296 Re-entrance of Las Casas into the World.

The exact time and the particular cause of the reentrance of Las Casas into the world are both very doubtful. The rebellion, before mentioned, of the Indians in Hispaniola, under the Cacique Enrique, is supposed to have engaged his attention; and it is stated that he was sent to negotiate with the revolted cacique. He is also said, upon some grounds, as it appears to me, to have gone to the court of Spain in the year 1530. Moreover, it is alleged that, shortly before the second expedition of Pizarro to Peru, Las Casas, foreseeing the evils of that expedition, procured a royal decree, ordering that Pizarro and Almagro should abstain from making slaves of the Indians; and it is further stated that Las Casas himself traveled to Peru, and delivered this order into the hands of these captains.*

There are few lives in which the main events, and the circumstances on which they depended, are clearer than in that of Las Casas. But, at this period of his life, from his entrance into the Dominican monastery in Hispaniola until his occupation of the Dominican monastery at Santiago in Guatemala, founded by Betanzos, there is great confusion and incertitude. If we abide by the account of his principal biographer, REMESAL, the following is the order of events:

Las Casas having, by his presence at court, obtained

* QUINTANA rejects all this part of the narrative, and, as Las Casas, in his account of Peru, never mentions himself as an eye-witness, I was at first inclined to reject it also. But, observing that, in his account of Nicaragua, where he certainly had been, and where the lawsuit before alluded to was brought against him, he never makes the least allusion to himself, I am not inclined to pronounce hastily upon these circumstances, more especially as Remesal speaks of a letter written by the Bishop of Guatemala, which seems to allude to the circumstance of Las Casas passing through the town of Santiago on his way to Peru.

How he came to Mexico.

297

the decree in favor of the native, of Peru, returned to Hispaniola. Immediately after his return, a provincial chapter of the Dominican order was held in that island, and upon that occasion a prior was appointed for the Dominican convent at Mexico, the "province," as it was called, of Mexico being dependent upon that of Hispianola. That prior, Francisco de San Miguel, took Las Casas with him, intending to give him companions for passing on to Peru, not only to notify the royal decree, but to found convents in the newly-discovered country.* Thus it was that Las Casas came to Mexico. The assumption of prelatical authority on the part of the convent at Hispaniola was the cause of great trouble to the Dominican brethren in New Spain. We have already seen how Domingo de Betanzos was suddenly summoned to attend a chapter, or meeting of his order in Mexico; and the cause of his being sent for was no other than the arrival, or the rumor of the arrival of the new prior. REMESAL states that Las Casas helped to allay the differences which arose on this occasion among the brethren, and then commenced his mission to Peru, accompanied by two Dominicans, who afterward became celebrated men-Bernardino de Minaya and Pedro de Angulo.

It was at the beginning of the year 1531 that Las Casas set out from Mexico with his companions, and, traversing New Spain and Guatemala, came to Nicara

* "Traxo consigo al padre fray Bartolomé de las Casas, con intento de darle compañeros en la Nueva España para que passasse al Perú, no solo á notificar la cédula Real tocante á la libertad de los Indios, sino para poner juntamente en execucion cierta facultad que llevava para fundar conventos de la 'Orden en aquellas Provincias á la sazon sugetas á la Provincia de Santa Cruz: porque ya el padre fray Reginaldo de Peraza tenia allá Religiosos conque esto pudiesse hazer."-REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. iii., cap. 3.

298 Las Casas returns from Peru to Realejo.

gua, in which province they took ship at the port of Realejo. There the good fathers were fortunate enough to find a vessel which was going with men and provisions to Pizarro. They availed themselves of this means of transport, and notified the decree to the Spanish captains in Peru; but, finding that the state of the country did not then admit of the founding of monasteries, they returned to Panamá, and from thence went to Realejo, which port they reached in February or March of the year 1532.

