PART II. crown's absolute right of property over the natives,114 was carried to its full extent in the colonies.115 Every Spaniard, however humble, had his proportion of slaves; and men, many of them not only incapable of estimating the awful responsibility of the situation, but without the least touch of humanity in their natures, were individually intrusted with the unlimited disposal of the lives and destinies of their fellow-creatures. They abused this trust in the grossest manner; tasking the unfortunate Indian far beyond his strength, inflicting the most refined punishments on the indolent, and hunting down those who resisted or escaped, like so many beasts of chase, with ferocious bloodhounds. Every step of the white man's progress in the New World, may be said to have been on the corpse of a native. Faith is staggered by the recital of the number of victims immolated in these fair regions within a very few years after the discovery; and the heart sickens at the loathsome details of barbarities, recorded by one, who, if his sympathies have led him sometimes to overcolor, can never be suspected of wilfully misstating facts of which he was an eyewitness.116 A selfish indif 114 Y crean (Vuestras Altezas) questa isla y todas las otras son así suyas como Castilla, que aquí no falta salvo asiento y mandarles hacer lo que quisieren." Primera Carta de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. p. 93. 115 Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 8, cap. 9.-Las Casas, Œuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. pp. 228, 229. 116 See the various Memorials of Las Casas, some of them expressly prepared for the council of the Indies. He affirms, that more than 12,000,000 lives were wantonly destroyed in the New World, within thirty-eight years after the discovery, and this in addition to those exterminated in the conquest of the country. (Œuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 187.) Herrera admits that Hispaniola was reduced, in less than twenty-five XXVI. ference to the rights of the original occupants of the CHAPTER soil, is a sin which lies at the door of most of the primitive European settlers, whether papist or puritan, of the New World. But it is light, in comparison with the fearful amount of crimes to be charged on the early Spanish colonists; crimes that have, perhaps, in this world, brought down the retribution of Heaven, which has seen fit to turn this fountain of inexhaustible wealth and prosperity to the nation into the waters of bitterness. the colonies. It may seem strange, that no relief was afforded Slavery in by the government to these oppressed subjects. But Ferdinand, if we may credit Las Casas, was never permitted to know the extent of the injuries done to them. 117 He was surrounded by men in the management of the Indian department, whose interest it was to keep him in ignorance.118 The remonstrances of some zealous missionaries led him,119 in 1501, to refer the subject of the reparti years, from 1,000,000 to 14,000 souls. (Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 10, cap. 12.) The numerical estimates of a large savage population, must, of course, be, in a great degree, hypothetical. That it was large, however, in these fair regions, may readily be inferred from the facilities of subsistence, and the temperate habits of the natives. The minimum sum in the calculation, when the number had dwindled to a few thousand, might be more easily ascertained." 117 Euvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 228. 118 One resident at the court, says the bishop of Chiapa, was proprietor of 800 and another of 1100 Indians. (Euvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 238.) We learn their names from Herrera. 119 The Dominican and other PART II. mientos to a council of jurists and theologians. This body yielded to the representations of the advocates of the system, that it was indispensable for maintaining the colonies, since the European was altogether unequal to labor in this tropical climate; and that it, moreover, afforded the only chance for the conversion of the Indian, who, unless compelled, could never be brought in contact with the white man. 120 On these grounds, Ferdinand openly assumed the responsibility to himself and his ministers, of maintaining this vicious institution; and subsequently issued an ordinance to that effect, accompanied, however, by a variety of humane and equitable regulations for restraining its abuse.121 The license was embraced in its full extent; the regulations were openly disregarded.123 Several years and courage for the conversion of different circumstances! 120 Las Casas concludes an elaborate memorial, prepared for the government, in 1542, on the best means of arresting the destruction of the aborigines, with two propositions. 1. That the Spaniards would still continue to settle in America, though slavery were abolished, from the superior advantages for acquiring riches it offered over the Old World. 2. That, if they would not, this would not justify slavery, since "God forbids us to do evil that good may come of it." Rare maxim, from a Spanish churchman of the sixteenth centu ry! The whole argument, which comprehends the sum of what has been since said more diffusely in defence of abolition, is singularly acute and cogent. In its abstract principles it is unanswerable, while it exposes and denounces the misconduct of his countrymen, with a freedom which shows the good bishop knew no other fear than that of his Maker. 121 Recop. de Leyes de las Indias, August 14th, 1509, lib. 6, tit. 8, ley 1. Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 9, cap. 14. 122 The text expresses nearly enough the subsequent condition of things in Spanish America. "No government," says Heeren, "has done so much for the abo rigines as the Spanish." (Modern History, Bancroft's trans., vol. i. p. 77.) Whoever peruses its colonial codes, may find much ground for XXVI. after, in 1515, Las Casas, moved by the spectacle CHAPTER of human suffering, returned to Spain, and pleaded the cause of the injured native, in tones which made the dying monarch tremble on his throne. It was too late, however, for the king to execute the remedial measures he contemplated.123 The efficient interference of Ximenes, who sent a commission for the purpose to Hispaniola, was attended with no permanent results. And the indefatigable protector of the Indians" was left to sue for redress at the court of Charles, and to furnish a splendid, if not a solitary example there, of a bosom penetrated with the true spirit of Christian philanthropy. 124 66 I have elsewhere examined the policy pursued by the Catholic sovereigns in the government of their colonies. The supply of precious metals yielded by them eventually, proved far greater than had ever entered into the conception of the most sanguine of the early discoverers. Their prolific soil and genial climate, moreover, afforded an infinite variety of vegetable products, which might have furnished an unlimited commerce with the the eulogium. But are not the very number and repetition of these humane provisions sufficient proof of their inefficacy? 123 Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 2, lib. 2, cap. 3.- Las Casas, Mémoire, apud Euvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. p. 239. 124 In the remarkable discussion between the doctor Sepulveda and Las Casas, before a commission named by Charles V., in 1550, the former vindicated the persecution of the aborigines by the conduct of the Israelites towards their idola- PART II. Colonial administration. mother country. Under a judicious protection, their population and productions, steadily increasing, would have enlarged to an incalculable extent the general resources of the empire. Such, indeed, might have been the result of a wise system of legislation. But the true principles of colonial policy were sadly misunderstood in the sixteenth century. The discovery of a world was estimated, like that of a rich mine, by the value of its returns in gold and silver. Much of Isabella's legislation, it is true, is of that comprehensive character, which shows that she looked to higher and far nobler objects. But with much that is good, there was mingled, as in most of her institutions, one germ of evil, of little moment at the time, indeed, but which, under the vicious culture of her successors, shot up to a height that overshadowed and blighted all the rest. was the spirit of restriction and monopoly, aggravated by the subsequent laws of Ferdinand, and carried to an extent under the Austrian dynasty, that paralyzed colonial trade. This Under their most ingeniously perverse system of laws, the interests of both the parent country and the colonies were sacrificed. The latter, condemned to look for supplies to an incompetent source, were miserably dwarfed in their growth; while the former contrived to convert the nutriment which she extorted from the colonies into a fatal poison. The streams of wealth which flowed in from the silver quarries of Zacatecas and Potosí, were jealously locked up within the limits of the Peninsula. |