Las Casas was the only priest on the island of Cuba, and at Pentecost (Whitsunday) he arranged to go and preach and say mass in the new town of Sancti Spiritus. In looking for a text, he came across some verses in the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, which made him stop and think whether after all he was right in making the Indians work for him as slaves. These are the verses:

He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ridiculous, and the gifts of unjust men are not accepted.

The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked, neither is He pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices.

Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doeth as one that killeth the son before the father's eyes.

The bread of the needy is their life; he that defraudeth them thereof is a man of blood.

He that taketh away his neighbor's living slaveth him, and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a bloodshedder.

As Las Casas read these verses he seemed to hear the voice of God speaking to his heart. He remembered Montesino's sermon, he thought of all the cruelties and injustices from which the gentle, helpless Indians suffered. At last his eyes were opened, and he saw plainly that it was neither right to take the lands and the property of the natives nor to hold them as slaves.

For BartolomÉ Las Casas to see the right was always to do it. He resolved at once to give up his own Indians and to preach against enslaving them. He knew very well that if he did this they might, and probably would, fall into the hands of those who would not treat them so kindly, but he realized that he could not preach to others against slavery while he continued to possess slaves himself. Therefore he went at once to the governor and told him what he had resolved to do. The governor was very much astonished, and begged Las Casas to consider well what he was doing and at least to take fifteen days to think it over. But Las Casas refused to take even one day, saying that his mind was made up.

Four Dominicans, who had been sent from Hispaniola to found a community, arrived in Cuba about this time. They and Las Casas preached constantly and earnestly on the sin of holding the natives in slavery; but although the Spaniards were frightened, they were not turned from their evil ways, and Las Casas resolved to go to Spain and see if he could not so present the matter to the King that the whole system of dividing up the Indians and their lands among the white men, to be their property, might be done away with.

He wrote to his friend and partner Renteria, telling him that he was about to go to Spain on a very important mission, which he was sure would give him great joy when he heard what it was, and he asked him to hasten home, as otherwise he might not see him, it being necessary to leave at once.

Renteria was in Jamaica, where he had gone to buy seed, stock and so on for their farm. While there he had stayed in a Franciscan convent during the season of Lent, and had given much time to prayer and meditation. For a long time he had been troubled about holding the Indians as slaves, but he had thought that if he and his partner were to give up the savages, they would only be worse off. Now, however, as he thought and prayed, a plan occurred to him: He would go to Spain and get permission to found schools, where the Indian children might be gathered in and taught, and thus some of them might be saved; for he saw clearly that if things kept on as they were, it would not be long before all the Indians on the islands would be destroyed.

As soon as Renteria received Las Casas' letter he hurried home, wondering why his friend also wanted to go to Spain, and eager to tell him what he had in mind.

Renteria was a very popular man, so when he landed, not only Las Casas was there to meet him but the governor and many other friends; therefore, it was night before the two partners had a chance to talk quietly together. Then each listened in astonishment to the plan of the other. Finally they decided that as the plan of Las Casas was the more important, and as he was a priest and of a noble family and could therefore more easily get a hearing at court, he should be the one to go. They sold everything that Renteria had brought from Jamaica,—even the farm itself being disposed of,—in order to raise money for the journey.

Now, while the two friends had been occupied with these thoughts and plans, the Dominicans had been coming to the conclusion that they could do no good in Cuba, since they could not help the Indians and the Spaniards would not listen to them, and they decided to send one of their number with Las Casas to San Domingo,—from which port he was to sail for Spain,—for the purpose of asking for instructions from their superior, Pedro de Cordova. A young deacon went also, and all three soon started on their journey. The Dominican, however, was taken ill and died before the party reached San Domingo.

Pedro de Cordova sympathized heartily with Las Casas, though warning him that he would meet with many difficulties; but the man who is afraid to undertake a thing because of the difficulties in the way is not much of a man, and Las Casas was only the more determined to keep on. The Dominicans were very poor and had never been able to finish their humble monastery building, so they sent Father Montesino, who had preached the famous sermon against slavery the year after their coming to Hispaniola, with Las Casas to Spain, that he might try to raise the money needed; and in 1515 they sailed.

As soon as they arrived in Seville, Montesino introduced Las Casas to the good bishop of Seville, who did all he could to help him, giving him a letter to the King and to others of the court that might in all probability be interested.

It would be too long a story to tell,—the chronicle of all that Las Casas went through in his struggles to right the wrongs of the Indians.

Queen Isabella was now dead, and while he was in Spain King Ferdinand died also. Charles V, grandson of Ferdinand, was the heir to the throne, and during his minority the great Cardinal Ximenes acted as regent, while Charles' tutor Adrian was associated with the cardinal in the government. The man who had most to do with the affairs of the Indians was the Bishop of Burgos, Fonseca. As he himself had hundreds of slaves working for him in the gold mines of the islands, he was naturally not at all in favor of freeing them, and there were many like him who were striving as hard to prevent the liberation of the Indians as Las Casas was striving to bring it about.

Among other attempts that were made to throw obstacles in the way of Las Casas was one that was rather amusing. Cardinal Ximenes, as they sat in council, ordered the old laws for the Indies to be read. The clerk who read them, coming to one that he knew his masters were not obeying, thought to shield them and hinder Las Casas by changing the wording; but, unfortunately for him, Las Casas knew the laws by heart, and he cried out:

"The law says no such thing!"

The clerk, being ordered to read it again, read it as before, when again Las Casas broke in:

"The law says no such thing!"

A third time the clerk was made to read it; a third time he persisted in his own way of wording, and a third time Las Casas interrupted by saying:

"That law says no such thing!"

The Cardinal, provoked by so many interruptions, rebuked him, when he exclaimed:

"Your lordship may order my head to be cut off if what the clerk reads is what the law says."

And snatching the book from the clerk, he proved that he was right. We cannot help thinking that if the clerk had known "the clerico," as he usually calls himself, a little better, he would not have dared to try such a trick.

In spite of all obstacles, however, with the help of the Cardinal, new laws were finally passed for the Indies. By these laws the Spaniards were forbidden to divide the Indians among themselves and force them to work without reward.

But the passing of the laws was only a part of the business. It was as true then as now that good laws are of little use unless there be wise and good men to enforce them; and the question now arose as to who should go out and put a stop to the evil system that had caused so much misery to these innocent and helpless people, and see that the new laws were obeyed. In those days the Church had great power over both rulers and people, and so it was not so strange as it would be in these days that the choice should have fallen on three monks of the order of St. Jerome. It was anything but a wise choice, however, for although these monks were good men, they were unused to any life but that of the convent, had had no experience in statesmanship and were, besides, rather timid of spirit. Before they sailed, the enemies of Las Casas filled their minds with distrust of him, and made them think that things in the islands were not as he had represented, so that they did not seem likely to do much good in their new office.

However, the little company set sail at last, the three monks in one ship, Las Casas,—who had been given the official title of "Protector of the Indians," with charge and authority to look after all that concerned them,—in another, and Zuaco, a lawyer, appointed to help and advise them, followed a little later.