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Assignment 450 words

Valladolid EDB Posting #1. For this unit, you will analyze the arguments for and against the enslavement of the Indians in the New World. You should also read all the material included in Learning Units #2 and #3 before you begin your work on this EDB. In at least 450 words, respond to these documents and provide your opinion. Your posting should include the following:

A response to Sepúlveda’s argument that Indians must be enslaved.
A response to Las Casas’ argument that Indians should not be enslaved.
Your opinion regarding these debates

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda on the Nature of the American Indians

Author(s): José A. Fernández-Santamaria

Source: The Americas , Apr., 1975, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Apr., 1975), pp. 434-451

Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/980012

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JUAN GINES DE SEPULVEDA ON THE NATURE
OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS

J UAN GINES de Sepulveda epitomizes in many ways, both personally
and intellectually, the cosmopolitanism of Spanish political thought
in the sixteenth century. Educated in Italy, disciple of Pomponazzi,

translator of Aristotle, chronicler of the Emperor and mentor of his son
Philip, Sepuilveda is best known-and often misunderstood as the de-
fender of the more unsavory aspects of the Spanish conquest and coloniz-
ation in America-for his bitter controversy with Bartolome de las Casas.
To that debate Sep6ilveda brought a humanist’s training and outlook an-
chored in his devotion to Aristotle, but strongly tempered by his attach-
ment to Saint Augustine.’ It is the purpose of this paper to examine
Sepuilveda’s ideas on the nature of the American natives, particularly the
question of whether the Indians are natural slaves.2 Considerations of
space, of course, rule out the possibility of undertaking here a detailed
scrutiny of the foundations upon which those ideas rest. It can be said,
however, that they are typically Renaissance views, a blend of traditions
characteristic of the composite nature of the age’s intellectual milieu.3

If we reflect for a moment upon the conditioning and limiting nature
of the religious presuppositions which define the character of European

1 Sepulveda’s political ideas are fundamentally embodied in four tracts: Cohortatio ad
Carolum V ut bellum suscipiat in Turcas (Bologna, 1530), Democrates primus (Rome,
1535), Democrates alter (1545), De Regno (Lerida, 1571). In parenthesis are indicated the
places and dates of publication; except for the Democrates alter. Sepilveda was denied
official permission to publish this treatise completed ca. 1545. It saw the light in 1892, and
then only in a defective edition based on an incomplete manuscript. The definitive edi-
tion is that of A. Losada, Dem6crates segundo o de las justas causas de la guerra contra
los indios (Madrid, 1951). For details concerning the life and works of Sepulveda, see
A. Losada, Juan Ginds de Sepuilveda a traves de su Epistolario y nuevos documentos
(Madrid, 1949). Also T. Andres Marcos, Los imperialismos de Juan Ginds de SepIlveda
en su Democrates alter (Madrid, 1947); A.F.G. Bell, Juan Gines de Sepuilveda (Oxford,
1925) ; J. Beneyto Perez, Gines de Sepzilveda, humanista y soldado (Madrid, 1944).

2 See the letter in which Sepulveda dedicates the Demnocrates alter to Luis de Mendoza,
Count of Tendilla. “It is a transcendental problem to ascertain whether the war waged
against the Indians by the kings’of Spain in order to subject them to our dominium is just
or unjust, and upon what juridical grounds our imperium over these peoples is found-
ed.” This was also the subject discussed at Valladolid in 1550-51, when Sepuilveda and Las
Casas appeared before a junta of theologians to defend their views.

3 The four principal traditions supporting Sepulveda’s scheme are: the universalism of
the Stoa, the Aristotelian political theory of the Greek city-state, Augustinian Christian-
ity, and the civic humanism of the Italian Quattrocento. Their influence on Sepulveda is
discussed in my forthcoming paper, “Juan Ginds de Sepulveda: A Spanish Humanist’s Ec-
lectic Blueprint for a Universal Society.”

434

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JosE A. FERNANDEZ-SANTAMARIA 435

society in Sepil1veda’s age, it is not difficult to understand the importance
of the obstacle to be surmounted when attempting to bring into ac-
cordance a social and political framework molded by the doctrine of Chris-
tianity and the Indian commonwealths. Strictly speaking, medieval ex-
perience offered no sure guide to those who sought to blend into an
harmonious whole European society with the universe recently discovered
beyond the Ocean Sea; an important consideration in an age when the
authority of the past-be it that of pagan antiquity for the humanists, or
the redoubtable example of the Fathers and of tradition for orthodox
thought-counted for so much. Sepi61veda soon discovered, however, that
the means of solving the riddle were at hand if only he would tacitly ad-
mit for this particular instance the superiority of the Old Testament
over the New.4 In this manner and with a single stroke, he removes the
barrier standing in the way of that universal society that the discovery
of America had made mandatory in the eyes of the Spanish theologians
and jurists of the sixteenth century.

Rejecting the standards offered by the New Testament to cope with the
novelty of the problem in question, Sepulveda finds instead a universally
and eternally valid canon of conduct given by God Himself to man-
the law with which those of the Christian persuasion are acquainted
through the testimony of the Old Covenant. The Mosaic interpretation
of the teachings contained in this Law product of the divine will is both
sound and truthful. But it is not the only valid one, for “even though its
precepts were given to the children of Israel, God Himself declared that
they are not only divine law, but natural law as well and applicable to
all peoples.”5 And Aristotle is another venerable and competent inter-
preter-for the Greeks as Moses was for the Hebrews-of the self-evident
truths and comprehensible commands of the one universal God. Implicit
here is obviously the assumption that if the Hebrews had their Moses and
the ancient pagans their Aristotle, there is no reason to assume a priori
that the American Indians cannot have their own sage to instruct them in
the meaning of those eternal truths. In other words, the Indians are to be
measured by a rod other than Christianity; a rod that Sepilveda is con-
vinced is handy and infallible: natural law which, as the Old Testa-
ment proves, can be comprehended by all men at all times. Knowledge of,
and obedience to, natural law, then, suffices for the creation of a perfect-

4 This superiority derives from Sepulveda’s discussion of the traditionally fundamental
question which debates the relative merits of the vita activa and the vita contemplativa.
Its importance is examined in “Juan Gines de Sep6lveda: A Spanish….”

5 Juan Gines de Sepfilveda, Democrates alter, ed. and trans. A. Losada (Madrid, 1947),
p. 40 et passim. Cited hereafter as DA. See also Democrates primus (De convenientia dis-

ciplinae nilitaris cum Christiana Religione dialogus), in Opera, ed. Real Academia de la
Historia (4 vols., Madrid, 1780), vol. IV, p. 234. Cited hereafter as DR.

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436 JUAN GINES DE SEPIULVEDA AND THE INDIANS

ly valid and viable society. The teachings of Christ, the New Covenant,
on the other hand, only improve (making it utterly perfect) this whole-
some society, and only for those who want it so. There is no denying, of
course, that in Sep1lveda’s mind Christian society is the apex of human
accomplishment; but it is equally true that the Spanish humanist willing-
ly admits that those societies which, while lacking its degree of perfec-
tion, still rest their foundations upon the solid rock of natural law, are
worthy of existing side by side with Christian society.

On the basis of these conclusions, Sep61veda divides the world of na-
tions into two groups. In the first are included the true commonwealths;
those nations (both Christian and non-Christian) in which obedience
to natural law and civilization flourish. The second group encompasses
those republics which, barbaric and uncivilized, shun the precepts of nat-
ural law.6 Thus, in the same universe that contains perfectly mature polit-
ical entities we also find groups of men living in ignorance of the basic
fundamentals of civilized life-barbarians. The next question, once these
new standards have been formulated, evidently suggests itself. Are the
Indian polities true commonwealths, true states? Sepilveda’s answer is
categorically negative. The barbarian communities of the New World
lack even the rudiments of culture and the most basic principles of a
monetary economy; they wage war in a most brutal and uncouth manner;
the inhabitants go about naked. Above all, the evil and unnatural prac-
tices of cannibalism, idol-worship, and human sacrifices are widespread
in those commonwealths.7

In themselves, these flaws are not excessively unusual; after all, con-
cedes Sepulveda, many among the civilized commit similar or worse out-
rages against nature. What is truly significant, however, is that those un-
natural practices are sanctioned by the laws and public institutions of
those peoples. And since the laws are the truest foundation of civil society,
it is inconceivable that the legislation of man should go against the clear
and explicit commands of God and still remain laws. Sepuilveda therefore
concludes that the laws of “those barbarians” cannot possibly be true
laws, and their states are not true states.8 But since it is equally unnat-

6 Juan Gints de Sepuilveda, De Regno et Regis officio, in Opera, vol. IV, p. 99. Cited
hereafter as DR.

7 DA, 35 et sqq. In the Apologia pro libro de justi belli causis written in defense of his
Democrates alter after the universities of Salamanca and Alcalh had opposed the latter’s
publication, Sepuilveda gives the following definition of “barbarian”: “Barbarians, on the
authority of Saint Thomas, are those men wanting in reason … such men must obey those
who are more civilized and prudent in order that they may be governed by better mores
and institutions.” Opera, vol. IV, p. 332.

8 DA, 58. Two important ideas are implied in this passage. First, as long as the laws and
the institutions of a people are in harmony with natural law, Sep6lveda will concede their

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JosE A. FERNANDEZ-SANTAMARIA 437

ural that man should live outside a politically constituted society and the
barbarians themselves are unable to create them, only one solution re-
mains: the barbarian nations of the West must be subjected to the rule
of a civilized commonwealth.

The significance of these conclusions can hardly be exaggerated. It is
not against the complex standards of Christianity that Sepilveda con-
sciously judges the behavior of the Indians individually and collectively,
but against the fundamentally simple and self-evident rule that says that
a man shall truly be a man only if he can discriminate between good and
evil in their most elementary forms. Sepilveda, however, insists that the
failure of individual men to pass this basic test is not sufficient grounds to
warrant a full and sweeping condemnation of an entire society. What is
perfectly inadmissible is that the laws of nature should be openly flouted
by the institutions-in whose development all members of the com-
monwealth have presumably participated-of a given society. Such a ne-
farious act brands that society and all its members as inferior; for then
we have irrefutable proof, first, that the social body exists on the basis
of a permanent contravention of the divine commands; and secondly,
that men living in it are not as enlightened as men should be, for, what
man in full possession of his faculties would willingly choose to defy the
most fundamental of principles implanted by God in his heart? Two con-
clusions are evidently inescapable: on the one hand, the Indian societies
of the New World are evil and therefore imperfect; on the other, the In-
dians are of low intelligence and endowed with decidedly inferior attri-
butes. Nature itself, then, and not the Spaniards, has determined the man-
ner of governance to which the barbarians must submit their persons and
their goods.9

Clearly, Sepilveda’s conclusions are not merely the result of his own
personal interests, national preferences and pride, or religious prejudice.
They are the outcome of careful reflection; the offspring of a rationally
systematic assessment of facts which when interpreted on the basis of
premises widely accepted as self-evident truths by the age, yield a unique
and incontrovertibly valid verdict: the Indian commonwealths are not
perfect states, and their inhabitants lack the necessary prerequisites to be
considered as fully civil beings.

soundness. It is solely upon this foundation-and its natural derivative, a superior culture-
that he bases the Spanish claim to superiority. Secondly, Sepilveda acknowledges
the supremacy of law in social and political life. Only when this supremacy is assured will
justice, the highest expression of the Christian political ethic, become an attainable goal.

9 It is important to note that from the very beginning the problem is set on decidedly
political foundations. As we shall shortly see, it is the political element that will crucially
influence Sepuilveda’s ideas on the status of the Indians.

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438 JUAN GINiES DE SEPUILVEDA AND THE INDIANS

What, then, is the precise position occupied by the Indian as an indi-
vidual entity within the universal brotherhood of men? What kind of rule
has nature decreed be given to the Indians as a group? Endeavoring to
answer these questions Sepl1veda explains that the political status of the
American natives is defined-in a very ambiguous manner, as we shall see
-by their natural subjection to a form of authority lying somewhere be-
tween two extremes: that asserted by the father over his sons, and the
power exerted by the lord over his slaves. And it is precisely the nature
of these answers that is responsible for Sep6lveda’s widespread unpopu-
larity and the unsavory reputation that he enjoys among some historians.
His political order stands accused of openly advocating slavery as the sys-
tem best fitting the nature and condition of the American natives.’o

In point of fact, the problem of ascertaining with any degree of con-
clusiveness the nature of Sepilveda’s answer to his own twofold question
is a rather intractable one seemingly allowing for no solution clearly be-
yond questioning. Four obstacles are fundamentally responsible for our
difficulties, and they must be well understood before we may hope to.
formulate any tentative conclusions. The first one is not strictly of Se-
piilveda’s own making, but results instead from the interpretation
often given to his use of servus. Sepulveda’s scheme contains important
novel elements which make the translation, categorically and without
extensive qualifications, of this word into “slave” impossible to justify.
Even under the best of circumstances “slave” is a poor term to use be-
cause, first, its pejorative implications are difficult to overcome since it
calls to mind a system of social and, above all, economic relationships
self-evident perhaps with the aid of hindsight to the mind of the twen-
tieth century, but not necessarily present in the doctrines of a sixteenth-
century thinker. Most important of all, however, when used in a pure and
undiluted Aristotelian context, the word “slave” gives Sepuilveda’s pro-
nouncements on the nature of the American natives and the form of

government best adapted to their needs a lucidity and sharpness eas-
ily belied by the reading of his political works; its deceptive clarity con-
ceals the uncertainties of Sepilveda’s scheme.

And these uncertainties must be clearly noted because they are indis-
pensable evidence bearing witness to the author’s efforts aimed at solv-
ing a problem for which, strictly speaking, there is no precedent. The

10 Lewis Hanke maintains that Sep6lveda fully intended to translate servus as slave; an
interpretation which seems to derive from Las Casas’ reading of Sepilveda. See L. Hanke,
Aristotle and the American Indians (Chicago, 1959). This opinion, however, is not uni-
versally shared, for other scholars have pointed out that servus may be taken to mean either
slave or serf, and it was the latter meaning that Sepuilveda sought to convey. See Robert E.
Quirk, “Some Notes on a Controversial Controversy,” Hispanic American Historical
Review, 34 (1954), pp. 357-364.

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JosE A. FERNANDEZ-SANTAMARIA 439

result of these efforts is the formulation of a socio-political status for the
Indians which is new and designed to meet the imperatives suggested by a
novel situation. True, it is not radically new, for its novelty does not lie
in a complete break with the past or a definite formulation of first prin-
ciples; rather, it derives doctrinal sustenance from the authority of tra-
dition, and succeeds mostly in unveiling the utter complexity of a situa-
tion in which even the terminology available is inadequate. Sepilveda’s
conservatism, however, should not come as a surprise if we remember
how respectful the age was toward antiquity and early Christian times.
But neither should the Renaissance be denied its share of originality; a
circumstance having decisive bearing upon the argument-now a com-
monplace through forceful reiteration-that Sepilveda, faithfully du-
plicating Aristotelian doctrine, concludes that the Indians are naturally
slaves. And this, Sepi’lveda’s Aristotelianism, is precisely the second
obstacle; for it is essential that we find out the extent of the humanist’s
faithfulness to Aristotle’s theory of slavery.

Thirdly, we have the Augustinian inclinations of Sepilveda, which
shall contribute in no small measure to the ambiguities inherent in his
use of the word servus. Lastly, Sepillveda himself often blurs the per-
spective of his own scheme by implicitly recognizing the existence of two
kinds of Indians: those who peacefully accept Spanish dominium,
and those who stubbornly refuse to abide by the decrees of nature. As
we shall see, the fate of the former is very different from the latter’s. Un-
fortunately, however, it is often impossible to ascertain conclusively
which category Sepilveda is talking about; the result is added uncertain-
ty. In consequence, the remainder of this study will be substantially de-
voted to exploring the impact upon Sepilveda’s scheme of the difficulties
suggested above, starting with an attempt to find out the nature of the
debt owed by Sepilveda to Aristotle.

To begin with, it is to be noted that Aristotle develops his fundamen-
tal ideas concerning slavery within the context of a domestic economy.
The slave is the economic pillar of the household-“And so, in the ar-
rangement of the family, a slave is a living possession, and property a
number of such instruments.”” The slave belongs completely to his mas-
ter, “hence we see what is the nature of a slave: he who is by nature not
his own but another’s man, is by nature a slave.”12 A slave, therefore, is
“a part of property.” A slave, however, is an animate entity and con-
sequently an instrument of action, not of production-“But life is action

11 Aristotle, Politics 1. 4. 1253b30. All references are to the Jowett edition and will be
cited hereafter as Pol.

12 Ibid., 1.4. 1254a15.

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440 JUAN GIN’S DE SEPULVEDA AND THE INDIANS

and not production, and therefore the slave is the minister of action.” 3
It is clear from these ideas that the Aristotelian notion of slavery in-
volves a strongly proprietary concept inseparable from the very exis-
tence of the household. But the household exists to satisfy the physical
needs of its members, and the slave provides the mechanism indispen-
sable for the fulfillment of those needs.14 It is for this reason that there

exists no relation of reciprocity between owner and owned.15
Out of these basic economic circumstances and the premise that “there

is one rule exercised over subjects who are by nature free, another over
subjects who are by nature slaves,””16 the Aristotelian household emerges
not only as an economic unit, but also as a fully mature political struc-
ture ready to be expanded into the state. Two forms of paternal domin-
ion appear within the domestic realm based upon the intellectual sophis-
tication of its members. Slaves have no intellectual capacity whatsoever
and will therefore be subject to a unique kind of dominium. 7 Over
children and wife an entirely different form of authority will be exercised.
In the former case it is the paternal authority, justified on the grounds
that intellectual capacity exists in a less developed form in children than
in adults; while in the latter matrimonial empire is in order because the
woman possesses an intellect naturally weaker than that of man.

It is clear that Aristotle views the institution of slavery as essential to
the existence of the household, and as one more example of the hier-
archical order of nature. However, when he passes from the study of the
household into that of the ideal state, the clarity that characterized his
statements on slavery vanishes giving way to uncertainty. Thus, we are

13 Ibid., 1. 4. 1254a5-10.
14 “The rule of a master, although the slave by nature and the master by nature have in

reality the same interests, is nevertheless exercised primarily with a view to the interests
of the master…” Ibid., 3. 6. 1278b30-35. Such, it will shortly become clear, is not the
case in the relations between peaceful Indian and Spaniard as advocated by Sepilveda.

15 “Again, a possession is spoken of as a part is spoken of; for the part is not only a part
of something else, but wholly belongs to it; and this is also true of a possession. The master
is only the master of the slave; he does not belong to him, whereas the slave is not only the
slave of his master, but wholly belongs to him.” Ibid., 1. 4. 1254a5-15.

16 Ibid., 1. 7. 1255b15-20.
17 Natural slaves, however, are not quite like animals because although lacking reason

they are nevertheless capable of apprehending rational principles. Ibid., 1. 5. 1254b20,
et sqq. “Yet he [the slave] possesses a kind of moral virtue-the kind which enables him to
do his work in subordination to his master-the moral virtue, in fact, of a subordinate con-
fined to humble functions, and itself of a humble type. How any form of moral virtue can
subsist in the absence of the deliberative faculty, Aristotle does not explain …. There are,
indeed, other indications that it was not possible for Aristotle wholly to reconcile the two
aspects of the slave, as a man and as an instrument or article of property.” W. L. Newman,
The Politics of Aristotle (2 vols., Oxford, 1887), vol. I, p. 149. See also C. H. McIlwain,
The Growth of Political Thought in the WVest (New York, 1932), pp. 70 et sqq.

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JosE A. FERNANDEZ-SANTAMARIA 441

told that states “are composed, not of one, but of many elements,”18
and those elements number eight, from husbandmen to magistrates. But
although “serfs and labourers” are included as the fourth class compris-
ing the state, no mention is made of slaves. In Book III, Chapter 5, how-
ever, Aristotle had already suggested that those performing “necessary
services” within the commonwealth may be “either slaves who minister
to the wants of individuals, or mechanics and labourers who are the
servants of the community;” an idea which receives its final form when in
Book VII, Chapter 10, he expresses his willingness to substitute serfs for
slaves in the performance of farming tasks. The distinctions thus far sug-
gested between Aristotelian domestic and state slavery are important
because Sepuilveda will radically alter Aristotle’s order. With the Spanish
humanist the emphasis is not on slavery as an economic institution, but
upon the political nature of the servus.

Sepuilveda retains the Aristotelian political nexus binding the house-
hold to the state.

Royal rule, as the philosophers teach, is very similar to the administra-
tion of the household because, according to them, the household is like
the realm formed by a single house and, conversely, the kingdom is a
household administrative unit consisting of one city or many.’9

This is not to be taken necessarily as evidence of an unusually strong de-
votion toward Aristotle on Sepilveda’s part, for it was commonplace in
the sixteenth century to discuss the nature of the state on the basis of the
family as the former’s fundamental block. The important point to re-
member, however, is that Sepuilveda does not retain Aristotle’s emphasis
on economics; rather, the Spanish humanist remains exclusively con-
cerned with political matters.

Just as the father holds sway over a large and complex household,
the king (in this case the king of Spain) must exercise various forms
of authority over his different subjects. In the household we find the sons,
and “servi seu mancipia,” as well as servants (“ministri conditionis lib-
erae”). Just and humane, the father lords it over them all; not, however,
in the same manner, but in accordance with the class and condition of

each. So shall a good and just king rule. The Spaniards, who are naturally
free, deserve the kind of rule that the father reserves for the sons (“reg-
ium imperium”), while “those barbarians,” being servi natura, shall

18 Pol., 4. 4. 1290b35-40. Mechanics and laborers are not citizens; “they may be de-
scribed as necessary conditions of the state. But the answer varies from one kind of con-
sitution to another: in an aristocratic constitution, mechanics and labourers cannot be
citizens; in an oligarchy, a rich mechanic may.” E. Barker, The Politics of Aristotle (Ox-
ford, 1946),p. 107.

19 DA, 120.

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442 JUAN GINES DE SEP;ULVEDA AND THE INDIANS

be governed as free servants (“tanquam ministros, sed liberos”) with a
mixture of herile and paternal authority as their condition and circum-
stances demand.20 Sepilveda, then, is fundamentally concerned with the
various forms of dominium arising as a consequence of the appearance
of the state.

Dominium is not always exercised in the same manner. Thus, the au-
thority of the father over the sons, the husband over the wife; the power
that the lord enjoys over his slaves, the magistrate over the citizens,
the king over his realms and the individuals subject to his empire, are of
different juridical origin.21

This passage clearly emphasizes the differences suggested by Sepuilveda
between the authority exercised by the king over his subjects and the
power that the master enjoys over his slaves. It is therefore necessary to
bear in mind that the author invariably sees the Indians as subjects of the
king of Spain; a point which is again strongly brought home when, to-
ward the end of the Democrates alter, he discusses the role of the multi-
tude in the affairs of the republic. Sep’ilveda begins by pointing out
how pleased he is that “the great philosophers who wrote about poli-
tics” should have taught that in a perfectly constituted republic not only
prudent men of known probity, but the multitude also should be consid-
ered for political office. The reason is a simple and empirical one: good
men are always few, while the numbers of the multitude are invariably
great and against their will the rule of the former cannot maintain itself
for long. “It is wise and advisable, therefore, to grant to the mob the
privilege of occupying minor posts.”22 The Spanish sovereigns, concludes
Sepulveda, would do well to bear in mind the wisdom of these Aristotel-
ian observations.

The kings of Spain and their advisers must remember the precepts of
these philosophers because the nature of their governance over the bar-
barians must be such that the latter will not be given, through the
granting of a degree of freedom unwarranted by their nature and con-
dition, the opportunity to return to their primitive and evil ways; on the
other hand, they must not be oppressed with harsh rule and servile treat-
ment, for, tired of servitude and indignity, they may attempt to break
the yoke to the peril of the Spaniards.23

Consequently, the Spanish rulers must at all costs avoid the error of the
Thessalians and Spartans who, having treated the Penestae and Helots
dishonorably and used them “almost as servi, to cultivate their fields,”

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., 20.
22 Ibid., 121.
23 Ibid.

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JosE A. FERNANDEZ-SANTAMARIA 443

were rewarded with formidable rebellions.24 In short, “it is clear that it

would be unjust, as well as dangerous to treat those barbarians as slaves
(barbaros istos ut mancipia tractare), except those who by their perfidy,
cruelty, and pertinacity in waging War become worthy of such penalty
and misfortune.”25

From all this it may be fairly inferred that the word servus should not
be understood in the economic sense stressed by Aristotle, for Sep61veda’s
servus is far more than a chattel; he is, at times, even homo politicus,
although not in the perfect civil sense reserved for those fated by nature
to rule.26 Hence, Sepilveda’s Indians, by virtue of their limited rational
capacity seem to be the laborers, the amanuenses, the servants (but con-
ditionis liberae) of the community, destined by nature (although not to-
tally deprived of political rights) to perform those purely physical tasks
essential to the continued existence of the commonwealth. This does

not necessarily give them the character of slaves, any more than in a mod-
ern industrial society the labor force is ex necessitate rei a slave contin-
gent. Even when their toil ministers to the needs of the individual en-
comendero it is in the latter’s role as a public official, not a private lord.

This last point becomes clear when we read in De Regno, a treatise
already removed in time from the author’s feud with Las Casas, that a
herile form of government is imposed by those chosen by nature to com-
mand, not for the benefit of the governed but for the profit of the ru-
lers.27 In other words, the members of herile societies shall work and
labor for the benefit of those whose nature makes them civil beings.
But such is not exactly the position of the Indians (those of peaceful in-
clinations, that is), for Sepuilveda’s servi receive important benefits in

24 Ibid., 122. See also Pol., 2. 9.

25 DA, 122. The exception mentioned by Sepilveda is an essential part of my argument
and will fully be dealt with when Sepuilveda’s ideas on war are examined.

26 In time, when the Indians have mended their ways and adopted the Christian re-
ligion, their governance, mixture of paternal and herile authority, shall give way to a
“freer and more liberal treatment.” Ibid., 120. The political nature of the relationship
binding Indian and Spaniard is again stressed when, in the context of the just war, Sepilveda
likens the dominion of Spaniards over Indians to the “imperium of the Romans over all
the other peoples.” Ibid., 31 et sqq. It is clear, however, that even if the Indians willingly
accept the Christian religion and the suzerainty of the Spanish monarch, they must not
be admitted to the same rights enjoyed by “other Christians and even Spanish subjects”
of the king. For “there is nothing more opposed to the so-called distributive justice than
giving equal rights to unequal people; and to equate in favors, honor, or rights those who
are superior in dignity, virtue, and merits to those who are inferior.” Ibid., 119. But it must
be understood that this is not proposed for the benefit of the Indians alone. It is widely ac-
cepted among political thinkers in the sixteenth century that although men are born free,
they are not created equal; an idea which explains the general distaste for democracy as a
system of government.

