Casas; and callous, indeed, must that heart be to the noblest feelings of virtue and humanity, which can refuse the tribute of respect and admiration to so unwearied a benefactor of his species. What more elevating spectacle can be contemplated, than that of a humble individual, embracing, with Christian affection, the cause of the injured, perishing tribes of Indians who roved over a vast and trackless continent, -starting from a private station to thunder out denunciations of moral and scriptural reprehension against thousands of unprincipled adventurers, who were backed by the influence of a corrupt court,-awing the most powerful into shame and reformation at his rebuke, traversing fourteen times the wide Atlantic in a cause which he would delegate to no one, rousing the feelings of the friends of humanity in every country by his energetic appeals, compelling kings, courts, and ministers, to listen to his tale, and redress the wrongs he exposed,-returning to the field of his exertions, with the proud title of "Protector of the Indians," the mediator between the royal authority and its injured subjects,-summoning the learned and the great to hear the voice of humanity, before tribunals where the oppressors were obliged to appear and justify their actions at the bar of reason and mercy, and at length, in his 92d year, descending full of honours, and in the enjoyment of the highest mental activity, into the tomb, which alone could end the ardour of a mind ever firm in its purpose, and ever directed to virtuous and benevolent ends? Calumny itself, one would have thought, could find no charge against the principles and motives of such a man: it has ventured, however, to arraign his wisdom, to load him with the reproach of inconsistency, to point him out as one of those who have been the advocates of a blind and profligate policy, which could sanction vicious means for the accomplishment of benevolent ends.

Some of the detractors of his reputation have charged him with originating the African Slave Trade, but all with sanctioning, and, in fact, advising and contriving the importation of negroes into America, in order to relieve from slavery the native Indians, whose cause he had peculiarly espoused. This charge has been universally believed, historians too often preferring the repetition to the verification of assertions; and of late, the dreadful consequences which have resulted from the African slave trade, have been painted in deep colours as the reverse of the picture of Las Casas's excellencies. His example has been held up in all the fervour of poetry, particularly in some recent German productions, as at least an awful instance of the shortsightedness of human policy, and the blindness with which our most praiseworthy exertions are directed, so as often to produce greater evils than those sought to be avoided.

The moral may be good enough, though the facts may be utterly groundless; but, before we give Las Casas the unpleasant honour of pointing it with his name, we are inclined to lend our assistance to the inquiry, whether he deserves to be thus stultified and degraded. In so doing, we principally avail ourselves of the materials collected by the venerable and excellent M. Gregoire, in a memoir read by him to the Institute, and of the recently published volumes of M. Llorente, containing the life and works of Las Casas.

There does not appear to be any authority whatever for the charge of originating the African slave trade. Without adverting to the Roman and Carthaginian dealings in human merchandize, it will be sufficient to observe, that there is no doubt that the Portuguese, as early at least as 1443, under the conduct of Alonzo Gonzales, brought slaves from the coast of Guinea, whom they sold to the Spaniards. Establishments for the purpose were formed at Senegal and Cape de Verd; in fact, the trade was established thirty years before the birth of Las Casas in 1474.

Ortiz de Zuniga, the historian of Seville, observes, that the Spaniards had some years before that time (1470-80) begun to carry on the trade for themselves; and the number of African slaves in Seville is mentioned as being so great, that a police was established expressly for their regulation and management. The importation of slaves, in reality, every where followed the cultivation of sugar, as successively introduced in Spain, Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries, and America.

*

Into Hispaniola, it is clear, from the testimony of all historians, even of Herrera himself, (on whose authority the accusation against Las Casas is made to rest,) that negroes had been imported to supply the deficiency of labourers from the massacre of the native population, eighteen or nineteen years before Las Casas is supposed to have been the founder of the scheme.

Let us see what light Herrera himself throws upon the real history of the trade, which this great philanthropist is stated to have contrived in 1517, and we shall then be able to judge what sort of fidelity Robertson has manifested in penning the paragraph which we shall hereafter extract.

He states, in the first instance, that as early as 1501, the King had, by express ordinance, given permission for the importation of slaves belonging to Christian masters, and that a revenue was derived from duties laid on such importations. In 1503, he states, that Ovando, the governor of St. Domingo,

* See Anderton-Charlevoix-Hargreave's Argument, &c.

wrote home to dissuade the importation of negro slaves, because so many escaped to the Indians, and did a great deal of mischief. In 1506, he mentions regulations for preventing the negroes being worked on festivals and holidays. In 1511, he says, that the Dominicans, having pressed with great zeal the amelioration of the state of the Indians, an order was for the second time despatched, forbidding more than one-third of the miners being taken from those unfortunate men, and exhorting the importation of Africans from Guinea, "one African being able to do as much as four Indians." Las Casas had nothing to do with this; he was then at St. Domingo. In 1516, the attention of the Commissioners, sent out to improve the condition of the Indians, was particularly directed to the same means of relief.

Supposing, however, that Las Casas be acquitted of the charge of originating the black slave trade, it is still said, that, grieving at the cruelties practised against the Indians, of whom the Spaniards made slaves, he proposed to the government to relieve them, by directing the evil towards the poor Africans. Herrera has asserted this, Robertson dressed it up in pompous declamation, and almost all modern historians have assumed it as notorious fact, and taken it as a text for lessons of morality.

The whole foundation for the story lies with Herrera, for no one else has done more than copy him. Having seen the real facts relating to the previous history of this trade, we will proceed to his account of the transaction of 1517, in which Las Casas is supposed to have established, if not originated it.

