The outline of Las Casas' scheme was as follows: The King was to give to
every laborer willing to emigrate to Espanola his living during the
journey from his place of abode to Seville, at the rate of half a real a
day throughout the journey, for great and small, child and parent. At
Seville the emigrants were to be lodged in the Casa de la Contratacion
(the India House), and were to have from eleven to thirteen maravedis a
day. From thence they were to have a free passage to Espanola, and to be
provided with food for a year. And if the climate "should try them so
much" that at the expiration of this year they should not be able to
work for themselves, the King was to continue to maintain them; but
this extra maintenance was to be put down to the account of the
emigrants, as a loan which they were to repay. The King was to give them
lands--his own lands--furnish them with ploughshares and spades, and
provide medicines for them. Lastly, whatever rights and profits accrued
from their holdings were to become hereditary. This was certainly a most
liberal plan of emigration. And, in addition, there were other
privileges held out as inducements to these laborers.
In connection with the above scheme, Las Casas, unfortunately for his
reputation in after-ages, added another provision, namely, that each
Spanish resident in the island should have license to import a dozen
negro slaves.
The origin of this suggestion was, as he informs us, that the colonists
had told him that, if license were given them to import a dozen negro
slaves each, they, the colonists, would then set free the Indians. And
so, recollecting that statement of the colonists, he added this
provision. Las Casas, writing his history in his old age, thus frankly
owns his error: "This advice, that license should be given to bring
negro slaves to these lands, the _clerigo_ Casas first gave, not
considering the injustice with which the Portuguese take them and make
them slaves; which advice, after he had apprehended the nature of the
thing, he would not have given for all he had in the world. For he
always held that they had been made slaves unjustly and tyrannically;
for the same reason holds good of them as of the Indians." The above
confession is delicately and truthfully worded--"not considering"; he
does not say, not being aware of; but though it was a matter known to
him, his moral sense was not watchful, as it were, about it. We must be
careful not to press the admissions of a generous mind too far, or to
exaggerate the importance of the suggestion of Las Casas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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