Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 1

Las Casas commenced his preaching against Indian slavery in Cuba; but he soon resolved to proceed to Spain, in order to attack the evil at its fountain-head. It was certainly time that some independent representation should be made to the Spanish government as to the condition of the Indians of Cuba, which was so miserable that they were forced to seek refuge in flight; and when even this refuge was denied them—for they were pursued by blood-hounds—they had recourse to suicide. On his arrival in Hispaniola, Las Casas found that Pedro de Cordova, the chief of the Dominicans, had set out on a voyage for the purpose of founding monasteries on the Pearl Coast.

Two Dominicans, whose fate is instructive as showing the colonial manners of the period, established themselves at a point about twenty leagues from Cumana called Maracapána, where they were hospitably received by the Indians. Soon after the arrival of Francisco de Cordova and Juan Garces, a Spanish vessel engaged in the pearl fisheries touched at the same point. It may be remarked that the mainland had been especially chosen as a field for missionary operations in order that the efforts of the priests might not be thwarted by the evil example of the secular colonists. As a rule the appearance of a Spanish vessel was a signal for the natives to take to flight; but on this occasion, the Dominican missionaries being looked upon as hostages, the cacique of the place, with his family and servants, numbering seventeen persons, accepted an invitation on board the Spanish ship. When they were safely on board, the vessel weighed anchor and set sail. As was to be expected, the Indians on shore, who were witnesses of this treachery, resolved to kill the two Dominicans, and were only dissuaded from doing so on the assurance of the latter that the cacique and his family would be returned within four months.

By another Spanish vessel, which soon afterwards made its appearance on the coast, the two missionaries were enabled to communicate their circumstances to the chief of their order at San Domingo. On the arrival at that place of the first vessel, it was declared that, as it had not been furnished with a proper license, it must be condemned as a prize; and therefore the cacique and his family were divided as slaves amongst the judges of appeal! Some days after this transaction came the letters of the two missionaries, whereupon the man-stealing captain took refuge in a monastery. The Dominicans lost no time in communicating the circumstances of the cacique’s capture; but the judges of appeal declined to give up their slaves, and at the end of the stipulated four months the two unfortunate missionaries were put to death!

1515.

In September 1515 Las Casas, accompanied by two brethren, embarked for Spain. On his arrival he was presented to the Archbishop of Seville, who, in turn, furnished him with letters to the king, with whom he obtained an interview. Las Casas was fortunate enough to gain the sympathy of King Ferdinand’s confessor; but he found an enemy to his cause in Fonseca, the bishop of Burgos, who was the minister entrusted with Indian affairs, and who was himself a possessor of Indians. Soon after this, in January 1516, the king died.

The hopes of Las Casas were now transferred to the Regent, Cardinal Ximenes, with whom he was fortunate enough to find favour, and who called together a junta to listen to his statements and arguments. The result was that the cardinal appointed Las Casas and two coadjutors to draw up a plan to secure the liberty of the Indians, and to arrange their government. In order to execute the laws agreed upon, Ximenes determined to employ Jeronimite monks, as they were not mixed up with the disputes which had arisen between the Franciscans and the Dominicans respecting the fitness of the Indians for freedom. The three Jeronimite Fathers chosen were instructed on their arrival at San Domingo to call the colonists together and to announce that the cause of their coming was a report of the ill-treatment of the Indians, and to ask their suggestions for a remedy for such a state of things. They were likewise to go to the principal caciques, and to inform them that they had been sent to find out the truth, to punish past wrong-doing, and to provide security for the future. It was the will of the governors of Spain that the Indians should be treated as Christians and free men.

