Introductory American History Part 7

1. What plan did Columbus form? Why was it bolder than the plan Diaz had carried out in 1487, or even than that Da Gama carried out a few years later? Why did men like Columbus and Diaz desire to find a sea route to India? Had anybody before Columbus believed the earth round?

2. What mistake did Columbus make in estimating the size of the earth? Why was this a fortunate error?

3. From what countries did Columbus try to obtain help? Why did he find it so hard to secure this? What event in Spain finally favored his cause? Who were the Moors?

4. Why was Columbus surprised when he saw the natives in the West Indies? Why were the Indians on their side surprised?

5. What islands did Columbus find and claim for Spain on his first voyage? How many other voyages did he make? What new lands did he find on his later voyages? What did he think he had found?

6. Why did the enemies of Columbus in Spain call him the Admiral of Mosquitoland, the man who discovered a land of vanity and deceit, the grave of Spanish gentlemen? What did they mean by this?

EXERCISES.

1. Find pictures of the s.h.i.+ps of Columbus or of the sailing s.h.i.+ps of other explorers of that day. How does the deck arrangement on those differ from the ocean steams.h.i.+ps of to-day? What advantage would s.h.i.+ps like those of Columbus have over present steams.h.i.+ps in exploring strange coasts? What disadvantages?

2. Draw up a list of reasons why Columbus's sailors were afraid to go on and wished to turn back to Spain.

3. Trace on an outline map the voyage of Columbus. Mark where Columbus found land, and where he expected to find j.a.pan and China. What great ma.s.s of land was really very near the island he first discovered?

4. Find from the maps mentioned in Chapter IV (Greek World), Chapter VII (Roman World), Chapter VIII (The world after Polo's journey), and Chapter XIV (The world as known after Columbus), how much more the Romans knew of the world than the Greeks had known, the Europeans after Marco Polo's journey than the Romans, and the Europeans after Columbus's voyage than after Marco Polo's journey.

Important Date--1492. The discovery of America by Columbus.

CHAPTER XV.

OTHERS HELP IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD.

THE RACE TO THE INDIES. The discovery of all the lands which make what we call the New World came very slowly. It was the work of many different explorers. Most of the expeditions sent out to the new islands went in search of a pa.s.sage to India. It was a fine race. Each nation was eager to see its s.h.i.+ps the first to reach India by the westward route. All were disappointed at finding so much land between Europe and Asia. It seemed to them to be of little value and to block the way to the richer countries of the East. Gradually, however, they discovered the great continents which we know as North and South America. Columbus had done more than he dreamed, and his discovery was a turning-point in history.

JOHN CABOT. John Cabot, an Italian mariner at this time in the service of England, left Bristol in 1497 on a voyage of discovery. This was five years after Columbus discovered the West Indies. Cabot had heard that the sailors of Portugal and of Spain had occupied unknown islands. He planned to do the same for King Henry VII of England. For his voyage he had a single vessel no larger than the Nina, the smallest s.h.i.+p in the fleet of Columbus. Eighteen men made up his crew. He pa.s.sed around the southern end of Ireland, and sailed north and west until he came to land, which proved to be the coast of North America somewhere between the northern part of Labrador and the southern end of Nova Scotia.

CABOT'S DISCOVERY. John Cabot saw no inhabitants, but he found notched trees, snares for game, and needles for making nets, which showed plainly that the land was inhabited by human beings. Like Columbus, Cabot thought he was off the coast of China.

THE CABOT VOYAGES FORGOTTEN. Before the end of 1497 John Cabot was back in Bristol. It is almost certain that he and his son, Sebastian Cabot, made a second voyage to the new found lands in the following year. The Cabot voyages, however, were soon almost forgotten by the people of England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEBASTIAN CABOT After the picture ascribed to Holbein]

THE NAMING OF THE NEW LANDS. Why was our country named America rather than Columbia or New India? Both the southern and northern continents which we call the Americas were named for Americus Vespucius rather than for Christopher Columbus. This seems the more strange since we know so little about the life of Americus. Americus Vespucius was born in Florence, Italy, and like many other young Italians of that day entered the service of neighboring countries. He went to Spain and accompanied several Spanish expeditions sent to explore the new continent which Columbus had discovered on his third voyage.

