led them to a window of his apartment commanding a view of a large encampment of soldiers and artillery, saying, "There are the powers I have received from his Catholic Majesty, by which I govern and shall continue to govern Castile, until the King, my master and yours, shall take [pg 77] possession of his kingdom." This answer both astonished and silenced them and they withdrew convinced of the futility of conspiracies against a man so well prepared and so determined.

The supreme object of his regency was to consolidate the union of the various kingdoms and principalities of the peninsula into one state-in other words to create a nation. This he did, and thus laid the foundations of Spain's greatest power and glory, for he delivered the kingdom to the young monarch in a more prosperous condition than it had ever before enjoyed, and with the royal authority more widely extended and more firmly grounded than any other Spanish sovereign had ever possessed it.

The regency of Cardinal Ximenez did not last two years, yet such was the permanent character of his beneficent influence upon the national development, that the memory of his services is still undimmed in Spain. Amongst the statesmen of his times, he was facile princeps and he enjoys the unique distinction of being the only prime-minister in history who was regarded as a saint by his own contemporaries. 28

To this ascetic and autocratic but not unkindly statesman Las Casas decided to address himself, and he proceeded to Madrid to acquaint the two regents with the abuses prevailing in the Indies and to announce his intention of going to Flanders [pg 78] unless the necessary measures for the relief of the oppressed Indians could be devised in Spain before the King arrived. He drew up a statement of the case in Latin, which he submitted to the Ambassador Adrian, and another, identical, in Spanish, for Cardinal Ximenez. The gentle-hearted Fleming was horrified by what he read of the atrocities perpetrated in the King's name in the colonies, and repairing to the apartment of Cardinal Ximenez, who lodged in the same palace, asked him if such enormities were possible. As the Cardinal already had plenty of information on the subject from his brother Franciscans, he replied that all that Las Casas stated was true and that there was even more besides. He signified to Las Casas that his proposed journey to Flanders was unnecessary as he would himself provide means in Madrid for correcting the abuses in the colonies. There began at once a series of conferences to which Cardinal Ximenez summoned his colleague in the regency, the licentiate Zapata, Dr. Carbajal, and the distinguished jurist Dr. Palacios Rubios; in the course of these debates Las Casas fully exposed the evils of the colonial administration and proposed the measures which, in his judgment, were necessary to remedy them. The Cardinal-regent always had by him as a consultor the Bishop of Avila, who was also of his Order, but he rigorously excluded the obnoxious Bishop of Burgos from all participation in Indian affairs, to the no small perturbation of that prelate. Las Casas relates a significant incident that happened during one of these conferences, illustrating the [pg 79] means employed by his opponents to confute his statements. Cardinal Ximenez ordered the Laws of Burgos, which, since 1512, were supposed to be in full force in the Indies for the protection of the natives, to be read aloud; upon reaching one of the articles, the reader falsified the text; Las Casas, who knew every line of those acts by heart, objected and the Cardinal ordered the reader to repeat; he did so in the same language, whereupon Las Casas once more objected, saying, "The law does not say that." The Cardinal, rendered impatient by the repeated interruption, turned to Las Casas and remarked with severity, "Either be silent or look well to what you say." "Your Eminence may take my head off if what this clerk is reading be truly found in that law," replied Las Casas promptly. Taking the articles from the hands of the reader he showed his Eminence that the sense had not been correctly read. The confusion of the clerk, whom Las Casas refuses to dishonour by naming him in his history, was complete. The outcome of these discussions was that Las Casas, Dr. Palacios Rubios, and Fray Antonio de Montesinos (who had meanwhile arrived in Madrid) were deputed by the Cardinal-regent to draft a project of laws which would sufficiently protect the Indians and secure fair government in the colonies. By common consent of his collaborators, the task of framing these laws was left exclusively to Las Casas. His propositions were:

1.1. Unconditional liberty for the Indians;

2.2. Suppression of both repartimientos and encomiendas;

3.3. Some provisions for assisting the Spaniards to work [pg 80] their properties profitably without recurring to the oppressive and abusive systems they had hitherto employed.