The Jeronimite Fathers were to visit every island; to ascertain the number of Indians; and to find out how they had been treated, taking notes of the nature of the land for the purpose of forming settlements near the mines. Such settlements were to consist of about three hundred persons, with the requisite buildings, and lands were to be apportioned to each settlement, every individual receiving a plot. One administrator was to be appointed to each one or two settlements. Other regulations applied to religion, education, hospitals, labour upon farms and at the mines, and respecting pasturage and the division of gold. In order in some measure to reimburse the Spaniards for the loss of Indian slave-labour which they would incur, they were to be paid for the land which would be required for the settlements, whilst they were to be permitted to procure gold on easy terms for themselves. They were likewise allowed four or five slaves each from amongst the Caribs, these being cannibals. This latter clause was sure to lead to great abuses, as it was only necessary for the slave-hunters to declare their captives cannibals to justify their proceedings. This provision was inserted contrary to the wishes of Las Casas. Finally, he himself was appointed “Protector of the Indians.” With these regulations, and with the cardinal’s benediction, Las Casas set out from Seville.

1516.

In December 1516 the Jeronimite Fathers and the Protector of the Indians arrived at San Domingo, having performed the voyage in different vessels. No sooner had they arrived than they began to prove themselves not exactly the instruments he would have chosen for the accomplishment of his wishes. As a matter of course they were beset by the colonists, who represented Las Casas as a mere visionary, and in their conversations with him they soon began to make excuses for the inhumanity of the colonists. Nor, although they deprived such persons as were absent of their Indians, did they think it necessary to apply the same rule to the judges and other men in office. After a short time, the lawyer appointed by Ximenes to take a residencia of—in other words, to make an inquiry into the conduct of—all the judges in the Indies, arrived at Hispaniola. Las Casas then took the bold step of impeaching the judges, whom he accused of both bringing Indians from the Lucayan islands and of causing the death of the two Dominicans in Cumana, a measure which was distasteful to the Jeronimites, who preferred to manage things quietly.

The Fathers had not the courage to adopt in their full extent the measures which were within their power; but they nevertheless made considerable efforts to improve the condition of the Indians, publishing the orders in this respect and encouraging the natives to come to them with their complaints. They likewise wrote to Pedrarias, the governor of Darien, ordering him to make no more expeditions, and to send an account of the gold and slaves which he had taken. He was likewise to inquire into the justice of his Indians’ capture, and to restore such as it should turn out had been unlawfully taken. The Fathers also formed some of the Indians into settlements, which were, however, of no long duration, owing partly to the ravages of the small-pox.

The proceedings of the Jeronimite Fathers were, however, too lukewarm in their nature to suit the ardent soul of Las Casas, who now determined to return to Spain in order to complain of them, in which measure he was confirmed by the prior of the Dominicans and likewise by the special judges. The Fathers were much disconcerted at the move, and sent one of their own body to represent them at court. Las Casas reached Castile to find his patron Ximenes at the point of death, but the intrepid Protector of the Indians brought his case before the Grand Chancellor, who spoke of him to the king and received his commands to consult with him as to a remedy for the government of the Indies. One result of this consultation was certainly a singular one. Whilst it was proposed to send out Spanish labourers in considerable numbers, in the pay of the government, to Hispaniola, Las Casas himself suggested that in addition a certain number of negro slaves might be imported. The author of this suggestion lived to acknowledge and to deplore its unjust character.

Before this period, negro slaves had been imported into the Spanish possessions in America, and King Charles had only recently granted licenses to certain persons to import Africans into Hispaniola. The Jeronimite Fathers likewise looked upon the importation of Africans, who could better bear severe labour, as a remedy for the trials of the Indians, and the measure obtained the concurrence of the judge of residencia. The suggestion, when made by Las Casas, was approved of. The number of negroes which it was thought would suffice for the present was four thousand; and accordingly De Dresa, a Fleming, obtained a license from the king for this purpose—a grant which was accompanied by the assurance of a monopoly for eight years. The result of the monopoly was that the price of negroes greatly rose, the suggestion as to Spanish colonists being sent to the Indies not having been acted upon.

