Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Last Edit of Project Info LAS CASAS "THE APOSTLE OF THE INDIES" [Illustration: BARTHOLOME DE LAS CASAS _Frontispiece_] LAS CASAS "_The_ APOSTLE _of the_ INDIES" BY ALICE J. KNIGHT DEACONESS IN THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF AMERICA [Illustration] THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 440 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY TO MY FRIEND AND BISHOP, THE RIGHT REVEREND ROBERT LEWIS PADDOCK, D.D. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD 7 CHAPTER I BARTOLOME THE YOUTH 9 II A BIT OF HISTORY 14 III A NEW WORLD 18 IV A NEW LIFE 28 V DISAPPOINTMENTS 36 VI THE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN SPUR 42 VII THE PEARL COAST 48 VIII THE CLOISTER 59 IX THE LAND OF WAR 64 X BISHOP OF CHIAPA 72 XI REVOLT IN CHIAPA 83 XII AT COURT 95 FOREWORD Early American history is full of interest and romance. Great figures move across the scene. Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Cortez, Alvarado, Pizarro,--every schoolboy is familiar with their names and deeds. But one man there is that stands out conspicuously among these heroes of discovery and conquest, one not bent on fame and glory, not possessed of that greed for gold that led to so much ruthless cruelty toward the natives of the New World,--a man consumed with one burning desire: to spend himself in the service of others, to protect and save the weak and helpless. What he himself might suffer in the performance of this work mattered not at all. Strange that to so many even the name of this man is unknown! Yet for more than fifty years no one either in all the New World or in Spain was more prominently before the eyes of all than was Las Casas, the great "Apostle of the Indies." Not only as a missionary, but as an historian, a philanthropist, a man of business, a ruler in the Church, he towers above even the notable men of that most remarkable time. His noble, self-denying, heroic life, spent in untiring service to God and man, is an inspiration and an example much needed in this materialistic, money-getting, ease-loving age. ALICE J. KNIGHT. HOOD RIVER, OREGON. _June, 1917._ LAS CASAS CHAPTER I BARTOLOME THE YOUTH