Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/75

Rh mines and pearl-fisheries, and in some places exterminating them altogether. Las Casas, as his knowledge and experience gradually enlightened him, protested against the whole course of proceeding; and at last, by honest soul wisdom, reached a conclusion which led him to assail the root of the whole iniquity, and to deny the right of conquest, with the inferences and conclusions drawn from the false assumption on that point. His heroic labors and his exposure to every form of peril and violence did not prevent his living with unimpaired vigor of mind to the age of ninety-two. In the first half of the sixteenth century he crossed the ocean at least a dozen times on errands to the Court of Spain, to seek for help in his kindly projects and to thwart the wiles of his enemies.

The learned and famous Dr. Juan Sepulveda, correspondent of Erasmus and Cardinal Pole, and historiographer to the Emperor Charles V., appeared as the leading opponent of Las Casas. He wrote a treatise — “Democrates Secundus, sive de Justis Belli Causis” — maintaining the right of the Pope, as the vicegerent of Christ, and under him that of the kings of Spain, to make a conquest of the New World, and subjects of its inhabitants, for the purpose of their conversion.

In 1550 the Emperor convoked a junta of theologians and others of the learned, to meet at Valladolid and debate the high and serious theme. The Council of the affairs of the Indies were present, and the junta made up fourteen persons. Sepulveda made his argument, and Las Casas replied, taking five days to read the substance of his treatise, called “Historia Apologetica.”

The lawfulness of a war of Conquest against the natives of the New World (the conquest, of course, involving the obligation of conversion) was maintained by Sepulveda substantially on these four grounds: —

1. The grievous sinfulness of the Indians as idolaters, and against their own nature and the light of Nature.