Betanzos quits Guatemala. 293 through the rule, then kept most strictly, that no monk should travel without a companion. Nothing remained, therefore, for Father Domingo but to abandon his enterprise for the present. Accordingly, he shut up the convent, but left the keys with the curate* of Santiago, that the church might be cleaned from time to time, and thrown open for the sake of those who might feel a desire to go and pray there. As the good father fully intended to send other monks in his place, he begged one of the neighbors to finish making the hedge round the little garden which had already been commenced, while to another neighbor he gave the charge of building, out of a heap of unburnt bricks (adobes) that had been collected, some small cells for the brethren who were hereafter to be sent. Having given these commissions, he took his departure from Santiago, to the great grief, it is said, of all the inhabitants; and in after days the monkish historians, when recording the life of this remarkable man, were wont to speak of the sweet odor of sanctity which was left by Father Domingo in his brief visit to Guatemala. On his way back he met the governor, Alvarado, coming with much pomp and with his numerous retinue to Guatemala, affording thus a curious contrast to the two barefooted monks. Knowing what manner of man Alvarado was, the thought that naturally occurs to us is, whether the departure of Betanzos or the arrival of Alvarado was likely to be of most injury to the unfortunate Indians in Central America. * In the Spanish Church the curate is the chief parochial clergy man. CHAPTER V. REAPPEARANCE OF LAS CASAS.-HIS MISSION TO PERU.-HIS STAY IN NICARAGUA.-DISPUTES WITH THE GOVERNOR.COMES TO GUATEMALA, AND OCCUPIES THE CONVENT THAT HAD BEEN FOUNDED BY DOMINGO DE BETANZOS.-ALVARADO'S EXPEDITION TO PERU.-LAS CASAS AND HIS BRETHREN STUDY THE UTLATECAN LANGUAGE. IT T is probable that the thoughts of many a humane man at this period were occasionally turned to the cell in the Dominican monastery of Hispaniola where the great Protector of the Indians was buried, as it were, after the failure of his memorable attempt to found a Christian colony on the coast of Cumaná. It was in the year 1522 that Las Casas, sunk in dejection and despair, had been persuaded by Father Domingo de Betanzos to take the monastic vows. Eight years had elapsed from the time of Las Casas becoming a monk to the time when Father Betanzos quitted his newly-built monastery at Guatemala, as recorded in the last chapter. In these eight years, during the greater part of which Las Casas had lived a life of extreme seclusion, the bounds of the Indian empire had been immensely enlarged. Cortez had completed his conquest of New Spain, Alvarado had conquered Guatemala, Pizarro had commenced the conquest of Peru, and the captains or the rivals of Pedrarias, exceeding all other Spaniards in cruelty, had devastated the fertile regions of Nicaragua.* Las Casas must have heard * See LAS CASAs, Brevíssima Relacion de la destruycion de las Indias, "De la Provincia de Nicaragua,” p. 14. Las Casas in his Monastery. 295 about all these transactions, and we can well imagine what he must have thought of them. For five years of his life, namely, from 1522 to 1527, there is but one fact known about him, but that one is very significant. It is, that he was not allowed to preach; doubtless because the monastery wished to stand well with the town, and feared to allow Las Casas to enter the pulpit, knowing what terrible truths he would utter. We learn this fact in a very curious and authentic manner from a witness in a legal process which, in after days, was instituted against Las Casas by the Governor of Nicaragua. The witness says that, having remained in San Domingo two years, he does not know that in the whole of that time Brother Bartholomew preached; and the witness further deposes that the Auditors of San Domingo had charged Las Casas not to preach. It may be doubted, however, whether secular command would have been sufficient to restrain him. any In 1527, it is said, he commenced his history,† the most valuable groundwork for the history of America that exists. * "Vicio añejo por el cual cuando estuvo en Santo Domingo de la Española los oidores le mandaron no predicase, y le habian querido echar de la isla para España. De resulta desto que habiendo permanecido en Santo Domingo dos años el testigo que lo depone, no supo que en todo aquel tiempo predicase fray Bartolomé."