The Chancellor at this time dying, the influence of Las Casas was once more shaken. Fonseca, the bishop of Burgos, again returned to power, and, as a consequence, the Jeronimite Fathers were recalled. Las Casas was fortunate enough to obtain the interest on behalf of the Indians of a gentleman immediately attached to the king; and his representations were from time to time fortified by the accounts received of some fresh atrocities committed by the Spaniards in America. The Dominican prior, Pedro de Cordova, had much to tell his colleague of the slave-hunting exploits of the Spaniards in Trinidad, and he suggested that one hundred leagues on the coast of Cumana should be set apart by the king as a territory in which the Franciscans and the Dominicans might preach the gospel undisturbed by the presence of laymen.

Las Casas, failing for the meantime to obtain such a grant, fell back upon his scheme of Spanish emigration, and about two hundred men were actually sent out from Seville, a measure which was not attended by any beneficial result, since the emigrants were left on their arrival to provide for themselves from their own resources. A new Grand Chancellor was now appointed; and in his eyes Las Casas likewise found favour. To Gattinara the Protector of the Indians submitted a new scheme of colonization. The plan was that a sort of religious fraternity should be created, consisting of fifty knights, and that by their aid Las Casas should settle the country for a thousand leagues along the coast from Paria, a distance which was subsequently reduced to two hundred and sixty leagues. By the help of the king’s preachers, this idea of Las Casas was actually put in the way of being realized.

1520.

After the usual Spanish course of juntas and much arguing, it was resolved that the land which Las Casas sought for should be granted to him, although at each step his proposition was opposed by the Bishop of Burgos. Immediately before the departure of Charles from Coruña in May 1520, in order to be crowned Emperor of Germany, the king signed the necessary deed of grant to Las Casas. The land which he thus acquired extended from the province of Paria in the east to that of Santa Martha in the west, and was to go through the continent to the Pacific. Las Casas embarked at San Lucar on the 11th of November 1520, taking with him some humble labourers. After a favourable voyage, he arrived at Porto Rico, where he was destined to meet with some startling news that had considerable influence on the fate of the expedition which he had undertaken.

It has been already stated how two Dominican missionaries met their martyrdom at Cumaná; but their fate did not at all deter their brethren from following in their footsteps. Accordingly, in the year 1518, several Franciscans and Dominicans founded two monasteries on the Pearl Coast, where they were joined by other monks, and where they lived in peaceful intercourse with the Indians. There was thus a fair prospect of some settlements in the New World existing without forced labour or other cruelty towards the natives. But this was not to be. In the neighbouring island of Cubagua there was a certain Ojeda, who occupied himself with pearl-fishing, and who paid a visit to the mainland with the object of picking up some slaves. Coming to the settlement of Maricapána, he proceeded to buy some maize from one of the tribes, and he, naturally enough, requested the service of fifty men to assist in carrying it to his vessel. Once on the shore, the misguided men were attacked by the Spaniards and a number of them carried on board ship. It is some satisfaction to know that when Ojeda next landed he was watched for and slain.

The natural result of the above transactions was that, a few days afterwards, the Dominican monastery was attacked and its inmates put to death. The Franciscan monastery at Chiribichi was likewise attacked. In all eighty Spaniards were killed, and the island of Cubagua was evacuated. These events had taken place at the close of the year 1519, and the “Audience” at San Domingo prepared an expedition to punish and enslave the Indians of the Pearl Coast, which expedition, under Ocampo, met Las Casas at Porto Rico. In vain he endeavoured, by showing his “powers” to the commander, to divert him from his purpose. All that Las Casas could do was to hasten to San Domingo, leaving his labourers at Porto Rico.

The Protector of the Indians was now very generally detested by the colonists, who seemed leagued together to defeat his plans. He caused a proclamation to be made of the royal order of which he was the bearer, that no one should injure any of the natives of the provinces granted to him; and, in accordance with this order, he demanded the recall of the fleet and the discontinuance of the war. The authorities could not openly refuse compliance; but they required time for consideration, and meanwhile Ocampo was doing his work. The vessel in which Las Casas sailed was likewise declared unseaworthy and was condemned, thereby causing its owner much loss and debarring him from the means of transit.

