354 Opposition amongst his People. B. XV. brother monk, Pedro de Angulo, said mass in it, Ch. 7 and preached in the open plain to the people, The 1538. Dominicans in New who came in great numbers, some from curiosity and from favour to the new religion, and others with a gluttonous longing to devour the monks, who, they thought, would taste well if flavoured with sauce of Chili.* Las Casas and his companion, anxious to extend their knowledge of these regions, traversed, with a guard of sixty men, the neighbouring territories, but yielded to the wishes of Don Juan in not going as far as Coban. The fathers were well received on their journey, and they returned to the pueblo of Don Juan at the beginning of the year 1538. At this juncture Las Casas and all lovers of the Indians received a very seasonable aid from the Court of Rome. That accomplished and refined Pope, Paul the Third (Alexander Farnese), was moved to a consideration of Indian affairs by the letter before referred to, which the learned Bishop of Tlascala had addressed to him, and also by a mission sent at the instance of Betanzos to Paul III, and the chief Dominicans in New Spain. This mission was conducted by Father Bernardino de Minaya, who in former days had travelled with Las Casas through Guatemala and Nicaragua. The Pope answered the requisitions of the Bishop and the Monks in the most favourable and forcible manner; and must have shown a rapidity in giving this answer which His Holiness-who was Spain send * "Otros con golosina de comérselos, pareciéndoles que tendrian buen gusto con salsa de Chile.”—REMESAL, lib. 3, cap. 16. Brief of Paul III. in favour of the Indians. 355 celebrated for delay in business,* usually waiting B. XV. for some happy conjuncture of affairs, was seldom Ch. 7. known to manifest. He issued a Brief, founded in favour Indians. June, 1537. on the great text Euntes docete omnes gentes, in Brief of Pope which he declared in the most absolute manner Paul III. the fitness of the Indians for receiving Christi- of the anity, considering them, to use the words of the Brief, "as veritable men, not only capable of receiving the Christian Faith, but as we have learnt, most ready to embrace that faith."+ He also pronounced in very strong language against their being reduced into slavery.‡ to the June, 1537. Nor was Paul the Third content with issuing His letter this Brief, but he addressed a letter to the Arch- Primate bishop of Toledo, the Primate of Spain, in which of Spain. His Holiness said, "It has come to our knowledge that our dearest son in Christ, Charles, the ever august Emperor of the Romans, King of Castille and Leon, in order to repress those who, boiling over with cupidity, bear an inhuman mind against the human race, has by public edict forbidden all his subjects from making slaves of the Western and Southern Indians, or depriving them of their goods."§ * See RANKE'S History of the Popes, vol. 1, book 3, p. 247. Mrs. Austin's translation. +"Attendentes Indos ipsos, utpote veros homines, non solùm Christianæ Fidei capaces existere, sed, ut nobis innotuit, ad fidem ipsam promptissimè currere."-REMESAL, lib. 3, cap. 16. nec in servitutem redigi debere. . . . Datum Romæ Anno Domini millessimo quingentessimo trigessimo septimo, quarto nonas Junii, Pontificatus nostri anno tertio."-REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. 3, cap. 16. See also Concilios Mexicanos, lib. 1, tit. 4, sect. "Imò libertate et dominio § "Ad nostrum siquidem perhujusmodi uti et potiri, et venit auditum, quòd charissimus gaudere, liberè et licitè posse, in Christo filius noster Carolus B. XV. 356 His Letter to the Primate of Spain. The Pope then pronounced a sentence of exCh. 7. communication of the most absolute kind* against all those who should reduce the Indians to slavery, or deprive them of their goods. The men who throw themselves most earnestly into public affairs, if they meet with terrible rebuffs, have, on the other hand, at rare intervals, signal joys and triumphs—triumphs unknown to those who commit their hopes to private ventures only. Thus it fared with Las Casas on the present occasion. His delight on the arrival in the Indies of these missives from the Pope was Las Casas very keen; and he soon found a practical way of the Pope's expressing it, by translating the Brief into Brief. Spanish, and sending it to many parts of the Indies, in order that the monks might notify its contents to the lay colonists. translates In his own particular mission, however, Las Casas found something else, beyond the Papal declaration of freedom, that was wanting, and without which the welfare of the Indians of Tuzulutlan could not, in his opinion, be secured. According to a proposition which he maintained Romanorum Imperator semper Indos in servitutem redigere, aut bonis suis privare præsumant." REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. 3, cap. 17. "Sub excomunicationis latæ sententiæ pœnâ, si secùs fecerint, eo ipso incurrendâ.”—REMESAL, lib. 3, cap. 17. Conditions requisite for Political Life. 357 Ch. for political most stoutly, it appeared to him, that for any B. XV. nation to receive a law, two conditions were 7. necessary: first, that there should be a pueblo, by which he means a collection of families; and Conditions secondly, that the nation should have perfect requisite liberty; for, not being free, he says, they cannot life. form part of a community.* This last is a great doctrine. The arguments of Las Casas were founded upon Biblical history-as, for instance, that God gave no law in the time of Abraham, because there was no community, but a single household only. On the other hand, when the Israelites were in Egypt, although they formed a great community, they received no law, because they were captives. God gave the law only when the two conditions were combined-namely, the existence of a community, and freedom for the people who dwelt in it. Now, looking around him in Tuzulutlan, Las Casas found the element of liberty† sufficiently developed, but that of the existence of communities lamentably deficient. The Indians, under the government of his friend, the Cacique Don Juan, were scattered over the country in very small villages, seldom consisting of so many as six houses, and these villages were generally more than "a musket-shot" apart. This state of things seemed to him intolerable, and cer - "Porque no siendo libres | segundo de juntar los natuno pueden ser parte de pueblo.' rales en pueblos, para que vi-REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y viendo en comunidad recibiessen Guatemala, lib. 3, cap. 17. mejor la ley de Christo nuestro Señor."-REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. 3, cap. 17. "Hallando en la Provincia donde andava, lo primero, que era la libertad, solo faltava lo 358 Danger to the Indians of living in "Pueblos." B. XV. tainly, with a view to instruction, it was so. But Ch. 7. instruction and preservation are different things; and it was afterwards found that collecting the Indians together in settlements did not always favour their preservation. the Indians in settle ments. One evil effect of these settlements was, that it Danger of exposed the Indians to the attack of contagious bringing diseases, like the small-pox, which, being caught together from a strong people, the Spaniards, was a strong disease, and carried off the infirmly-constituted Indians by thousands. In reference to this subject, a Mexican ecclesiastic, writing a century afterwards, quotes with great significance, a common Spanish proverb, "If the stone strikes against the earthen jar, woe to the jar: and if the jar strikes against the stone, woe not the less to the jar.' We cannot wonder, however, that found pueblos in the ** Las Casas Las Casas, whose first aim at this period was desires to conversion, should have insisted so much upon collecting the people into pueblos, as it enabled converted them to hear mass and to receive the sacraments. country. But the Tuzulutlans were not at all of his mind. They could not bear the idea of quitting the spots where they had been born-their forests, their mountains, and their clefts,-for the purpose of forming a pueblo, which could not unite in itself the peculiarities of each man's birth-place, and would be likely to be chosen with a view to dull convenience mainly. This measure, "Que si la piedra da en el cántaro, mal para el cántaro: y si el cántaro da en la piedra, mal tambien para el cántaro.”DAVILA PADILLA, lib. I cap. 33, p. 103. |