CA'SAS, BARTHOLOME DE LAS, was born at Seville of a noble family in 1474. When he was about twenty ho accompanied his father, who embarked with Colombo In his second voyage to the West Indies. On his return to Spain he entered holy orders and became curate of a parish. After some years he went back to Hispaniola, where he found tho Indian population cruelly oppressed by the Spaniards. By the system of repartimientos,' enacted by order of King Ferdinand of Aragon, and enforced by the governor Albuquerque, the unfortunate .natives were distributed like cattle into lots of so many hundred heads each, and sold to the highest bidders, or given away to courtiers and other men of rank in Spain, who by their agents sold them to the colonists. The mortality became so great among these unhappy beings, who were naturally of a weak constitu tion, that out of 60,000 Indians, who were on the island of Hispaniola in 1508, only 14,000 remained in 1516. The Dominican friars were the only persons who loudly disapproved of this system; the secular clergy and even the Franciscans took part with the colonists. Las Cams sided with the Dominicans, and finding that Albuquerque was deaf to all their remonstrances, he sailed for Spain, asked and obtained an audience of Ferdinand, to whom he made such a dreadful picture of the fatal effects of the repartimlentos, that the king's conscience became alarmed, and ho promised Les Cases that he would remedy the abuse. But Ferdinand died soon after, and Charles I., commonly called Charles V., succeeded him. The minister Ximenes, who governed Spain in the absence of the young king, listened with favour to Las Cases' remonstrances, and appointed three superintend ents from among the Hieronymites, an order which enjoyed great consideration in Spain, with instructions to proceed to the West Indies, and examine the matter on the spot, and with full authority to decide finally upon the great question of the freedom or slavery of the Indians. He sent with them a jurist of the name of Zuazo, who had a great reputation for learning and probity, and lastly, he added Las Caaas to the commission with the title of 'Protector of the Indians.' The commission proceeded to Hispaniola in 1517. After listening to the statements of both parties, colonists and Dominicans, or friends of the Indians, and having also examined the physical and intellectual condition of the natives themselves, the Hieronymitea came to the conclusion that the Indiana would not work unless obliged to do so ; that their mental capacities were much lower than those of Europeans, and could not be stimulated to exertion or be made to follow any moral or religious rules, except by authority ; and there fore they decided that the system of repartimientos must continue for the present at least, but at the same time they enforced strict regu lations as to the manner in which the Indians should be treated by their masters, in order to prevent as much as possible any abuse of power on the part of the latter. Las Cases, not satisfied with this
decision, set off again for Spain to appeal to Charles V. himself, who came about that time from Flanders to visit his Spanish dominions. The question was discussed in the king's council, and as the difficulty of cultivating the colonies without the repartimientos was the great objection, Las Cases, it is said, observed that the African blacks, who were already imported into the West Indies, were a much stronger race than the Indiana, and might make a good substitute. This sug gestion has been made, by most writers on American affairs, a ground of reproach against the memory of Las Cams. It ought to be observed however that the fact of the suggestion rests solely upon the authority of Herrera, who wrote thirty years after the death of Las Cases. The writers contemporary with,Las Cases, and.Sepulveda himself, his determined antagonist, are silent upon this point. (Gr6goire, 'Apologia de B. de Las Cases,' in the fourth volume of the Memoirs of Moral and Political Science of the, French Institute.') It is certain, and R both Herrera, and after him Robertson, acknowledge it, that, as early as 1503, negro slaves had been imported into America, and that in 1511 a large importation took place by King Ferdinand's authorisation. The Portuguese seem to have been the first Europeans who traded in black slaves. A negro was found to do as much work as four Iudiaus. Charles V. granted a licence to one of his Flemish courtiers to import 4000 blacks into the West Indies. The courtier sold his licence to some Genoese speculators for 25,000 ducats, and the Genoese then began to organise a regular slave-trade between Africa and the New World. But the price of the blacks was so high that few of the colonists could avail themselves of this supply, and consequently the slavery of the Indians was perpetuated for a long time after, until the race became extinct on most of the islands.