Las Casas was soon made aware of the success of Ocampo by the number of slaves which were sent by him to Hispaniola to be sold. The sight made him so indignant that the “Audience” proposed to make terms with him, offering to place Ocampo’s expedition under his command, and to share with him the profits of the territory which he was to govern. It is to be remarked that, in agreeing to this arrangement, Las Casas a second time compromised himself on the subject of slavery, one of the means of profit in the undertaking being slave-dealing. The Protector of the Indians was to ascertain which of them were cannibals, or which should decline to have any dealings with the Spaniards or the gospel. Such men were to be attacked and enslaved; but, in agreeing to this arrangement, Las Casas merely consented to accept a power which he had no intention of exercising. Without this clause the agreement would not have been accepted by the others who were parties to it.

1521.

His vessels being ready and well stored with provisions, Las Casas set sail in July 1521, and proceeded to Porto Rico, where a fresh disappointment awaited him. The followers whom he had left there had all dispersed, and he had to proceed to the Terra Firma, where he soon found himself left with a few servants and labourers, since Ocampo and his men availed themselves of the arrival of the vessels to return to San Domingo. In this condition Las Casas had at least the comfort of finding that the Franciscan monastery had been re-established. He joined the community, and by means of the wife of a cacique, who was acquainted with Spanish, he established friendly relations with the Indians. There was, however, a stumbling-block in his way in the vicinity of the island of Cubagua. As this island possessed no fresh water, the Spaniards who were engaged in pearl-fishing on its coast constantly visited the Terra Firma to take in a supply.

All the preaching of the missionary colonist was once more of no avail with the natives in the presence of the frequent visits of his man-stealing countrymen; and at last Las Casas was persuaded against his own inclination to return to San Domingo to complain to the “Audience” of the mischief done by the Spaniards from Cubagua. His deputy, in disobedience to the written instructions he had left, sent away the only two boats which the colony possessed to traffic for pearls and gold. In their absence the monastery was attacked by the Indians, and, being in a defenceless condition, was set on fire. The inmates, however, with the exception of two or three, succeeded in making their escape in a canoe, in which they were fortunate enough to reach a Spanish vessel. Thus ended the attempt at forming a moral Spanish colony on the mainland, which had cost Las Casas so many years of labour in the face of ridicule and opposition. The unfortunate philanthropist now abandoned his scheme as hopeless and took refuge in a Dominican monastery.

Cumana was now no longer the scene of missionary efforts. The last outrage of the Indians was of course avenged, and the slave marts of Cubagua and San Domingo were once more filled. But as the Indians found themselves safer in the interior, the whole coast was left desolate, and the provinces which Columbus had found so beautiful and populous, now merely afforded a forest for slave-hunting expeditions, which set out from Aricapana. The last-named place became the headquarters of a piratical Spanish band numbering several hundreds, who lived entirely by predatory expeditions, the extent of which may be judged from the fact that the Italian traveller Benzoni witnessed the return of one with four thousand slaves—the survivors of a far greater number—who were sent to Cubagua for disposal.

Note.—Chapters I. to IV. of vol. I. are, for the most part, founded upon the following works, namely:—

Navarrete (Don M. F. de); Viages y Descubrimientos de los Españoles desde fines del Siglo XV., 5 vol. sm. 4to.

Amerigo (Vespucci), Viaggi.

Vesputius (A.) Navigationum Epit.—Grynæi; Canovai; Ramusio, i.; Brosses.

Martyris (Petri ab Angleria);—De Insulis nuper repertis—Grynæi Orbis. Eight Decades of the Ocean.—Hakluyt, V.

The Spanish Conquest in America; by Arthur Helps. John W. Parker & Son, 1855.

Las Casas, Hist. Ind.

Hist. del Almirante.

Oviedo, Cronica de las Indias.

Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, lib. ii.

Benzoni, History of the New World, translated: Hakluyt Society.

The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus; together with the Voyages of his Companions. By Washington Irving. London: John Murray, 1849.

CHAPTER V.