Both Fray Antonio and Dr. Palacios Rubios approved these articles and the latter somewhat added to and improved them, recomposing them in the proper legal terminology of the time, after which they were again submitted, discussed, and in some unimportant details, amended, in the above-mentioned council presided over by the Cardinal, The next important step was to place the execution of these new provisions in the hands of trusted delegates who would apply them rigorously and in the sense designed by the council, for there had been no lack of excellent decrees, having the same end in view, but which had, in the past, been rendered null and of no effect, through the connivance of the colonial authorities, to whom their execution had been entrusted. Las Casas, for the best of motives, declined having any part in designating such officers and in consideration of certain rivalries existing between the Franciscan and Dominican Orders, especially in Indian affairs, the Cardinal finally decided to confide the necessary powers to the monks of St. Jerome, an Order which had thus far taken no part in colonial affairs. Upon receiving the Cardinal's notification of this intention, the General of that Order, who resided at San Bartolomé de Lupiano, summoned a chapter of all the priors of Castile, in which twelve monks were designated, amongst whom the regent might make his selection. Four priors came to Madrid to notify this result to his Eminence, and one afternoon [pg 81] the two regents, accompanied by the entire court, rode out to the monastery of St. Jerome near the Buen Retiro Gardens, where they lodged, to receive the formal answer of the chapter. Las Casas was, of course, present, and the regents were received by the monks in the sacristy of the church, which had been appropriately prepared for the great occasion. Cardinal Ximenez addressed the assembly, highly commending the willingness of the Jeronymites to undertake such a meritorious task, and then ordered that Las Casas be summoned to hear the result.

The boyish enthusiasm of Las Casas's character appears on this occasion, for, consumed with impatience, tortured by hopes and fears, he had waited outside in the upper cloister as long as he could stand it and had then finally descended a staircase which brought him unexpectedly to the sacristy door, just in time to hear that he was being searched for; some one asked him if he knew Las Casas, to which he meekly replied, "I am he." As he could not get in at that door, he had to go round through the church, which obliged him to traverse the choir, where all the great people of the court in attendance on the regents were waiting and who, so Las Casas observes, were all glad to see him, except perhaps the Bishop of Burgos. This hour of Las Casas's triumph was complete; on his knees before the Cardinal-regent, in the presence of the assembled Priors of Castile and the entire court, he heard, with ill-repressed tears, the announcement that all he had most earnestly striven and prayed for was now [pg 82] to be realised and that he himself was designated to confer with the General of the Jeronymites concerning the choice of the men who were to execute the new laws in the Indies. The Cardinal, who unbent to few, treated Las Casas with genial familiarity and when the latter declared that he did not need the money his Eminence had provided for his expenses, as he had enough of his own, he smilingly observed, "Go to, father, I am richer than you."

Not a moment of time was wasted, and that very evening Las Casas received his instructions and twenty ducats for the expenses of his journey to Lupiano, whither he set out the following morning. One of the twelve monks amongst whom the selection was to be made was in that monastery, and the General had him called and presented him to Las Casas, who was as pleased with his robust appearance, which promised to support the physical hardships of colonial life, as he was with all that he heard of his virtues and learning, though his face was as ugly a one as ever a man had; this was Fray Bernardino de Mazanedo, the Prior of Mejorada, and he was selected as one of the commission; Luis de Figueroa and the Prior of St. Jeromino in Seville were finally agreed upon between Las Casas and the General to complete the number.

No sooner had the Jeronymite monks arrived in Madrid than the agents of the colonists, and all those who were interested in maintaining the encomiendas and repartimientos, whose suppression [pg 83] meant the diminution of their incomes, laid instant siege to them. Las Casas was abused and even threatened in the public streets, and a well organised campaign of calumny and misrepresentation was set actively in motion. The Indians were represented as lazy, filthy pagans, of bestial morals, no better than dogs, and fit only for slavery, in which state alone there might be some hope of instructing and converting them to Christianity. Las Casas was flouted as a fanatic, bent on destroying the Spanish colonies, and as an enemy of his country's interests. So adroitly were these and other arguments presented, and so overwhelming was the mass of testimony favourable to the colonists that constantly reached the Jeronymites from all sides, that they began to be ill-affected towards Las Casas and to disregard his suggestions. Dr. Palacios Rubios was so disturbed by their new inclination, that after conversations with them, in which their changed views were plainly manifested, he declared it would be disastrous to send such men; he forthwith determined to stop their departure, if possible, before it was too late.