Perhaps Americus went as a pilot; he certainly was not the leader in any expedition. But he seems to have written to his friends interesting accounts of what he had seen. In one of these letters Americus seems to have written boastfully of how he had found lands which might be called a new world. He said that the new continent was more populous and more full of animals than Europe, or Asia, or Africa, and that the climate was even more temperate and pleasant than any other region. This was clearly a new world.

WHY AMERICUS WAS REGARDED AS THE DISCOVERER OF AMERICA. The statement of Americus was scattered widely by the help of the newly invented printing press. It was written in Latin, and so could be read by the learned of all countries. They were impressed by the belief of Americus that he had seen a new world and not simply the Indies. This was especially true of men living outside of Spain who had heard little of Columbus or his discovery.

Columbus for his part had written as if his great discovery was a way to the Indies and the finding of islands on the way thither less important. Besides, when he saw what we call South America he had no idea that it was a new world. The people of Europe either never knew that he had discovered the mainland or had forgotten it altogether. But they heard a great deal about Americus and his doings. It is not strange that Americus rather than Columbus was long regarded as the true discoverer of America.

TWO NAMES FOR THE NEW LANDS. Even then the new continent might not have been called America but for the suggestion of a young scholar of the time. Martin Waldseemuller, a professor of geography at the college of St. Die, now in eastern France, wrote a book on geography. In his description of the parts of the world unknown to the ancients, he suggested naming the continent stretching to the south for Americus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE Of the pa.s.sage in the _Cosmographia Introductio_ (1507), by Martin Waldseemuller, in which the name of America is proposed for the New World.]

The facsimile's transcription reads as follows: Nunc Vero et hae partes sunt latius l.u.s.tratae, et alia quarta pars per Americ.u.m Vesputium (ut in sequentibus audietur) inventa est quam non video cur quis jure vetet ab Americo inventore sagacis ingenii viro Amerigen quasi Americi terram, sive Americam dicendam: c.u.m et Europa et Asia a mulieribus sua sort.i.ta sint nomina. Ejus situm et gentis mores ex bis binis Americi navigationibus quae sequuntur liquide intelligidatur.

Waldseemuller thought Americus had been the real discoverer of this continent. He said, "Now, indeed, as these regions are more widely explored, and another fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespucius, I do not see why any one may justly forbid it to be named Amerige--that is, Americ's Land, from Americus, the discoverer."

Others adopted Waldseemuller's suggestion and the name America came into general use outside of Spain. But the Spaniards continued to call all the new lands by the name which Columbus had given them--the Indies. America was at first the name for South America only, but later was also used by writers for the other continent which was soon found to the north. It was natural to distinguish the two continents as South and North America.

BALBOA. The successors of Columbus kept up a ceaseless search for the real Indies, but the more they explored the more they saw that a great continental barrier was lying across the sea pa.s.sage to Asia. A few began to suspect that after all America was not a part of Asia. Vasco Nunez Balboa was one of these. Balboa was a planter who had settled in Espanola. He fell deeply into debt, and to escape his creditors had himself nailed up in a barrel and put aboard a vessel bound for the northern coast of South America. From there he went to the eastern border of Panama with a party of gold seekers. The Indians told him of a great sea and of an abundance of gold on its sh.o.r.es to be found a short distance across the isthmus. It is probable that the Indians wished to get rid of the Spaniards as neighbors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VASCO NUnEZ BALBOA]

BALBOA'S DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC. Balboa resolved to make a name for himself and to be the discoverer of the other sea. He set off in 1513. The land is not more than forty-five miles wide at Panama, but it is almost impa.s.sable even to this day. For twenty-two days the hardy adventurers advanced through a forest, dense with thickets and tangled swamps and interlacing vines--so thick that for days the sun could not be seen--and over rough and slippery mountain-sides until they came to an open sea stretching off to the south and west. Balboa called it the South Sea, but it is usually called the Pacific Ocean, the name given it afterward.

Balboa had made the important discovery that the barrier of land was comparatively narrow. This gave the impression that North America, too, was narrower than it proved to be, and the search for the pa.s.sage to the Indies was pushed with greater vigor.