BRAZIL; THE PLATE; AND PARAGUAY

1499-1557

1500.

In the year 1499, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, of Palos, one of the three brothers who had sailed with Columbus in his first voyage seven years previously, obtained from the king of Castile the necessary permission to embark on an expedition of discovery on the Atlantic. Pinzon, who was accompanied by two nephews, as well as by several sailors who had sailed with Columbus, set out with four caravels from the port of Palos, putting to sea in the beginning of December. After passing the Canary and the Cape de Verde Islands, the expedition proceeded to the south-west. Having sailed about seven hundred leagues, they crossed the equator and lost sight of the north star. On crossing the equinoctial line they encountered a terrible tempest; but the confused mariners looked in vain for a guide whereby to steer. Pinzon pursued his course resolutely to the west, and after sailing for about two hundred and forty leagues further, being then in the eighth degree of southern latitude, he beheld, on the 20th of January, a point of land, which he called Consolation, but which is now known as Cape St. Augustine, in the province of Pernambuco. The sea was discoloured, and on sounding, they found sixteen fathoms of water. Pinzon, as in duty bound, landed with a notary and took formal possession of the territory for the crown of Castile. The natives whom he saw in the neighbourhood declined to have any dealings whatsoever with the strangers; and not liking their appearance, the commander made sail next day and stood to the north-west until he came to the mouth of a river where he again encountered a multitude of naked Indians with whom his men had a desperate encounter, in which a number of Spaniards were wounded or slain. Discouraged by this reception, the navigator now stood forty leagues to the north-west, being once more near the equinoctial line. Here the water was so sweet that he replenished his casks from it.

Astonished at this phenomenon, he stood in for land, and arrived among a number of islands whose people he found hospitable and in no way afraid of intercourse with the strangers. By degrees Pinzon realised the fact that these islands lay at the mouth of an immense river, a river so great that its dimensions can scarcely be realised by one accustomed even to the largest of European streams, such as the Danube or the Volga, far less by one whose ideas of an inland stream were formed by the Guadalquiver. The mariner had in fact alighted at the mouth of the mightiest of the mighty streams of the New World, a river which pours into the ocean a greater volume of water than even the Mississippi or the Plata; he had reached the Amazons, a stream which, discovered at its mouth by one Spaniard, was, a few years later, to be traced throughout the greater part of its course down to the ocean by another Spaniard, the ill-fated Orellana.

The Amazons at its mouth has a breadth of no less than thirty leagues, the volume of water proceeding through which penetrates for forty leagues into the sea before losing its sweetness. Whilst lying at the mouth of this river, Pinzon encountered a sudden swelling of the stream, which, meeting the current of the ocean, caused a rise of more than five fathoms, the mountain waves threatening his ships with destruction. Having extricated his vessels with no small difficulty from this danger, Pinzon, finding that there was no object to detain him in this region, showed that he was not less civilised than other Spanish navigators at the time in the matter of requiting hospitality, by carrying off thirty-six natives as slaves.

Having the polar star once more to guide him, the mariner pursued his course along the coast, passing the mouths of the Orinoco, and entering the gulf of Pária, where he took in brazil-wood, and from which he emerged by the celebrated Boca del Drago. He subsequently reached Palos about the end of September of the same year, having lost two of his vessels at the Bahamas. Vicente Pinzon has the glory of having been the first European to cross the equinoctial line on the Western Atlantic and of having discovered Brazil.

1500.

Later in the same year in which Pinzon had discovered Cape St. Augustine and had taken possession of the neighbouring coast in the name of the sovereigns of Castile, an event happened which illustrates how sometimes in human affairs the effect of accident may almost anticipate the calculations and discoveries of genius.9 Scarcely eight years had elapsed since Columbus had set out on that voyage which, according to the motto beneath his armorial bearings, gave a new world to Castile and to Léon, when another expedition was equipped by King Emanuel of Portugal, the commander of which, without having the least idea of discovering land to the westwards, accidentally lighted upon the coast of South America.