27 DR, 98.

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444 JUAN GINES DE SEPUILVEDA AND THE INDIANS

return for their efforts in behalf of the state which are incompatible with
an unqualified herile (servile) status. Sepilveda postulates, as the in-
dispensable background governing the relations between Indians and
Spaniards, a political compact of mixed nature which unmistakably im-
plies obligations equally binding to both sides. The mutual dependence
embodied in such a system bears little resemblance to Aristotle’s con-
clusion, arrived at when discussing the nature of master-slave relations,
that “a possession may be defined as an instrument of action, separable
from the possessor.”28 Sepilveda, on the contrary, is at pains to empha-
size the reciprocal character of the unwritten compact established by
nature between Indian and Spaniard.

True, he concedes, the Spaniards take gold and silver from the Indians
but,-in return, they give them “iron and bronze,” metals which are of far
greater intrinsic value to the needs of mankind. And this is not all. In ex-
change for those precious metals of no use to the natives-and of very rel-
ative value to civilized societies-, the latter receive goods of far greater
import: “wheat . . ., horses, mules, sheep, goats, hogs, vines, and many
kinds of trees… “29 Above all, however, the Spaniards bring with them
what Sep’lveda-good humanist and better Christian-prizes above ev-
erything else: the elements of European civilization, excellent laws and
institutions, and the “knowledge of God and of the Christian religion.”‘3
These inseparable twins, European culture and the Christian faith,
which shall more than amply compensate the Indian for the loss of his
gold and silver, are the strongest and most important part of the bond
which unites the Spanish Crown, through its officials, to its charges,
the Indians. And this is indeed what has no parallel in the relations be-
tween master and slave as described by Aristotle, for the nature of the
covenant requiring to give the Indians a Christian education inevitably
lifts them above the level of mere chattels, and establishes between na-

tive and Spanish administrator the important nexus of Christian caritas.31
The political barrier with which Sepiilveda surrounds the status of the

Indians in society when he insists that the only authority over the na-
tives is that of the Spanish Crown, and the emphasis on Christianity
which so strongly conditions the manner in which the Crown (or its offi-
cials) may rightfully exercise this authority over its wards, give the rela-
tions between Indian and Spaniard a complexity and significance far be-
yond anything implied in the Aristotelian concept of slavery.

Under the circumstances, if we are to grasp correctly the full meaning

28 Pol. 1. 4. 1254a15 et sqq.
29 DA, 78.
30 Ibid., 79.
31 Ibid., 118-123.

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JosE A. FERNANDEZ-SANTAMARIA 445

and breadth of Sepuilveda’s scheme, it is imperative to remember that
although an Aristotelian scholar whose mind is steeped in trust in the
efficacy of reason, Sep6lveda is also a faithful disciple of Saint Augustine.
It is nowadays fashionable to treat skeptically whatever moral strictures
or ethical pronouncements may happen to be included in a political
treatise, endeavoring instead to find the “real” intentions of the writer.
While such a general outlook may be an understandable trait of the
twentieth century, it is not at all clear that the inherent destructive-
ness of that standard may be validly loosened against Sepfilveda and his
age. Granted that the encomienda system, which in some passages Se-
pilveda seems to advocate, became in the hands of unscrupulous oppor-
tunists an oppressive institution aimed at the ruthless exploitation of
the natives. Granted, moreover, that the fervent evangelical humanitar-
ianism of Las Casas appears to contrast favorably with Sepuilveda’s cold
and measured intellectualism. Still, there is no reason to doubt the latter’s

sincerity when he repeatedly asserts that it is not his aim to condone or
sanction the actions of a few reprobates who break human and divine
law; or to question the strength and sincerity of his beliefs when he re-
affirms the Christian nature of the bond linking Indian and Spaniard.
Indeed, the strength of Sepfilveda’s commitment to Christianity will
shortly become apparent, for it is at this point, when distinguishing be-
tween warlike and peaceful Indians, that the shift toward Saint Augus-
tine becomes most marked.

It is no easy task to determine with precision what the official position
of the Early Church was in regard to slavery; what is certain, however, is
that Saint Augustine did not view slavery as natural but, instead, as a re-
sult of sin.32 Moreover, private property and the political order, two of
the fundamental institutions that Christianity was forced to accept upon
becoming the official religion of the empire, are also of unnatural origin,
intimately bound to slavery, and frequently involve the use of the same
word, servus. It therefore follows that it should be often difficult to ascer-

tain whether manumitted servitude, slavery, or political subjection is the
correct meaning involved in a given passage. This is a handicap common
to texts boasting a Latin of classical origin and certainly present
throughout Sepi’lveda’s political treatises. Tracts written in the vernacu-
lar, however, are often free from these ambiguities, and more accurate

32 “It is only another of the institutions ordained by God to cope with man’s wicked-
ness. As such, however, it must be considered as an outward status and must never ob-
struct the effects of God’s grace; it does not deprive the slave of the character of a man
nor reduce him to the level of an ‘animate instrument’ as Aristotle thought. Masters and
slaves are fellow men and by the grace of God may become brothers in Christ, equal
before God though necessarily unequal under human law while sojourners in this ‘earth-
ly city’ “. Quoted in McIlwain, op. cit., 161.

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446 JUAN GINES DE SEPULVEDA AND THE INDIANS

distinctions are made between the various meanings of servus and its
derivatives.33 Be that as it may, the significance of Saint Augustine’s
legacy to Sepilveda amply transcends the boundaries of terminological
uncertainties. To give substance and solidity to his scheme, Sep6lveda
turns to the Bishop of Hippo, and it is in the latter’s theory of the just war
that he will find the means of justifying, supporting, and enforcing his
political doctrines.34

After explaining the nature and object of the just war, Sepilveda
proceeds to consider under what conditions a war is said to be just. In the
Democrates alter he appeals to the authority of Isidore of Seville who,
while emphasizing that “the causes for a just war must in themselves be
just,” accepts three fundamental reasons for waging a just war. First, it is
natural to ward off violence with violence when no other recourse re-

mains. Secondly, it is just to employ force to recover property which has
been unjustly taken away from its rightful owner. Finally, the third
cause lies in the imperious need to punish the offender should the proper
authorities in the commonwealth of which he is a member fail to do so.35

This threefold formula, the encapsulated heart, of the medieval theory of
the just war, although acceptable to Sep’ilveda, is clearly insufficient for
his present purposes. He therefore hastens to add that “other reasons
may also justify the waging of a war;” reasons which although perhaps
of not so frequent application as those hallowed by tradition, are never-
theless “just and founded upon divine law.”36 And one of them, perfectly
applicable to “those barbarians commonly called Indians,” demands that
“those whose natural condition commands that they obey others, shall be
subdued by force of arms should they refuse the latter’s imperium, and
should no other recourse be left.””37

33 An interesting case in point is the Spanish Trinitarian monk, Alonso de Castrillo.
When discussing in his Tractado de Repziblica the obedience that the citizens owe their
king, Castrillo cites Book XIX, Chapter 15, of the City of God, where Saint Augustine
writes on man’s freedom and servitude; and he interprets the passage as explaining the
origin of political authority and translates the key word servitutis as servidumbre. The
same Castrillo, however, when describing the dismal and evil manner in which in his own
corrupt world greed keeps justice, faith, peace, and virtue in bondage, he uses the word
esclavas. In the same vein, compare Book I, Chapter V of Bodin’s Ripublique in the
Latin (Paris, 1586) and French (Paris, 1583) versions, and the English translation of 1606
by Richard Knolles (ed. K.D. McRae, Cambridge, 1962). On the problem of expressing
sixteenth-century ideas in Latin see L. Febvre, Le probleme de l’incroyance au XVIe,
sidcle: La religion de Rabelais (Paris, 1947).

34 For an extensive analysis of Saint Augustine’s views on war, see H. A. Deane, The
Political and Social Ideas of Saint Augustine (New York, 1966).

35 DA, 16-19, DR, 146-148. “A just war demands not only just cause and sound inten-
tions, but also that it be waged in the right manner.” DA, 27.

36 DA, 19.
37 Ibid., 19, 22. The other three are: “…Secondly, to banish the horrible crime of can-

nibalism and devil-worship…. [Thirdly] to free from serious injury the innocent who are

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JosE A. FERNJANDEZ-SANTAMARIA 447

Just, then, is the war waged upon those Indians who refuse to sub-
mit to the authority of the Spaniards. In view of the serious consequences
inherent in this conclusion, Sepfilveda suggests a rigid blueprint de-
signed to keep developments tightly under control, both before and after
the declaration of war. First, the barbarians must be advised of the need

to accept the imperium of the Spanish king, and the great benefits to be
derived from their consent. Honesty and truth must rule these prelimi-
naries. Neither threats nor deceit must be used; otherwise, should the
outcome be war, its justice would be hopelessly compromised. Secondly,
the natives must be given time to deliberate among themselves. Should
the Indians then submit in peace, they shall be received within the Chris-
tian fold and be given “conditions of just peace in conformity with
their nature, so that, as it is written in Deuteronomy, they shall serve as
tributaries.”38 But it must be understood that, in truth, the crimes of
the Indians (cult of idols, and human immolations) are so appalling in
the eyes of nature that they might, in all justice as taught in the Old Tes-
tament, be summarily punished-submission or no submission-“with the
death of all sinners and the loss of their goods.” Only the magnanimity of
the Spanish sovereigns, born out of their respect for the counsels of the
New Testament, is responsible for their desire not to punish the sins of the
barbarians, but instead to strive for “the rehabilitation, salvation, and
common well-being of the Indians.”39

Should the barbarians, however, reject nature’s commands, war must
be waged against them and “once defeated, their persons and goods law-
fully pass into the hands of the victor; and the latter shall freely decide
their fate in accordance with the norms applicable to the treatment of
the vanquished.” 40 But, is it not true, questions Leopoldus, the fictional
character who in this dialogue plays the role of Sepuilveda’s (Democra-
tes) adversary, that the righteousness underpinning this argument has
been undermined beyond repair by the depredations of the Spaniards?
Democrates answers that although it is true that many seek in the New
World but booty, and that such an aim deprives war of its just character,
turning it instead into an “impious and criminal” one, the subject of the
discussion “is not the moderation or cruelty of leaders and soldiers, but
the nature of this war and its relation to the just king of Spain.”41

yearly immolated by these barbarians…. Fourthly, to open the way to the propagation of
the Christian faith, and to facilitate the task of its preachers.” Ibid., 83-93. These four ar-
guments constitute one of the themes attacked by Las Casas during his disputation with
Sep6lveda at Valladolid.

38 Ibid., 30.
39 Ibid., 42, 43, 79-80, 90.
40 Ibid., 30.
41 Ibid., 28-29.

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448 JUAN GINES DE SEPULVEDA AND THE INDIANS

The implications of all this are clear: Sepilveda identifies two entirely
different situations growing out of the twofold manner in which the na-
tives may respond to the commands of nature. On the one hand, if the
Indians submit willingly to their predestined fate they should be given
the political status suggested previously. On the other, those barbarians
who refuse to comply with nature’s will shall be reduced to obedience
by force of arms. Once recourse to arms has become inevitable, the sta-
tus of the Indians changes radically and their fate may then be decided in
accordance with the laws of war. The reasons, Sepilveda explains, are
manifest. First of all, in their rebelliousness the natives adamantly demon-
strate their refusal to abandon those practices which clearly inflict in-
jury upon God. In addition, when the barbarians resist the authority of
the Spaniards they violate what, the reason of the philosophers tells us, is
the explicit will of nature. Finally, refusal to accept Spanish rule inflicts
the sort of injury on the Spanish Crown which, the jurists affirm, is pun-
ishable by human law. From all this, concludes Sepilveda, it necessar-
ily follows that the recalcitrant barbarians are not only servi natura but,
as violators of civil law, also subject to those sanctions contemplated by
human law and approved by the jus gentium (which Sep1lveda con-
siders to be of natural origin): the rebellious Indians may, upon capture,
be subjected to civil slavery and the loss of their wordly goods.42

Leopoldus, however, refuses to be convinced. He is appalled at the
prospect of dooming a man, any man, to the loss of liberty and property;
after all, “all men are born free.” Answering his friend’s objections, De-
mocrates points out that sometimes two laws of natural origin may appear
to be at odds with each other, thereby compelling man to choose between
two evils. Such is the source of that universal covenant which, “grow-
ing out of reason and natural need sanctioned by the tacit consent of all
peoples,” empowers the victor to make his own the defeated and his
property.43 The subject of slavery as the result of defeat in battle had
traditionally been a delicate one among Christians; for it seemingly was
at odds with the most basic tenets of the faith. It is not surprising, then,
that Sep6lveda, sharply goaded by Leopoldus, should take pains to ex-
plain his conclusions at length and call to his support various and vener-
ated authorities.

Of more significance for our immediate purpose, however, is Sepfilve-
da’s acceptance of man’s natural freedom. Democrates, discoursing on the
merits of civil slavery, does not refute-thereby implicitly granting-Leo-
poldus’s sweeping assertions concerning man’s birthright of liberty. A

42 Ibid., 60, 90.
43 Ibid., 90 et sqq.

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Josi A. FERNAINDEZ-SANTAMARIA 449

rather incomprehensible attitude if we interpret Sep61lveda’s ideas on
natural servitude as slavery; for, if the subject of the discussion is the
Indians and they are naturally slaves, what is the purpose of this elab-
orate exchange aimed at explaining the juridical circumstances whereby
transgressing natives may be lawfully enslaved? The answer is evidently a
different one: the American Indians are servi natura, but not natural
slaves; only when they refuse to meet their natural obligations do they
become outlaws to be justly warred against. Sep6lveda himself fully
appreciates the difference between the juridical position of the Indians
who submit peacefully and those who resist.

The servitude contracted in a just war is legal, and the booty acquired
becomes the rightful possession of the victor. But concerning these
barbarians, the plight of the Indians defeated by Spanish arms in formally
declared war is very different from the circumstances of those who,
through prudence or fear, delivered themselves to the authority of the
Christians. Just as in the former case the victorious prince may deter-
mine, according to his will and right and bearing the public good in
mind, the fate of the vanquished, in the latter both civil laws and jus
gentium would rule unjust to deprive the natives of their goods and to
reduce them to slavery; it is, however, licit to keep them as stipendiaries
and tributaries (stipendiarios et vectigales) as befitting their nature and
condition.44

Sepalveda has thus established the juridical foundations for the treat-
ment of defiant Indians on the basis of the law of nations. But how shall

these conclusions be applied in practice? In order to answer this question,
Sepuilveda feels compelled to embark upon a preliminary study of the
problem of ignorance in war.45 Faithfully, Leopoldus provides the need-
ed cue when he puts forth one of the questions lying at the heart of the
theory of the just war: is it possible for justice to lie with both sides?
Democrates explains that under no circumstances can the opposing ar-
guments which support the cause of two contending parties be simultane-
ously just. What may happen, however, is that one of the warring factions,
“its understanding obscured by ignorance,” shall be deceived into believ-
ing its cause to be just. And this is precisely what has taken place in the

44 Ibid., 117. Cliens, stipendiarius, and vectigalis are words frequently used by Sepfilveda
to describe the position of the Indians in relation to the Spanish state; an indication of
how clearly he keeps in mind the example of the kind of authority Rome exercised over
her client states. In a letter to Francisco de Argote before 1552, Sepulveda reiterates his
position on the Indian question. “I do not maintain that the barbarians should be reduced

to slavery, but merely that they must be subjected to our dominion; I do not propose
that we should hold herile empire over them, but regal and civil rule for their benefit.”
Quoted in T. Andres Marcos, Los imperialismos…. p. 184. See also A. Losada, Epistol-
ario de Juan Ginds de Sepzilveda (Madrid, 1966), Letter 53.

45DA, 100 et sqq.

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450 JUAN GINES DE SEP1ULVEDA AND THE INDIANS

case of the Indians; for, “whereas the Spaniards (if their intentions
were just) had a just and pious cause to wage war, the Indians also had
a probable cause.” After all, “[they] knew neither justice nor truth, and
could not learn about them merely on the Christians’ word, or a few days
time, but only after prolonged contact with the reality of both truth and
justice.”” Bearing these circumstances in mind, the behavior of the ruler
toward the vanquished foe will be a moderate one, and once victory has
been achieved “he will weigh the causes that brought the enemy into the
war, and shall not be swayed in his judgment by hatred or greed.” Only
when the interests of peace and the public welfare demand it, may the
prince treat the vanquished with the rigor allowed by the jus gentium.47
Otherwise, the prince shall treat his enemies with equity and humanity.
These, concludes Sep61lveda, are the cardinal principles which in prac-
tice must govern the treatment of the defeated natives. After all, “the
most important aim of this whole affair is to pacify these barbarians, to
introduce them to a more humane mode of life, and to admit them
to Christianity; and the more humanity the Christians show the barbar-
ians, the more easily that aim will be fulfilled.””4

To sum up, the American natives who willingly accept Spanish rule
cannot, in justice, be treated as slaves. They are not slaves by nature
and must not be subjected to a pure form of herile rule. Only when
their pertinacious rejection of natural law forces the Spaniards to crush
them in battle will the Indians (as any other men under similar circum-
stances) forfeit their juridical status as free men and become lawfully
subject to the full rigors of herile government. Even then, however, the
provisions of the law of nations shall be fully complied with only if their
enforcement is compatible with the interests of the whole (Indians and
Spaniards) commonwealth. To my mind, these are inescapable conclu-
sions borne out by the evidence of Sep1lveda’s writings. On the other
hand, Sep6lveda seems to tell us clearly only what the Indians are not and
must not become-slaves. And when it comes to a positive definition of
their political role within the new scheme of things whose birth he is
conscious of witnessing, the Spanish humanist wavers and refrains from
drawing the conclusions seemingly warranted by his forceful scholar-
ship; a clear indication of the limitations, in the context of sixteenth-
century reality, of the intellectual tradition which nourishes him. And it
is perhaps this lack of boldness that in the last analysis has prejudiced
his case in the eyes of posterity. For Sep61veda, against his will, was drawn
into a controversy with a man whose fiery character and passionate in-

46 Ibid., 118.
47 Ibid., 94-95.
48 Ibid., 118.

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Jost A. FERNANDEZ-SANTAMARIA 451

volvement sharply contrasted with his own tempered and academic out-
look. It was thus in the nature of things that in a drama so forcefully
dominated by Las Casas’ heroic visions, Sepilveda-as he himself recog-
nized in dismay-should have been cast in the role of the devil’s (in
encomendero garb) advocate.

Josi A. FERNANDEZ-SANTAMARIA
California State University
Hayward, California

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Contents

434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451

Issue Table of Contents

The Americas, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Apr., 1975), pp. 393-560
Volume Information [pp. 539-559]
Front Matter
The Politics of Nativism: Ethnic Prejudice and Political Power in Mato Grosso, 1831-1834 [pp. 393-416]
The Political Economy of Paraguay and the Impoverishment of the Missions [pp. 417-433]
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda on the Nature of the American Indians [pp. 434-451]
Mexican Political Elites 1935-1973: A Comparative Study [pp. 452-469]
A Matter of Faith: North America’s Religion and South America’s Independence [pp. 470-487]
The State of Scientific Inquiry in Colonial Spanish America during the Enlightenment: A Preliminary Bibliography [pp. 488-500]
Two Kentuckians Evaluate the Mexican Scene from Vera Cruz, 1853-1861 [pp. 501-512]
Inter-American Notes [pp. 513-524]
Book Reviews
Review: untitled [pp. 525-526]
Review: untitled [pp. 526-527]
Review: untitled [pp. 527-528]
Review: untitled [pp. 529-530]
Review: untitled [pp. 530-531]
Review: untitled [pp. 531-532]
Review: untitled [pp. 533-534]
Review: untitled [pp. 534-535]
Review: untitled [pp. 535-536]
Review: untitled [pp. 536-537]
Review: untitled [pp. 537-538]
Back Matter

The Seed of Slavery in the New World: An Examination of the Factors Leading to the
Impressment of Indian Labor in Hispaniola

Author(s): Edwin A. Levine

Source: Revista de Historia de América , Jul. – Dec., 1965, No. 60 (Jul. – Dec., 1965), pp.
1-68

Published by: Pan American Institute of Geography and History

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/20138702

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http://www.jstor.com/stable/20138702

THE SEED OF SLAVERY IN THE NEW WORLD: AN
EXAMINATION OF THE FACTORS LEADING TO THE
IMPRESSMENT OF INDIAN LABOR IN HISPANIOLA

Introduction

In the not too distant yesterday, Hispaniola enjoyed an im
portance far greater than her current state or size suggests. This
tiny island, the first of Spain’s New World colonies, furnished the
ground upon wich Spaniard and Indian met, took measure of each
other, and clashed. Two diverse peoples, two different cultures, two
alien civilizations crossed paths at a junction formed by Hispaniola.
This meeting, pregnant with both possibility and problem, generated
a variety of processes and institutions governing the daily life of
both groups and subsequently adapted and employed by the Spanish
in newer conquests. To a marked degree, Hispaniola served as a
laboratory for the development of Spain’s World institutions. Furt
her, adjustment and accomodation forced a change in both Spaniard
and the Arawak. Once met, neither Indian nor conqueror could
resume his travel along his separate path. On Hispaniola, at the very
least, life assumed new proportions for both groups.

When faced with a new situation, man’s action springs from
two sources. The first of these, desire or expectation, defines and
limits his hopes and wants. The second, experience, conditions, and
almost dictates, the type of action calculated to guarantee the goal.
Therefore, each of Spain’s New World institutions, though ap
parently developed or created to answer new problems, find their
well-spring in the past. Spain’s past affected and conditioned her

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Edwin A. Le vi ne R. H. A. N?m. 60

choice of tentative solutions applied to her New World problems.
As such, an examination of the pertinent aspects of Spanish expe
rience will help in understanding her choice of action on Hispaniola.

The winds of Spanish desire and expectation blew the caravels
toward their westerly port as surely and as strongly as the gusts
that filled the sails. While the spirit of God or of adventure propelled
many a Spaniard toward the New World, the desire for gain ruled
many a heart. As often as not, both God and gain struggled for
dominance within the confines of one breast. Further, the simple
matter of survival in a seemingly benificent, but really hostile
climate, exacted a full measure of Spanish ingenuity. Conversion,
gain, survival; each desire indicated some control of the Indian’s
labor.

It is the purpose of this paper to examine not only one form
of the institution which evolved: Spanish impressment of human
labor, but to attempt to discover the causes contributing to the
evolution of the system as well. Further, since the elements of
Christianizing, financial gain, and physical survival do not neces
sarily complement one another, attention to an evaluation of the
relative part played by each must follow. All of the geography of

Hispaniola, all of the Arawak character and life, all of Spanish
history met on this island and conspired to establish a unique system
for the regulation of Indian labor which impressed its mark on all
subsequent Latin American history.

The land supplied the frame of reference; the Indian furnished
the raw material of impressed labor. Individuals such as Columbus,
Isabella and Ferdinand, formulated and dictated policy. The Church,
split between the ideil and the real, enunciated a moderate policy
as doctrine, but offered little in fact. Finally, the Spanish colonial,
behind his barricade of distance, followed the dictates of his con
science or his desire. An ocean separated Spain and Hispaniola. Royal
policy, especially its enforcement, suffered because of the distances
separating the Queen and her colony. Each of these elements and
entities contributed its mite to the labor system.

Though this paper employs the word “slavery” in its title, the
sub-title contains an immediate limitation. In modern usage, slavery

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery* in the New World…

conjures emotion rather than inspiring reason. The term has lost
much of its cognative value. The dictionary definition of a slave,
one “whose person and services are under the control of another as
master or owner,” allows far too much latitude for subjetive ex
pansion. Both impressed labor and slave labor existed in Hispaniola.
Often, the practical difference between the two challenged descrip
tion. Nonetheless, a theoretical difference guaranteed paper rights,
to the impressed laborer. The slave, taken under specific conditions,
had no rights; his body and soul belonged to his master. This limited
definition of slavery, “the legal ownership of one individual by
another,” maintains in this paper. Both slave and “free” Indian
proved unwilling members of the new labor force. In their bondage,
differentiated by technical rather than real limitations, both sup
plied the raw material from which the colonials fashioned their
peculiar system of impressed labor.

The land, the Indian and the Spaniard all made their contri
bution to the system of impressed labor. In retrospect, it seems that
the Indian dared not hope to have escaped the bonds of virtual, or
real, slavery. Nor did he.

The Land

The land was first, verdant and real before either Arawak or
Spaniard. Green-capped, life-giving it remains, while the Arawak
are no more, and the Spaniard has all but disappeared, leaving
behind him as a reminder that proud conquerors once passed this
way, a trace of hidalgo blood in the present inhabitants of old His
paniola.

Yet, the land’s claim to primary consideration stems not only
from its primacy in time but also from the fact that the land
supplies the frame of reference within which any people develops.
The land sets the limits; even modern science has found no way to
make the truly arid desert bloom nor support life on an ice cap.
Even today, man’s use of the land depends upon the benificence
of the earth.

Geographically, Hispaniola falls between the parallels 17? 36′

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Edwin A. Levirie R. H. A. N?m. 60

North and 10??6’36” North and the meridians 68?19′ West and
74? 01′ West. Therefore, based on geographic position, Hispaniola
enjoys a sub-tropical climate. The island, mountainous to an extreme
degree, displays a rugged terrain. In the Dominican Republic alone,
two important mountain chains rise: The Cordillera Central, the
highest and most important chain, runs from north to southeast
and splits almost at a right angle, throwing a sinewy arm south
ward toward what is now the town of Bani. The highest peak
stretches skyward reaching an altitude of 3.175 meters, while all
the peaks of this chain exceed 2.000 meters. Flowing down from
these elevations, ranging from east to west, the rivers race both
north and south. The second chain, the Cordillera Septentrional,
furnishes the northern limit of the modern Dominican Republic.
This lower ,less rugged costal range, plays a much smaller part in
the geography of the country.

Early in his exploration, Columbus noted the glittering sands
of the Yaque del Norte and enjoyed for a moment the elation of a
man who feels that his search for gold is over. Yet, the Yaque del
Norte, so rich in the promise of gold, assured a more stable wealth.
Flowing from the high Cordillera, fed by many a tributary such
as the Jimenoa, Jagua, Bao, Amina, Mao, Gurabo, and Guayubin,
this river carved one of the most fertile valleys of the whole An
tillian chain, the Vega Real or Cibao Valley. This valley stretches
from Samana Bay to the town of Monte Cristi; is bounded on the
north by the lower hills of the Cordillera Septentrional. Loam,
underbased by friable limestone, offers the most fertile of subtro
pical soils. Rainfall was plentiful. The varying trade winds visited
the northern area with heaviest rainfall during the months of

November, December, and January. While the overall fall averaged
well over 2.000 millimeters a year. When the trade winds shifted
to the southeast in March, April, and May, a relatively dry season
ensued. Yet, the river water and the most rudimentary irrigation
techniques served to make this valley one of the best watered and
fertile areas of the Antillian chain.