MAGELLAN. A Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, had really won the race begun by Prince Henry's navigators and Columbus for India, the land of cloves, pepper, and nutmegs. He had won in 1497 by going around the Cape of Good Hope. Another explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, finally, reached the Indies in a long westward voyage lasting two years, from 1519 to 1521.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FERDINAND MAGELLAN]

THE BEGINNING OF MAGELLAN'S VOYAGE. Magellan, himself a Portuguese, tried in vain like Columbus to persuade the king of Portugal to aid him in his project. He succeeded better in Spain, and sailed from there in 1519 with a small fleet given him by the young king Charles. The five s.h.i.+ps in his fleet were old and in bad repair, and the crews had been brought together from every nation. They sailed directly to South America, and spent the first year searching every inlet along the coast for a pa.s.sage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN]

They found that the natives of South America used for food vegetables that "looked like turnips and tasted like chestnuts." The Indians called them "patatas." In this way the potato, one of the great foods of to-day, was found by Europeans. A whole winter was pa.s.sed on the cold and barren coast of Patagonia. Magellan called the natives "Patagones," the word in his language meaning big feet, from the large foot-prints which they left on the sand.

THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. Magellan finally found a strait, since named for him the Strait of Magellan, and sailed his s.h.i.+ps through it amid the greatest dangers. The change from the rough waters of the strait to the calm sea beyond made the word Pacific or Peaceful Sea seem the most suitable name for the vast body of water which they had entered.

THE FIRST VOYAGE ACROSS THE PACIFIC. From the western coast of South America Magellan struck boldly out into the Pacific Ocean on his way to Asia. The crews suffered untold hards.h.i.+ps. The very rats which overran the rotten s.h.i.+ps became a luxurious article of food which only the more fortunate members of the crews could afford. The poorer seamen lived for days on the ox-hide strips which protected the masts. These were soaked in sea-water and roasted over the fire.

Magellan was fortunate enough to chance upon the Isle of Guam, where plentiful supplies were obtained. He called the group of small islands, of which Guam is one, the Ladrones. This was his word for robbers, used because the natives were such robbers. The expedition discovered a group of islands afterwards called the Philippines. There Magellan fell in with traders from the Indies and knew that the remainder of the voyage would be through well-known seas and over a route frequently followed. Poor Magellan did not live to complete his remarkable voyage. He was killed in the Philippine Islands in a battle with the natives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD MAP OF THE NEW WORLD--1523 After Magellan's voyage, but before the exploration of North America had gone far]

Only one of the five s.h.i.+ps found its way through the Spice Islands, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and so back to Spain; but this one carried home twenty-six tons of cloves, worth more than enough to pay the whole cost of the expedition. Such was the value of the trade Europe was so eagerly seeking.

WHAT MAGELLAN HAD SHOWN THE PEOPLE OF EUROPE. Magellan's voyage had, however, been a great event. Historians are agreed that it was the greatest voyage in the history of mankind. It had shown in a practical way that the earth is a globe, just as Columbus and other wise men had long taught, for a s.h.i.+p had sailed completely around it.

But Magellan had also proved some things that they had not dreamed. He had shown that two great oceans instead of one lay between Europe and Asia; he had made clear that the Indies which the Spanish explorers had found, and which other people were beginning to call the Americas, were really a new world entirely separate from Asia, and not a part of Asia as Columbus had thought.

QUESTIONS.

1. Why were the early American explorers disappointed at finding two continents between Europe and Asia?

2. What land did John Cabot discover? Where did he think this land was? Why did the English people take little interest in this voyage?

3. Why was our country named America? Do you think that Americus Vespucius deserved so great an honor? By what name did the Spaniards continue to call the new region? Why did the Spaniards have one name and the other Europeans another name for a long time?

4. How did Balboa come to find the Pacific Ocean? Why did men search for a pa.s.sage between the Atlantic and the Pacific more vigorously after Balboa's expedition?

5. Why has Magellan's voyage been called the greatest one in history? What three things had Magellan shown the European world?

EXERCISES.

1. Make out a list of the explorers mentioned in this chapter who helped in the discovery of the New World, and place opposite the name of each the name of the land he discovered.