"The licentiate Barth. Las Casas, finding that his projects had to encounter difficulties on all sides, and that the hopes which he had founded on his great interest with the High Chancellor, were likely to be disappointed, looked around for other expedients, procured liberty for the Spaniards established in the Indies to import slaves, to assist the native Indians in the culture of the land and working of the mines; and encouraging a great number of labourers to emigrate thither, with certain privileges and conditions, of which he prescribed the details," &c. *

* El licenciado Bart. de Las Casas, viendo que sus concetos hallavan en todas partes difficuldad, y que las opiniones que tenia por, mucha familiaridad que avia conseguido y gran credito con el Gran Canceller no podian aver effeto, se volvio a otros expedientes, procurando que, a los Castellanos que vivian en las Indias, se diese saca de negros, para que con ellos en las grangerias y en las minas fuesen los Indios mas aliviados; y que se procurasse de levantar buen numero de labradores que paasen a ella con ciertas libertades y con conditiones que puso.

(Hist. de las Indias Occid. par Herrera, II. 2. c. 20.)

We are now to see the superstructure which Robertson builds on such a foundation; and we wish our readers to turn to the context, because they will there see the apparently intentional obscurity as to dates, the transactions of several years being all under the running head of 1517:

"Las Casas proposed to purchase a sufficient number of negroes from the Portugueze settlements on the coast of Africa, and to transport them to America, in order that they might be employed as slaves in working the mines and cultivating the ground."

After asserting that this commerce "had long been abolished in Europe," and admitting the partial introduction of slaves into the New World, the historian adds:

"Cardinal Ximenes, however, when solicited to encourage this commerce, peremptorily rejected the proposition, because he perceived the iniquity of reducing one race of men to slavery, while he was consulting about the means of restoring liberty to another. But Las Casas, from the inconsistency natural to men, who hurry with headlong impetuosity towards a favourite point, was incapable of making this distinction. While he contended earnestly for the liberty of the people born in one quarter of the globe, he laboured to enslave the inhabitants of another region; and in the warmth of his zeal to save the Americans from the yoke, pronounced it to be lawful and expedient to impose one still heavier upon the Africans."

Thus, unlimited credence is given to Herrera's unsupported allegation; fresh circumstances are introduced; a new colouring is given to all; and the historian's eloquence is directed to dress up the tale in as dark colours as his imagination could devise. In this manner, is built up a pompous declamation against one of the most unwearied and disinterested benefactors of the human race. He is brought into contrast with Ximenes, (who, by the bye, was dead at the time of the supposed proposition of Las Casas) and is at least branded with incapacity and total ignorance of the tendency of those principles, which every action of his life showed to be always present to his mind.

As the whole fabric rests on Herrera's testimony, it is important to observe, that he cites no authority for the assertion; that no document vouches it, though all the transactions were publicly canvassed, and all the records preserved; that Herrera did not write his history till 1601, thirtyfive years after Las Casas was dead, and more than eighty after the supposed scheme, consequently without any personal knowledge entitling him to have his assertions received without proof; that he shows, in other instances, considerable prejudice against Las Casas; and that his veracity, in many cases, is

notoriously called in question by Gumilla, Laet, Solis, Torquemada, in short, many of the most valued historians of the early times of America.

It is strange that, if this story be true, it should be told by none of the early biographers of Las Casas, many of whom were, personally, excessively hostile to him. We are to consider, too, that these transactions were the very soul of all the discussions in which the partizans of the day, on either side, were so warmly engaged. The same remark applies to the historians of Ximenes, the supposed opposer of the importation of African slaves into America.-Not a syllable occurs in them of this important proceeding. Two of these historians (Alvarez Gomez and Baudier) attribute the introduction of slaves to the influence of the persons in the Flemish interest at the court of Spain, and the others place the blame elsewhere; but none hint at Las Casas having any share in so foul a transaction.

No cotemporary historian makes the least allusion to such a charge. Gumilla, Zarate, Thomas Gage, Nunez, all speak of the negro slave trade without any allusion to Las Casas.Jean de Solorzano, Davila Padilla, Solis, Sandoval, Laet, Torquemada, some friends, some enemies of Las Casas, treat of him, but without any such accusation. Remesal, his cotemporary, speaks of his memoirs presented to the King, in favour of the Indians, without any notice of it. Hernandez de Oviedo and Lopez de Gomara, his personal enemies, even Sepulveda, his great antagonist, are equally silent.

In 1550, took place the celebrated conference at Valladolid, between Las Casas and Sepulveda, on the question of the right to carry on hostilities against the Indians, for the purpose of benefiting them by conversion. Las Casas took his stand on the broadest and most enlightened principles of the liberty of man; and in these he was supported by the solemn decision of the universities of Alcala and Salamanca.

Can it be supposed that he deserted his own principles, -deserted the great bodies with whom he had fought the fight of humanity, and who, it is well known, consistently opposed slavery altogether; and if he did, can we suppose that Sepulveda would have missed the argumentum ad hominem which so gross an inconsistency would have supplied?

What testimony do the writings of Las Casas himself bear? As strong as negative evidence can well give. He left unpublished a general history of the Indies, in three folio volumes of manuscript, in his own hand writing. M. Gregoire received the assurance of a learned American, a doctor of the university of Mexico, that he had read the three volumes completely through without finding a word that inculpated him.