Cardinal Ximenez fell seriously ill at this time and Palacios Rubios sought access to him in vain. As soon as his Eminence had sufficiently convalesced to attend to business, he ordered the final instructions to be given to the Jeronymites and their departure to be hastened. One of the orders directed them, upon arriving in Hispaniola, to at once annul the encomiendas held by members of [pg 84] the Royal Council for the Indies. This struck a hard blow at Conchillos and the Bishop of Burgos amongst others, for the former lost eleven hundred Indians and the latter eight hundred, 29 nor from that time forth did any member of the Council openly hold property in slaves, though Las Casas was sceptical as to whether they did not continue to have private interests. Another similar order obliged all judges and royal officials in the colonies to surrender their slaves. The general sense of the instructions furnished to the Jeronymites for their guidance was in conformity with the ideas of Las Casas and the articles were indeed drawn up by him, although certain concessions which did not meet with his approval had been made to public opinion, and the important property-owners in the colonies were sufficiently powerful at court to obtain some modifications and to suppress some provisions in favour of the Indians, which seriously hampered the original proposals. In spite of the declaration formally set down in the will of Isabella the Catholic that the Indians were and must be considered free men, the contrary opinion had come to prevail, and in the beginning of his negotiations in Spain Las Casas himself had not ventured to insist too much or too openly on this point, until one day, when in conversation with Cardinal Ximenez, he queried by what principle of justice the Indians were held in subjection. His Eminence answered with some vivacity: "With no justice, for are they not free men? And who can doubt [pg 85] they are free?" From thenceforward Las Casas sustained this opinion unflinchingly.30 The licentiate Zuazo of Seville was appointed to accompany the Jeronymites and to open an inquiry (tomar la residencia) into the administration of the colonial officials. The powers of the friars were the fullest possible and enabled them to inquire into all matters touching the welfare of the Indians and to correct abuses, but they were not "governors" as has been supposed and stated by many writers, but rather overseers, charged to ensure the proper execution of the laws which had been enacted to protect the natives.

As soon as the instructions were delivered to the Jeronymites, Las Casas received the following order from the Cardinal-regent:

"The Queen and the King. Bartholomew de Las Casas, priest, native of the city of Seville, and resident of the island of Cuba which is in the Indies."

"For as much as we are informed that you have been and are resident in those parts for a long time, from which you know and are experienced in their affairs, especially in what touches the well-being and usefulness of the Indians, and you know and are acquainted with their life and conversation from having dwelt with them, and because we know your good zeal in our Lord's service, from which we hope that you will execute with all diligence and care what we shall charge and command you and will see to what contributes to the welfare of the souls and bodies of the Spaniards and Indians who live there; by these presents we command you to repair to [pg 86] those regions of the said Indies, such as the islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, San Juan, and Jamaica as well as to the mainland; and you shall advise, inform, and give your opinion to the pious Jeronymite fathers whom we despatch to effect the reformation of the Indies, and to other persons who may assist them in this, concerning everything which touches the liberty, good treatment and welfare of the souls and bodies of the said Indians in the said islands and mainland; and that you shall write to us giving information concerning everything that may be done or should be done in the said islands; and that you shall do everything required for our Lord's service; for all of which we give you full power, with all its casualties, dependencies, emergencies, annexes, and connexes; and we command our Admiral and appellate judges and all other justices whatsoever of the said Islands and Tierrafirma that they protect you and cause this power to be protected and that they shall not oppose or go contrary to its form and tenor nor consent that such be done at any time or in any way under pain of our displeasure and of 10,000 maravedis for each person who may act to the contrary."

"Done at Madrid the 17th day of September in the year 1516 F. Cardinalis, Adrianus Ambasiator-By command of the Queen and the King her son, our sovereigns, the governors in their name. George de Baracaldo."

In addition to this full power, Las Casas was given the title of Protector-General (or Procurator-General) of all the Indians, to which office an annual salary of one hundred dollars was attached, an amount which, for the times, was a considerable one.

Though everything now seemed ready for the departure of the Jeronymites and Las Casas, the [pg 87] members of the Council still advanced objections to the instructions which Palacios Rubios had drawn up for the licentiate Zuazo, who had been deputed to take the residencia of the colonial judges; it was feared that some severe decisions might be given on acts which these latter had performed in the interests of the members of the India Council, whose tools they were. Las Casas employed his usual direct tactics to overcome these delays and brought the matter to the Cardinal's notice. His Eminence summoned the licentiate Zapata and Dr. Carbajal into his presence and ordered them to sign Zuazo's papers; they obeyed, but contrived to affix a mark in cipher to their signatures which would enable them later to complain to the King that the regent had forced them to sign.

In taking leave of the Cardinal, Las Casas frankly declared that he feared the Jeronymites had been so tampered with and influenced before starting on their mission, that more evil than good was to be apprehended from their action. The Cardinal, nonplussed for an instant by these forebodings, exclaimed, "Whom then can we trust?" quickly adding, "Go on and do you look out for everything."