2. Trace Magellan's voyage on the map and make a list of the lands or countries he pa.s.sed. Look at the map of North America on this old map, and at the one in mentioned Chapter XIX. How do you account for the queer shape of North America on the old map?

Important date--1519-21. Magellan's s.h.i.+p made the first voyage around the world.

CHAPTER XVI.

EARLY SPANISH EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS ON THE MAINLAND.

THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MEXICAN INDIANS. Early Spanish explorers on the coast of Mexico found the Indians of the mainland more highly civilized than the natives of the West Indies. Some of these, especially the Aztecs, lived in large villages or cities and were ruled by powerful chiefs or kings. They built to their G.o.ds huge stone temples with towers several stories in height.

Their houses, quite unlike those of the other Indians the Spanish had seen, were made of stone or sun-dried brick and coated with hard white plaster. Some of them were of immense size and could hold many families. Doors had not been invented, but hangings of woven gra.s.s or matting of cotton served instead. Strings of sh.e.l.ls which a visitor could rattle answered for door-bells.

The streets of the towns were narrow, but were often paved with a sort of cement. Aqueducts in solid masonry somewhat like the old Roman aqueducts, although not so large, carried water from the neighboring hills for fountains and rude public baths.

The women wove cotton and prepared clothing for their families. Workmen made ornaments of gold and copper, and utensils and dishes of pottery for every-day use. The people cultivated the fields around the cities, raising a great variety of foods, and even built ditches to carry water for irrigating the fields. All this was in striking contrast with the simple habits of the West Indians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AZTEC SACRIFICIAL STONE Now in the National Museum in the City of Mexico]

CRUEL CUSTOMS OF THE AZTECS. With all the good features of Mexican life, with all the superiority of the Mexicans over the other Indians, there was much that was hideous and cruel. The Aztecs, the most powerful tribes, were continually at war with their neighbors. They lived mainly upon the plunder of their enemies and the tribute which they took from those they had conquered. Like all Mexicans, they wors.h.i.+ped great ugly idols as G.o.ds and to these their priests offered part of the captives taken in war as human sacrifices.

SPANISH IDEAS OF MEXICO. The reports of the Aztec civilization and of the treasures of gold, mostly untrue, excited the interest and greed of the Spaniards. Mexico seemed like the China which Marco Polo had described, and might offer a chance of immense wealth for those who should conquer it. In truth, Mexican civilization did resemble that of Asia more than anything that the Spaniards had seen. Montezuma, a powerful chief or king of the Aztecs, lived somewhat like a Mongol Emperor of Persia or China.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONTEZUMA, THE LAST KING OF MEXICO After Monta.n.u.s and Ogilby]

CORTeS. In 1519 the governor of Cuba sent Hernando Cortes to explore and conquer Mexico. The expedition landed where Vera Cruz is now situated. The s.h.i.+ps were then sunk in order to cut off all hope of retreat for the soldiers. "For whom but cowards," said Cortes, "were means of retreat necessary!" Cortes, with great skill, worked up the zeal of his soldiers to the fury of a religious crusade. All thought it a duty to destroy the idols they saw, to end the practice of offering human sacrifices, and to force the Christian religion upon the natives.

The small army marched slowly inland towards the City of Mexico, which was the capital of Montezuma's kingdom. Cortes and his men had learned the Indian mode of fighting from ambush, and also how successfully to match cunning and treachery with those villagers who tried to prevent his invasion of their country.

HOW THE SPANIARDS AND THE AZTECS FOUGHT. The Mexican warriors, though they fought fiercely, were no match for the Spaniards. The Mexicans were experts with the bow and arrow, using arrows pointed with a hard kind of stone. They carried for hand-to-hand fighting a narrow club set with a double edge of razor-like stones, and wore a crude kind of armor made from quilted cotton. But such things were useless against Spanish bullets shot from afar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ARMOR OF CORTeS After an engraving of the original in the National Museum, Madrid]

The roaring cannon, the glittering steel swords, the thick armor and s.h.i.+ning helmets, the prancing horses on which the Spanish leaders were mounted, gave the whole a strange, unearthly appearance to the simple-minded Indians. The story is told that the Mexicans believed that one of their G.o.ds had once floated out to sea, saying that, in the fulness of time, he would return with fair-skinned companions to begin again his rule over his people. Many Aztecs looked upon the coming of the white men as the return of this G.o.d and thought that resistance would be useless. Such natives sent presents, made their peace with Cortes, and so weakened the opposition to the conquerors.

