HUMANITY GOING ASTRAY.

29

tentions, aids in laying broad the foundations of misery and of crime.

Bartolomeo de las Casas, a Dominican monk, had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage. A man of eminent benevolence and quick sensibilities, the sufferings of the downtrodden Indians produced upon him a profound impression. After spending many years in Hispaniola, in fruitless efforts to ameliorate the condition of the natives, he returned to Spain previous to the death of Ferdinand, was favorably received by that monarch and by his minister the Cardinal Ximenes, and succeeded in procuring the appointment of three Superintendents of the Colonies, to whom he himself was joined, with the well-earned title of "Protector of the Indians." The mission, however, was of small avail. The Spaniards of Hispaniola opposed every obstacle, representing that without compulsion the Indians would not labor, and that without their labor the colony could not subsist. Finding no countenance in the island, Las Casas again returned to Spain, where he arrived shortly before the death of Ximenes, and found Charles V. successor of Ferdinand.

Then it was, after a vain endeavor to procure the freedom of the aborigines, that Las Casas, thinking that a hardier race than they would suffer less as slaves,* recommended to Ximenes the policy of supplying the labor-market of Hispaniola with negroes from the Portuguese settlements on the African coast.

This, though affirmed by Robertson,† following Her

*Herrera (dec. i. lib. 9, c. 5) affirms that one negro was considered equal, as laborer, to four Indians.

Robertson's History of America, vol. i. p. 321. The censure conveyed in the words of this author, when he says of Las Casas, "In the warmth of his zeal to save the aborigines from the yoke, he pronounced it to be lawful and expedient to impose one still heavier on the Africans,"

30

CONFESSION AND ATONEMENT.

rera, is denied by several modern authors of repute.* But the simple fact that Las Casas did make such a proposal, though not until after a certain number of African slaves had been imported into the New World, is beyond denial,-seeing that it has been stated, and nobly atoned for, so far as frank acknowledgment of error can atone, by Las Casas himself, writing his own history shortly before his death, in that retirement to which, after years of fruitless exertion in behalf of the suffering natives, he betook himself. These, literally translated, are his words:

"This advice, that license be given to bring negro slaves to these lands, the ecclesiastic Casas first gave, not taking note of the injustice with which the Portuguese seize them and make them slaves; which advice, after he had reflected on the matter, he would not have given for all he possessed in the world. For he always held that they were made slaves unjustly and tyrannically, seeing that the same rule applies in their case as in that of the Indians."+

implies, when given thus without explanation, too harsh a judgment of a good man.

*Doelinger (Hist. Eccl., vol. iii. sect. 160, p. 397) makes an argument, with evidence adduced, in proof that the imputation is unjust. Cochin discredits the charge, stating that in the debates which Las Casas was forced to sustain against Quevedo, Bishop of Darien, and also against the confessor and historian of Charles, Sepulveda, "this opinion is found neither on his lips nor on those of his adversaries."—L'Abolition de l'Esclavage, vol. i. p. 286. The explanation of this may be, that by that time he had repented the advice which a few years before he had given.

"Este aviso de que se diese licencia para traer esclavos negros á estas tierras, dió primero el clérigo Casas, no advirtiendo la injusticia con que los Portugueses los toman y hacen esclavos; el qual despues de que cay en ello no lo diera por quanto habia en el mundo. Porque siempre los tuvo por injusta y tiránicamente hechos esclavos: porque la misma razon es de ellos que de los Indios."-LAS CASAS: Hist. de las Indias, lib. 3, tom. 2, cap. 101. Las Casas here speaks of himself in the third person.

FIRST STEP IN A GREAT WRONG.

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Ximenes, whether from motives of policy or humanity, rejected Las Casas' proposal, dying soon after.

Las Casas renewed the proposal, after Ximenes' death, to the ministers of Charles, by whom it was more favorably received. And, the officers of the "India House of Seville" having recommended four thousand as the proper number to be sent,* the young king acted upon the recommendation. In accordance with the monopoly-favoring policy of that age, Charles granted to one of his Flemish favorites a patent for the importation into the colonies of four thousand negro slaves. That patent was sold to a company of Genoese merchants, who, about the year 1517, carried it into effect.