Flowing southward, the Yaque del Sur, with its system encom
passing the Mijo, Rio del Medio, Las del Cueva, Las del Medio, and

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

the San Juan, carved its own valley. The large and long Artibonito,
crossing from Haiti and fed by the Ozama, Higuamo, Chavon,
Soco, Nagua, and others, helpedwater the South. Nonetheless, desert
pressed hard against the southern face of the Cordillera. However,
the valley of San Juan, stretching from the Haitian frontier to the
Bay of Ocoa supported an agriculture second in importance only
to the Cibao.1

Hispaniola boasts two basic types of climate. The Cordillera
Central serves as a line of demarcation. To the north, the rainy
tropical climate maintains. A nearly vertical sun at all times, nights
and days of more or less equal length, steamy air approximating that
found in a green house, high sensible temperature,2 cloudy skies, and
heavy rains distinguished this climate.3 It has not changed much
since 1492.

To the south, the so-called monsoon tropical climate prevailed.
Basically, all of the elements attributed to the rainy tropical climate
maintain with the exception of one important factor, concentrated
rain falls in one season affording an approximation of a seasonal
break. Under the circumstances, apparent temperature varies, and
comfort increases or decreases seasonally. Since rainfall occurred
seasonally, unrealibility followed.4 Nontheless, the river system of
the south, flowing from the Cordillera, negated extensive aridity.

This island, graced with fertile soil, an almost perpetual growing
season and ample rainfall, only awaited the seed to assure a harvest.

The mountainous configuration of Hispaniola suggests the
mighty surface chainging forces at work in the bowels of the earth
under the Cordillera Central. The resultant faulting afforded at
least a possibility of mineral wealth. However, though every indica

1 Anuario estad?stico de la Rep?blica Dominicana, 1954, Ciudad Trujillo,
1957, pp. IX-XX.

2 Sensible temperature is defined as the degree of heat sensed or felt by the
human body. Humidity will magnify extremes, increasing the degree of discom
fort experienced.

3 C. Landon White and George T. Renner, College Geography, New
York, 1957, pp. 51-53.

4 Ibid., pp. 107-8.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

tion of mineral deposits haunted the prospector, only minor deposits
of the earth’s precious metals graced Hispaniola’s soil.5 The real
wealth of this island lies on her topsoil, not in her subsoil. The
Spaniard, immediately upon disembarking, initiated his hunt for
golden treasure. Mine labor claimed the body, then the life of Ara
wak after Arawak. Like the mythical El Dorado, the earth con
stantly promised that the next turn of the spade would uncover her
golden vein. Hope, effort, life itself gave full measure of devotion
to the quest. The earth received this labor as her due, but she gave
nothing, for she had nothing to give. The true gold of Hispaniola,
her rich and fertile soil, represented a cloak waiting only to be torn
apart to reveal the glittering beauty of the gold. Years later, men
realized that the value of this land lay in her cloak, her soil.

Columbus made his first landfall on the northern coast of His

paniola. The potential of the land amazed him. In his letter to
Santangel, chief accountant of Aragon, the Discoveror literally
sings a paean of praise to the economic promise of the new land.

In the iands there are many mines and people of inestimable number,
Espa?ola is a marvel: the woods, and the mountains, and the valleys and
the countryside, so fertile and pregnant for the planting and for the harvest,

for the growing of life stock of all classes, for the building of villages and
towns. The parts here are unbelievable unless they have been seen, and there
are rivers, numerous-and large, and good water, the most of which carry
gold. . . in this island there are many spices and large mines of gold and
other metals.6

How human it is to see exactly what we want to see! How
obvious Columbus’ primary enthusiasm for gold. Myth taught that
gold is sunlight, caught by the mountains, filtered by the hills, and
finally crystallized into precious metal. The Admiral bathed by the

5 G. Etzel Pearcy and Associates, World Political Geography, New
York, 1957, p. 145. “In a land as mountainous as most of the Caribbean one
might expect to find rich deposits of metallic minerals.”

6 Fern?ndez de Navarrete, Colecci?n de documentos de los viajes y
descubrimientos que hicieron por Mar los Espa?oles, Madrid, 1955, Vol. I, p. 168.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in ttie New World…

tropical sun and yet, standing in the shadow of the Cordillera, could
dream indeed that his mountain of gold beckoned.

Yet, though partially blinded by the glitter of gold, the Ad
miral still recognized and described most glowingly the agricultural
potential of his land. Earth, water and sun remind him that this
tropical land cries only for the seed in order to grant her bounty.

Still, even if Columbus, like many a later day immigrant,
expected to find riches in gold lined streets, the reality of the land
confounded him. Columbus, even in his enthusiasm, failed to realize
the true extent of the land’s value. His paean falls short of describ
ing the land’s true value. The limited mineral wealth promised
greater finds and both appeased and whetted the appetites of the
early colonists. Yet, this land of constant summer, of rich valleys
washed by abundant rains and coursed by many a stream, stretched
out her arms, supplicating seed, plow, and labor to wrest a fortune
worthy of a Croesus.

Yet, not unlike a woman, Nature displays a double face and
and ambivalence often confusing and confounding her most ardent
suitors. The sum of the elements offering so much promise con
spired to make the realization of this potential almost impossible
for the Spaniard. This land of constant summer visited the colonial
with unbroken months of enervating heat. This land of steady rain
fall bathed the conquerors in constant humidity with ensuing
uncomfortably high apparent temperatures. This land of rapid
growth nurtued insect and exotic disease which found the European
tasty fare and ready prey. We have still not won our battle with
the tropics; the Spaniard hardly understood the nature of the war.

We leave the tropical lowland to the primitive man and we seek
the higher, cooler ground. Strength and energy-sapping humidity,
debilitating, and often deadly, insect-born fever join to make this
area forbidding today. The Admiral watchetd his early colonial
effort after his second voyage wither and die before this tropical
climate. Las Casas and Navarrete both note the inroads made into

the Spanish ranks by disease and death. Whether or not the early
colonial expected to work, or could ha ve even been forced to labor,
in any climate, must remain a moot question. Nonetheless, the

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

strongest desire to labor in this climate could hardly have been
crowned with success in 1493 when we realize that modern science

still fears to open the Pandora’s box of the tropics.
The marriage of land and man can only bear fruit, can only

be consummated through labor. Our mistress, the land, exacts this
tribute as her due. Whatever the wealth of the mines, whatever the
promise of sun, soil and rain, all are nothing without the added
element of labor. Indeed, the good fortune of the Spaniard knew
no limits. Benificent Hispaniola offered them not only her mines
and her soil, she gave them a ready supply of her red-skinned
children to dig and to till.

The People

Who, among us, views the red man with an unprejudiced eye?
Is he the simple and noble savage presented by Rousseau or does
dirt, lies, treachery and death follow his moccasin tracks? In our
contact with others, we demand the simple delineation of black and
white, of good and evil. Yet, the history of any race generally
denies predominance to either the black or the white. The Arawak,
red of skin, displayed the same checkered history common to man
kind in general. He also had good and bad traits, neither devil nor
yet an angel, simple within his frame of reference, fatally irrational,
obstinate and cruel from the white man’s point of view.7

The genetic name Arawak embraces a multitude of tribes and
sub-tribes all speaking a kindred Arawakan tongue. Modern anthro
pologists now belive that the people originated, as a tribal entity,
on the eastern slopes of the Andes. From this source, they presum
ably moved down the Amazon and its tributaries into the Orinoco

Valley. Then, they spread along the coast into Venezuela, eastern
Colombia, through the Guianas, and into the Antilles. Island-hop
ping from bead to bead of the pearl necklace of the Antilles, the
Arawak drove the Guanuhatabey (Ciboney) Indians before him.8

7 Julian Steward and Louis Faron, Native Peoples of South America,
New York, 1959, pp. 177-8, 247.

B Ibid., p. 246.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

The Tainos, an Arawakan sub-tribe, controlled Hispaniola at the
time of the discovery. Actually, six major chiefdoms divided control
of the island. Five of these units contained people of Taino-Arawak
stock; one chief dorn differed embracing a Ciguayo-Arawak sub
group.9 The great chiefs delegated power to as many as thirty sub
chiefs. Estimates of Indian population during the discovery vary
widely. Las Casas’ figure of three million doubtless represents a
grave overstatement. Modern anthropologists place the population
somewhere between 100,00 and 300,000 souls.10

Two basic types of chiefdom existed. The first, a militaristic
and more warlike society, characterized the Arawak of the northern

Andes and Central America. The second, a basically theocratic
society, practiced the art of agriculture and lived sedentary and
relatively peaceful lives.11

The benificence and insularity of Hispaniola allowed the devel
opment of theocratic leadership among the Taino. Where the land
gaves her bounty and afforded protection, man turned his effort
from the basic struggle of survival toward more satisfying endeav
or. An hierarchy, with its social differentiation and leisure class,
followed. The Naboris (the plebians), the Nitaynos (nobles), and
Caciques (chiefs) all enjoyed this abundance in order of rank. Fur
ther, the religion of the tribe cemented the position of the nobility.
Every man, commoner, lord, or chief, kept his special guardians.
The physical representation of these guardians, or Zemis, served as
symbols of personal power and creativeness and were probably
phallic in origin. The physical possession of the Zemi granted the
person control over the powers ascribed to the Zemi. Naturally
enough, the chiefs controlled the crucial Zemis.12 Both the hierarchy

9 Ibid., p. 247.
10 Steward maintains there were no more than 100,000 Arawaks on His

paniola. Peschel, the anthropologist and historian, feels that no less than 200,000
and not more than 300,000 Arawaks inhabited Hispaniola at the moment of
discovery. John Collier, The Indians of the Americas, New York, 1947,
p. 99.

11 Juli?n Steward and Louis Faron, op. cit., pp. 177-8.
12 Ibid., pp. 177-8, 256, and Fray Pane’s report to Columbus as quoted in

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

and the rater advanced theocracy often characterizes natives and
other primitives living in areas of agricultural abundance. The
social and religious organization, itself the end product of a rela
tively long period of peace, helped weaken the Indian’s ability to
resist capture or exploitation. Their own institutions, reflections of
their peculiar character, speeded their impressment.

The individual Arawak, a man of medium stature, brachy
cephallic (round headed) displayed a proportion and grace praised
by many of the colonials. Culturally, he ranked among the more
advanced people of the eastern half of the continent. Because of
custom, they either roamed stark naked or covered the genitalia with
a small apron. Crops such as maize and manioc grew on fields
clared by “the slash and burn’*13 method, a technique which the
white man adopted and continues to use in many areas today. Fer
tilization, rudimentary at best, depended upon woodash and human
urine.14

Unlike many of his brothers, the Antillian Arawak seldom
hunted. Since mammals are relatively scarce on Hispaniola, the
hunt held little attraction. The small rodent, agouti, various birds,
reptiles (particularly the very tasty iguana), worms, spiders, and
selected insects offered variety to the basically vegetable diet of the

Antillian Indian.15 The Arawak employed the dug-out and fished,
but his skill and daring fell far short of the sea-faring Caribs. As a
matter of fact, the Taino experienced a paroxysm of fear whenever
he heard that the can?bal Carib approached. The native erected
his villages inland for that tiny extra measure of protection thus
afforded.

If any Indian can be termed peaceful, the Taino fits the defi
nition. Perhaps his lack of success with arms helped foster such an
attitude. Although earlier (and probably more virile) ancestors had

Benjamin Keen, The Ufe of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by His Son
Ferdinand, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1959, pp. 153-158.

13 Land is cleared first by cutting or slashing the higher growth and the
balance is cleared by burning.

14 Julian Steward and Louis Fara?n, op. cit., p. 247.
15 Ibid., p. 247.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World ?

cleared the Antilles of the Ciboney, the Indian contemporaries of
Columbus lived ii} mortal fear of the Carib. Arawak warfare
consisted of an attempted ambush or surprise of the enemy. Since
spears, spear throwers, javelins, clubs, and stones describes the whole
Taino armory, all Arawak warriors spent a great deal of time and
practice learning to dodge the missiles of an enemy. As a fighting
force, they offered little difficulty to the fierce Carib or to the
Spaniard trained in organized warfare and armed with the heaven’s
thunder and lightening. Under these circumstances, the peaceful
ness of the Arawak can be overemphasized. After all, when war is
obviously equated with defeat, peacefulness becomes a negative
virtue?16

The Arawak inherited both the boon and the bane of his
environment. The land, blessed by a benificent climate and a rich
soil, allowed plentiful harvests. This bounty fostered a relative ease
of life permitting a differentiation of classes. Plenty dulled one of
the major reasons for waging primitive warfare and combined

with the relative security offered by the inaccessability of the island,
allowed the practice of peaceful pursuits. This description fits the
rather idealized portrait drawn by Las Casas, but Oviedo, using
the same facts, pronounced the natives shiftless instead of sedentary,
cowardly insteat of peaceful.17

Yet, the Admiral wrote first, and since his point of view
affected the Arawak more strongly and profoundly than the
thought or action of any other individual, his words merit attention.
Like any other man of his era, he noted the stark nudity of the
Indians first. Would not any noble, freshly transported from a
European court, feel that he had stumbled upon a new Garden of
Eden populated by many an Adam and Eve? In his letter to Sant
angel, he describes the beauty, the liberality, and general nobility
of the people.18 He found them, he went on to say, eager givers,

16 Ibid., p. 248.
17 It would be a mistake, however, to infer that the Arawak was cowardly

or stupid. Given the limitations, individual Arawaks resisted the Spaniard with
courage.

18 Fern?ndez de Navarrete, op cit., p. 148.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

without cupidity, lovers of their neighbors, altogether a gentle and
amiable people.19 In effect, Colon supplied the very first eyewitness
testimony to the doctrine of the Nobility of the Redman that
continued to dominate the European salons for two centuries.

The Admiral’s description of Guacanagari, the first of the
tribal chiefs known to him on Hispaniola, demonstrates the good
will and grace displayed by both Columbus and the Arawak chief.

Your highness would doubtless think well of the dignity and respect
in which they all hold him, though they all go naked. When he came
aboard, he found me at the dining table below the sterncastle and came
quickly to seat himself besides me; nor would he let me rise to meet him or
get up from the table but insisted that I should eat. And when he entered
below the castle, he signalled with his hand that all people should remain out

side and they did with greatest readiness and respect in the world; and
they all seated themselves on the desk, except two men of ripe years whom
I took to be his councillors and tutors, who sat at his feet. I thought he
imight like to eat our food and ordered some brought to him. Of the
?dishes which were placed before him he took only as much as one would
take for pregustation and the rest he sent to his people, and they all ate of it,
he did the same with his drink, which he raised to his lips and then gave
‘to others with a wonderful dignity and very few words, and those that
lie spoke to what I could undestand, were very weighty and sensible. And
these two elders looked at him and spoke for him and with him, with great

respect.20

Did the Admiral display a prejudice in favor of the Indian?
Observation, dimmed and clouded by expectation, often beclouds
the reality, while we project the “stuff which dreams are made of”
onto the canvas of reality. Columbus never dream of a New World
and a new people. He expected to find ancient Cathay, civilized
Cathay. No. Hispaniola was not Cathay. Hispaniola, clearly recog
nized as an island, had to be Cipango21 guarding the approach to the
fabled Cathay. Guacanagari, a noble subject to the Great Khan,
would doubtless point the way to the city of gold, the city of

19 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 113.
20 Benjamin Keen, op. cit., p. 78.
21 Japan.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in t&ie New World…

fulfillment. Colon had found his King and Court at Cipango.
Cathay remained but a short sail away.

Incident after incident only served to impress the Admiral
more forcefully with the nobility of this Indian Lord. Due to
carelessness, the Santa Maria ran aground. Guacanagari, informed
of the AdmiraPs misfortune:

Immediately sent all his people and many large canoes to the ship.
So they, and we, began to unload, and in a short times we had cleared the
whole deck, so helpful was the King in the affair. Afterward, he, in person,
together with his brothers and relations, kept careful watch both and ashore
to see that all was done properly. And from time to time he sent one of
his relatives to tell me not to grieve, that he would give me whatsoever he
had. I assure your highness that no where in Castille would better care
have been taken of the goods, so that not a lace point was missing.22

Granting the Admiral’s early positive prejudice, certain facts
still stand out. The amiability, good grace, honesty, and sympathy
of Guacanagari and his Arawaks shine forth. The native, already
conditioned by his theocracy, readily accepted the Spaniard as the
terrestial embodiment of his god. Yet, contact between man and
god falls after a while. Many an ungodlike act by the Spaniard
doubtless hastened this reaction.

The sinking of the Santa Maria afforded Guacanagari and his
Tainos an opportunity to demonstrate both honesty and sympathy.
The sinking also forced Columbus’ hand. Since he could not trans
port all of his men aboard the last23 caravel left to him, the establish
ment of a colony proved inescapable. The cacique promised both
his good offices and protection. Just how long Guacanagari kept
his word will never be known.

The Spanish man-gods quickly revealed their feet of clay. The
lust for gold and the desire for Indian woman must have astounded
the gentle chief. His action, if any, must remain forever unclear.

However, no doubt clouds the action taken by the less gentle and
more warlike Caonabo, cacique of the Cibao and lord of Colum

22 Benjamin Keen, op. cit., p. 82.
n Columbus did not rejoin Pinz?n until the voyage home had started.

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Bdwin A. Levine R. H. A. Num. 60

bus’ golden mountain. A group of the colonials moved on the Cibao,
Caonabo, guided by his coastal brothers’ experience, undoubtedly,
believed that the Spaniard acted as if he were “a mysterious stranger
announcing himself with words of love, welcomed with delight as
a friend, given the run of the house, and taken into the family’s
bosom, had suddenly revealed himself as no man but as a devouring
werewolf.”24 He attacked and massacred the advance party and
turned to attack the Spanish settlement in Navidad supposedly
under Guacanagari’s protection. Coanabo burned the fort to the
ground and killed every Spanish soul.

Whether or not the noble Guacanagari resisted Coanabo’s
onslaught is open to question. Quite possibly the ravenous appetite
of the Spaniard for both gold and flesh convinced the cacique that
gods, living in such proximity, present many an unexpected problem
of a very earthy nature. Possibly, Guacanagari feared the more
virile and powerful Caonabo. Finally, Guacanagari displayed a
rather superficial leg wound supposedly inflicted by Caonabo’s
forces.

Columbus accepted Guacanagari’s version of the slaughter and
Las Casas followed this lead. Whatever the case, the original rela
tionship showed signs of strain. The fissure, eroded by mutual

misunderstanding, grew ever wider and deeper. The sedentary
Arawak, schooled in peace, weak in war, at least accustomed to
working the land in season, offered a source of exploitation all too
tempting to any man. A primitive people, a people without concept
of mine and thine, proved all too convenient a commodity. The
Arawak suffered from a grievous fault?his accessability.

The open warfare of Caonabo allowed the Spaniards to enter
a punitive war against him. The captives became slaves. Later,
every Indian became a potential enemy in the colonial’s mind and
allowed an extension of the slaving activity.

The Indian of Hispaniola told a prophetic tale of .his ultimate
decimation. Fray Pane repeats this story.

24 John Collier, op. cit., p. 97.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

. . .and the cacique claimed to have spoken with Yiocavugama [a
god], who announced to the cacique that those /succeeded to his power
would enjoy it only for a short time because there would come to his
country a people wearing clothes who would conquer and kill the Indians,
and that they would die of hunger. At first they thought he referred to
the cannibals; later, reflecting that the cannibals only robbed and then
went away, they decided he must have meant some other people. That is
why they now believe that the idol prophesied the coming of the Admiral
and the people who came with him.25

Shades of the Apocrypha! Yiocavugama spoke so truly that a sus
picion of hindsight, rather than foresight, rushed to mind.

The star-crossed career of Columbus led him to the land of
the Arawak. Had he landed a bit further south, his discovery might
well have gone unheralded and unknown. The fierce, cannibal
Carib had driven the Ingeri-Arawak from the lesser Antilles. If the
Admiral had landed in the heartland of the Carib, this warlike
cannibal people might have swallowed and digested the whole ex
pedition. While the Arawak originally welcomed the Spaniard, the
Carib offered war. Because of this, the Spanish doctrine of “just
war”26 assured any captive the brand and chain of the slave.

The primitiveness of the Indian proved an insurmountable
handicap. The Arawak, unable to understand Spanish motivation,
placed him on a pedestal with his gods. Satisfaction of the very
human Spanish appetite followed. When knowledge, gained pain
fully through more intimate acquaintship, forced the Arawak to
amend his original appraisal, winged time had flown and the Indian
looked down to his chains.

The land displayed an immediate resemblance to his beloved
Nonetheless, the conquerors dictated policy, the Indians obeyed.
The motivation and the character of the Spaniards, the movers
rather than the moved, supply the basis for the following chapter.

25 Benjamin Keen, op. cit., p. 165.
26 From the earliest period, Indians resisting Spanish colonization and

Christianizing could be enslaved. These Indians were owned outright; body and
soul depended on the master’s pleasure. This dependence enjoyed both legal and
practical sanction.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

The Conquerors

When the prow of the first caravel touched land in the New
World, a man, new to the Americas but old in his own culture,
stepped ashore. At this moment, all that Spain represented in the
late days of the fifteenth century disembarked as well. The Span
iard carried ashore in his heart, soul, and head all that his heritage
had made him or allowed him to become.

The land displayed an immediate resemblance to his beloved
Andaluc?a. Unfortunately, this similarity proved more apparent
than real. The tropical sun sapped the strength of the White Man.
The tropical rain forest threw its barrier before him. Exotic diseases,
bred in tropical swamps, laid him low. This environment, so seem
ingly beneficent, turned a hostile face toward the newcomer.

When confronted with new and difficult problems, man has
but one weapon at his disposal. He must draw from the arsenal
of past experience. The Spaniard proved no exception. Therefore,
any explanation of Spanish action in the New World finds its
wellspring in Spanish experience in the Old World. Further, survival
supplied only one of many problems facing the conqueror. Men
came to the New World for many reasons, some idealistic, some
quite practical.27 In any case, survival, though a primary requisite,

27 The reason men came to the New World remains a controversial point.
The Admiral noted that men came to seek their fortune and then decamp. “All
in favor of the settlers who have taken up abodethere because the best lands
are given to them. . . I should not say so much if the people were married men,
but there are not six among them all whoses purpose is not to amass all they can
and then decamp with it.” D’Arcy McNickle, They Came First; New York,
1949, p. 120.

In the second voyage, the Gold Rush, the Admiral carried as companion
many hidalgos and courtiers seeking a lawless holiday and bags of gold.” Charles
Duff, The Truth about Columbus, London, 1957, p. 149.

After the difficulty of colonization became clear, a royal order propelled
prisoner and malfactor toward the Indies. “… all and every person. . . who may
have committed, or up to the day of publication of this our letter, may commit
any murder and offense, and other forms of crime of whatever nature and
quality they may be…shall go and serve in prison in Espa?ola.” D’Arcy
McNickle, op. cit., p. 120.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

represented one of many drives. Additionally, policy, dictated from
the higher echelons of government, played its part in all of the

New Worlds embryonic institutions. Therefore, any understanding
of the impressed labor system in the New World must be based on
a recognition of Spain’s late fifteenth century character.

The fusion of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon granted a
unity to Spain unmatched since the era of the Roman domination.
The war against the Moors, prosecuted with equal vigor by both
Ferdinand and Isabella, sanctified this union covering it in the cloak
of holy war. Pulgar, the Royal historian, stated, “… one of the ad
vantages which the neighboring Kings envy you is to have within
your frontiers people against whom you can wage not merely just
but holy war”.28 Further, the very act of battle in the name of the
cross magnified the fervor that led men willingly, even joyfully,
into battle. The Spaniard “was a soldier of the cross fighting not
only for his country, but or Christendom. . . Hence, the national
character became exalted by a fervor, which in later days, alas:
settled into a fierce fanaticism. Hence, that solicitude for the purity
of the faith, the peculiar boast of the Spaniards, and the deep
tinge of superstition, for which they have ever been distinguished
among the nations of Europe/’29

The successful prosecution of the war against the Moors ce
mented the unity of the “Spains” fashioned through the marriage
of the Catholic Kings, imbued the Spaniard with a sense of holy
crusade, and, unfortunately, fostered the growth of an intolerance
for unorthodoxy.

Men came for different reasons, some by will, some by force. The causes
of their coming seemed to vary with the material success of the colony at the
time. They made up their minds, or had their minds made up for them.

Nonetheless, the hope for material gain, while probably present in both
Columbus and Isabella, suffered to some degree due to the rather pronounced
religious approach of both. The Admiral and the Queen, and their motivations?
are treated at length in the text of this paper.

28 Salvador Madariaga, Christopher Columbus, New York, 1940, p. 10.
29 William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella

the Catholics, New York, 1900, p. 161.

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“Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

The name of both Isabella and Ferdinand are amplified by the
suffix the Catholics?Isabella and Ferdinand, the most Catholic
Kings of the most Catholic Spain. Still, a portrait of a King and
Queen or country drawn in stark black and white, without shading
or highligth, cannot prove satisfactory. The Catholicism of Spain
can be traced to Visigothic sources. As such, the Arians, the early
heretic non-believers in the Trinity, visited their Catholicism on
Spain. Though the Spanish subsequently embraced the Roman Holy
See, the heritage of a long established independence remained. The
Gothic liturgy maintained until the eleventh century, the sovereign
guarded his right of jurisdiction in all ecclesiastical causes until the
twelfth century, and the right of collating all benefices, or at least
annulling or confirming ecclesiastical appointments lasted as long.
The code of Alfredo X surrendered many of these particularly
Spanish prerogatives to the Popes. Yet, the ancient feeling of in
dependence never died, and given weaker Bishops of Rome and
stronger monarchs, resurrection of ancient privileges followed.
Catholicism played a major part in the life of all Spain, still, the
force remained localized, truly Spanish. In effect, “the native ec
clesiastics obtained such complete ascendency over the popular mind,
the Roman See could boast of less influence in Spain than in any
other country in Europe.”30 Indeed, Spain boasted a sanctity “more
holy than the Pope’s.”

Developing concurrently with the independence in religious
matters, the nobility, and in some instances the tradesman and
mechanics, of Spain enjoyed a freedom beyond all contemporary
comparison in Europe, Isabella carried to the throne on the shoulders
of her Castillian nobility, owed her primacy to them. The path of
Ferdinand to the throne, beset by many an obstacle or barricade
erected by his people, proved torturous and long.

Barcelona, in the realm of Ferdinand, demonstrates the degree
to which freedom of action grew in Spain. Her government con
sisted of a senate, or council of one hundred members and a board
of councillors, or regidores varying between four to six members.

