Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/271

 tasks, or in despair put an end to their own existence, while new cargoes of their race were arriving daily to the same wretchedness and death.

To the honor of the ecclesiastics of the colony, their exertions were unremitted to ameliorate the condition and retard the ultimate fate of the natives. Of the two orders of clergy to whom the spiritual interests of the colony had been committed, the Dominicans had ever manifested a zeal and unyielding ardor that left their brethren, the Franciscans, far behind. In the ranks of the former was Las Casas, the celebrated bishop of Chiapa. To save the interesting and gentle race of natives from the destructiveness of slavery, was with dim more than a passion — it seemed the ruling and guiding principle of his soul. In consequence of his pious appeals to Cardinal Ximines, the regent of Spain, three commissioners were sent out with full powers to adjust the condition of the Indians. There were two parties in the colony. The Dominicans, acting in accordance with what they esteemed a law of Heaven, denounced the right and impugned the justice of enslaving the Indians. The interested colonists, and the Franciscans, who were for a modified servitude, sustained themselves against their opponents on grounds of expediency and the right of conquest. To the deputation appointed by Cardinal Ximines were added a lawyer of distinguished probity, whose name was Zuazo, and Las Casas, upon whom had been conferred the title of Protector of the Indians. The first act of the commissioners was to set at liberty all the Indians that had been granted to the Spanish courtiers, or to any person not residing in the island.

This achievement of the commissioners spread anger and consternation among the colonists. The Spaniards were exasperated or discouraged. The lands could not be cultivated without laborers, and panic, discontent and discouragement were general. The commissioners soon began to doubt the solidity of their policy, and yielded to the storm of passion that was beating on them. The subject was maturely reconsidered, and the question and the colony set at rest by the final decision of the commissioners, that the state of the colony rendered the slavery of the Indians necessary.

The enthusiastic philanthropy of Las Casas had not been turned from its object by the decision of the commissioners. Not discouraged at the obstacles he had to encounter, he now ranged his eye through the whole horizon of possibilities to seek in some quarter for a gleam of hope to illumine the dark destiny of that unhappy people which occupied all his sympathies. A small number of a hardier race, the negroes of Guinea, had been imported into the island. They were found stronger than the Indians, and more capable of enduring labor under the burning heats of the climate; so much so, that it was computed that the labor of one negro was worth that of four Indians. "The Africans," says Herrera, "prospered so much in the colony, that it was the opinion that unless a negro should happen to be hung he would never die, for as yet none had been known to perish from infirmity." Las Casas proposed the substitution of African for Indian laborers in the new world. His representations were listened to with a favorable ear by the emperor, and a patent was granted allowing the introduction of four thousand negroes into Hispaniola