This unpromising joint-commission sailed from San Lucar on November 11, 1516, but in separate vessels, the Jeronymites keeping aloof from Las Casas, who they contrived should not embark on the same ship with themselves. Their vessel reached Hispaniola thirteen days earlier than the other, which had been obliged to stop at Puerto Rico to discharge freight.

[pg 88] By detaching themselves from Las Casas at the very outset, the three Jeronymites doubtless intended to affirm the impartial and independent attitude essential to the judicial character of their mission. They were not carried to the Indies on any such wave of righteous zeal and indignation as bore the impetuous reformer on its crest. They were cloister-bred men, cautious and prudent in their decisions and deliberate in their acts, and they doubtless felt that for them to arrive in company with Las Casas would be to prejudice the impartiality of their proceedings in the eyes of all the colonists. They were sent to the colonies to carry out instructions of a most delicate and difficult nature and it was their obvious preference to fulfil their mission, as far as possible, without friction. In this exercise of caution, Las Casas beheld weakness and even treachery. His passionate nature chafed and raged at the deliberateness with which these impassive monks moved, and he was not slow to denounce them as having been won over by the blandishments of the colonial officials to betray the mission with which they were entrusted. His passion for justice, associated as it was with unrealisable ideals, refused to take account of the multifarious difficulties in the way of the reforms on which his heart was set, and he despised the obstacles to their consummation, through which he would have crashed, regardless of the consequences. Despite the sincerity of these one-sided views of the great Protector, it must be conceded that the problems confronting the Jeronymites were complex [pg 89] and difficult of solution. The prompt and reckless execution of their instructions would have overturned the entire economic system of the colonies which, however unjust in its principles, was the established condition of things, and would have certainly brought financial ruin as the first consequence. The situation was one which called for all their circumspection if the Jeronymites were to make their authority effective and their decisions operative. They were the first of all the men sent by the Spanish government to effect reforms in the colonies, whose intention to discharge their duty was conscientious, though Las Casas does not even admit this in their favour, for he declares that they had relatives in the islands whom they desired to benefit, and that in writing to the Governor of Cuba they even signed themselves as his "chaplains," which seemed to him conclusive proof of their too subservient attitude towards the higher colonial authorities.

The Jeronymites, however, had been furnished with two sets of instructions and it was within their discretion to guide their policy according to either, as their judgment formed on the spot might dictate. The first set of instructions was in conformity with the plan drawn up by Las Casas and Palacios Rubios; the second was provided in case the result of their investigations showed the full application of the first to be inexpedient, for Cardinal Ximenez, though sympathising with the ideas of Las Casas, was not led by him, but viewed the situation, as he did every other that concerned the welfare of the [pg 90] Spanish realm, from the standpoint of a statesman trustee for the absent sovereign.

The first measures of the Jeronymites were in the right direction, but they were far too timid and temporising to satisfy the expectations of Las Casas; the conditions he had foreseen were only too prompt in declaring themselves, for the Jeronymites showed themselves somewhat insensible to the crying abuses which he incessantly pressed upon their attention. They did not give full credit to all of his representations and even ignored many of the proofs he adduced. They had failed to find the picture he had drawn in Spain of the Indians an entirely accurate one, and they resisted his reiterated demand that they should scrupulously obey the injunction to at once deprive all royal judges and officials of their encomiendas. The exasperation of Las Casas at this time pushed him to excesses which aroused such a storm of ill-feeling and hostility against him that his good friends the Dominicans feared for his life and insisted that he should come to live with them in their monastery, where he would be safer from any violence his enemies might attempt. Whether it was feasible to proceed in the drastic manner demanded by Las Casas is open to doubt. It is evident that the colonists would have offered an obstinate resistance, to combat which the three Jeronymites had nothing but the moral force of their commission. Even with our present facilities for rapid communication, it is not always easy for the central authority to control its agents and ensure the faithful execution of its [pg 91] intentions. In the sixteenth century, time and distance influenced powerfully the action of the government representatives. Their instructions were made complex, voluminous, in the effort to cover every possible emergency, but no foresight sufficed for the purpose, while the legal system in use opened many loopholes for evading or postponing the application of unpopular measures. An appeal from a royal commissioner's decision, to the India Council or to the King, entailed a delay of many long months or even years, during which each party contested every point. The outcome of such proceedings was problematical but the resisting party was always certain of the one positive advantage of delay.

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