-QUINTANA, Vidas de Españoles Célebres. Apéndices á la vida de Las Casas, Núm. 10. † I have before (vol. ii., p. 195, note) thrown doubts upon this statement; but I am content to take the evidence of REMESAL, referring as it does to Las Casas himself: "Lo que no la (duda) tiene, porque el mismo lo afirma, es, que el año de 1527, començó á escrivir la historia general de las Indias, coligida de los escritos mas ciertos y verdaderos de aquel tiempo, particularmente de los originales del Almirante don Cristoval Colon."-REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. iii., cap. 1. 296 Re-entrance of Las Casas into the World. The exact time and the particular cause of the reentrance of Las Casas into the world are both very doubtful. The rebellion, before mentioned, of the Indians in Hispaniola, under the Cacique Enrique, is supposed to have engaged his attention; and it is stated that he was sent to negotiate with the revolted cacique. He is also said, upon some grounds, as it appears to me, to have gone to the court of Spain in the year 1530. Moreover, it is alleged that, shortly before the second expedition of Pizarro to Peru, Las Casas, foreseeing the evils of that expedition, procured a royal decree, ordering that Pizarro and Almagro should abstain from making slaves of the Indians; and it is further stated that Las Casas himself traveled to Peru, and delivered this order into the hands of these captains.* There are few lives in which the main events, and the circumstances on which they depended, are clearer than in that of Las Casas. But, at this period of his life, from his entrance into the Dominican monastery in Hispaniola until his occupation of the Dominican monastery at Santiago in Guatemala, founded by Betanzos, there is great confusion and incertitude. If we abide by the account of his principal biographer, REMESAL, the following is the order of events: Las Casas having, by his presence at court, obtained * QUINTANA rejects all this part of the narrative, and, as Las Casas, in his account of Peru, never mentions himself as an eye-witness, I was at first inclined to reject it also. But, observing that, in his account of Nicaragua, where he certainly had been, and where the lawsuit before alluded to was brought against him, he never makes the least allusion to himself, I am not inclined to pronounce hastily upon these circumstances, more especially as Remesal speaks of a letter written by the Bishop of Guatemala, which seems to allude to the circumstance of Las Casas passing through the town of Santiago on his way to Peru. How he came to Mexico. ** 297 the decree in favor of the natives of Peru, returned to Hispaniola. Immediately after his return, a provincial chapter of the Dominican order was held in that island, and upon that occasion a prior was appointed for the Dominican convent at Mexico, the "province," as it was called, of Mexico being dependent upon that of Hispianola. That prior, Francisco de San Miguel, took Las Casas with him, intending to give him companions for passing on to Peru, not only to notify the royal decree, but to found convents in the newly-discovered country. Thus it was that Las Casas came to Mexico. The assumption of prelatical authority on the part of the convent at Hispaniola was the cause of great trouble to the Dominican brethren in New Spain. We have already seen how Domingo de Betanzos was suddenly summoned to attend a chapter, or meeting of his order in Mexico; and the cause of his being sent for was no other than the arrival, or the rumor of the arrival of the new prior. REMESAL states that Las Casas helped to allay the differences which arose on this occasion among the brethren, and then commenced his mission to Peru, accompanied by two Dominicans, who afterward became celebrated men-Bernardino de Minaya and Pedro de Angulo. It was at the beginning of the year 1531 that Las Casas set out from Mexico with his companions, and, traversing New Spain and Guatemala, came to Nicara * "Traxo consigo al padre fray Bartolomé de las Casas, con intento de darle compañeros en la Nueva España para que passasse al Perú, no solo á notificar la cédula Real tocante á la libertad de los Indios, sino para poner juntamente en execucion cierta facultad que llevava para fundar conventos de la 'Orden en aquellas Provincias á la sazon sugetas á la Provincia de Santa Cruz: porque ya el padre fray Reginaldo de Peraza tenia allá Religiosos conque esto pudiesse hazer."-RemeSAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. iii., cap. 3. |