Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/495

469 TREATMENT OF COLUMBUS. 469 slaves assigned to them hy his with the Indian orders.^" It was the received opinion among good Catho- lics of that period, that heathen and barbarous nations were placed hy the circumstance of their in- fidelity without the pale both of spiritual and civil rights. Their souls were doomed to eternal perdi- tion. Their bodies were the property of the Chris- tian nation who should occupy their soil.^^ Such, in brief, were the profession and the practice of the most enlightened Europeans of the fifteenth centu- ry ; and such the deplorable maxims which regulat- ed the intercourse of the Spanish and Portuguese navigators with the uncivilized natives of the west- ern world.^^ Columbus, agreeably to these views. CHAPTER VIII. Bigoted views in re- gard to the heathen. 20 Herrera, Indias Occidentales, lib. 4, cap. 7, 10, and more espe- cially lib. 6, cap. 13. — Las Casas, CEavres, ed. de Llorente, torn i. p. 306. 21 " Laqualite de Catholique Ro- main," says the philosophic Vil- lers, " avait tout-a-fait remplace celle d'hotnme, et meme de Chre- tien. Qui n'etait pas Catholique Romain, n'etait pas homme, 6tait moins qu'homme ; et eflt-il et6 un souverain, c'6tait une bonne action que de lui oter la vie." (Essai sur la Reformation, p. 56. ed. 1820.) Las Casas rests the title of the Spanish crown to its American pos- sessions on the original papal grant, made on condition of converting the ^natives to Christianity. The pope, as vicar of Jesus Christ, possesses plenary authority over all men for the safety of their souls. He might, therefore, in furtherance of this, confer on the Spanish sovereigns imperial supremacy over all lands discovered by them, — not, how- ever, to the prejudice of author- ities already existing there, and over such nations only as volun- tarily embraced Christianity. Such is the sum of his thirty proposi- tions, submitted to the council of the Indies for the inspection of Charles V. (CEuvres, ed. de Llorente, torn. i. pp. 286-311.) One may see in these arbitrary and whimsical limitations, the good bishop's desire to reconcile what reason told him were the natural rights of man, with what faith pre- scribed as the legitimate prerogative of the pope. Few Roman Catholics at the present day will be found sturdy enough to maintain this lofty prerogative, however carefully lim- ited. Still fewer in the sixteenth century would have challenged it. Indeed, it is but just to Las Casas, to admit, that the general scope of his arguments, here and else- where, is very far in advance of his age. 22 A Spanish casuist founds the