The New Laws.--Las Casas and others continued to oppose the encomienda system. In 1539 the great missionary returned to Spain to conduct the fight. While there he wrote his celebrated works called _The Destruction of the Indies_ and the _Twenty Reasons_ why Indians should not be enslaved. His pleadings were not in vain, for in 1542 the Council issued a new Indian code called the _New Laws_, which provided that encomiendas should be abolished on the death of the present holders. But so great was the opposition that in 1545 the vital clauses of the ordinance were repealed. In Peru the attempt to enforce the laws even led to bloodshed. Mendoza sent to Peru.--Viceroy Mendoza continued to rule for fifteen years. He proved to be a wise, able, and honest administrator, who tried to improve the condition of both the colonists and the helpless natives. He prohibited the use of the Indians as beasts of burden. In 1536 he established the printing press in Mexico, the first book published on the continent appearing in 1537. In that year he founded the college of Santa Cruz de Tlatelalco for the education of noble Indians. He opened roads from Mexico to Oaxaca, Tehuantepec, Acapulco, Michoacán, Colima, Jalisco, and other distant points. In 1550 he was sent to rule in troubled Peru, where the Spaniards were duplicating the brilliant exploits of Cortés and his followers. READINGS SPAIN DURING THE CONQUEST Armstrong, E., _The Emperor Charles V._; Bourne, E.G., _Spain in America_, Ch. I; Chapman, Charles E., _A History of Spain_, 1-246, especially Chapters X-XXII; Cheyney, E.P., _European Background of American History_, Ch. V; Hume, M.A.S., _Spain, its Greatness and Decay_; Hume, M.A.S., _The Spanish People_; Lane-Poole, S., _The Moors in Spain_; Lowery, W., _Spanish Settlements within the present limits of the United States_, 1513-1565, pp. 79-101; Merriman, R.B., _The Rise of the Spanish Empire_; Prescott, W.H., _Ferdinand and Isabella_; Haring, C.H., _Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs_. THE WEST INDIES, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND MAGELLAN Altolaguirre y Davale, D. Angel de, _D. Pedro de Alvarado, Conquistador de Guatemala y Honduras_; _Vasco Nuñez de Balboa_; Bancroft, H.H., _Central America_, I, 183-247, 321-412, 478-511; Bourne, E.G., _Spain in America_, 20-53; 115-132; Fiske, John, _The Discovery of America_, I, 465-512, II, 184-212; Fortier, A., and Ficklen, J.R., _Mexico and Central America_, 1-102; Guardia, R.F., _History of the Discovery and Conquest of Costa Rica_; Guillemand, F.H.H, _Life of Magellan_; Helps, Arthur, _The Spanish Conquest_, I, 89-142, 193-320; Lowery, Woodbury, _Spanish Settlements within the present Limits of the United States_, 102-122; Richman, L.B., _The Spanish Conquerors_, 64-91, 139-154; Wright, L.A., _The early History of Cuba_, 1492-1586. CORTES AND HIS FOLLOWERS