30 Ibid,, pp. 40-41.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tlhe New World…

The Senate exercised legislative functions while the regidores dis
patched administrative matters. Merchants, tradesmen, and me
chanics sat in the senate. Further, her authority incorporated many
of the rights usually common to absolute sovereignty. Barcelona
could sign treaties with foreign states, she superintended her own
defense, provided for her security of trade, granted letters of re
prisal, raised and appropriated money for useful work. Barcelona
stoutly maintained that her union with Aragon, a matter of mutual
convenience, remained subject to the city’s consent. Her governors,
addressed as magn?ficos (magnificences), remained seated, head cov
ered, in royalty’s presence. Mace bearers, lictors, and other physical
trapings of royalty fell to these plebian lords. Barcelonian deputies
to court received the treatment afforded to foreign ambassadors.

Yet again, Barcelona, ruled and governed by the merchant, the
tradesman, the mechanic; in a word, the plebian, furnished the
gem of the Aragonese diadem.31

Certainly, Barcelona represents an extreme. Nonetheless, the
independence of the many “Spains” must be measured by degree
rather than by kind. This freedom, so amply obvious to all, prompt
ed Navagiero, the Venetian Ambassador to Spain, and no mean
republican himself, to state, “… the inhabitants have so many pri
vileges that the king scarcely retains any authority over them;
their liberty should rather go by the name of license”.32

Clearly, this view of Spain, outlined in the preceeding para
graphs flys in the face of popular concept. Rather than the ab
solutism so common to the popular view of Spain, a rather exag
gerated sense of independence characterized the period before, and
coeval with, the ascension of the Catholic Monarchs. This sense of
independence transported to the colonies, first by the Castillians and
then by the Aragonese, proved to be of transcendental importance.33

While the Moorish wars and the particular nature of Spain’s

31 Ibid., p. 88.
32 Ibid., p. 90.
33 This sense of individual independence, termed personalismo by Professor

Lee Deets in his Latin American Sociology given at Hunter College, stemmed
from the Visigothic incursions.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60*

Catholicism aided the efforts of a Ferdinand and Isabella to unite
the country, the Moorish wars also created a circumstance both
divisive and difficult of solution. Wars, even crusades, have always;
cost a great deal of money. Neither Ferdinand nor Isabella held great
wealth before the wars. When nobles are powerful and burghers:
strong, little enough falls to the monarch. Beyond the Moorish wars,
the battle for the throne of Castile between the forces of the
Catholic kings and the King of Portugal denuded the treasury. The
popularity of the Monarchs prompted the Church to pledge its:
plate so that the war of succession with Portugal could be pro
secuted to a successful end. This act, rare enough in any period,,
gives testment enough of the Spanish Church’s appraisal of both
Isabella and Fernando. Nonetheless, even the church plate could not:
defray the many expenses of internecine and holy war. Pulgar stat
ed, “… all that was collected from the crusade, and from the sub
sidy of the clergy, and from the sentences on those who had judaised’
and were reconciled to the Church, an from their (the king’s and
queen’s) ordinary income and from every part where the money
could be found (the King and Queen), ordered it to be devoted to
the war.” Pulgar continued “. . ., the King and Queen had to bor
row from the pocket of some singular persons.”34 In fine, the royal
coffers, almost empty, added still another problem which cried for
solution. On behalf of his monarch, Quintanilla, the Contador Ma
yor (Treasury Head) supported any idea that might open the por
tals of Cathay, or any other treasure trove, to Spanish entry. Neigh
boring Portugal, pushing her caravels southward, tapped new sour
ces of wealth. Who dares deny that envy, even in the strongest, can
long be contained while the neighbor profits and your need daily
increases?

In summary, therefore, in 1492, Spain had defeated the last of
the Moorish princes, and a high degree of unity and religious zeal
followed in the wake of the conquest. The relatively high degree

34 Salvador de Madariaga, op. cit., p. 143. Madariaga translates “singular”1
to mean Conversos (converted Jews) near the Crown. Certainly rich converted
Jews stood near the Crown. Yet, singular probably means individual and probably
incorporates persons of private wealth, whether Converso or not.

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-Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tine New World…

of personal independence, peculiar to the Spaniards in this epoch,
persisted in spite of the strengh of the Catholic kings. Further, a
resurgence of ecclesiastical independence occurred. The voracious
wars, both of succession and crusade, devoured the joint treasuries
of both Castile and Aragon. As we shall see, every one of these
characteristics contributed their mite to the development of Spain’s

New World labor system.
Policy, however, is not dictated generally by the broad charac

teristics of an environment at any given point in history. Policy,
probably conditioned by the general attitude, seeks its generation
in the effort of given individuals or groups of limited size. Many

men and several groups shared in the evolution of the impressed
labor system of Hispaniola. However, the action taken by three
individuals, of Isabella, Ferdinand, and Columbus, translated and
conditioned the Spanish character for the New World. Not only
Spanish history, but their own personal histories, worked through
them and colored their actions. The effect of these three upon His
paniola proved both immediate and forceful. They led; other fol
lowed.

Isabella, Queen of Castile, held proprietary right to all the New
World colonies. Theoretically, the rule of this area fell to her. What
could be expected of this woman, this very Catholic Queen? The
chronicles written by contemporaries emphasize her absolute devo
tion to her religious creed. First, last, always, she stands Isabella the

Catholic. Certainly, she did all in her power to stay and to reverse
all viciousness in the clergy. “She gave alms, prayed, fasted, re
pressed soothsayers and sorcerers, and rewarded the clean and the
devout. Her mental abilities and strength of character do not allow
question. Her difficult march to the throne, her ability to bind the
wounds of a Castile rent asunder by the sword of internecine war
and to the reunification of her people under her banner attest to
both her strength and her astuteness. The Queen rendered her jus
tice personally, guided more often by rigor than by ruth. This
Catholic Queen, good, devout, strong, astute, just and wise, ruled
both Castile and a fresh New World.”35

35 Ibid., pp. 5-7.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

This idealized portrait of the Queen, drawn by the court his
torian Pulgar, continues to color or view of the lady. Nonetheless,
an Inquisition grew and flourished during her reign. It could not
have been born, or once born, could not have lasted without her
tacit approval at the very least. How much blood, how much suf
fering descended on Spain in the name of God and orthodoxy will
probably never be known. The fervor that rewarded an upstanding
(and orthodox) religious order could also condemn an upstanding
(but unorthodox) individual to the rack. Devotion can be a two
edged sword.

The conversion of her American indigines goaded the Queen
to effort after effort. On her death, through the medium of her
will, she specifically charged her husband and Juana, her unfor
tunate and insane daughter, to continue the task of conversion. Her
will succinctly summarises her entire Indian policy.

I very affectionately supplicate my lord the king, and charge and
command my said daughter [Juana], that they act accordingly, and that
this [the conversion of the Indians] should be their principal end, and
that in it they should have such diligence, and they should not consent or
give occasion, that the Indians who dwell in those islands or on the tierra
firme, gained or to be gained, should receive any injury in their persons
or goods, but should command that they be well and justly treated. And
if the Indians have received any injury, they [the king and her daugther
Juana] should remedy it, and look that they do not infringe in any respect
that which is enjoined and commanded in the words of the said concession
[of the Pope].36

Based on her words, the Queen understood her New World
charge and interpreted it to mean conversion and protection of her
new vassals. Unfortunately, a wied gulf separates the theory and
the practice; a deep chasm cleavesits boundary between the word
and the fact. The enunciation of policy is relatively facile; the design
of the proper machinery to effect and administer this policy proves
more difficult. Had Spain been located closer to the Americas, had

36 Sir Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, New York, 1900,
Vol. I, pp. 151-152.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tine New World…

the Queen been able to visit or even stay in her new colony, the
page of history recording Indian servitude could well have changed.
Isabella’s policy reflected the hope, unfortunately, never to be re
alized, of the Indies. While her devotion brooked no deviation, and
the boundary of her fervor allowed no change, her approach re
presented the Arawak’s one firm chance to weather the transition.
The simple Indian, ready, even anxious to embrace the Spanish God
would have no trouble with the Queen, since Isabella subjected
everything, even the indigence of her treasury, to her desire to con
vert. Her policy, by nature, would have proved most satisfactory
for the Arawak. Unfortunately, the Queen did not rule alone and
her policy, given lip service by all, received but nominal support.

Husbands and wives supposedly grow more similar not only in
physical appearance but in general outlook as time passes. The old
wives would have us accept this principle, in any case. Possibly,
even these old tales do not apply to royalty. Certainly, Isabella and
Ferdinand furnished a clear exception. Though of the same blood,
the Catholic Kings held little in common. The Moorish wars and
the Wars of Succession united their early efforts. Both desired a
united Spain; both sought a strong monarchy; both lacked funds.
Thereafter, the similarities end.

Ferdinand, the King, before all else a soldier and politician,
practiced temperance in food and drink. Like all successful leaders,
he had the ability to make men follow through love and desire.37
The fact that Ferdinand had no legal power in Castile furnished a
source of constant annoyance to him.38 The anger to the vexed prince
quieted only after the Queen assured him that the royal division of
power could be more nominal than real.39 Notwithstanding these
words of comfort, Isabella remained the principal, almost the only,
power, in Castile until her death. Doubtless, the King advised the
Queen; certainly, his advice carried weight. Nonetheless, Isabella
directed the destiny of Castile, and Ferdinand exercised no legal
power in Castilian affairs until the death of Isabella and the regency.

37 Salvador de Madariaga, op. cit., p. 8.
38 William H. Prescott, op. cit., pp. 241-42.
39 Ibid., p. 243.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

Supposedly, the King supplied the model for Machavelli’s Prin
ce. Ferdinand did turn his attention more and more to the political.
Legally excluded from Castilian affairs and inheritor of the Ara
gonese interest in Europe generally, and in Naples and Sicily speci
fically, this advent of Spanish political activity followed a pattern
established earlier in Aragon. The King erected a complicated group
of alliances, basically through marriage of his offspring, which fin
ally gave the Empire of Charles V. He diverted Spanish interest
from Africa, then America, toward Europe.

The influence of Ferdinand in Hispaniola, limited to an advi
sory capacity during Isabella’s reign, enjoyed full sway after her
death. This realist, chained by no idealistic limit, viewed the Indies
as a source of needed and desired wealth. Efficient exploitation
awaited only proper design. This man, so accustomed to the direct
action of the soldier, schooled in the craft of the politic, needing
and desiring wealth to cement the fissures of his grandoise European
ventures, could hardly be termed a desinterested protector of the
New World peoples, the Queen’s will nothwithstanding. Isabella
viewed the New World as a kingdom to be gained for her God. The
King saw an opportunity to exploit the resources and erected a more
immediate kingdom in Europe.

The variant policy of the Catholic Kings toward the colonies
would probably have remained rather academic had they not listened
to the siren song of Columbus. Yet, the Admiral did more than
open this world and transport the desire and policy of his lords.
Through the power granted to him, the Discovered ruled the new
colony. The policy of the Crown depended directly upon his ad
ministration. His actions, crucial to the Arawak, directly condi
tioned the efect of the Spanish crown on the red-skinned vassals.

The character of the Admiral almost defies description; a great
deal has been written about the discovered, yet, an Alice-in-Wond
erland quality pervades many of these works. According to his
contemporaries, Columbus stood:

. . of good size and locks, taller than average and of sturdy limbs;
the eyes lively and the other feature of the face in good proportion; the

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tlhe New World…

hair was very red, the complexion some what flushed and freckled; a
good speaker, cautious and of great talent and an elegeant latinist and a
most learned cosmographer, graceful when he wished, irate when he was
crossed.”40 “. . .In, the matters of religion he was a catholic of great devo
tion . . . He fasted with utmost strictness… he quoted every hour that
God has shown great favor as to David… he begged Quen Isabella to
make a vow that she should spend all the wealth gained by the crown as
a result of the discovery in winning back the land and holy house of
Jerusalem. . . “41 Los Casas felt that the hand of Devine Destiny rested
heavily on the Admiral’s shoulder, in his history the Bishop stated “… the
Divine and Supreme Master chose from among the soms of Adam who
dwealt in these our days on earth that illustrious and great Col?n i.e, by
name and his works first colonizer. . . “42 Yet, years before the Admiral
wrote in his, own Book of Prophecies: “there will come a time in the long
years of the wrold when the ocean sea will loosen the shackles that bind

things together and a great part of the earth will be opened by a new
sailor such as the one who was Jason’s guide, whose name was Thyphis,
shall discover a new world, and then shall Thule no longer be last of lands.43

In 1476, the Admiral never doubted that he was, in truth, the new
Thyphis and only had to tour the western sea to find his Cathay.
Can any doubt exist that the Admiral believed himself the chosen
instrument of God; a view shared, incidentally, by many of his
contemporaries? This belief sustained the Discoverer during the
years of rebuff. However, transported to the New World, this
certainty of recitude engendered an inflexibility, an unwillingness
to listen or accept advice, that only those chosen by God can afford.

Still, notwithstanding the celestial bounty, Columbus did not
turn his back upon the world nor its goods. In presenting his bill
for his projected services to the Crown, the Admiral displayed a
fine appreciation of both position and wealth. In a desperate gamble,
Columbus walked away from the Court and turned his step toward
France when it seemed that the Kings would refuse his demand for

the golden spurs and his title of Admiral and Viceroy. Only a royal

40 Salvador de Madariaga, op. cit., p. 83.
41 Ibid., p. 83.
42 Ibid., pp. 17-18.
43 Ibid., p. 80.

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Edwin A. Levine H. H. A. N?m. 60

change of heart and a messenger, mounted on a swift horse, return
ed Columbus to the banner of Castile. The Agreement of Santa Fe,
promulgated on April 17, 1492, granted the Admiral not only sail
but also elevation to a position among the greatest Grandees of
Spain.

Yet, position without wealth must ever remain a beautiful ban
quet table without food. In the Agreement of Santa Fe, Columbus
obtained a one-eighth share in all the treasure his voyage would
uncover. The Admiral’s mind dwelled not only on the discovery
of Cathay but on the gold of this distant land as well. In his note
books and log, Columbus iterates and reiterates the gold, precious
stones, spices, and crystals awaiting the discoveror.44 During his first
ten days in the islands Columbus used the word “gold” twenty-one
times in his account of his experiences.45 Furthermore, in the hour
of discovery, at the moment when the title of Admiral of the
Ocean Sea, Viceroy, and Governor took substance, Columbus saw
fit to cheat one of his crewmen out of a rather inconsequential
reward offered the first sailor to sight land. Through the simple
expedient of claiming that he saw lights the night before, the Ad

miral claimed first discovery. Who could argue the point with the
all-victorious Discoveror? Certainly right and justice dictated that
the God-guided Admiral would sight land first. Who can measure
the effect of the small reward? Still, in this time of fulfilled promise,
Columbus did not soar like the eagle but remained as earthbound
as any barnyard rooster.

The “Man of Destiny” must labor up a steep hill under a heavy
pack. The experience and the popularity of the Pinz?n brothers
summoned Columbus5 hostility. The failure of the Admiral’s colonial
efforts conjured cruelty. The close of the fifteenth century, an
epoch not marked by humanity, carried its Inquisition, its auto-de
fes, its intolerance and religious hate as visual scars. The Spanish
world, yes, even the world in general, accepted sanction and force

44 Ibid., pp. 90-91.
45 Germ?n Arciniegas, Caribbean, Sea of the New World, New York*

1946, p. 27.

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Julio-Diciembre de ?965 The Seed of Slavery in tftie New World…

as legitimate vehicles to a “worthy” end. The Admiral could hardly
escape this tenet, this very basic approach, of his era. He, Don Cris
tobal Col?n, the chosen Discoveror, the Admiral who had won his
victory over disbelief, indifference, hostility, and the Ocean Sea
itself, alone knew how to satisfy the demand of his Cathay. When

we know that God directs us, dare we take time to question any
act even if we must hang, maime, or punish a main in many another
refined manner to assure his loyalty to our cause?

The exaggerated “Sense of Destiny” of the Admiral limited
his field of vision and served as a blinder. The ensuing character
defects:

. . especially the lack of due appreciation for the labor of his
subordinates, unwillingness to admit his shortcomings as a colonized, a
tendency to complain and feel sorry for himself whenever the sovereigns,
owing to these shortcomings, withdrew some measure of trust in him. . .46

conditioned and limited the Discoverer’s administration. The Ad
miral reached the apex of his career when the first caravel “hove
to” in the first New World harbor. If there be a Destiny, the man

with a mission had fulfilled his appointed purpose. “For he was not
like a Washington, a Cromwell, or a Bolivar, an instrument chosen
by multitudes to express their wills and lead a cause; Columbus was
a man with a mission, and such men are apt to be unreasonable and
even disagreable to those who cannot see the mission.”47

Therefore, in Col?n, we find a man of fixed purpose, filled
with the certainly that unwavering belief affords. The real could
only be viewed through the cloud of the dream.

Still, over emphasis on the dream quality of the Columbus
administration could prove both dangerous and erroneous. Madariaga
stated that the Admiral represented an early Don Quixote. The Ad

miral, however, tilted with real problems not windmills. His dream
told him of wealth but his promise of wealth to the sovereigns can
not be termed a dream. The Admiral acted as if he meant to ful

46 Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Boston, 1942, p. 46.
47 Ibid., p. 46.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

fill this promise. He won his ships, his spurs, his Cathay. We find no
windmills here.

After the discovery, once his mission had been fulfilled, the
pure gold of the Admiral’s character had been rendered and the
base metal remained. The Discoveror, like many a leader, held sway
beyond the limit of his personal ability and greatness and suffered
thereby. The Columbus pendulum swung full moment at the ins
tant of discovery then slowly began to retrace its path. Confronted
with a strange, new group of problems, the arsenal of his resources
failed him. Because of the Admiral’s limitations, the Arawak suf
fered.

Columbus, ever a foreigner, an Italian among Spaniards, faced
immediate difficulty from his own men. These first colonials forced
jgiven degrees of their will not only upon the Arawak but upon
the Admiral. These first colonials served as agents transporting
Spanish experience to the New World.48
t?* The crew of criminals supposedly accompanying Columbus on

his first voyage must find its basis in myth rather than fact. These
sailors, representative Castilians, probably magnified the character
istics of valor and independence. Who but the brave and the inde
pendent or self-sufficient would dare undertake such a voyage? In
all, this crew represented a cross-section of the more valorous Cas
tilian sailing man.49 Nonetheless, these men failed as colonists.

The sinking of the Santa Maria and the apparent defection of
M. Alonso Pinz?n, who sailed away one night to seek his own
treasure, posed a difficult problem for the Admiral. Left with but
one ship, he could not carry all of his men home to Spain. Due to
the sinking of his flag-ship as well as a desire to leave a settlement

48 The clearest case of disobedience took place when Roldan mounted an

open revolt against Columbus and his brother, Bartolom?. Furthermore, the failure
of the first colonists at Navidad to obey the Admiral and follow his instructions

forced open conflict with the more warlike Ciguayo-Arawak, Caonabo. Columbus
had to finish this war, and from the battle, took the first Arawak slaves. Sir
Arthur Helps, op. cit., pp. 102-110.

49 For an excellent treatment of this first crew, please Samuel Eliot
Morison, op. cit., pp. 141-150.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tilie New World…

in Hispaniola, the Admiral planned the first New World colony.
Thirty-nine men, all carefully selected, remained behind under the
command of three loyal lieutenants, Diego de Arana, Pedro de Gu
ti?rrez, and Rodrigo de Escobedo. Biscuit and wine for a year as
well as artillery to prevent any difficulty guarded and supported
the colonials. The Admiral commended the colony to the protection
of his friendly lord, Guacanagari, and as a parting gift to all, gave
his colonials seed to be sown. The prospect seemed promising.

Yet, the colonials had some rather independent ideas of their
own. Apparently, they wished neither to sow nor reap. Possibly, a
combination of hostile climate in addition to the stated Spanish
phobia against manual labor conspired to forbid agriculture. Cert
ainly, the shimmering vision of a mountain of gold must have caused
agriculture to seem both tame and unprofitable. In any case, if we
can believe the story later told by Guacanagari to Columbus and
cited by both Las Casas and Navarrete, the colonials immediately
launched their own private gold rush. The Spanish took whatever
gave, or promised, satisfaction. Indian women satisfied one appetite,
and when sated, the colonial sought other pleasure. They seized
Indian food, used Indian labor. Then, in greed and envy, the Spanish
split into factions. Caonabo, Cacique of the Cibao and far more
war like than Guacanagari, isolated and eliminated one Spanish
group moving into his territory. He then turned to attack the fort
at Navidad, burned it, and killed all of the colonials.

In Spain, the disaster at Navidad remained unknown. When
the Admiral called for volunteers to accompany him on a second
voyage, he wanted and expected a thousand replies. Three thousand
men, half of which boasted the blue blood of the courtier and the
hidalgo, clamored to go along. From this array, Columbus selected
one thousand five-hundred men. Like many a later day immigrant,
these men, the best of mother Spain’s sons, rushed to the New World
to pluck their profit from her gold lined streets.50

The shock of a ruined Navidad offered no positive lesson to
the new colonials. They behaved like men possessed, and so they

50 Fern?ndez de Navarre te, op. cit., p. 145.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

were possessed by a fever for wealth. Sickness, disease even famine
visited the colony until total disaster and death marked every Spanish
face. Then, though an ocean separated Hispaniola from Spain, the
tidings of failure washed the shores of Spain.

Hidalgos did not answer the Admiral’s third call for men. The
Grown had to open the prisons and send its croppedear malefactors
to people the New World.

“. . All and every person. . . who may have committed or up to the
publication of our letter, may commit any murder and offenses and other
forms of crime of whatsoever nature and gravity they may be. . . shall
go and serve in person in Espa?ola.”51 For saftey’s sake, Jews, Moslems,
and heretics enjoyed exclusion from this edict. Further, though Columbus
approved, even festered, this proclamation, he later swore “that numbers
of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water from God
nor man.”52 “Yet, these were men who had come out with grand especta
tions and who found themselves pinched with hunger, having dire storms
to encounter, and vast labors to undergo; who were contained in due
hands by no pressure of society; who were commanded by a foreigner,
or by members of his familiy, when they knew to have enemies as court;
who thought that Los Reyes themselves could scarcely reach them at his
distance; who imagined that they had worked themselves out of all law
and order. . . “53

The Crown, Columbus, and the colonials all shared given ex
pectations in the Indies. Unfortunately, the stress on wealth flour
ished paramount in one while conversion held first importance with
another. Haring summarized the reasons for Spanish colonization.
He places the desire for wealth at the very top of the list. This
burning desire for gain propelled many a Spaniard westward, and
certainly neither Columbus nor Isabella held any aversion to material
gain. Yet, the Queen subordinated this desire to her religion and
the Admiral looked toward gain as a fulfillment of the rank granted
him so deservedly and a completion of his promise to his sovereign.
Adventure is the second reason ascribed. Yet, desire to wander far

51 Charles Duff, op. cit., p. 149.
52 Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., p. 107.
53 Ibid., pp. 110-111.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

afield graces given individuals more than others. Adventure might
be emphasized on the first voyage, but its importance must decrease
thereafter. The third reason centers about Spain’s zeal to pro
pagandize. This zeal husbanded best by Isabella, and to a lesser ex
tent by the Admiral, furnished the Spanish claim to the Indies. The
saintly Queen and the chosen Admiral would have to assume the
duty of teaching Christ to the Arawak. Neither Ferdinand nor
the colonials saw any reason to allow this zeal to stand in the way
of practical solutions to their labor problem. As foreign adventures
increased his need for gold, Ferdinand, in a letter to Ojeda and

Nicuesa instructed them to “get gold, humanly if you can, but at
all hazards, get gold, and here are facilities (the Indians) for you.”54
Finally, Haring offers discontent as a propelling factor. This dis
satisfaction with old Spain must stand as a subordinate reason par
ticularly after the true conditions of New World colonial life be
came manifest.

The Crown, the Admiral, and the colonials all shared the same
expectations. Unfortunately, they shared them to varying degrees
and with a different emphasis. The Queen wanted conversion then
wealth. The colonial desired wealth then conversion. Columbus,
the viceroy, stood between the two. His position forced concession
in both directions. For the Arawak, all history had telescoped. Many

incidents reaching far into a past unknown to him had delivered
him into bondage.

54 C. H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, New York, 1947, pp.
37-39; also, John Collier, op. cit., p. 101. “At the future Vera Cruz, the

Aztecs gave every help and hospitality; and the chief, or governor, agreed to
send couriers to the Aztec emperor, Moctezuma, at the capital. The Chief,

Teuhtile, construed literally the words of Cortes’ address that the Spaniards
were troubled with a disease of the heart, for which gold was a specific remedy.”

Though this story takes place beyond the confines of Hispaniola, I include it
because it describes the “Spanish sickness” so well. Possibly, Teuhtile did not
go far astray in construing Cortes’ words in a literal fashion.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

The Form of Impressed Labor

The Indian enjoyed a boon not offered many primitive people
hurled into contact with a more advanced civilization. The Holy
Church declared the Arawak worthy to receive the Holy Ghost.
Therefore, the duty, the theoretical claim, of the Spaniard in the
New World rested upon the conversion of the Indian. In Spain, a
Queen reigned who assumed this task both willingly and seriously.
Nonetheless, the impressment of Indian labor in Hispaniola proceed
ed with amazing rapidity.

Impressed labor followed two basic patterns. Both systems
evolved simultaneously, both grew side by side designed to solve
the problem of exploitation. Slavery, legal and real, sprang up al
most immediately. The second form of impressing labor developed
more slowly and culminated in encomienda. Practically, the Indian
could find little difference between the systems, yet important
theoretical differences existed. Actual slavery supplied only a small
segment of the labor pool. However, this unlimited bondage is easier
to understand and, therefore, provides a ready point of departure
for the investigation of the more complex encomienda.

Slavery, the absolute ownership of one individual by another,
was known in Europe quite some time before the Admiral’s first
voyage. The Roman, Moslem, and Visigothic heritage of Spain
certainly offered nothing prohibiting the holding of slaves.55 Rather

55 “There were from the beginning two kinds of unfree Indians in the
colonies: chattel slaves, presumably prisoners captured in a *just war,’ that is,
when they refused submission to the Spaniards; and *free’ Indians held in Enco
mienda.” C. H. Haring, op. cit., p. 53, quoting Lesley Byrd Simpson, Studies
in the Administration of the Indians of New Spain, IV, The Emancipation of the
Indian Slaves and the Resettlement of the Freedman, 1548-1555, Berkeley, Cali
fornia, 1940, pp. 20-24. I cannot help but feel that the term “from the begin
ning” is ambiguous. Slaves are taken early in the first voyage. Encomienda is
more gradual, growing as repartimiento under Colon and Bobadilla until regular
ized and given official form by Ovando in 1503. Furthermore, Spain knew
slavery. The Romans held slaves, and during the Moslem conquest, the Moors
enslaved Christians. See Charles E. Chapman, The History of the Reign of
Ferdinand and Isabella, The Catholics, New York, 1900, pp. 41-2.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

the very reverse proved true. Further, the voyage of the Portuguese
navigator Gil Eaunes opened up a source of Negro slaves to both
Portugal and Spain.56 The vogue of Negro slavery in both Spain
and Portugal remained limited, however. Nonetheless, this limita
tion probably finds its source in economic reality rather than on
any social conscience. However, since the Church held Indians
worthy of conversion, and since this policy received the active sup
port of the Queen, New World aborigines could be visited with
this yoke only after rather rigid requirements had been met. If the
Indian refused Christianity, if he resisted with force the coloniza
tion, the Spaniard could embark upon a just war. Any captive taken
in such a war fell beneath the yoke of slavery. He became the

warrior’s personal property and chattel. Yet, even this doctrine,
enunciated in a far off Spain, depended upon Columbus and his
crew for meaning.

