Several memorials in relation to it were laid before him; but no
one pressed the matter so strongly on the royal conscience as Las
Casas, afterwards Bishop of Chiapa. This good ecclesiastic,
whose long life had been devoted to those benevolent labors which
gained him the honorable title of Protector of the Indians, had
just completed his celebrated treatise on the Destruction of the
Indies, the most remarkable record, probably, to be found, of
human wickedness, but which, unfortunately, loses much of its
effect from the credulity of the writer, and his obvious tendency
to exaggerate.
In 1542, Las Casas placed his manuscript in the hands of his
royal master. That same year, a council was called at
Valladolid, composed chiefly of jurists and theologians, to
devise a system of laws for the regulation of the American
colonies.
Las Casas appeared before this body, and made an elaborate
argument, of which a part only has been given to the public. He
there assumes, as a fundamental proposition, that the Indians
were by the law of nature free; that, as vassals of the Crown,
they had a right to its protection, and should be declared free
from that time, without exception and for ever. *10 He sustains
this proposition by a great variety of arguments, comprehending
the substance of most that has been since urged in the same cause
by the friends of humanity. He touches on the ground of
expediency, showing, that, without the interference of
government, the Indian race must be gradually exterminated by the
systematic oppression of the Spaniards.
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