Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/502

474 474 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. II FART crown's absolute right of property over the na- tives,"* was carried to its full extent in the colo- nies."^ Every Spaniard, however humble, had his proportion of slaves ; and men, many of them not only incapable of estimating the awful responsibil- ity of the situation, but without the least touch of humanity in their natures, were individually intrust- ed with the unlimited disposal of the lives and des- tinies of their fellow-creatures. They abused this trust in the grossest manner ; tasking the unfortu- nate 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 blood- hounds. 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 dis- covery ; and the heart sickens at the loathsome de- tails 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."^ A selfish indif- 114 " Y crean (Vuestras Altezas) of Las Casas, some of them ex- questa isla y todas las otras son asi pressly prepared for the council of suyas como Caslilla, que aqui no the Indies. He affirms, that more falta salvo asiento y mandarles than 12,000,000 lives were wan- hacer lo que quisieren." Primera tonly destroyed in the New World, Carta de Colon, apud Navarrcte, witliin tliirty-eifrht years after the Coleecion de Viages, tom. i. p. 93. discovery, and this in addition to 11= Herrera, IndiasOcoidentales, those exterminated in the conquest dec. 1, lib. 8, cap. 9. — Las Casas, of the country. (CEuvres, ed. de CEuvres, ed. de Llorente, tom. i. Llorcnte, torn. i. p. 187.) Herrera pp. 228, 220. admits that Ilispaniola was re- iic See the various Memorials duced, in less than twenty-five