Columbus, even during the enchantment of his first voyage,
constantly seemed to “trim sail” in his treatment and approach to
the Indian. Though the captain insisted that value be given for value
in all trade with the Indians (of course, value is relative; a Spanish
hawk’s bell or glass bead was considered value for gold dust), this
same captain who stated in his diary:

. . . and afterwards I sent them to a house. . . and they brought me
seven head women some of them small (young) and some larger (more
mature) … I did this because the men would behave themselves better in
Spain having women from their homeland than they would without them.57

This callous capture of seven “head” of Indian woman, their
removal from home and family, the purpose for which the captain
seized them speaks for itself. The fact that the doctrine of just war
can be translated to mean unilateral just war seems obvious. In

56 “Princely persistence was finally rewarded when Gil Eaunes rounded the
cape in 1434 and found the reputed terrors of the ocean south of 28? North
Latitude did not exist. Within a few years, ships had gone far enough to capture
Negro Slaves and trade for gold dust.” Samuel Eliot Morison, op. cit., pp.
30-31.

57 Fern?ndez de Navarrete, op. cit., V. I. p. 5 5.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

1495, Columbus sent slaves to Spain. A year later, Bartolom?, his
brother, followed suit.58 The very Catholic Isabella faced a problem.
At first she temporized, and ordered Rodr?guez de Fonseca to sell
the slaves in Andaluc?a. She countermanded this order and directed

Fonseca to impound the slaves pending clarification of the legal as
pects of the sale. On June 20, 1500, she ordered the surviving Indians
freed and returned to their country of origin.59 As far as the Arawak
is concerned, this series of episodes erected the limits on his technical
slavery.

However, the doctrine of just war did fit the warlike Caribs.
They did not bend easily to Spanish rule; they dared resist. As such,
Spanish war parties, seeking slave labor, made regular calls along
the northern coast of Venezuela60 and to the southern Antilles. This

area became the focal point of Spanish slaving activities and re
mained such well into the 15 th Century.

Yet, even in the case of the cannibal Caribs, obviously taken
in a just war, the Queen resisted the acceptance of their enslave

ment. The Admiral, reporting on this warlike group, suggested that
their souls could be saved far more efficiently in slavery. What
matters the body when an immortal soul hangs in the balance?
Further, these Indians represented a source of ready income. Both
arguments must have tempted the crown. Nonetheless, the Queen
informed the Admiral that his proposal “… is suspended for the
present until there is some other way of doing it {conversi?n) there,
and let the Admiral write what he thinks of this5′. The reply con
tains no reprimand; none should be expected since the halo effect
of the discovery still glittered round the Admiral’s brow. Rather,
the door swung shut, for the moment, even on Carib slavery.61 How

58 C. H. Haring, op. cit., pp. 53-54.
59 Fern?ndez ee Navarrete, op, cit., Vol. II, p. 173.
60 History is filled with interesting “if” propositions. Certainly, Las Casas’

experiment in humane Indian treatment at Cuman?, Venezuela might have
escaped slaughter and failure had the Caribs of the area not had prior contact
with Spanish slavers. This is pure speculation but interesting nonetheless.

61 Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 94-96.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tine New World…

ever, time reversed this policy, and as we have seen, many a Carib
felt the sting of slavery.

In summary, the Arawak escaped technical slavery based on
the Church’s dictum that they were worthy of conversion, and their
lack of desire, or inability, to resist Spanish colonization. Since Spain
held the New World colonies under the terms of the Patronato and
since Isabella was very sensitive to the desires of the Church, tech
nical slavery never gained a real foot-hold among the Arawaks of
Santo Domingo. This is true in spite of the efforts made by many
of the early colonists, and the Columbus brothers in particular, to
tap this source of exportable wealth. The Caribs, however, fell under
the terms of the doctrine of “just war” and the Spaniards hunted
them as slaves. Most important, however, is the fact that slavery
could not and did not answer the question of labor supply. Further
more, since the Arawak of Hispaniola did not fall under the rule
of technical slavery another form of social organization regulating
the day to day contact of Spaniard and Arawak was demanded.
It is here that we must begin to trace the development of enco
mienda.

Encomienda did not spring suddenly on the scene in Hispaniola.
A seed, planted during the first colonial attempt at Navidad, gave
shoot, then leaf, and finally the plant. The word encomienda would

mean but little to the early colonials since the term itself defined
an institution developed slowly over a period of years. Did the
Spaniard call upon his vocabulary at all to describe his early use of
Indian labor? Did an act so necessary and so logical demand either
word or definition?

With or without name, the Spaniards availed himself of Indian
food, women, and labor. Their appetite knew no limit. The hidalgo
and the courtier, accustomed to a finer life, made ever increasing
demands on Arawak resources. Since primitives seldom store life’s
necessities beyond their immediate demands, the pressure mounted
between the Spaniard, insisting upon dole, and the Indian, unable
to understand these requirements much less satisfy appetites.62 Final

62 C. H. Haring, op. cit., p. 42.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

ly, in 1494-1495 the explosi?n occurred and the first revolution of
the New World flammed. The defensless Arawak furnished but light
exercise for the organized Spaniard; the revolution ended quickly.
As a result, the Admiral determined both to formalize and regu
late the demand on the Arawak. Instead, he levied a tax payable
in a flanders hawk bell full of gold or a given amount of cotton.

This tax, payable quarterly, represented the full demand of Spaniard
upon Arawak. A tin medal, hung around the aboriginal neck, sig
nified that payment Had been made. However, if any Indian could
not satisfy this tax, labor would replace the gold or the cotton.

At once, the Admiral attacked two problems. His dream of
New World gold receded like a mirage before the short supply
offered by Hispaniola. If gold existed, let the Arawak mine it and
bring it to him. Possibly, he could satisfy his promise to his monarchs.
Still, if the gold and the cotton did not come to him, carried in
Indian hands, then these hands could be turned to forced labor
in the mine or in the field. The Admiral faced the fact that his

colony sorely needed Indian aid. Without the labor of the Arawak,
Spanish survival remained problematical and the hope of wealth?
a mere chimera. At once, Columbus attempted to limit the drain
on Arawak resources and to guarantee both Spanish survival and
wealth.63 His expedient, a compromise, could satisfy no one. The
Indian found the tax onerous; the Spaniard wanted more, not less?
labor.

In 1497, the Admiral received letters of patent so that he
could grant repartimientos of lands to Spaniards.64 The repartimien
to started in the time of James the Conqueror and his conquest
of the Balearics and Valencia. He granted land taken from the infi
dels to his followers. Though no specific statement regarding the
fact hat the captive or enslaved Moors went with the land, it is
inherently probable that such a transfer took place.65 Columbus,
even before the receipt of formal power, granted land to followers

63 C. H. Haring, op. cit., p. 43.
64 Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., p. 107.
65 Roger B. Merriman, The Spanish Empire in the Old World and m the

New, New York, 1918, Vol. II, p. 232.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

in the New World. Since no Moors lived on the land and because

its value would remain forever unrecognized without labor, the
use of Indian labor for non-payment of taxes filled the void. This
tiny wedge served to force the door of impressment of the Arawak
toil in Hispaniola.
Beginning in March 1495, the intrigues at Court against the

Admiral mounted. Though Columbus obviously still enjoyed the
basic faith of Isabella, it is equally obvious that his enemies now
felt that the time propitious and he ammunition sufficient to begin
their attack. In August of the same year, Aguado left C?diz to
sail to Santo Domingo to investigate he supposed mis-management of
the Admiral. These first signs of doubt prompted Columbus to
leave Santo Domingo on March 10, 1496 to defend himself before
the Court. He arrived in C?diz on June 11th theatrically garbed in
penitent’s colthes. Meanwhile, his brother, Bartolom? remained in
Santo Domingo and filled the post of Adelantado to which Colum
bus had named him illegally.66

When Columbus returned to Santo Domingo on August 31,
1498, he found the situation in an advanced state of deterioration.

Certainly, we have demonstrated that Columbus’ solution proved
satisfactory to no one. Bartolom?, during his short period of rule,
did little more than alienate still more colonists and regarding the
Indian, he adopted the simple expedient of repression. The state
of distrust and dislike grew among the colonists until, in 1498,
Francisco Roldan withdrew from Santo Domingo (the city) with
a group of about forty men and mounted an open rebellion again
st Bartolom? and the absent Admiral. This particular action is of
transcendental importance to this paper since the final settlement
granted to Roldan and his followers repartimientos of land and
Indians. In a word, Rold?n’s victory secured for himself and his fol
lowers grants of land and the services of the Indians on the lands.

05 Only Isabella of Castile had the authority to name an Adelantado in the
New World at this time. According to Las Casas, Colon was called to task, but
the appointment was allowed to stand.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

This is a crucial link in the chain of Indian impressed labor and,
as much, demands closer investigation.

Las Casas, doubtless speaking in part from a pro-Columbus,
pro-Indian perjudice, characterizes the Roldan band as a group need
ing little inducement to rebel, since several of the band were mur
derers, delinquents, and others condemned to death because of gra
ve crimes.67 Las Casas them described the modus operandi of the
Roldan band which:

“Went from Indian village to Indian village, each one taking the women

that pleased him, and (taking) as many servants as the migth wish, whether
or not they (the servants) were daughters or sons of chiefs.. . robbing any
gold they had and any other thing that might value, and cutting the
ears and killing those who did not serve to their liking, and an infinity
of similar things.”63

In effect, Roldan and his band had separated themselves from
the main body of colonists and were, quite literally, taking whatever
the land had to offer including the services of the Indians.

Yet, in the face of this open revolt, Columbus did not move
against Roldan. Columbus turned a face so conciliatory to the bel
licose Roldan, so surprising when the details of the situation and men
are known, that true copies of the correspondence between Roldan
and Columbus are included in the appendix of this paper. There
are three possible reasons for Columbus’ failure to take direct re
pressive action. Las Casas obviously shares the first two of these
arguments, included in his paper, but he is mute on the third. First,
Columbus feared, after his recent difficulties, any new jarring note
which might reach the ear of the Catholic Kings.69 Second, he could
not count on the support of his own subordinates in Santo Domin
go.70 Third, apparently he was satisfied to let Roldan have his repar
timiento. A precedent, under force, would be established. The Spa

67 Bartolom? de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, Vol. I, Chap. CXLIX^
p. 69.

* Ibid., Vol. I, Chap. CXLVIII, p. 65.
69 Ibid., Vol. I, Chap. CXLIX, p. 69.
70 Ibid., Vol. I, Chap. CLIII, p. 79.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 T’he Seed of Slavery in tino New World…

niards would have their labor, and should the Crown complain, force
majeur would supply the plea. In the meanwhile, a tremendous
amount of local patronage became available to Columbus. He could
use this patronage to retard or reverse the wave of unpopularity
and as an added bit of value, end the Roldan difficulty. Of the
assence is the fact that by 1499, the systematic assignment of land
and Indian labor had become a fact.71

Whether or not Columbus hoped the patronage made available
would bolster his waning fortunes will probably never be known.
If true, his hope was to be confounded. General disappointment
in the administrative potential of the Admiral and his brothers
grew at Court. The vision of Cathay, of opportunity, had appeared
clearly to the Admiral. The Court now dropped a veil before his
eyes and the vision faded. It would be useless to repeat the story of
Bobadilla’s appointment, of his arrival, of his seizure of power,
and of Columbus’ return to Spain in chains. However, Bobadilla’s
advent must be regarded as a day of extreme importance to the
Arawak. In a short period of three years, the exploitation of the
Indians in Santo Domingo raced ahead. Haring feels that the worst
elements of the colony gained control.72 The general situation dete
riorated to rapdly that the Court on February 15, 1502, impatient
and disappointed, replaced Bobadilla naming the just and stern Nico
l?s de Ovando as his successor.73 Above all else, the Crown charged

Ovando with the responsibility of regulating repartimiento.

In a period spanning a little more than nine years, the Spanish
had cemented together the elements of a system whereby both the
land and the service of the Arawak supported their colony. Ovando
could not escape the problems which beset both Columbus and
Bobadilla before him. Ovando gave the Indies his encomienda, a
system all to similar ro the repartimiento established by usage. Ho
wever, Ovando inserted clauses guarding against the rampant ex

71 C. H. Haring, op. cit., p. 43.
72 Ibid., p. 43.
73 Columbus protested. He rather fancied the job for himself.

19
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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

ploitation of the Arawak. He could do no less while the Queen still
lived.

Based on Ovando’s recommendations, the sovereigns issued the
orders of March and December 1502 finally legalizing the impres
sment of Indian labor in Hispaniola. In mitigation, the orders clearly
stated and provided for both moderation of toil and fair wages. In
order to assure civilization and conversion of the Indians, the Span
iards received instructions to gather them into villages under the
protection of a protector or administrator. Naturally enough, the
Arawak had fled the Spanish areas and sought the back country
and the hills. The colonials doubtless appreciated the concentration
of the Indian population in villages where the work supply proved
easier to tap. While both Crown and colonial wanted concentration
of the Arawak population, they desired this relocation for diverse
motives. Even the Crown recognized the wisdom of proper location,
however, and instructed Ovando to buid his villages as near to the
mines as possible. Excluding the labor due the Crown, the Arawak
remained free to do, or not to do, more or less whatever he pleased.

With the exception of the Caribs, the enslavement of the Indians
ceased.74

Therefore, encomienda really offered nothing new. This sys
tem stands as inheritor of a process starting with the colony at Na
vidad, continuing through the unauthorized actions of the hidalgos
demand on the indians during the second colonial attempt, moving
into the Admiral’s tax and forced labor in lieu of taxes and then
into repartimiento of the Discoveror and of Bobadilla.75 In effect,
the Crown attempted to moderate and formalize the system evolved
in the colonies through necessity and usage.

Unfortunately, Isabella acted too late. Furthermore, the dis
tance between Spain and Hispaniola rendered any sanction almost
worthless. For a period of over nine years, the colonials, operating
within the most general principles enunciated by the Crown, had
managed the Indians to their own colonial satisfaction. The Queen,

74 C. H. Haring, op. cit., p. 44.
75 Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., p. 104.

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doubtless ill informed dealt in generalities rather than specifics. The
royal “thou shalt treat well” or “thou shalt not enslave” gave the
colonial a great deal of latitude. He took full advantage of this area
of maneuverability in erecting his repartimiento. Yet, even if the
Queen possessed full information from the very outset and if she
ordered the moderation of encomienda in 1492 instead of 1502,
the result would probably remain the same.

Encomienda postulated moderation; the colonial demanded
more labor. Since the Spaniards in America, already accustomed to
independence enough, enjoyed a moat as broad as the Atlantic, royal
desire, even the King’s command, offered little to fear. The land
exacted its toll in labor. The Indian supplied the sinews of the sys
tem. Royal orders notwithstanding, this basic fact, only partially
recognized by the Crown, presaged the failure of the moderating
elements of the new encomienda.

Nicol?s de Ovando, architect of the encomienda system, sup
plies a fine example of early good will changed after extended con
tact with the colonials. In his position as Governor of Hispaniola,
the problems of the Spaniards, naturally enough, became his pro
blems. Neither Columbus nor Bobadilla, in his short tenure, could
successfully stay the colonial march to wider exploitation. Since
sanction of consequence proved impossible, the Spaniard could take
the bit in his teeth and run. Planning a system of government on
paper offers difficulty enough; operating this system in the face
of opposition challenges the greatest. Ovando, in action, proved less
thant great.

While the Spaniards were finding this New World their oyster, the
Indians were growing more and more resentful. The newcomers would
not let the Indian women alone. The men were sent to the mines for a

stay ? which meant eight months of hard work ? and the women were
left behind. When the men returned, they found their home in ruins.

The women, rather than raise children to be slaves, killed them at birth.76

La Casas described the hunt for the Arawak fleeing encomien
da. We need only an ice floe to remind us of our own Uncle Tom.

76 Germ?n Arciniegas, op. cit., p. 53.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

Dogs tore out a caciques bowels,77 exquisite torture rendered death
a release.

Whether or not Ovando ever admitted, even to himself, that
he fell completely under colonial sway will probably never be known.
His action in Xaragua, should dispell any doubt on this point how
ever. Friction developed between the Spaniards and the Arawak in
that area. The settlers, employing the one certain device to gain of
ficial attention, informed the Governor of an impending revolt.
Ovando, accompanied by ninety horsemen and three hundred foot
soldiers, a potent striking force, marched westward toward Xaragua.

Anacaona, Queen of the province and a woman of rare beauty
according to Las Casas, summoned her fendatories to do her honor,
and quite incidentally, to protect her. On the approach of Ovando,
she went to meet him doubtless hoping to charm him as she charmed
the Adelantado, Bartolom? Columbus, years before. Ovando, made
of sterner stuff, managed to resist.

Anacaona arranged pleasures calculated to warm the Spanisr
heart. However, the settlers whispered their message of revolt into
the Governor’s ear, and he listened. Ovando drew all the feudatery
caciques to the bohio of the Queen. On his signal, his followers seized
the Indian leaders, bound them, and put the bohio to the torch.
Every Arawak ruler in Xaragua perished in the blaze. The next
day, Las Casas5 beautiful Queen felt the Spanish rope placed around
her throat. The revolt, whether real or imaginary, never materializ
ed. Afterward, the Spaniards founded a town near the site of the
village of Anacaona and called it La Villa de la Vera Paz (The vil
lage of True Peace).73

In 1504, the Good Queen died. Fortunately, her vision could
not pierce the veil of distance. She went to her rest ignorant of the
absolute failure, given her point of view, of her Indian policy. Yet,
in that last moment if her eye had fallen on Hispaniola, bitterness

would have filled her soul.

77 Ibid., p. 54.
78 Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., pp. 144-146.

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Julio-Dieiembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tine New World….

She had maintained that the Indians were to be free: she would have

seen their condition to be that of slaves. She had declared that they
were to have spiritual instruction: she would see them less instructed! than
dogs. She had insisted that they should receive payment for their labort
she would have found that all they received was a mockery of wages*
just enough to purchase once, perhaps, in the course of a year, some chil
dish triffles from Castille. She had always ordered they should receive
kind treatment and proper maintenance: she would have seen them literally
watching under the tables of their masters, to catch crumbs which fell
there. She would have beheld the Indians laboring at the mine under cruel
buffetings, his family neglected, perishing, enslaved; she would have mark
ed him on his return after eight months of dire toil, enter a place which,
knew him not, or a household that could only sorrow over the gaunt
creature who had returned to them, and mingle their sorrows with his;
or, still more sad, she would have seen Indians who had been brough from
far distant homes linger at the mines, too hopeless, or too careless, to
return.79

Yet the dregs of bitterness of the Arawak cup still remained.
Disregarding the rather short rule of Philip in Spain, the regency

of Castile passed to Ferdinand with the death of his Queen. From
beyond the grave, through the medium of her will, Isabella charged
her husband with the care of her Indian vassals. While too harsh a

judgment of Ferdinand’s actions could prove unfair, there is little
doubt that his worldly and material view seriously affected the
Arawak. Ferdinand’s own words aptly summarize his approach.

After all, our Lorcl has begun to give us such good prospects in these
mines, it is fitting that I should assist and see to it that nothing is left
undone that can reasonably be done.80

Until the King assumed the regency of Castile, Hispaniola
remained the private preserve of Isabella and Castile. To all intents
and purposes, the loyal subjects of Aragon received no benefit from
the colony. In 1511, Diego Columbus, serving as governor of His
paniola, lost his right to distribute encomiendas. Pero Ib??ez de
Ibarra and Rodrigo de Albuquerque journeyed to Hispaniola in 1514

79 Ibid., pp. 150-151.
80 C. H. Haring, op. cit., p. 46.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

with the official title repartidores de indios to redistribute the In
dians. Both fell under the strong influence of Lope de Conchillos,
Secretary to the King. The new repartidores took the encomienda
away from any settled married colonists and awarded the courtiers
in Spain.

Now, the Aragonese at court found a method whereby the
wealth of the Castilian colony ? the labor of the Arawak ? could
be tapped for their profit. These Grandees of Aragon had no inten
tion of migrating to, or even visiting, the New World. All of the
evils of absentee ownership followed. For the Arawak another Cross
Was thrust upon the bended shoulder of the Indian by the very
people who had come to teach him the meaning of the Sacrifice of
the Cross. Further, no matter how cruel the yoke of the settlers,
it could never match the depredations of absentee ownership. Ste

wards, loyal to an absent lord, had to seek newer and more effective
methods of getting more work and more productions out of the
Indian encomiendas. Further, the seizure of encomiendas from the
settlers only set up a chain reaction demanding still a greater sup
ply of Indian labor. The colonials had become far too accustomed
to Indian labor to live without it. The Crown stood powerless to
negate their demand. In the end the encomiendas taken had to be
partially (at least) replaced. The Aragonese Grandees would hear
of no surrender of their recent gains. The cry for more labor, men
to work both mine and field, increased in its intensity.

1510, in order to take full advantage of the “good prospects”
given by the Lord, the King issued a Real C?dula allowing the
capture of Indians in neighboring islands. He commanded that they
be given the boon of Christianity and that they be treated just like
the “free” Arawak of Hispaniola.81 Naturally, no one missed the

point; new labor rested on neighboring Arawak islands. Further,
if a little resistence could be stimulated and just war joined, even
the paper and formal restrictions faded. This right to seek new labor
on neighboring islands completes the circle. Under Ferdinand, the
practical requirements of Hispaniola received an emphasis desired

81 Ibid., p. 54.

,44

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tine New World…

by the earliest colonists. The solution of the lands demand for labor,
so simple if uncluttered with moral consideration, progressed even

more rapidly with royal support. The Queen could do little to halt
this progression; the King opened new islands to aid its process.

For the moment, the Spaniards had found their answer to the
question of the land and its exploitation. Whether we consider the
direct action of the Navidad settlers, the tax of Columbus, the re
partimiento of the Admiral and Bobadilla, or the encomienda of
Ovando and Diego Columbus, we return, full swing, to the same
basic system. Any discordant note in this progression emanated from
the Church or Isabella. Muted by distance, their quiet voices fell
on unhearing ears. The colonials behaved with straight line logic.
A blessed land and a primitive people indicated a master-slave rela
tionship with undeniable force. No matter the semantics, a very
real slave system grew.

Las Casas pours and ocean of ink into his description of the
cruelty of the system. Yet, this cruelty served only as a tool of
repression, a guarantee of control of the multitude by the few.
Repression with disease and hard work, decimated the Indian popu
lation. By 1530, the land of the Arawak felt the barefooted tread
of few of its natives. The System, whatever its name, when applied
to the Indian carried the seed of its own destruction. Unfortunately,
the death of encomienda depended directly upon the death of the
native. Then, since the demand for labor did not die with the
Arawak, a new labor supply, the African, rose to fill the gap death
had carved in the Indian ranks. The growth of negro slavery re

mains another story however.

Under the tropical sun, washed by the abundant rains, Spain’s
answer to her New World labor problem grew into the hideous
plant of slavery. The lush tropics boasting many a class of flora
of nightmare quality, received an old world mutation of a seed,
not completely unknown to her, and in her fertility, brought forth
a monstrous growth previously unknown to either world. A slavery,
so voracious that it consumed whole segments of a race, grew so
tall, spread its branches and leaves so wide around; that it obscured
the face of God in His Heaven.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

Yet, the Queen had insisted on the conversion and protection
of her vassals, the Church demanded that they know the Spanish
God. Men rose in Spain and in Hispaniola, not only after the fact
of slavery but before the act as well, demanding that Spain obey
both the letter and the spirit of her charge. These efforts to eradi
cate or mitigats the system supply the basis of the next chapter.

Reaction and Attempted Reform

The attempts to eradicate or retard the impressment of Indian
labor proceeded from two sources. Certainly, any action in any
direction had proced directly from the monarch wearing the
crown of Castile. The Church constituted the second source and
acted in consort with the Queen, while she lived, and prodded a
less willing Ferdinand, or even a Charles, after she had gone. For
the sake of clearer discussion, a separation of Crown and Church
action would prove helpful. However, the efforts of both, cut
from a whole cloth with Church and Crown woven into the pat
tern, defies any separation.

Furthermore, the opposition of the Church and the Rulers
did not impose a steady, direct-line pressure. The action of the
Crown, even in word, differed as rule passed from Isabella to
Ferdinand. The policy of the Church, though generally static
with regard to the Indians, varied in effect when administered by
the Borgia Alexander or the reforming Paul III. A world of dif
ference separated the administrations of these Popes. Further, the
reign of the Catholic Kings marked a resurgence of religious inde
pendence from Rome, and the Holy See could not count on the
support or aid of all of the Orders peopling the New World. The
Dominican view toward helping the Indian took “such root in
that brotherhood as almost to become one of the tenets of their
faith/’82 The Franciscans, rivals of the Dominicans, held a dia
metrically opposite view. Las Casas even hints at a hidden motiva
tion suggesting the encomiendas held by the Franciscans colored

82 Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 174.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tine New World…

their action. A serious rift between the orders, doubtless based on
old rivalry, developed and outwardly centered around Indian treat
ment in the colony.

Strangely enough, the first major effort at reform finds its
source in encomienda. Ovando received his royal preference based
on his strength of character, devoutness, and administrative ability.
His system, specifically designed not only to guarantee labor but
to protect the Arawak, attempted to reconcile two ends standing
poles apart. In practice, the system created by Ovando had to gra
vitate either toward the colonial or the Arawak view. Ovando
shared the colonial’s heritage; the choice made by the Governor
reflected his orientation. Other men, less preferred by royalty,
heard the call of reform and rushed to fill the void created by
Ovando’s default, and cried for change.

Ferdinand, who felt the economic pinch of his European ad
ventures, turned toward the colony in an attempt to replenish his
treasury. He told his lieutenants, “Get gold, .. .at all hazards, get
gold.. .’m Operating within the limits of such a royal climate of
opinion, the ever-increasing destruction of encomiendas protective
stipulations should surprise no one.