riamos,

A bishop, Diego Alvarez Osorio, had just been nominated by the Emperor for Nicaragua, who was also * That Las Casas commenced a voyage to Peru is clear from the following passage in his Historia Apologética. He is speaking of tears being occasionally a mode of expressing joy. "Yo vide un plático soldado muy solemne taur y que segun presumimos iba con otros muchos á robar los Indios á los Reynos del Perú; handando que handabamos perdidos por la mar acordámos de hechar suertes sobre que camino tomaó para ir al Perú, donde él y los demas iban, por que bullia el oro allí, enderezados, sino que nos era el tiempo contrario, ó' á la Provincia de Nicaragua, donde no habia oro, pero podiamos mas presto y matar la ambre allí á llegar: y por que salió la suerte que prosiguiesemos el camino del Perú, recibió tanta y tan veemente alegría que comenzo á llorar y derramar tantas lágrimas como una muy devota vieja ó veata, y dijo: por cierto no me parece sino que tengo tanto consuelo como si agora acabara de comulgar; y otra cosa no hacia en todo el dia sino jugar á los naipes y tan desenfrenadamente como los otros. Los que alli veniamos que deseabamos salir de allí donde quiera que la mar nos hechara, vista la causa de sus lágrimas reíamonos de su gran consuelo y devocion."-LAS CASAS, Historia Apologética, MS., cap. 180.

* QUINTANA, following Herrera, makes Osorio a bishop in 1527, which is incorrect: he was appointed in 1531. Erigióse esto Obispado en la Ciudad de Leon de Nicaragua por el sumo Pontífice Clemente Séptimo á peticion de la Magestad Cathólica á veinte y seis de Febrero de mil quinientos treinta y uno, cuyo primer Obispo fué el Doctor Don Diego 'Alvarez Osorio, como consta en quel Acto.”Fr. JOSEPH TORRUBIA. Chrónica de la Seráphica Religion del Glorioso Patriarcha San Francisco de Assis. Roma, 1756. Appendix, p. 12. Torrubia's work is to be found in Mr. Stirling's library.

The above mistake in an important date may have much misled Quintana at this part of the narrative. These are his words: "En las es

300

The Monks learn the Language.

endowed with the office of Protector of the Indians. The bishop, naturally enough, saw in this advent of the good fathers from Peru an excellent opportunity for founding a Dominican convent in Leon, the chief Spanish town of Nicaragua, and he begged them to stay with him. They consented, and began to learn the language of the country, with the exception of Pedro de Angulo, who already knew Mexican well, and was therefore able at once to catechise the Indians, and to teach them the Christian_faith.*

casas noticias que se tienen de los trabajos de Casas en los primeros años de sus predicaciones, solo vemos que hácia el de 1527 fué enviado á Nicaragua, donde se acababa de fundar un obispado, á ayudar á su primer prelado Diego 'Alvarez Osorio en la predicacion del evangelio y conversion de los indios.”—-QUINTANA, Vidas de Españoles Célebres; Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas, p. 171.

* The foregoing details depend solely, or mainly, upon the authority of REMESAL. They are liable to objections of considerable weight, which have, for the most part, been well stated by QUINTANA, the excellent modern biographer of Las Casas. On one point I am bound to confirm Quintana, namely, that in the account which LAS CASAS himself gives of the insurrection of Enrique (see chapters 124, 5, and 6, lib. iii., of his History), he does not assign to himself any such part as that given to him by Remesal. He, however, promises to give further information in the next book, which he did not live to write. But still, what he has told us is by no means in accordance with Remesal.

With regard to the rest of the story, I do not feel at all disposed to throw over the authority of Remesal. He was the first historian who investigated these circumstances. He had access to the archives of Guatemala early in the seventeenth century, and he is one of those excellent writers, so dear to the students of history, who is not prone to declamation, or rhetoric, or picturesque writing, but indulges us largely by the introduction every where of most important historical documents, copied boldly into the text. I subjoin the account given of him by JUARROS. "El III. es el P. Presentado Fr. Antonio Remesal, natural de la Villa de Allariz, en Galicia, hijo del Convento de Salamanca, donde profesó el año de 1593. Vino á esta Ciudad el año de 1613, y admirado de la Religiosidad, y puntualísima observancia del Convento de Sto. Domingo, y de toda la Provincia de S. Vicente, determinó hacer apuntes de las actas de los Capítulos, por donde se gobierna la referida Provincia. Con este intento comenzó á registrar papeles, y ha