: Las Casas: The Apostle of the Indies by Knight Alice J - Casas Bartolomé de las 1474-1566

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the conclusion that they could do no good in Cuba, since they could not help the Indians and the Spaniards would not listen to them, and they decided to send one of their number with Las Casas to San Domingo,--from which port he was to sail for Spain,--for the purpose of asking for instructions from their superior, Pedro de Cordova. A young deacon went also, and all three soon started on their journey. The Dominican, however, was taken ill and died before the party reached San Domingo.

Pedro de Cordova sympathized heartily with Las Casas, though warning him that he would meet with many difficulties; but the man who is afraid to undertake a thing because of the difficulties in the way is not much of a man, and Las Casas was only the more determined to keep on. The Dominicans were very poor and had never been able to finish their humble monastery building, so they sent Father Montesino, who had preached the famous sermon against slavery the year after their coming to Hispaniola, with Las Casas to Spain, that he might try to raise the money needed; and in 1515 they sailed.

As soon as they arrived in Seville, Montesino introduced Las Casas to the good bishop of Seville, who did all he could to help him, giving him a letter to the King and to others of the court that might in all probability be interested.

It would be too long a story to tell,--the chronicle of all that Las Casas went through in his struggles to right the wrongs of the Indians.

Queen Isabella was now dead, and while he was in Spain King Ferdinand died also. Charles V, grandson of Ferdinand, was the heir to the throne, and during his minority the great Cardinal Ximenes acted as regent, while Charles' tutor Adrian was associated with the cardinal in the government. The man who had most to do with the affairs of the Indians was the Bishop of Burgos, Fonseca. As he himself had hundreds of slaves working for him in the gold mines of the islands, he was naturally not at all in favor of freeing them, and there were many like him who were striving as hard to prevent the liberation of the Indians as Las Casas was striving to bring it about.

Among other attempts that were made to throw obstacles in the way of Las Casas was one that was rather amusing. Cardinal Ximenes, as they sat in council, ordered the old laws for the Indies to be read. The clerk who read them, coming to one that he knew his masters were not obeying, thought to shield them and hinder Las Casas by changing the wording; but, unfortunately for him, Las Casas knew the laws by heart, and he cried out:

"The law says no such thing!"

The clerk, being ordered to read it again, read it as before, when again Las Casas broke in:

"The law says no such thing!"

A third time the clerk was made to read it; a third time he persisted in his own way of wording, and a third time Las Casas interrupted by saying:

"That law says no such thing!"

The Cardinal, provoked by so many interruptions, rebuked him, when he exclaimed:

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