Then, in almost cyclical fashion, when the extreme of oppres
sion shocked even the callous, the cry for reform swelled. Isabella
lay dead almost seven years when the Dominican, Antonio Mon
tesinos, mounted his pulpit in Santo Domingo on Advent Sujiday,
1511, and pronounced his “terrible words.” In words both “pierc
ing and terrible” he castigated the colonials telling them that they
lived in mortal sin because of the tyranny exercised over the In
dians. On what grounds did they impose this servitude? How could
they explain the wars, the labor, the neglect? Their action gave
them as much hope for salvation as the chance enjoyed by Moor
or Turk.84

The Spaniards reacted immediately and vehemently. By what
right did this friar tell them that their treatment of the Indians

83 Ibid., pp. 170-1.
84 Ibid., pp. 176-77.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

prejudiced their immortal souls? They demanded a retraction;
Montesinos promised another sermon. The colonists might have
expected a retraction, for they filled the pews of the Church on
the following Sunday and spilled over into the aisles. Montesinos
retracted nothing; he returned to the attack and forced another
dose of his very strong medicine down unwilling Spanish throats.85
In effect, the friar threw his gauntlet not only at the feet of the
colonials but before the very seat of the throne .

The process, once started, snowballed. The Dominicans sent
Montesinos to Spain to plead his cause. The inhabitants rushed a
Franciscan to the King to counterbalance, the Dominican action.
Ferdinand, usually practical and seldom stupidly cruel,86 saw the
necessity for action. Certainly no one doubted the Indians remain
ed free men; obviously they should not be worked so hard that
conversion became problematical. Of course their bodies merited
food, covering, and shelter even a King could readily accede to
these verities. Then, after ordering the Dominicans to cease discus
sing such obvious principles, he summoned a commision of the
clergy to investigate and report to him. The end result of this
and another junta gave the Indian and the colonial the Laws of
Burgos of 1512.

The committee found, in principle, that the Indians should
be free but that encomienda remained a necessity. Again, we have
a nice contradiction in terms. Given this preamble, they postulat
ed the following legislation:

1. The ablest Indians were to be chosen as teachers and so
trained.

2. Specific rules regarding satisfactory conditions of labor,
food and instruction were offered.

3. Those Indians who were desirous of becoming Christians
and demonstrated that they could govern themselves should
be freed.

85 Roger B. Merriman, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 234.
86 Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., p. 177.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 Tne Seed of Slavery in tine New World…

4. All Indians must give nine months of service each year
to the Spaniards. One-third of all the Indians must be kept
at service in the mines at all times.

As Haring states, these laws actually sanctioned the system
devised by Ovando while attempting to check more effectively
the tendency to unlimited exploitation possible under Ovando’s
encomienda?1 With minor additions in 1513 and 1518, the Law
of Burgos became the basic code for Indian relations. It is not
surprising that the law satisfied no one. The colonial resented any
abridgement of his assumed right of Indian exploitation. The refor
mer, such as Las Casas, denounced laws regarding the type of
corral in which the Indians were to be kept and the type of fodder
they were to be fed. This code failed for two basic reasons. First,
though the statute included enabling legislation (to some degree),
it provided no real method of control or sanction. Even more im
portant is the fact that even these minor concessions trespassed
the scope of the colonials. They adamantly refused to cooperate
and the Crown could do nothing about it.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Cuba, another and by far the great
est defender of the Indian ?Fray Bartolom? de las Casas? slowly
drew near his moment of revelation. His father had sailed with
Columbus on the Admiral’s second voyage. The elder Las Casas
returned to Seville in 1498 a rich man.88 In 1502, Bartolom? de las
Casas sailed for Hispaniola with Ovando. Later, in 1510, he accepted
Holy Orders, and as a priest, joined Diego Vel?zquez in his Cuban
adventure. Las Casas admittedly witnessed many a slaughter in the
conquest and subsequently held an encomienda. Since he had taken
Holy Orders, he preached a sermon from time to time. Reflecting
on a subject, his eye fell upon Chapter 34 of Ecclesiastics, verses 18
through 22. His sermon for Pentecost Sunday, 1514, took form and
with it, the desire to turn his back upon the past and upon his
encomienda grew. “With the possible exception of Saint Paul, quick

87 C. H. Haring, op. cit., pp. 48-49.
88 Fern?ndez de Navarrete, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 40.

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Edwin A. Levin? R. H. A. N?m. 60

conversions, even of priests, remain suspect. How many hours Las
Casas mulled over his decision can never be known. Yet, he ascribes
the final grain thrown into the balance to his preparation and
the words:

He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ridicu
lous: and the gifts of the unjust man are not accepted.

The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked: neither
is he pacified for sin by a multitude of sacrifices.

Whosoever bringeth an offering of goods of the poor doeth as one that
killeth the son before his father’s eyes.

The bread of the needy is their life, he that defraudeth him thereof is
a man of blood.

He that taketh away his neighbor’s living slayeth him; and he that
defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a bloodshedder.

With this scaffolding, Las Casas prepared his sermon and his
future. As Sir Arthur Helps noted, Las Casas strangely omitted the
twenty-third and last verse of this chapter. Its content, almost
prophetic for Las Casas, failed to receive any attention. It reads,
“When one man prayeth, and another curseth, whose voice will the
Lord hear?89

Las Casas, converted to the Indian cause, realized that nothing
of moment could be accomplished in Hispaniola. Cuba offered even
less a possibility for reform. After a short stop in Hispaniola, Las

Casas proceeded to Spain accompanied by the fiery Dominican,
Antonio Montesinos. Both priests shared the view that the Law of
Burgos had failed. They arrived in Plasencia during Christmastide
of 1515 and secured an immediate audience with Ferdinand. The

King referred Las Casas to his Minister, Lope de Conchillos, and
Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos, neither a friend to the Indians.

Las Casas poured out his tale of death and destruction only
to be interreupted by the Bishop answering, “See here, you stupid
fool, what is this to me or to the King,” to which Las Casas replied,
“Is it nothing to your Lordship or to the King, that all these souls

89 Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 322-323.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

should perish.”90 The Bishop’s reply remains unrecorded. Ferdinand
never had opportunity to reply to this callous comment; Las Casas
never saw him after the first interview, for Ferdinand started his
journey into eternity from the roadside town of Madrigalejos on
January 23, 1516.

The death of the King and the succeeding regency of Cardinal
Ximenes allowed a change in Indian policy. Las Casas found an ear
ready to listen. The Cardinal turned his back upon the pompous and
prejudiced Bishop of Burgos and listened to his humble, but no less
prejudiced, New World priest. The Regent asked Las Casas to select
members of a committee to journey to the New World not only
to report conditions but to take steps to alleviate the situation. Las
Casas, long absent from Spain, pleaded ignorance of the men.
Therefore the Cardinal selected three Hieronymite friars.

The friars sailed armed with two sets of alternative orders.

Had the first group of orders been invoked, the encomienda system
faced demolition. These orders instructed the monks to take away
all Indians belonging to members of the Council of the Indies or
other absentees. A court of impeachment for all officers, “who had
lived as Moors without a King,” followed. These instructions further
stipulated a visit by the monks to every island so that the land
could be studied and villages relocated in line with Indian desires.
Administrators, married and paid by the Crown, should dwell in
each settlement. The orders also stipulated that conversion de
manded first attention, education should be opened to the Indians,
and a hospital (poorhouse) erected in each village.

Regarding the very crux of the matter, labor, no further
removal of Indian men to the mines could follow. If a man lived

in a farming area, his tax could be paid in produce. One-third of all
Indian men living near the mines and between twenty or fifty years
of age, must seek employment in the mines. This order directed a
two month work period, however. The order divided all gold

mined into three parts. One part belonged to the King, the other
two parts to the Indians from which they would pay for tools, the

90 Ibid., p. 337.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

ten to twenty mares, fifty cows and six to seven hundred pigs
allotted each village. An Indian utopia lay on the designing board.

What of the Spaniards denuded of labor and with the mine
shaft closed to them? The Indian would pay for his land with his
gold. Any married Spaniard could obtain a gold license by paying
only a tenth of the mines proceeds to the Crown while an unmarried
man would pay a seventh. Further, every man could hold up to
five slaves taken from the cannibal Caribs.91 In fact, these orders
never had a chance.

Still, the friars sailed with another set of instructions. If the
aforementioned orders seemed impractical, they should allow enco
mienda to stand but suggest amendments to the Laws of Burgos.
Las Casas claimed colonial agents influenced the monks. Possibly
so; nonetheless, their arrival caused consternation in the colony.
However, the monks moved cautiously. They did “free” Indians
who belonged to absentee owners, but they also reported to Xirne
nes that the colony would certainly perish without Indian labor*
They asked that new colonists be married and that wife, seed, and
farm implements accompany them in their migration.92 Disillusion
ed, Las Casas withdrew to Spain shortly before the death of his
supporter, Cardinal Ximenes.

In 1518, Ximenes appointed Rodrigo de Figueroa to replace
the friars. Again, a charge to free the Christianized Indians bore no
result. Ordered specifically to suppress the enconmiendas of the
Crown, of all officials, Diego Columbus, and, of all absentees, Figue
roa formed three villages of freed Indians. A fiasco ensued.93 But in
1520, Las Casas convinced Charles V that he could establish a self
supporting community on a free labor basis. He sought fifty Cas
tilians of good character (and with 250 ducats apiece to accompany
him to territory assigned him by the King. Unfortunately, the site
of the territory granted fell near what is now the city of Cuman?
in Venezuela. It had been the hunting ground of slave-catchers.

91 Ibid., p. 341.
92 C. H. Haring, op. cit., p. 50.
93 Ibid., p. 50.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

After a great deal of difficulty, the experiment began in 1521.
While Las Casas remained in Spain, the Indians fell upon the settle
ment and killed or scattered the Spaniards. Las Casas withdrew and
entered a life of seclusion in a monastery.94 The practical Oviedo
always regarded Las Casas’ experiment as sheer madness, and a great
deal of the “bad blood” between the two was probably generated
by this disagreement.95

In any case, the efforts of Las Casas stand out in clear contrast.
His voice, loud and clear, spoke for the Spanish conscience.96 His
favor at the Court of Charles V remained substantial. Navarrete

94 Ibid., pp. 50-51.
95 Las Casas, realizing that Oviedo was going into print, wrote his Historia

to give the ‘”true” view. Lewis Hanke traces the development of the Las Casas
Oviedo disagreement in his introduction to the Biblioteca Americana version of
the Historia. (See bibliography).

96 There is a movement now underway to r??valua te the contribution of
Las Casas. Even earlier, Navarr?te saw fit to scold the good bishop for supply
ing information which sided and comforted the enemies of Spain. Further, Las

Casas has been called an extremist; his factual (particularly statistical) information
has been questioned. So be it. Even if we grant all of the foregoing, we have, at
very best, a tempest in a teapot. Las Casas did go to extremes, but he faced
an extreme situation. Las Casas, doubtless, exaggerated the Spanish depredation,
but a simple recital of the all too gruesome facts did not stir sufficient action.
We must be careful if we read Las Casas for pure history. We can trust Las
Casas when we take from his work the fervor of reform.

Finally, Las Casas is criticized for his approval of Negro slavery while
seeking to liberate the Indian. This criticism is a beautiful example of a cross
cultural evaluation. Instead of realizing that Las Casas was a prisoner of his
own environment, instead of praising him for the remarkable degree to which
he escaped this environment, he is criticized because he did not escape far enough.
Las Casas was a man of the Church. Neither the Church nor the civilization

believed in the possibility of the Christianization of the Negro. Las Casas merely
followed the thought of his time. He sought to save a soul with a non-soul. This
was his drive. Then, lest we grow too sanctimonious, let us remember that the
view of the Negro as a sub-human creature was rather widely held in our own
South prior to and after the Civil War. I rather suspect that it is not unprevelant
in given areas and individuals today. If Las Casas must be judged, let him be
judged in the light of what he was, not what others pretend he should have been.

There is value enough.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

took cognizance of this influence and stated that “(Las Casas)
came to Spain twice, and taking advantage of his influence with
the ministers, returned to the Indies with favorable dispatches.”97
Royal attempts to eradicate or limit impressed Indian labor offer
a better gauge of this favor.

In 1520, in spite of the failure of past reform, Charles V made
one more attempt to eliminate the encomienda. He sent orders to
Figueroa and other authorities in the islands to speed the program
outlined earlier to them. Further, he strictly forbade the conversion
of Indians by force. He instructed his lieutenants to avoid the errors
which caused the destruction of the Indians in Hispaniola and the
other islands. Yet, again, petition after petition flooded Spain. The
colonials resisted the order.98 In the end, Charles capitulated.

The last attempt at reform to be considered in this paper began
through the effort of the Dominican friar, Bernadino de Minaya.
Through his urging, Pope Paul III enunciated his Bull of 1537
reiterating the fact that Indians were rational beings and capable
of becoming Christians. As such, they should not be “deprived of
liberty and the possession of their property even though outside
the faith of Jesus Christ. . nor should they in any case be en
slaved.”99 The Pope even invoked the sanction of excommunication.

Haring stated that this Bull angered Charles V because he construed
it as an encroachment upon the rights granted in the Patronato.
Further the pain of excommunication must have seemed severe in
the eyes of the Spanish. Even though the Pope subsequently rescinded
the provision for excommunication during the following year, this
Bull did spur the Crown into the enunciation of the so-called New
Laws of 1542-43.

These Laws incorporated:

1. A formal declaration that the natives remained free per
sons and direct vassals of the Crown of Castile.

2. Indians should not labor against their will.

97 Fern?ndez de Navarrete, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 41.
98 Cort?s, in M?xico, actually held up publication of the order.
99 C. H. Haring, op. cit., p. 55.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tihe New World…

3. The Law expressly forbade all further enslavement and
branding.

4. New grants of encomiendas were prohibited.
5. Mistreatment of Indians meant an immediate loss of the

encomienda.
6. Those with valid claims to encomienda could not transmit

or entail this claim.

7. Encomenderos, with valid claims, could exact no duty
beyond that due the Crown.

8. The encomendero must live in the province where his
encomienda existed.

9. The order forbade overtaxation of the Indian.
10. The Law established Protectors for the Indians.

11. And finally the Crown ordered special relief for the
Indians of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.100

Had this law been enforceable, encomienda would have died*
It should be obvious by now that the law must prove unenforceable,

since it still failed to come to grips with the basic problem of labor
demand and labor availability. The Crown stated that special relief
was due the Indians of Hispaniola, for the King felt that His
paniola was an example of the terrible error not to be repeated. In
a word, any further discussion of reform becomes academic as far
as the Indians of Hispaniola are concerned. Time and run out for
any effective help.

In summary, a definite pattern emerges from our discussion
of the attempts to limit encomienda. First, we can conclude that
both Crown and Church in Rome opposed the impressment of
Indian labor. This opposition was varied, but generally followed
a course against encomienda. We can also conclude that every
attempt at reform failed. If we reach a bit further back in the
paper, we can conclude that this failure was based on two factors.
Chief among these is the simple fact that the Spanish colonials
needed and wanted cheap labor. The Indian furnished the most

100 Ibid., pp. 56-57.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

ready supply. The Crown remained obviously unable or unwilling
to recognize this basic factor. A more enlightened policy governing
migration could have proved a material aid. This suggestion made
by the three Hieronymite friars sent by Ximenes to study and
report possibly seemed impractical.

Another pattern, suggested earlier in this paper, also becomes
more clear. Excessive colonial cruelty and exploitation spurred
agitation for reform: the King proclaimed reform; the colonials
resisted; the King revoked his original decree. Distance and time
served the interests of the colonials. The end effect of this failure

of early reform dictated the end of the Arawak in Hispaniola.

Fait Accompli

We should now be in a position to consider a few tentative
hypotheses regarding the evolution of impressed Indian labor in
Hispaniola. In order to re-set the frame of reference, we must note
that the movement in Hispaniola covered a relatively short span of
time. Peschel estimated that not more than 300,000, and not less
than 200,000 Arawaks inhabited Hispaniola in 1492. Although we
have questioned this estimate previosly, of more interest and of
probably far greater accuracy is the fact that F’eschel estimates that
only 60,000 Arawaks remained in Hispaniola in the year 1508; only
46,000 in 1510; only 20,000 in 1512; and only 14,000 in 1514. By
1548, it is doubtful that 500 pure blooded Arawaks remained in

Hispaniola.101 While there may be reason to question PescheFs
estimates on the larger scale, the task of counting becomes more
and more simple as the quantities decrease. We can conclude that,
while the Arawak constituted a numerous people in 1492, their
decimation proceeded rapidly, and, by 1512, their number fell so
sharply that they ceased being a key factor. Certainly, by 1548 their
identity had all but been erased.102 Indeed, this process moved
rapidly.

W Johk Collier, op. cit., p. 94.
1)02 The world had to await the 20th Century and.the German gas chambers

:56

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

The land was first. It did offer some opportunity for mineral
wealth, and it did offer, above and beyond all else, a broad vista
of agricultural possibility. Moreover, the configuration of the land,
the broad, long uninterrupted valleys, offered an opportunity for
large scale, for latifundio type agriculture.103 Climate blessed this
land with and everlasting growing season. The land had only to
await the introduction of a plantation type crop to cement the
individual bricks and finally erect the edifice of the plantation
system. Sugar became the crop.

The Spanish colonial recognized both possibilities from the very
beginning of his discovery. Moreover, he realized quite early that
the wealth of this land would not fall into his lap as a ripe apple
falls from the tree. If the Spaniard hoped to secure the land’s
wealth, it would have to be won through labor. Nonetheless, the
Spaniard could not visualize or equate labor and self.104 Further, if

to find a process of equal efficiency. The irony of the situation lies in the fact
that the Spaniards decimated the Arawak quite unwittingly. The Anglo-Saxon
colonization in North America, unfettered by the religious scruple of the Latin,

could not match this speed and efficiency in eliminating red-skinned competition.
1K3B in Costa Rica, a land marked by mountains and narrow, short valleys,

the latifundia system of agriculture never became firmly established. To the
contrary, relatively small farms, reminiscent of our own New England, were
general. It is also interesting to note that slavery did not become a factor in
Costa Rican development. The contrast in the development of Costa Rica and
Hispaniola suggests a line of study that I intend to pursue further in the future.
Furthermore, a plantation system and slavery developed in the southern United
States and in given French and British colonies of Latin America. It would be
extremely interesting to trace the varied development of each of these systems.
I suspect that they had very little in common save two important characteristics

?geography and greed. It is my intention to incorporate this study of Costa
Rica and Hispaniola in an overall study attempting to determine those factors
common to all slave systems in the New World which, by extension, are crucial
to the development of the slave systems.

km professor Lee Deets of Hunter College, in an excellent course centered
about the social growth of Latin America, gives due emphasis to the Spaniard’s
exaggerated aversion to manual work. The roots can be traced deep into the
soil of Spain’s history. The Admiral shared: this view constantly complaining that
the colonials would not work. See Sir Arthur Helps, op. cit., p. 107.

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

he needed an excuse, the rigors of an enervating climate could
furnish the plea.

The peninsular Spaniard recognized the economic possibilities
of the land quickly: they were a land-minded people and knew
good land when they saw it. Many an emotion propelled them
toward the New World. Wealth formed a part of the hope and
desire of every colonial. This drive lived paramount in most, sub
ordinate in others, present in the preponderant majority. If we now
combine the two elements of the difficulty of exploitation and the
desire to tear the wealth out of this land, we begin to realize why
the Spaniard cast about for a ready source of labor.

The Arawak became the victim of Spanish desire. His very
nature, his myths, all made the Spaniard’s task all the more facile.
The Arawak originally thought that a group of gods had come to
dwell in their midst. By the time they discovered the nature of these
gods, it was too late. Actually, though the Arawak could not know
it, the moment the colonial set foot on Hispaniola, the sand in the
Indian hour glass had about run out. The peaceful, naive, pastoral
Taino could not have contained the Spanish thrust. Had they
resisted, they would have become technical slaves.105 They did not
resist, so they felt the yoke of practical slavery. Forces far beyond
the ken of the Arawak had conspired to reduce him to the most
abject of human estates. The land, which had always been so benif ic
ent, now became the domain of the Spaniard and the prison house
of the Arawak. The land had not changed; it remained constant.
A new man had arrived, however, and with him he carried new
ideas, new desires which dictated a change in the use of the land.
The Arawak stood auxiliary to this land, and became a tool of the
Spaniard in the exploitation of this land. The Arawak, in a short
time, became a virtual, if not technical, slave.

We cannot even flatter the Spaniard by assuming that he used
the land or the labor well. The adventurer did not come to the

New World to become a farmer ?no, not even a large scale farmer.
He wanted to feel the precious yellow metal in his hands; he wanted

105 Note the Carib’s experience.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

to realize the promise of good, solid, mineral plenty. The Crown
welcomed, even actively sought, its share. The Spaniard relocated
Indian villages. Indian labor worked in the mines. In fact, the
colonial literally poured Indian labor into the mines in a manner
disproportionate to the wealth taken from the mines.106 The land
could not satisfy this specific disease of the Spanish for which gold
alone could provide the only specific cure. He had to await the
adventure of Cort?s on the mainland before this hunger could be
even partially satisfied.

Agriculture, the real wealth of Hispaniola, came as an after
thought. Though the Admiral proportioned seed to the earliest
colonials at Navidad, and while each new voyage carried new plants*
to Hispaniola, the Spaniards directed their early search for wealth
toward the mines. Survival alone did demand agriculture which, in

106 C. S. Haring, op. cit., pp. 267-73. There is reason to doubt that the
Spanish Crown actually profited from the gold taken from the New World. Local
government costs were high. Below, please find a chart taken from Haring, p.
268, showing the gold imported into Spain during given ten year periods. The
unit is Pesos de Minas (450 maravedis per peso). The fall of gold imports in
1521-30 more or less coincides with the period in which the Arawak all but
disappears. The surge after 1530 has almost nothing to do with Hispaniola since
more attractive sources on the mainland have been tapped:

1503-1510 143.466.30
1511-1520 218.875.00
1521-1530 117.260.60
1531-1540 558.812.50
1541-1550 1.046.217.60
1551-1560 1.786.453.00
1561-1570 2.534.875.10
1571-1580 2.915.855.00
1581-1590 5.320.724.30
1591-1600 6.961.336.30
1601-1610 5.580.853.50
1611-1620 5.464.058.10
1621-1630 5.196.520.50
1631-1640 3.342.545.60
1641-1650 2.553.435.00
1651-1660 1.615.488.30

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

turn, exacted its toll in Indian labor. From the beginning, the
Spaniard expected the Arawak to tend his fields and flocks and
to build his shelter. The introduction of a plantation crop, such as
sugar, convinced the colonial that the real wealth of Hispaniola
laid in its fertility and not its limited supply of precious metal. The
introduction of this plantation crop added another facet to Indian
labor. The Spaniard used Indian labor to this end. Sugar demands
quick cutting and harvest and during this season, large labor gangs
of cutters must bend to their labor. Allocated groups of Indians
could cut the cane in season and work the mines when their

plantation labor was done. Again, Nature and man had conspired
to tighten the chain of bondage.

The attempts to mitigate the servitude of the Arawak all
iailed. These efforts failed for many reasons. The fact that the
reformers, while bewailing the existing situation, offered nothing
of a practical nature in its place. Second, the policy of the Crown,
even on paper, varied considerably. Ferdinand’s needs made him
only too happy to dip into his supposed tropical treasure to help
finance his European expansions. Charles V, given the benefit of
the doubt, might have really wished to end encomienda. Yet, at best,
an absentee King of Spain exerted little real pressure on her colonies.
Constantly in the business and wars of the Holy Roman Empire,
he, too, needed funds to finance his European endeavors. Then,
even when reform reached the formal state of an order, the colonial

had the advantage of distance. According to the Spanish formula,
he could obey; he need not execute.

The upper hierarchy of the Church did maintain a constant

policy. However, in the face of the colonial opposition, often sup
ported by the Spanish Crown, the net effect of this policy proved
negligible. The real sanction of excommunication, even when ten
tatively attempted, was quickly withdrawn.107 On a lower level, the

lo? The Spaniards first took their Catholicism from the Visigoths. As such,
the first Christian experience in Spain came through conversion to the Arian
form of Christianity. When the Spaniards finally embraced Orthodox Christian

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

Church itself split into factions. The Franciscans held encomiendas
and generally supported the colonials. The Dominicans eschewed
the holding of slaves and agitated against both the Franciscans and
the colonials. Only one man offered a concrete and workable solu
tion. Given the complex nature of the problem, Las Casas’ call for
the importation of Negro slaves not only suggested a solution but
accurately predicted a course of action which proved prophetic
after the immediate Indian supply of labor disappeared.

We have examined in detail a number of factors upon which
Indian slavery was predicated. It must be fairly obvious by now that
if we rank these factors in order of importance, the courses of
action directed by the land must stand first. Immediately behind
follows the human factor, the use of the land. Since profit supplied
the motive, avarice or greed takes its place immediately behind the
primary factor of geography. All else flows either directly or
inderectly from these cardinal factors. In the end the combination,
of these factors produced Indian slavery and death.

Yet, the enslavement and final decimation of the Arawak of
Hispaniola is neither the beginning nor the end of our story. The
processes dictating this system start well before the discovery. The
tentative answer of the Spaniard to his labor problem in the New

World finally vaulted into the sister institution of Negro slavery.
The Spaniard enslaved the Indian to answer his very specific labor
problem. This need for a work force increased with each new
tropical or agricultural colony. The Indian, the moved, instead of
the mover, fell before the demand created by his environment
and the new Spanish lords of the land. In the fields and mines of
Hispaniola, the New World met the Old and a peculiar system of
impressed labor, previously unknown to both, developed. In effect,
this tropical island served as a bridge between Old World Institu
tions and New World bondage.

By Edwin A. Levine

ity, an air of independence remained. I rather suspect, that much of the “holier
than the Pope” attitude of Spain can be traced directly to the Visigoths and
Arianism. This does demand much more detailed study, however.

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Bdwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

BIBLIOGRAPHYCAL ESSAY

Bibliographies and Guides:

A Guide to the Official Publications of Other American Republics published
by the Library of Congress (Washington, 1945-48) in conjunction with Robert
(i.e.Robin) Arthur Humphreys’ Latin America: A Selective Guide to Publications
in English (New York, 1949) furnished the basis of bibliography. Further, the
Pan American Union supplied a concise bibliography of both Spanish and English
works which served as the initial point of departure for the research of this paper.

Printed Sources:

Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and
Discoveries of the English Nation (12 vols., Glasgow, 1904) supplies material
of co-lateral or background nature. Based on the reports of English seamen,
officials, and adventurers, the author presented the English view of life in the
Spanish colonies. This view can be gleaned from selective reading in Volumes 7
and 8. The treatment of Las Casas is of particular interest, and the English
view follows the interpretation of the Bishop rather closely. While Hakluyt is not
quoted in the body of this paper due to the fact that more immediate source
material existed, his work still furnishes important material for any general or
specific study of this period.

