United States or Iran ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Some new laws were passed for their benefit, among them one that forbade any lay Spaniards to enter The Land of War for five years. This royal order was solemnly proclaimed, at Las Casas' request, from the steps of the cathedral of Seville.

In the course of his work, when Las Casas mentions the original papers lying before him, from which he drew many of his facts, it makes one lament that they should be lost to the world. Besides the journals and letters of Columbus, he says he had numbers of the letters of the Adelantado, Don Bartholomew, who wrote better than his brother, and whose writings must have been full of energy.

Las Casas also reckons the number of natives who fell victims to Spanish cruelty in America at forty millions. This wild estimate has been often quoted. Mr. Wilson, instead of "vindicating" it, as he was bound to do, triumphantly refutes it. "There never probably existed," he most justly remarks, "more than forty millions of savage races at one time on our globe."

The monks of Atocha, in a recent conversation with one of the royal princes, betrayed an ignorance that this illustrious man was buried in their convent, nor can any of the fraternity point out his place of sepulture to the stranger. The publication of this work of Las Casas has not been permitted in Spain, where every book must have the sanction of a censor before it is committed to the press.

Acton to her as a man whom malevolence itself could not suppose capable of interesting her otherwise than by his services. She had had to suffer the impertinences of a Spaniard named Las Casas, who had been sent to her by the King, her father-in-law, to persuade her to dismiss Mr. Acton from the business of the State, and from her intimacy.

It was begun by the Marquis de la Torre, governor of the island, who gave the first impulse to the improvement of the police and the municipal government. Don Luis de las Casas and the Count de Santa Clara enlarged the plantations.

For months Las Casas fought for this plan of his, which he felt would save at least some of the native people. They had been killed off by thousands on all the islands, and would soon perish on the mainland, indeed, wherever the Spaniards went, unless they could be made free.

It is absurd to say that ordinary merchants and ship captains ought to have seen the infamy of a practice which Las Casas advised and Butler could not condemn. The Spanish and Portuguese Governments claimed, as I said, the control of the traffic. The Spanish settlers in the West Indies objected to a restriction which raised the price and shortened the supply.

While at the university, he had, as a servant, an Indian slave, given him by his father, who had received him from Columbus. When Isabella, in her transport of virtuous indignation, ordered the Indian slaves to be sent back to their country, this one was taken from Las Casas.

"No, Josephine," he exclaimed, impetuously, "that little house will not be a fitting abode for the conqueror of Italy, I am no longer the poor general who had nothing but his sword. I return rich in glory, and not poor as far as money is concerned. Helena said to Las Casas that he had brought only three hundred thousand francs from Italy.