Spanish America, Vol. II (of 2). Bonnycastle Richard Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ obtained a licence to explore the continent and islands for gold and pearls. They procured plenty of the latter in the bay of pearls, between Margarita and the main, and visited the coasts of Venezuela and Coro.

      Having got 1200 ounces of very fine pearls, these adventurers sailed back, along the shore to the gulf of Paria, whence they stretched over for Spain, in which country they arrived on the 6th of February, 1500.

      Vicente Yanez Pinzon having discovered the mouth of the great Maranon in 1500, sailed northwards from it, and explored the estuary of the Orinoco, and the coast of Paria, from which he sailed for St. Domingo, having first laden his vessels with Brazil wood.

      The report of the arrival of Guerra, with such a valuable cargo, soon spread over the whole kingdom of Spain; and expeditions were fitted out in every part for the American continent. Charles the Fifth gave these adventurers permission to enslave the Indians who should resist them; in consequence of this, avarice and rapacity soon made a dreadful havoc among these unfortunate people; a complaint of these proceedings at last reached the royal audience of St. Domingo, which court immediately took measures to punish the offenders. They appointed Juan Ampues, to the government of the country, who landed on the coast of Curiana, in 1527, with an armed force.

      The mildness of his measures gained him the affections of the Indians, and the cacique of the Curiana nation took the oath of allegiance to Spain, on the 26th of July, 1527. – This governor laid the foundation of the city of Coro.

      At this time the company of the Welsers, a German establishment of Augsburgh, having advanced great sums to Charles the Fifth, that Emperor granted them, at their earnest request, the sovereignty of the province of Venezuela from Cape Vela, to Maracapna, and with unlimited boundaries to the south. Their power did not last long, and Juan Perez de Tolosa was appointed governor, with the rank of captain-general. New laws were made, and the Indians were declared free from involuntary servitude; as soon as a nation or tribe was subjected, a town was built, and a hundred Europeans were sent to colonize it. The laws of the repartimientos and encomiendos were established, and every thing went on properly at first, but the settlers abusing their authority over the natives, these laws were repealed, and Spanish America was declared a kingdom united to the Spanish crown. The council of the Indies was formed at Madrid, the legislative functions were declared to be vested solely in the king, aided by this council, and the executive was to belong only to officers appointed by the court; accordingly, on the 4th of September, 1519, this act was decreed and promulgated, since which Caraccas has been governed by a captain-general, and subordinate officers.

      In treating of Cumana we must not omit mentioning the history of the visit paid to this coast by Las Casas, the bishop of Chiapa in Guatimala. Bartolemeo de Las Casas who was born at Seville in 1474, and when only nineteen years of age, accompanied his father and Columbus to the west Indies, returning to Spain after an absence of five years, took the habit of a monk, and again embarked with Columbus to Hispaniola; on the settling of Cuba, he was appointed rector of Zaguarama, where he strenuously objected against reducing the Indians to servitude, at the same time relinquishing his own share in the partition of these people among the whites. Meeting with great opposition, on account of his determined resistance to the oppression of the aborigines, he set out for Spain in 1516, for the purpose of laying the grievances, under which the newly-discovered nations laboured, before the King. Ferdinand promised that new laws should be made, but death prevented his resolves from being put into execution; Las Casas then applied to Cardinal Ximenes the regent, and that minister sent out three commissioners to enquire into the circumstances of the case. These three persons were monks of St. Jerome, and were accompanied by a lawyer of great abilities, and Las Casas, who was granted the title of "Protector of the Indians."

      On their arrival at St. Domingo, these commissioners finding it impossible to do away with the enslavement of the Indians at once, they adopted some salutary measures to better their condition. Las Casas remonstrated with them, but found his efforts useless, and as he had made all the planters his enemies, he saw himself under the necessity of retreating to the protection of the convent from the effects of their malignity. He again set out for Spain, with a determination not to abandon the cause in which he had embarked. Ximenes being on his death-bed, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth having appointed his Flemish ministers to the chief offices of state, Las Casas was obliged to endeavour to interest them in his favour; in this he succeeded, and they recalled the monks of St. Jerome, and appointed a judge to examine the complaints of the Indians with ample powers to redress them.

      But Las Casas here tarnished the glory he would otherwise have enjoyed unsullied. To carry his favourite scheme the more certainly into execution, he proposed that a certain number of negroes should be purchased from the Portuguese in Africa, to replace the Indians who were to be liberated. His plans, unfortunately for the poor Africans, were adopted, and ever since that period these degraded people have suffered the most galling servitude, which it is now the delight of an Englishman to know, that his nation have stepped forward to put a lasting stop to; and the reign of the Prince Regent, would, independent of the brilliant events which have rendered it immortal, have been remembered, to the remotest ages by this magnanimous act alone. The emperor Charles granted a patent to one of his Flemish courtiers, containing the exclusive right of sending 4000 negroes to the West Indies; this patent was sold to Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats, and these people have the odium of being the first who brought this abominable traffic to a regular form. Las Casas proposed also to send mechanics and labourers to Hispaniola with the negroes, who should be allowed an advance to go thither; but the bishop of Burgos, who was the great enemy of Columbus and his followers, defeated this project, as well as every other that Las Casas offered.

      Fearful that he should not succeed in relieving the Indians in the new settlements, he requested from the Emperor the grant of a district, then unoccupied, from the gulf of Paria to Cape de la Vela, thus including Cumana, Barcelona, Venezuela, Coro, and Maracaybo. In his memorial, he proposed settling this country with a colony of priests, husbandmen, and labourers; he engaged in two years, to instruct the natives in the arts of social life; to civilize 10,000 of them, and that at the end of that time, the king should derive a revenue of 15,000 ducats, which was to increase to 50,000 in ten years. After much difficulty, in consequence of the opposition of the meddling bishop, this extent of coast was granted to him, with liberty to extend it indefinitely into the interior. He sailed from Spain with 200 followers in 1521. Many of these left him at Puerto Rico, others died, and he landed on the coast of Cumana, with a few only who still adhered to him; here he found the country in a state of great agitation from a recent invasion of the Spanish islanders, who had attacked the natives, for the purposes of procuring slaves and gold. He was obliged to go over to Hispaniola to procure a reinforcement, and during his absence, the Indians attacked the colony he had planted, destroyed many of the people, and forced the remnant to take refuge in the little isle of Cubagua.

      This isle they soon abandoned, and not a Spaniard was then left in any part of the continent from Paria to Darien. Las Casas, mortified beyond every thing, by the failure of his splendid schemes, shut himself up in the Dominican convent at Hispaniola. Here he devoted himself to the performance of religious duties, still keeping in mind the great object of his ambition. The sufferings of the Indians increasing daily, and a chapter of his order at Chiapa in New Spain, having made him their messenger to Europe, on some important affairs, he once more revisited Madrid in 1542, and took a favourable opportunity of pleading the cause of the injured Indians before Charles V. He also composed a treatise, which he called "A Brief Relation of the Destruction of the Indians;" in which was painted, in the most pathetic and forcible manner, the enormities which had taken place in every country of the New World which the Spaniards had visited.

      This work created the most lively sensations throughout Europe, and such a general abhorrence of the cruel measures of the adventurers, that the Spanish court thought fit to adopt some measures to silence the universal clamour. New regulations were adopted, some of which tended to ameliorate the condition of the unfortunate Americans; and Las Casas was elevated to the dignity of bishop of Chiapa, in order to afford every relief in the power of the church to bestow.

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