Historia General y Natural de las Indias by Gonzalo Fern?ndez de Oviedo
(14 vols., Asunci?n, Paraguay, 1944) furnishes one of the crucial sources cover
ing early Spanish colonialism. While not as erudite as Las Casas, Oviedo’s constant
labor and observation has given a detailed description of colonial life. Every
flower, tree, animal or man received the same careful consideration. Nonetheless,

Oviedo, a nobleman, represented the classical Spanish view toward colonialism. As
such, his work supports the Spanish view. His work must be read in contrast
to the History of Las Casas.

Bishop Bartolom? de las Casas’ Historia de las Indias (3 vols., M?xico, D. F.,
1951) represents the life work of a man dedicated to the Indian’s cause. This
is the key work in any study of Indian servitude in the New World. This edition
includes an introduction by Lewis Hanke (84 pages) of particular value for
the better understanding of not only the period in question but of Las Casas
as well.

The Historia de Santo Domingo (3 vols., Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic) of Antonio del Monte y Tejada, first published in 1853, is an invaluable
work. Drawn from documents, as well as the log book of Columbus, this history

61
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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in tine New World…

supplies a detailed record of early colonial life in Hispaniola. The first volume,
as well as the first section of the second volume, proved of particular value.

Any study of this period would suffer if it excluded the Colecci?n de
los viajes y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los espa?oles desde fines del
siglo XV (2 vols., Madrid, 1955) by Martin Fern?ndez de Navarrete. This
nineteenth century work, based on documents, diaries, logs, and contemporary
accounts summarizes the colonial period better than any other single work.

Since Benjamin Keen has traslated The Life of the Admiral Christopher
Columbus (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1959) originally written by his son,
Ferdinand, another important source is available. Because of its content, Fer
dinand published his work in Italy rather than Spain. The struggle for the
repair of the fortune of his family colors this work to some extent. Nonetheless,
its value remains great.

Secondary Sources:

Since this paper has attempted to trace causes, Spanish history demanded
consideration. Charles E. Chapman’s adaptation of Rafael Altamira’s A History
of Spain (New York, 1953) supplies a basis for this study. The more exact and
detailed information of the reign of the Catholic Kings has been drawn from

William H. Prescott’s The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the
Catholics (New York, 1900), a thoroughly comprehensive treatment of the
monarchs.

Edward Gaylord Bourne in his Spain in America (1450-1580) (New York,
1904) examined the policies and actions of the nascent colonialism of Spain.

Chapters XIV through XVIII are of particular value to this paper. The Rise
of the Spanish Empire in the Old World and in the Neu/ by Roger Merriman
(4 vols. New York, 1918) follows a parallel path. Volume II, tracing the events
leading to the discovery and finally, of the discovery itself, has been usd exten
sively in this paper. The more generalized approach of Germ?n Arciniegas through
his Caribbean, Sea of the New World (New York, 1946) offers an excellent and
colorful introduction to the history of this area. However, the scholarly and
precise work of C. H. Haring in his The Spanish Empire in America (New York,
1947) affords the best and most detailed study of Spain’s New World institutions
employed in the writing of this thesis.

While works on Columbus are numerous, all are not of equal portent.
Probably the best of the English biographies, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (Boston,
1942) by Samuel Eliot Morison, affords a clear understanding of the complex

Admiral. Salvador de Madariaga’s extensive and intensive treatment of the charac
ter of the Discoveror in his Christopher Columbus ? Being the Ufe of the Very

Magnificent Don Crist?bal Col?n (New York, 1940) leans heavily on the source

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

material of some of the Admiral’s contemporaries such as, Oviedo, Pulgar, and
Las Casas. Unfortunately, Madariaga does devote a great deal of space and effort

in an attempt to establish the true nationality of the Admiral. Finally, Charles
Duff’s excellent tratise, the The Truth about Columbus, (London, 1957) provides
a lucid, deductive treatment of the “mysteries” supposedly surrounding the
Discoveror. A good chronology as well as an abstract of writings and documents
relating to the discovery add to the overall value of this book.

The study of the Arawak presented its own specific problems. This people,
gone forever from their island, have left no written record. Under the circum

stances, the basically anthropological study of Julian H. Steward and Louis
Faron, Native Peoples of South America (New York, 1959) was used to recon
struct the past of the Indians. Since both Steward and Faron are recognized
experts within their field, and because so little material of this nature exists,

their work is of the greatest importance.

Another approach to the Arawak can be found in Sir Arthur Helps’ The
Spanish Conquest in America (3 vols., London and New York, 1900). Helps
drew heavily upon source material and depended, to a great extent, on the Historia

of Las Casas. Volume I, dealing with the growth of New World slavery, is of
extreme importance to this study. John Collier, writing much later than Sir Arthur

Helps, followed the same basic pattern in his The Indians of the Americas (New
York, 1947). Collier’s treatment of Las Casas in chapter six is interesting, but
in his sympathy for the bishop, the author does seem to claim too much. Further,
Collier assigned a major portion of the responsibility for New World slavery to
Isabella. In levying this charge, the author disagrees strongly with accepted source
and secondary authority such as Las Casas, Oviedo, Navarrete, Helps, and
Prescott. On the other hand, in the course of this study, no authority supporting
Collier’s position has been encountered.

Statistical Reports and Geographical Works:

The Anuario Estad?stico de la Rep?blica Dominicana, 1954 (Santo Domin
go, Dominican Republic, 1957) furnished, the basis for much of the statistical
and a large part of the specific geographical information included in this report.

Published by the Dominican government, it does afford a source of the most
accurate and detailed information available. In conjunction with this work, the
standard geographical texts, World Political Geography (New York, 1957) by
G. Etzel Pearcy and Associates, and College Geography (New York, 1958) by
C. Langdon White and George T. Renner were also used. Both books cover the
area in sufficient detail so that a clear idea of the Geography of Hispaniola
evolves.

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

APPENDIX 1

Ballester’s Report to Col?n on the Bonao Meeting with Roldan, Bonao, Oc
tober 16, 1498. Las Casas states that this is a true copy of the original which
Las Casas had in his physical possession. Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, chapter CLIII,
pp. 78-79.

“Ilustre y muy magnifico se?or: Ayer lunes, a mediod?a, llegamos ac? en el
Bonao, y luego a la hora Carvajal habl? largamente a toda este gente, y su habla
fu? tan allegada al servicio de Dios y de Sus Altezas y de vuestra se?or?a, que
Salom?n ni doctor ninguno no hallara enmienda ninguna, y como quiera que la
mayor parte desta gente hayan m?s gana de guerra que de paz, a los tales no les
parece bien; mas los que no quer?an errar a vuestra se?oria, sino servirle, les
pareci? que era razonable y justa cosa todo lo que Carvajal dec?a, los cuales eran
Francisco Roldan y G?mez y Escobar y dos o tres otros, los cuales justamente
acordaron que fuese el alcaide y G?mez a besar las manos a vuestra se?or?a y a co
certar cosa justa y posible, por excusar y matar el fuego que se va encendiendo m?s
de lo encendido; y acordado esto, que ya quer?amos cabalgar, y yo con ellos,
porque a todos les pareci? que yo deb?a volver con Carvajal y ellos, y en aquel
instante vinieron todos a requerir a Francisco Roldan y a G?mez, que hab?an acor
dado que no fuesen, sino que por escrito llevase Carvajal lo que ped?an; y que si
en aquello vuestra se?or?a viniese, que aquello se hiciese y otra cosa no. Y yo,
se?or, por lo que debe criado a su se?or?a, suplico a vuestra se?or?a concierte con
ellos en todo caso, especialmente para que se vayan a Castilla, como ellos piden,
porque otramente creo cierto que no se har?an los hechos de vuestra se?or?a como
era de raz?n y querr?a, porque me parece que lo que dicen es verdad, que se han
de pasar los m?s ellos; y as? me parece que se va mostrando por la obra, que
despu?s que yo pas? para ir a vuestra se?or?a se les han venido unos ocho, y
dici?ndoles que por qu? no se acercan all?, que ellos saben que se pasar?n m?s
de 30; y esto les ha dicho Garc?a, aserrador, y otro valenciano que se han pasado
con ellos. Y yo, cierto, creo que despu?s de los hidalgos y hombres de pro que
vuestra se?or?a tiene junto con sus criados, que aquellos que los terna vuestra
se?or?a muy ciertos para morir en su servicio, y la otra gente de com?n yo porn?a

mucha duda. Y a esta causa, se?or, conviene al estado de vuestra se?or?a, concierte
su ida de una manera u otra, pues ellos lo piden, y quien otra cosa a vuestra
se?or?a consejare no querr? su servicio o vivir? enga?ado; y si en algo de lo dicho
he errado, ser? por dolerme del estado de vuestra se?or?a vi?ndolo en tan gran
peligro, no haciendo iguala con esta gente; y quedo rogando a Nuestro Se?or d?
eso y saber a vuestra se?or?a, que las cosas se hagan a su sancto servicio y con
acrecentamiento y dura del estado de vuestra se?or?a. Fecha en el Bonao, hoy
martes, a 16 de octubre.?Miguel Ballester.”

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Edwin A. Levine R. H. A. N?m. 60

APPENDIX 2

Letter from Francisco Roldan, Adri?n de M?xica, Pedro de G?mez, and Diego
de Escobar to Col?n, written from Bonao, October 17, 1948, Las Casas states
that this is a true copy of the original which Las Casas had in his physical pos
session. Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, chapter CLI, p. 75.

“Ilustre y muy magn?fico se?or: Vuestra se?or?a sabr? que por las cosas
pasadas entre el Adelantado e m?, Francisco Roldan, e Pedro de G?mez e Adri?n
de M?xica e Diego de Escobar, criados de vuestra se?or?a, e otros muchos que
en esta compa??a est?n fu? necesario de nos apartar de la ira del Adelantado, e
seg?n los agravios hab?amos rescibido, la gente que ac? est? propon?a de ir contra
?l para le destruir; e mirando el servicio de vuestra se?or?a, los dichos Pedro de
G?mez e Adri?n de M?xica e Diego de Escobar e Francisco Roldan hemos traba
jado de sostener en concordia y en amor toda la gente que en esta compa??a est?,
poni?ndoles muchas razones e diciendo cu?nto cumpl?a al servicio del rey e de la
reina, nuestros se?ores, no se entendiese en cosa ninguna, hasta que vuestra
se?or?a viniese, porque entend?amos, que venido que fuese, mirar?a la raz?n que
ellos e nosotros ten?amos de nos apartar; e con muchas razones que aqu? no se
dicen, hemos estado a una parte de la isla esperando su venida, e agora ha ya
m?s de un mes que vuestra se?or?a est? en la tierra y no nos ha escrito, mand?n
donos qu? es lo que hubi?semos de hacer; por lo cual creemos est? muy enojado
de nosotros, e por muchas razones que se nos han dicho que vuestra se?or?a dice de
nosotros, dese?ndonos maltratar e castigar, no mirando cu?nto le hemos servido
en evitar alg?n da?o que pudiera hallar hecho. E pues que as? es, hemos acor
dado, por remedio de nuestras honras e vidas, de no nos consentir maltratar, lo
cual no podemos hacer limpiamente si fu?semos suyos; por ende, suplicamos a
vuestra se?or?a nos mande dar licencia, que de hoy en adelante no nos tenga
por suyos, e as? nos despedimos de la vivienda que con vuestra se?or?a ten?amos
asentada, aunque se nos hace muy grave, pero esnos forzado por cumplir con
nuestras honras. Nuestro Se?or guarde y prospere el estado de vuestra se?or?a
como por ?l es deseado. Del Bonao, hoy mi?rcoles, 17 d?as del mes de octubre
de 98 a?os.?Francisco Roldan?Y por Adri?n de M?xica, Francisco Roldan.?
Pedro de G?mez.?Diego de Escobar.”

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Julio-Diciembre de 1965 The Seed of Slavery in the New World…

APPENDIX 3

Letter from Col?n and Ballester to Roldan et al, City of Santo Domingo,
October 20, 1498, Las Casas certifies that this a true copy of material in his
physical possession. The tone of the letter indicates that it answers more than
the first Roldan letter. If true, Las Casas never and the second Roldan letter.
Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, chapter CLII, p. 77.

“Caro amigo: Recib? vuestra carta luego que all? llegue. Despu?s de haber
preguntado por el se?or Adelantado y D. Diego, pregunt? por vos como por aquel
en quien ten?a yo harta confianza e dej? con tanta certeza de haber bien de
temperar y asentar todas cosas que menester fuesen, y no me supieron dar nuevas
de vos, salvo que todos a una voz me dijeron que de algunas diferencias que ac?
hab?an pasado que por ello dese?bades mi venida, como la salvaci?n del ?nima; y
yo ciertamente as? lo cre?, porque aun lo viera con el ojo y no creyera que vos
hab?ades de trabajar hasta perder la vida, salvo en cosa que a mi cumpliese; y a
esta causa fabl? largo con el alcalde, con mucha certeza que, seg?n las palabras
que yo le hab?a dicho y os dijo, que luego vern?ades ac?. Allende la cual venidla,
cre? antes desto que aunque ac? se hobiesen pasado cosas m?s graves de las que
?stas pueden ser, que aun bien no llegar?a, cuando seriados conmigo a me dar
cuenta con placer de las cosas de vuestro cargo, as? como lo hicieron todos los
otros a quien cargo dej?, y como es de costumbre y honra dellos; veramente, si en

ello hab?a impedimentos por palabras que se far?an por escrito y que no era menes

ter seguro ni carta: y que fuera as?, yo dije, luego que aqu? llegu?, que yo asegu
raba a todos que cada uno pudiese venir a m? y decir lo que les plac?a y de nuevo
lo torno a decir y los aseguro. Y cuanto a lo otro que dec?s de la ida de Castilla,
yo av?a causa y de las personas que est?n con vos, creyendo que algunos se
querr?an ir, he detenido los navios diez y ocho d?as m?s de la demora y detuviera
m?s, salvo que los indios que llevan les daban gran costa y se les mor?an; par?ceme
que no es deber creer de ligero y mirar a vuestras honras m?s de lo que me
dicen que fac?is, porque no hay nadie a quien m?s toque, y no dar causa que
las personas que os quieren mal ac? o en vuestra tierra hayan en qu? decir, y
evitar que el rey o la reina, nuestros se?ores, no hayan enojo de cosas en que
esperaban placer. Por cierto, cuando me preguntaron por las personas de ac?, en
quien pudiese tener el se?or Adelantado consejo y confianza, yo os nombr?
primero que a otro, y les puse vuestro servicio tan alto, que agora estoy con
pena que con estos navios hayan de oir lo contrario; agora ved qu? es lo que se
puede o convenga al caso, y avisadme dello pues los navios partieron. Nuestro
Se?or os haya en su guarda. De Sancto Domingo, a 20 de octubre.”

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Edwin A. Levine R, H. A. N?m. 60

APPENDIX 4

Colon’s second letter to Roldan, city of Santo Domingo, October 26, 1498.
Las Casas states that this is a true copy of the original which Las Casas had in his
physical possession, Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, chapter CLIII, pp. 80-81.

“Yo, D. Crist?bal Col?n, Almirante del Mar Oc?ano, visorrey y gobernador
perpetuo de las islas y tierra firme de las Indias por el rey e la reina nuestros
se?ores e su capit?n general de la mar y del su Consejo. Por cuanto entre el Ade
lantado, mi hermano, y el alcalde Francisco Roldan y su compa??a ha habido
ciertas diferencias en mi ausencia, estando yo en Castilla, e para dar medio en
ello de manera que Sus Altezas sean servidos, es necesario que el dicho alcalde
venga ante m? e me faga relaci?n de todas las cosas seg?n que han pasado, caso
que yo de algo dello est? informado por el dicho Adelantado. E porque dicho
alcalde se recela por ser el dicho Adelantado, como es, mi hermano, por la presente
doy seguro en nombre de Sus Altezas al dicho alcalde y a los que con el vinieren
aqu? a Sancto Domingo, donde yo estoy por venida y estada y vuelta al Bonao,
donde ?l agora est?, que no ser? enojado ni molestado por cosa alguna ni de los
que con el vinieren durante el dicho tiempo; lo cual prometo y doy mi fe y
palabra como caballero, seg?n uso de Espa?a, de le cumplir y guardar este dicho
seguro, como dicho es; en firmeza de la cual firm? esta escritura de mi nombre
Fecha en Sancto Domingo, a 26 d?as del mes de octubre. El Almirante”.

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Contents

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Issue Table of Contents

Revista de Historia de América, No. 60 (Jul. – Dec., 1965), pp. 1-332
Front Matter
The Seed of Slavery in the New World: An Examination of the Factors Leading to the Impressment of Indian Labor in Hispaniola [pp. 1-68]
A Abolição da Escravidão no Brasil [pp. 69-90]
Church-State Financial Negotiations in Mexico during the American War, 1846-1847 [pp. 91-123]
Un gran editor del siglo XVIII, El Capitan don Diego de la Barrera y Navarro [pp. 125-159]
La sexta reunion de consulta de la comision de historia: La Antigua, Guatemala. 25 de junio-6 de julio de 1965 [pp. 161-215]
Noticias
[El IV Congreso Nacional de Historia del Perú] [pp. 217-219]
Reseñas de Libros
Review: untitled [pp. 221-222]
Review: untitled [pp. 222-223]
Review: untitled [pp. 223-224]
Review: untitled [pp. 224-227]
Review: untitled [pp. 227-233]
Review: untitled [pp. 233-234]
Review: untitled [pp. 234-235]
Review: untitled [pp. 236-239]
Review: untitled [pp. 240-241]
Review: untitled [pp. 241-242]
Review: untitled [p. 243-243]
Review: untitled [pp. 244-246]
Review: untitled [pp. 246-248]
Review: untitled [pp. 248-249]
Review: untitled [pp. 249-251]
Review: untitled [pp. 251-253]
Review: untitled [pp. 254-255]
Review: untitled [pp. 255-257]
Review: untitled [pp. 257-258]
Review: untitled [pp. 258-259]
Review: untitled [pp. 259-260]
Review: untitled [pp. 261-262]
Review: untitled [pp. 263-265]
Review: untitled [pp. 265-267]
Review: untitled [pp. 268-269]
Bibliografía de Historia de América (1963-1965) [pp. 271-329, 331-332]
Back Matter

Bartolomé De Las Casas: Prophet of the New World
Author(s): Paul S. Vickery
Source: Mediterranean Studies, Vol. 9 (2000), pp. 89-102
Published by: Penn State University Press
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Bartolomé De Las Casas:
Prophet of the New World

PaulS. Vickery

Sometime after 1527 a weary Dominican priest wrote, “What really moved
me to write this book was the great and desperate need of all Spain to have truth
and enlightenment on all things concerning the world of the Indian.” Because of
the lack of this knowledge, he continued, “what damage, calamities, disruptions,
decimations of kingdoms, how many souls lost, how many unforgivable sins
committed, how much blindness and deadness of conscience.” Furthermore, as a
result of these failings, he prophesied, “what harms and evils have occurred and
still each day happen to the kingdoms of Castile. I am very sure we will never
know, nor be even able to estimate, until that great and final day of terrible
judgment and divine justice….” Thus wrote Bartolomé de las Casas in his
Prologue to his multi-volume work Historia de las Indias. x

Las Casas was one of the most influential men of sixteenth-century Spain.
He also provoked much controversy. During the course of his life and in the
centuries that followed, Las Casas has been awarded many titles and called by
many names. Among these are “reformer at the court of Spain, unsuccessful
colonizer in Venezuela, friar in Hispaniola, obstructor of wars he considered
unjust in Nicaragua, fighter on behalf of justice for the Indians, promoter of the
plan to conquer the Indian by peaceful means alone, successful agitator at the
court of Emperor Charles V on behalf of the New Laws, and Bishop of Chiapa.”2
Others believe him to be creator of the Black Legend,3 and even the very
conscience of Catholic Spain.4 Simón Bolívar called him “that friend of
humanity.” Others have viewed him as the “father of America,” the unwitting

‘Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, 3 vols., Augustin Millares Campo, éd. (Mexico,
1951), 1: 13. Las Casas entered the Dominican Order in 1522 at the age of thirty-eight.
2 Lewis Hanke, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Historian (Gainesville, 1952), 2.

3Juan Comas, “Historical Reality and the Detractors,” in Juan Friede and Benjamin Keen, eds.,
Bartolomé de Las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work (DeKalb,
1971), 488.
4Lesley Byrd Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain (Los Angeles, 1950), xi. Simpson quotes the
Congreso de Americanistas that met in Seville in 1935 and voted Las Casas “the authentic
representative of the Spanish conscience.” Simpson concludes that Las Casas had very little impact
on changing the royal policies of the forced labor system.

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90 Paul S. Vickery

progenitor of today’s Liberation Theology, and a court gadfly.5 A strong critic
of Las Casas diagnosed him “a hopeless paranoie.”6 To this long list of
appellations, I would like to add the title of “Prophet of the New World.”

By Las Casas’ s own account, since that Pentecost Day, 4 June 1514, when
the “darkness left his eyes,” he dedicated himself to seeking not only the
temporal physical preservation of the Native Americans, but also the eternal
spiritual salvation of their souls. At the same time, he challenged the continued
physical prosperity of the Spanish nation, as well as the preservation of the
eternal souls of those involved in the exploitation and destruction of the Indians.
In short, he prophesied both physical and spiritual destruction of all who did not
heed his words. He did so unreservedly, dedicating himself, both physically and
spiritually, to the preaching of that message for half a century, “without fears of
adversaries, censures, intrigues, and calumnies.”7 His direct, unwavering single-
mindedness is reminiscent of those biblical prophets who challenged ancient
Israel and the Christian Church to “make straight the way of the Lord,” or to
accept the consequences.
By examining certain Las-Casian texts, it becomes obvious that Las Casas

had a definite sense of his own calling and considered himself a prophet in the
biblical mode. Using both Scripture and writings of the Church Fathers, filtering
these through his own experiences, and refining them by his Dominican
theological training, Las Casas developed a prophetic theme that he repeated and
refined over the years. Through the example of his life, and woven into the
fabric of his work, is the consistent message that both the leadership of Spain
and those under its authority would come under the judgment of God if that
nation did not repent of its policies, change its actions, and make restitution for
past atrocities. This is the classic message of the prophet. It is also the pattern
for the life of Las Casas.8

By appealing to Scripture, the traditional evangelical mission of the Church,
as well as legal precedent, all of which he interpreted through his own New
World experiences, Las Casas forced the monarchy to confront its practices and
the laws that were leading to the decimation of its subjects – people for whom he

5 Anthony Pagden, “Introduction” to Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of
the Indies, translated by Nigel Griffin (New York, 1992), xiii.
6Ramón Menéndez-Pidal, El Padre Las Casas: Su doble personalidad (Madrid, 1963), xiv. Here,
one of Las Casas’s most vitriolic critics writes that Las Casas “was not a saint, nor an impostor, nor
was he evil nor crazy, he was simply paranoid.”
7Venancio Carro, “The Spanish Theological- Juridical Renaissance and the Ideology of Bartolomé de
Las Casas,” in Friede and Keen, eds. Las Casas in History, 264. Las Casas recorded his awakening
experience in Historia, 2: 92-3.
8For a general overview of prophets and prophesy, consult Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (New
York, 1962), and William A. Van Gemeren, Interpreting the Prophetic Word: An Introduction to the
Prophetic Literature of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, 1990).

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Bartolomé De Las Casas : Prophet of the New World 9 1

believed Christ had died. He prophetically warned the Crown of the impending
judgment of God should calls for change go unheeded, and that nation not alter
its colonial policies. Since the day of his own “conversion” or “awakening” and
concurrent change of heart and mind, when he recognized and repented of the
injustices of his own life and actions – which he considered representative of the
those of his native land – his thoughts, words and deeds were on behalf of his
beloved Indians.9

Las Casas fits the definition of the term “prophet” from both a secular and
theological perspective. The Greek word prophètes literally means “one who
proclaims or speaks for another.”10 In classical Greek, this word meant a person
who interpreted the will of the gods to the general populace, one whom
individuals consulted about the specific intent of the gods in a given situation.
Their methods could involve listening to oracles, divining dreams, or making
sense out of chicken entrails. Prophets were able to state or present issues in a
clear way. They had the ability to articulate and clarify concerns of the day in
such a way that all could comprehend them. They not only defined the problem
but also gave specific solutions to the problem. The hearer then had the
prerogative of heeding the message or rejecting the prophet.11

The gift of prophecy in the New Testament is one way in which the Church
is built up or strengthened (Ephesians 5). This office has been present since the
inception of the Christian Church. The title also carried the connotation of one
who spoke on behalf of God and thereby interpreted the Word of God to a
specific people at a given time in history. In other words, the prophet made the
ancient Scripture relevant and understandable to those listening to it. During the
first centuries of the Christian Church, false and true prophets were judged by
the Church according to the consistency of their message with Scripture.
Prophets have held a respected office in the Church since the time of the Chief
Prophet – Christ Himself.12

9Some scholars, such as Manuel Giménez Fernández, Bartolomé de Las Casas: Delegado de
Cisneros para la Reformación de las Indias (1516-1517) (Seville, 1960), 50, consider this a “road to
Damascus” experience similar to that of Saint Paul. Others, such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Las Casas:
In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ (New York, 1993), 482, n.l, state that Las Casas continually
refers to this event as the “originating moment in his life,” and labels this event a “prophetic call.”
Marcel Bataillon, in Estudios Sobre Bartolomé de Las Casas (Madrid, 1976), 48, n.9, emphasizes
that Las Casas himself referred only to his decision to enter the Dominican Order as a “conversion.”
Demetrio Ramos Perez, “La ‘Conversion’ de Las Casas en Cuba: El Clérigo y Diego Velazquez,” in
Estudios Sobre Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (Seville, 1974), 247-57, believes that this decision was
made over a period of months.
l0Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1988), 953.
“Ibid., 954-7.
Ibid., 960-65. This discussion is also carried on in Isacio Pérez Fernández, “El perfil profético del

Padre Las Casas,” Studium, 15 (1975): 281-359.

