O / 0
settle's notices of
Spain bv permission of King Ferdinand V After his
death, the proposal Avas made to the Regent of Spain,
Cardinal Ximenes, by Las Casas,* Bishop of Chiapa, to
establish a regular commerce in African slaAres, under the
plausible and well-intentioned, but fallacious pretext of
substituting their labor in the colonies for that of the
native Indians, Avho Avere rapidly becoming exterminated
by the severity of their labor and the cruel treatment of
their Spanish masters. To the immortal honor of Car¬
dinal Ximenes, he rejected the proposition on the ground
of the iniquity of slavery itself in the abstract, and also
the great injustice of making slaves of one nation for the
liberation of another. The Cardinal appears, therefore,
to haA'e been the first avoAvecl opponent of this traffic in
men.*)*
* It is said that Las Casas' proposal was first acted on in Cuba in
1523-4, at which time three hundred negroes were introduced from
£pain.—Ansn-ers of Senor ■----., of Havana, to Questions addressed
Inj P. P. Madden, M. D., London, 1840. But Bancroft (vol. i., p.
109) says that it was not Las Casas who first suggested the plan of
transporting African slaves to Ilispaniola. There is no doubt, how¬
ever, that such a proposal was made by him. See the documents
brought to light by Quintana. The proof is so full, from his own
writings and other authentic documents not difficult of access, that it
would be quite out of place, and would take too much space, even to
refer to them here.— Quintana, vol. iii., p. 407, as cited by Madden.
■f- " It is in vain to deny that Las Casas committed this most
lamentable error (his suggestion in favor of the importation of African
slaves into Cubaj, as many have asserted, and amongst others, the
Abbe Cregoire. Quintana has produced the original documents in
which this suggestion is made by Las Casus; but they who claim
L;i.-> Ca.-as for an advocate of the slave trade are little aware that he
himself, heartily repenting of his proposal, condemns it in his own
historv (lib. iii., chap. 101 J, and in his own words: 'Because they
(the negroes) had the same rights as the Indians.'
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