This, as regards America, was the germ of a traffic, the foulest blot on the history of Christendom; a traffic carried on, in defiance of law, human and divine, to exempt from labor one race of men at expense of brutal degradation to another; a traffic that has brought upon the American hemisphere a moral curse worse than war, pestilence, or famine, and which, as to every nation that persists in it, leads,-ever must lead,-sooner or later, by one way or another, to national ruin.

"The suggestion of Las Casas was approved by the Chancellor and by Adrian, the colleague of the late Cardinal (Ximenes), and indeed it is probable that there was hardly a man of that time who would have seen further than the excellent clerigo did. Las Casas was asked what number of negroes would suffice. He replied that he did not know; upon which a letter was sent to the officers of the India House of Seville, to ascertain the fit number, in their opinion. They said that four thousand would at present suffice,-being one thousand for each of the islands, Hispaniola, San Juan, Cuba, and Jamaica."-Conquerors of the New World and their Bondsmen, London, 1852.

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WORDING OF ASIENTOS.

CHAPTER IV.

NUMBER OF SLAVES SHIPPED FROM AFRICA.

THE statistical details are lacking which might enable us to form a strictly accurate numerical estimate of the victims to this detestable trade, the operations of which extended through three centuries and a half,—diminishing, however, during the last quarter of a century, and soon, we may confidently hope, to cease forever. An approximating estimate of the number of negroes transported to America is all that can now be obtained.

The asientos, treaties, or contracts of the Spanish government for the supply of its American colonies with slaves, commencing in 1517, were occasionally granted throughout the sixteenth century, and multiplied in the seventeenth and eighteenth. Some were to individuals, some to companies, some to governments.

Nothing more strongly marks the character of these treaties for the delivery of human beings than the terms employed in wording them. An asiento was granted, in 1696, to the Portuguese Guinea Company, by which that company bound itself to deliver to Spain, in her transatlantic colonies, ten thousand tons of negroes.* England, to designate the human chattels she agreed to supply, employed a term such as vendors of broadcloth or calico might use. By treaty with Spain, bearing date March 26, 1713, his Britannic Majesty undertook to introduce into Spanish America one hundred and fourteen thousand pieces of India, of both sexes and all

"Dies mil toneladas de negros” is the expression in the original. The text can be found in the Cantillo collection, p. 32.

SLAVE-TRADE TREATIES.

333

ages.* These various treaties, concluded in the name of the Most Holy Trinity,† contained not one article, not a single provision of any kind, for the humane treatment or for the protection from outrage of the human merchandise therein stipulated to be delivered.

The extent of these treaties, and their lucrative character to the Spanish crown, may be gathered from the following:

"A single government, Spain, which assumes the name of Catholic, concluded in less than two centuries more than ten treaties to authorize, protect, and profit by the transportation of more than half a million of human beings. It levied on each of these human heads, reckoning them by the piece or by the ton, a tax which amounted in the aggregate to upwards of fifty millions of francs"§ (say ten millions of dollars).

The above treaties were with England, France, and Portugal, the grants to individuals and to companies. not being included.

In the middle of the eighteenth century the English slave-trade, which up to that time had been more or less of a monopoly, was thrown open. Statute 23 George II. (that is, in 1750) c. 31, after reciting that the "African slave-trade is very advantageous to Great Britain," enacts that "it shall be lawful for all His Majesty's subjects to trade and traffic to and from any

"Piezas de Indias" are the words in the Spanish text.-Abolition de l'Esclavage, par Cochin, tom. ii. p. 286. This treaty gave England a monopoly of the slave-trade to Spanish colonies for thirty years,—namely, from 1713 to 1744.

"El nombre del santisima Trinidad."

After enumerating the various asientos made by Spain, Cochin says, "Dans tous ces traités, pas une disposition, pas une syllabe destinée à defendre ces malheureux contre les abus ct les souffrances."- Work cited, vol. ii. p 288.

? Work cited, vol. ii. p. 288.