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92 Paul S. Vickery

The Hebrew word for prophet, nabi, means “one who is called,” and also
carries the connotation of an “authorized spokesperson.” The word contains the
meaning not only of “forthtelling” or speaking on behalf of someone else, such
as God, but also “foretelling” or predicting future events. A true prophet could
only be a person with a clearly defined directive to share. This message must
conform to the already revealed truths about God or be consistent with God’s
character and morality. The prophet was always aware that God had chosen him
as spokesperson and had a sure belief of this choice and that he was to convey a
specific message to a particular people at a particular place or in a determined
circumstance. The common denominator for all prophets is the clear sense of
being chosen.13
The call of a prophet, according to both biblical and secular accounts, could

come in a number of ways – through prayer and meditation, after reflective
study, in conjunction with specific occurrences, or suddenly. Just as the
occupations and backgrounds of the prophets varied, so too did the way they
received and understood their charge. Although the basic message came from
outside the prophet, i.e. from God, the interpretation and presentation of that
message reflected the individual personality of the prophet and the contemporary
culture to which it applied. The prophet’s own language, mannerisms, customs,
traditions, and even idiosyncrasies would then be used to transmit the message.14
Las Casas’s prophetic call came while reading Scripture and preparing to

deliver a sermon for the Pentecost Service in 1514. His text came from the

apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, chapter 34. The verses that stuck in his mind
were:

Unclean is the offering sacrificed by an oppressor. Such mockeries are
not pleasing to God. The Lord is pleased only by those who keep to the
way of truth and justice. The Most High does not accept the gifts of
unjust people, He does not look well upon their offerings. Their sins
will not be expiated by repeat sacrifices. The one whose sacrifice
comes from the goods of the poor is like one who kills his neighbor.

l3Laird R. Harris, ed. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1980), 2: 1275-
6.

l4David Atkinson, “Prophecy,” Eerdman ‘s Handbook to Christian Belief, Robert Koeley, ed. (Grand
Rapids, 1982), 316-17. Concerning Las Casas, see also José Luis Espinel, “Aspecto profético de la
vida cristiana según el Nuevo Testamento,” Ciencia Tomista, 98 (1971), 7-53. In sixteenth-century
Spain there were many, both men and women, who claimed prophetic insight. Richard L. Kagan, in
Lucrecia ‘s Dreams: Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Berkeley, 1 990), describes
one such woman. Also, Keith Thomas, in Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1 97 1 ),
covers this period in England. Although there were many who spoke in a prophetic manner
concerning the church and government in early modern Spain, Las Casas is unique in that his
prophecies continued for a lifetime, he spoke from an official position within the Catholic Church,
and he left a corpus of works that trace his development in the tradition of the biblical prophets.

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Bartolomé De Las Casas: Prophet of the New World 93

The one who sheds blood and the one who defrauds the laborer are kin

and kind.15

As he reflected upon these words, he realized that all that the Spanish had done
to the Indians since their arrival in 1492 was unjust and tyrannical and thus
displeasing to God. Surely, God would intervene to punish the Spanish for their
actions. Previously, he too had been blind to the actions of his fellow colonists.
Even the fact that the Dominicans in the area refused to confess those who

utilized Indians for their own benefit had not convinced him of the truth.

Through the reading of the Scripture and meditation upon its significance, “the
darkness left his eyes.” He then made the decision to preach his conclusions and
confront first the colonists, then the monarchy with the truth of his own
revelation and their sinfulness.16

The prime target of his attack was the Spanish use of the natives in the
encomienda system. He viewed this practice of “commending” the Indians to
the Spanish to be the root of all the evil perpetrated by the colonists. In theory,
the encomienda system was to benefit both the Indians and the Spaniards. The
Crown allotted land and Indians to work for the conquistadores as a reward for
their service to the nation. The Spaniards were to evangelize and lead the
Indians in Christianity. Unfortunately, the arrangement degraded into a system
of forced labor for the Indians with very little indoctrination, either by word or
example, in Christianity on the part of their overseers. Las Casas himself was a
part of this system.17 In 1513, because of his part in the “pacification” of Cuba,
Governor Diego Velasquez assigned him and a partner both land and natives to
work it near the port of Xagua.18

Las Casas quickly recognized that he could not prophesy destruction for
those involved in the encomienda system and still be a part of it. Even though he
treated “his” natives well, albeit paternalistically, the priest knew he must give
them up in order to live an ethically consistent life and escape the wrath of God.
Las Casas believed a prophet could not preach one thing, practice another, and

l5Las Casas, Historia, 2: 92-3. The scripture is from the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, 34: 18
ff.

Las Casas, Historia, 5: 93. Chapters 7ö and /У contain the story ot his conversion or prophetic
call.” Even Las Casas was refused absolution by a Dominican because of his participation in the
encomienda system. Giménez Fernández, Las Casas: Capellán de S.M. Carlos I, Poblador de
Cumaná (1517-1523) (Seville, 1963), 386, n. 1331, identified this priest as “most certainly being
Pedro de Córdoba.”

l7Two excellent summaries of the encomienda system are, Silvio Zavála, La encomienda indiana
(Mexico, 1973), and Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain.
Las Casas, Historia, 3: 545-6. Las Casas’ s actual role in the “pacification” was probably limited to

priestly duties. In Bartolomé de Las Casas: The Only Way, Helen Rand Parish, ed. with Francis P.
Sullivan, trans. (Mahwah, 1992), 14, n. 12, Parish indicates there is no evidence that Las Casas,
either Bartolomé or his father, engaged in actual warfare in the New World.

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94 Paul S. Vickery

retain credibility. He consistently berated the hypocrisy of those who said one
thing but did another. By freeing the Indians assigned to him, Las Casas
demonstrated the reality of his faith, his prophetic call, and subsequent change of
life. He wrote, “Such an action [giving up his Indians] was considered then and
always the consummate proof that could demonstrate sanctity.”19 He
immediately began to warn others of his conclusions through his preaching and
writings.

Initially, Las Casas asked the Governor not to reveal his plans to give up his
Indians but to wait until he had spoken with his partner Pedro de Rentería.20
Subsequently, Las Casas made public his plans while preaching on the feast day
of the Assumption of Our Lady in the Cuban town of Sancti Espíritus. Through
this initial sermon, given soon after his prophetic call, the prophetic nature of his
message is revealed. Las Casas sets the tone for future writings – his emphasis
on both the practical and spiritual nature of the Gospel, his warning to those who
failed to heed his message, the need for consistency in word and deed, and the
call for restitution for past atrocities. In his Historia, Las Casas informs us of his
words to the congregation. “He [Las Casas typically refers to himself in the
third person] was explaining the contemplative and the active life, the theme of
the gospel reading of the day, talking about the spiritual and temporal works of
mercy.” After declaring that he was going to make an announcement concerning
his setting free of the natives commended to him, Las Casas continued his
sermon,

he began to expose to them their own blindness, the injustices, the
tyrannies, the cruelties they committed against such innocent, such
gentle people. They [the hearers] could not save their own souls,
neither those who held Indians by allotment, nor the ones who handed
them out. They were bound by obligation to make restitution. He
himself [Las Casas] once he knew the danger of damnation in which he
lived, had given up his Indians, had given up many other things
connected with the holding of Indians.

Of course the reaction to the prophet’s message was not positive. Las Casas
records that many were stupefied or believed they were having a bad dream.
They believed they could hold the Indians without sinning, and likened it to
making use of the beasts of the field. Las Casas labeled their reaction as

l9Las Casas, Historia, 3: 94.
Las Casas, Historia, 3:545-6. It is interesting that when Las Casas related how he and Rentería

received their allotment, Las Casas described himself as the businessman and Rentería as the
spiritual one.

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Bartolomé De Las Casas: Prophet of the New World 95

“unbelievable.”21 Although Las Casas wrote the Historia years after the events
he recorded occurred, the foundational and consistent message of the prophet is
obvious.

As Las Casas matured, so did his message. His early works demonstrate a
tendency toward vagueness and generalities. The more mature works, however,
become ever more refined, forceful and direct and there is no hint of ulterior
motivation. Foundational to all of Las Casas’s writings is his desire to bring
liberty to the Indians while evangelizing them to the Christian faith. He believed
spreading the message of the Church was the overriding reason for the Spanish
presence in the New World.

On 23 January 1516, King Ferdinand died. Las Casas immediately met with
the regent, Cardinal Cisneros, and presented him with his first written proposal
for the salvation of his beloved Indians. This tract, Memorial de remedios, is
another indication of the budding prophet and his message. It is also where he
articulates his belief in the importance of evangelism. “The principal goal for
which all has been ordained,” he wrote, “or could be ordained, and the prime
goal for which we must strive is the salvation of the Indians, which must be
effected through the Christian doctrine as His Highness commands.”22 The
“principal end,” as the priest called it, was the training in Christian doctrine. As
mentioned previously, this was the theory behind the Spanish system of land
acquisition and use, the encomienda system. Las Casas was always adamant that
the faith must be proclaimed in both message and witness. The unfortunate
result was that “the Spanish, to whom the Indians are commended, do not know
what to teach, and if some do know, because of the little charitable love they
have, do not demonstrate it, but are more concerned with getting rich than saving
souls.”23 Las Casas closed this tract with an admonition. We might also note the
creeping sarcasm that characterized his writings:

I beseech your most reverend lordship, that you consider, as without a
doubt I know you will consider, that the first and last aim that must
motivate us is the remedy that those sad souls must be for God, and
how to attract them to heaven; because God did not redeem them nor
discover them so that they might be cast into hell, having no thought
for them but to acquire wealth. This does not seem unreasonable, let
alone a great burden.24

2 ‘Las Casas, Historia, 3: 95. This entire sermon is translated in Parish, ed., The Only Way, 191.
22Bartolomé de Las Casas, “Memorial de remedios para las indias” (1516), Opúsculos, cartas, y
memoriales. Obras escogidas de Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, Juan Pérez de Tudela Bueso, ed., 2
vols. (Madrid, 1958), 1:20.
“Ibid.

24Ibid., 27.

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96 Paul S. Vickery

In this tract Las Casas addressed the main dilemma of Spain in the New
World. Were the Spanish concerned with the acquisition of wealth or the spread
of the Gospel? The companion of Cortés and the chronicler of his conquest of
the Aztec empire, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, perhaps stated it best and most
succinctly when he wrote in his True History Concerning the Conquest of New
Spain, concerning the Spanish motivation for New World conquest, “We came
here to serve God, but also to get rich.”25 Unfortunately the choice between
souls and mammon bedeviled the Spanish from the first. Again, unfortunately
for the Indians, whenever there was a clear choice between financial gain and
any otherworldly concept of spiritual duty, the Crown’s material interests won
out.26

Las Casas gave a second and more direct prophetic speech, probably in
1518, before the young King Charles. This dealt with Las Casas’s plan to
establish a colony along the coast of present-day Venezuela, known as Tierra
Firme. His goal was to settle the area with priests and farmers instead of traders
or those who might exploit the Indians for profit. These farmers could both
teach and model Christianity to the Indians, and thus bring them willingly into
the Church. He also hoped miscegenation would occur as the Indians and
Spanish worked together.27 The first person to address the monarch concerning
this area was the Bishop of Darien, Juan Cabedo. His opinion was that the
Spanish arrived at the right time and were doing the right thing in the Indies. His
observation of the Indians of Darien as well as those on the islands he had visited

was that “those people are servile a natura and they hold in high esteem and
have much gold, which they work hard to obtain.” He implied that because the
natives were by nature servile, the Spaniards had every right to take advantage of
them and use them for their own benefit.28 After Cabedo’s observations, Las
Casas addressed the court.

Las Casas began by describing how the Indians died at the hands of the
Spanish. Either they were killed outright or they died by working in the mines.

25Quoted in Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia,
1949), 7.
26Simpson, Encomienda, 2.
27Las Casas, “Memorial de Remedios” (1518), Opúsculos, 35-9, contains his plan for Tierra Firme.
There is an interesting debate concerning the motivation behind Las Casas and his plan for Tierra
Firme. Marcel Bataillon, “The Clérigo Casas,” in Friede and Keen, Las Casas in History, 406-7,
argues that Las Casas again became codicioso (greedy) in his plans. Less judgmental are Henry
Raup Wagner and Helen Rand Parish, The Life and Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas
(Albuquerque, 1967), 62-3, who believe his motivation was correct but his judgment was poor.
Gutiérrez concludes his goal was evangelism above all else, In Search of the Poor, 54. In a well-
known passage of his Historia, 3: 308-9, that Gutiérrez labels “one of the most impressive passages
anywhere in his works,” Las Casas admits to the “sale of the Gospel” if that is what is needed to
evangelize the natives.
28 Las Casas, Historia, 3: 341.

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Bartolomé De Las Casas: Prophet of the New World 97

He then recounted his own eye-opening experience which brought him to
repentance and a change of mind and action. Furthermore, he renounced any
financial gain that the young king might assign to him and emphasized the
rational ability of the Native Americans to respond to the message of
evangelism. Discounting Cabedo’s assertion that the Indians were a natura
servile, he said, “Those Indian peoples . . . and the entire New World which is
füll of throngs of them, are supremely capable of the Christian faith, of all virtue,
civilized behavior, tractable to both reason and revelation, and a natura free
peoples.”29 The Catholic faith is a universal faith, an inclusive not exclusive
Church, and is open to all regardless of their current knowledge. Las Casas
emphasized that teaching was needed to bring understanding to the pagans, who
were reasonable individuals.

In closing this speech, Las Casas aimed the full force of his prophetic
message at the monarch, as he gave him a specific directive from the Word of
God, and a veiled threat of what would occur in the future if he failed to heed the

message. “Therefore it is Your Majesty’s role to root out, at the start of his
reign, the tyranny, monstrous and horrible before both God and the world, which
causes such evil, such irreparable harm,” he thundered. Las Casas concluded in
the true nature of a prophet, “the damnation of a major part of the human race,
[remove it] so that the Royal Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for
these Indian peoples, might grow in length of days.”30 By not stopping the
oppression, which was his responsibility as monarch and representative of God,
Charles was in danger of bringing many to damnation, both Spaniard and Indian,
and holding up the progress of the spread of God’s Kingdom in the earth. In his
presentation to the Crown, Las Casas interceded, or spoke on behalf of, the
Indians and attempted to speak for God on their behalf. He also spoke for the
nation as he attempted to avert disaster for its sinfulness. After nearly a year of
waiting, Las Casas received the grant he sought to establish a community at
Cumaná along the Venezuelan coast.31

Although the experiment at Cumaná proved unsuccessful in establishing a
peaceful, non-violent agricultural community, the experience led Las Casas into
the Dominican Order. Las Casas blamed himself for the failure and believed he

needed a deeper commitment to God. He also desired the spiritual support of a
religious community. After study and reflection, Las Casas took the vows of the
Dominican Order in 1522.32 Perhaps because of his failure at Cumaná, perhaps
because he was getting older, or perhaps because he saw no change in the royal
policies, after 1522 his message became ever more direct and confrontational.

29Ibid., 3: 343.
30Ibid., 3: 344.
3lIbid., 3:361.
32Ibid., 3: 387.

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98 Paul S. Vickery

An example of this more confrontational message is from his 1542 work
Entre los remedios, also known as The Eighth Remedy. In this tract Las Casas
again expressed his love, concern, and fealty to his nation and the Crown. He
warned, however, that if the Indians continued to die at the present rate the royal
treasury would lose “riches and treasures it rightly should have, both from Indian
vassals as well as the Spanish people.”33 Therefore the Spanish kingdom would
suffer loss and not be as powerful as it might be if its Indian subjects lived and
prospered. Las Casas did not question native subjection to the Crown. In his
opinion the Spanish had every legal right to the usufruct of the New World.
Spain and Christianity, however, must earn obedience by showing themselves
worthy of respect and superior to the native religions. Las Casas was adamant
that Christianity, if taught and demonstrated according to the example of Christ,
peacefully and rationally, would soon supplant the native faiths. Thus the
concern of Las Casas was that the Indians were dying at such a rate there would
be no one left to convert to the Church or work the land. He also expressed in
this tract that the colonists in the Indies were in mortal danger of divine
retribution. This punishment would also apply to those in Spain who were aware
of the destruction of the Indians, but did nothing to better the situation. Sins of
omission were just as damnable as sins of commission, according to Las Casas.34
After enumerating the complaints against the encomienda system and

explaining why the emperor did not legally have authority over those natives
who did not voluntarily submit to him, and therefore why he ought to release
them from this hated system, Las Casas continued his prophetic theme. He
wrote that Charles could do a great service for those Christians living in the
Indies. If the monarch abolished the encomienda system, he would, “free [the
Spanish] from the great sins of tyranny, robbery, violence, and murders which
they commit every day, oppressing and robbing and killing those people.”35 The
monarch had the responsibility to make laws that kept his people from sinning,
and therefore free from the possibility of mortal danger. Las Casas now also
emphasized the theme of restitution. He continued that not only must Spain stop
its killing of innocent people, but also that they were liable for restitution or
repaying the Indians for all they had stolen from them. Should this not be done,
the prophet warned it would bring both “condemnation and retribution for all
Spain.” The inhabitants of the Old World would thus be held liable for the sins
committed by those in the New. Ending this tract with the most dire and direct

“Bartolomé de Las Casas, “Entre los remedios,” (1542), Opúsculos, 1 10a.
34Las Casas, The Only Way, 130. Las Casas in this work draws upon Chrysostom and Augustine to
interpret the text from Matthew 25. This scripture reads in part, “Whoever helps one of the helpless,
helps me [Jesus].” The one who helps the poor is an extension of Christ. Augustine noted, “They
are damned, not for doing evil, but for not doing good.” This concept is also discussed in Gutiérrez,
In Search of the Poor, 63. Las Casas, The Only Way, 130.
Las Casas, Opúsculos, 1 1 7a.

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Bartolomé De Las Casas: Prophet of the New World 99

warning yet, Las Casas wrote, “and because of all these sins, and because of
what I read in the Sacred Scripture, God must punish, with terrible retributions,
and perhaps even destroy all of Spain.”36 The entire nation must pay for the
monarch’s refusal to heed the prophetic message.

For the first time the message of Las Casas became prophetic in the sense of
prophesying destruction for the Spanish nation. The Spanish philologist,
Menéndez Pidal, no friend of Las Casas, noted that, “in this tract he tells us …
the first instance that this great accusatory message includes a prophetic aspect;
it is the first time he threatens horrible punishment and perhaps complete
destruction of all Spain.”37 The reason for this dire condemnation, according to
Menéndez Pidal, is that Las Casas meditated much upon the Bible, especially
chapter 30 of the prophet Isaiah. In this chapter, Isaiah prophesied against those
who did not listen to the prophets, change their ways, and cease oppression.
Judgment would come suddenly upon the unjust and totally destroy them.38 This
may have been the first time the message took on such drastic tones, but it would
not be the last.

Las Casas wrote another more controversial work in 1542, entitled the
Brevísima relación da la destrucción de las indias?9 This work was not
published until 1552 but quickly had a profound effect upon the image of Spain
in the rest of the world, especially Protestant Northern Europe, which quickly
publicized the atrocities of Catholic Spain. In this eye-witness account, or
relación, which Las Casas dedicated to Crown Prince Philip, the Dominican
desired to shock the sensibilities of his readers and emphasized the Spanish
slaughter of the Indians. In his introduction to the work Las Casas pronounced a
biblical judgment upon those who had been involved in the exploitation of the
natives: “not a few of the people involved in this story had become so
anesthetized to human suffering by their own greed and ambition that they had
ceased to be men in any meaningful sense of the term, … so totally degenerate
and given over to a reprobate mind, they could not rest content.”40 He soon
moved from the fate of the individual to prophesying about the nation.

The text of this brief work is a litany of the destruction of the Indians in the
various areas conquered by the Spanish. His message is condemnatory and
graphic in its descriptions of slaughter, starvation, and cruelties. What broke Las
Casas’ s heart, however, was the lack of evangelism that had taken place and the

36Ibid., 119a
37Menéndez Pidal, El Padre Las Casas, 328.
38Ibid.

39There are several modern translations of this work. I have used Nigel Griffin, A Short Account of
the Destruction of the Indies (London, 1992).
40Griffin, Short Account, 3. Note 1 informs us that the biblical indictment is from Romans 1: 28.
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate
mind, to do those things which are not convenient.”

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loo Paul S. ViCKERY

attitude of the Indians toward Christianity as a result of the Spanish actions. He
wrote that the Spanish had no more interest in preaching the Gospel than if the
Indians had been dogs or other animals, and that at present the Indians have no
more idea of the Christian God than before the Spanish arrival. “They have no
idea of whether He [God] is made of wood, or of air, or of water.”41 The Indians
even referred to the Spaniards as yares, or demons, and scoffed at God and His
words.42 For this the Spanish Monarchy must be indicted.

In the conclusion to the Brevísima, Las Casas again stated his concerns
about the impending judgment of God upon the nation. The only hope of the
nation is to recognize its sinfulness, repent of its ways, and make restitution to
those wronged. Las Casas wrote, “I do not wish to see my country destroyed as
a divine punishment for sins against the honor of God and the True Faith.”43 The
prophet now spoke directly and forcefully: the nation remained prosperous only
through divine mercy.

In 1556, Charles V abdicated and his son Philip II assumed the Crown of
Spain. The encomenderos recognized Philip had not only inherited the throne
but also the debts of his father. Therefore, they offered him eight million gold
ducats to grant them permanent rights to the Indians under their control. Las
Casas heard of this possible deal and made one of his own. On behalf of the
Indians of Peru he made a counter-offer. Not only would the Indians pay the
monarch more than the Spaniards had offered, but if granted their freedom, they
would pay him tribute on a permanent basis.44

In a Memorial to King Philip II, written in 1556, Las Casas outlined twenty
reasons why the king should not take the deal offered by the colonists. Several
of these reasons appeal to the financial interest of the monarch, but in the last
one Las Casas reverted to his prophetic nature and spoke directly concerning the
mortal danger of Philip. He wrote, “This is the last [reason], the main of all the
reasons presented – Your Majesty has more need of the light, the help of God
than any other king in the world right now, at the start of your reign.” Although
many kings have had financial problems, Philip had the kind of problems that
money alone could not solve – especially if this money was tainted. Las Casas
then spoke directly to the judgmental quality of God if the monarch did not heed
his words, “Your Majesty should be terribly careful not to do something that will
unleash God’s anger against his royal person.”45 Las Casas ended the Memorial
with the statement that the words he spoke were the product of long years of

4lIbid., 127.
42Ibid., 82.
43Ibid., 127.

Parish, The Only Way, 50-51. On Las Casas’s plan see “Carta a Carranza,” Opúsculos, 431b.
Las Casas, “Memorial-Sumario a Felipe II,” Opúsculos, 460b.

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Bartolomé De Las Casas : Prophet of the New World 1 0 1

searching out the truth, and, that he had always spoken the truth and was doing
so now.

As Las Casas neared the end of his life he reflected upon what he had
achieved and what he had yet to do. About two years before his death in 1566,
he wrote his Last Will and Testament. Within this document we catch the final

glimpse of what was significant to Las Casas at the end of his life. As a
spokesman for God, he believed he was compelled to speak and work on His
behalf without regard for personal consequences or reward. As a spokesman for
God, he did not consider himself responsible for the response of his hearers. The
choice was theirs to accept or reject his message. His role was to preach the
message; God would be concerned with the results. Each individual would bear
the results of his or her own deafness. To Las Casas, it was his prophetic call,
received when he was thirty years old, nearly fifty years prior to the writing of
this document, that gave meaning and focus to his life. At the end of that life he
emphasized and reiterated, now for the last time, how he had received the divine
commission.

What I say next I hold as certain doctrine, I judge it certain, it is what
the Holy Roman Church holds and values as a norm of belief for us.
All that the Spaniards perpetrated against those [Indian] peoples, the
robbery, the killing, the usurpation of property and jurisdiction, from
kings and lords and lands and realms, the theft of things on a boundless
scale and the horrible cruelties that went with that – all this was in

violation of the whole natural law, and a terrible blot on the name of
Christ and the Christian faith. It was all an absolute impediment to
faith, all a mortal damage to the souls and bodies of those innocent
peoples. And I think that God shall have to pour out His fury and
anger on Spain for those damnable, rotten, infamous deeds done so
unjustly, so tyrannically, so barbarously to those people, against those
people. For the whole of Spain has shared in the blood-soaked riches,
some a little, some a lot, but all shared in goods that were ill-gotten,
wickedly taken with violence and genocide – and all must pay unless
Spain does a mighty penance. And I fear it will be too late or not at all,
because there is a blindness God permits to come over sinners great and
small, but especially over those who drive us or are considered prudent
and wise, who give the world orders – a blindness because of sins,
about everything in general. But especially that recent blindness of
understanding which for the last seventy years has proceeded to shock
and scandalize and rob and kill those people overseas. A blindness that
is not even today aware that such scandals to our faith, such
defamations of it, such robbing and injustice and violence and slaughter
and enslavement and usurpation of foreign rule and rulers, above all

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102 Paul S. VicKERY

such devastation, such genocide of populations, have been sins, have
been monumental injustices [emphasis added].46

The thread that runs throughout the message of Las Casas is a prophetic one.
His interest was in stopping the slaughter of his beloved Indians and bringing
them the Gospel message of the Church he loved and served. In order to achieve
these goals, the nation that he represented and the monarch he obeyed must
come into line with the will and Word of God. Las Casas knew God had

appointed him as the messenger to his nation on behalf of the Indians, and he
wholeheartedly gave himself to this task. Selections from his works after his
dramatic call in 1514 reveal his consistent, if ever more direct, message to the
monarchy that God’s judgment was imminent to all who failed to heed his
words. Because of his words and actions, along with his other roles, Bartolomé
de Las Casas deserves the title of “Prophet of the New World.”

46Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indian Freedom: The Cause of Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566). A
reader, translated by Francis Patrick Sullivan (Kansas City, 1995), 353-5.

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Contents

p. 89
p. 90
p. 91
p. 92
p. 93
p. 94
p. 95
p. 96
p. 97
p. 98
p. 99
p. 100
p. 101
p. 102

Issue Table of Contents

Mediterranean Studies, Vol. 9 (2000) pp. i-x, 1-234
Front Matter
Sir Steven Runciman (1903-2000) A Memoir [pp. 1-16]
The Longevity of the Portuguese Empire: Problems and Hypotheses [pp. 17-34]
Nobles and the Crown on the Eve Of Portugal’s Atlantic Discoveries [pp. 35-41]
Reverberations of the Voyages of Discovery in Venice, ca. 1501: The Trevisan Manuscript in the Library of Congress [pp. 43-64]
Henry VII and the “New-Found Island”: England’s Atlantic Exploration, Mediterranean Diplomacy, and the Challenge of Frontier Sexuality [pp. 65-78]
Spanish Historians of the Sixteenth Century and the Prediscoveries of America [pp. 79-88]
Bartolomé De Las Casas: Prophet of the New World [pp. 89-102]
Reinventing the Nation: Luís De Camões’ Epic Burden [pp. 103-122]
Confederacy Formation on the Fringes of Spanish Florida [pp. 123-141]
The Role of Licensed Physicians and Surgeons in the Inquisition and at Court During The Reign of João V [pp. 143-169]
The Growing Awareness of Language in the Mediterranean [pp. 171-181]
The Dissolution of Catalan Monasteries and the Fate of Their Archives: The Example of Poblet [pp. 183-201]
The Emblematic Self-Portraits of Josefa de Ayala D’Óbidos [pp. 203-229]
Back Matter

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