CORTeS IN PERIL. Cortes easily entered the City of Mexico, and forced Montezuma to resign. But here the natives attacked his army in such numbers that he had to retreat to escape capture. The Spaniards fled from the city at night amid the onslaught of the inhabitants fighting for their religion and their homes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CANNON OF THE TIME OF CORTeS After Van Menken. There are in the naval museum at Annapolis guns captured in the Mexican War supposed to be those used by Cortes]

The retreat cost the Spaniards terrible losses. Cortes started in the evening on the retreat with 1,250 soldiers, 6,000 Indian allies, and 80 horses. There were left in the morning 500 soldiers, 2,000 allies, and 20 horses. Cortes is said to have buried his face in his hands and wept for his lost followers, but he never wavered in his purpose of taking Mexico. He was able to defeat the Indians in the open country, and to return to the attack on the capital city.

CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF MEXICO. The siege which followed, lasting nearly three months, has rarely been matched in history for the bravery and suffering of the natives. The fighting was constant and terrible. The fresh water supply was cut off from the inhabitants in the city, and famine aided the invaders. At length the defenders were exhausted and Cortes entered. It had taken him two years to conquer the Aztecs. A greater task remained for him to do. He was to cleanse and rebuild the City of Mexico, make it a center of Spanish civilization, and Mexico a New Spain. By such work Cortes showed that he could be not only a great conqueror, but also an able ruler in time of peace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CITY OF MEXICO UNDER THE CONQUERORS From the engraving in the "Niewe Wereld" of Monta.n.u.s]

PIZARRO. A few years after Cortes conquered Mexico a second army conquered another famous Indian kingdom. Francisco Pizarro commanded this expedition, which set out from Panama in 1531. Pizarro had been with Balboa at the discovery of the South Sea or Pacific Ocean, and, like his master, had become interested in the stories the Indians told of a rich kingdom far to the south. The golden kingdom which the Indians described was that of the Incas, who lived much as the Aztecs. The Spaniards called the region of the Incas the Biru country or, by softening the first letter, the Peru country, from Biru, who was a native Indian chieftain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STONE IDOL OF THE AZTEC'S It is more than eight feet high and five feet across, and was dug up in the central square of the City of Mexico more than one hundred years ago]

CONQUEST OF PERU. Pizarro found the Incas divided as usual by civil wars and incapable of much resistance. One of their rival chiefs was outwitted when he tried to capture Pizarro by a trick, and was himself made a prisoner instead. He offered to give Pizarro in return for his freedom as much gold as would fill his prison room as high as he could reach. The offer was accepted, and gold, mainly in the shape of vases, plates, images, and other ornaments from the temples for the Indian idols, was gathered together.

The Spaniards soon found themselves in possession of almost $7,000,000 worth of gold, besides a vast quant.i.ty of silver. As much more was taken from the Indians by force. The whole was divided among the conquerors. Pizarro's share was worth nearly a million dollars. But the poor chief who had made them suddenly rich was suspected of plotting to have his warriors ambush them as they left the country, was tried by his conquerors, and put to death. The b.l.o.o.d.y work of conquest was soon over. Peru, like Mexico, rapidly became a center of Spanish settlement. Emigrants, instead of stopping in the West Indies, had the choice of going on into the newer regions which Cortes and Pizarro had won.

EMIGRANTS TO SPANISH AMERICA. It was much harder in the sixteenth century to leave Spain and settle in America than it is today. The first and sometimes the greatest difficulty was in getting permission to leave Spain. No one could go who had not secured the king's consent. The emigrant must show that neither he nor his father nor his grandfather had ever been guilty of heresy, that is, that he and his forefathers had been steadfast Catholic Christians. His wife, if he had one, must give her consent. His debts must all be paid. The Moors and the Jews of Spain could not secure permits to move to the New World. Foreigners of whatever nation were not wanted in the colonies and were usually kept out. Spain tried to keep its colonies wholly for Spaniards.

HARDs.h.i.+PS OF THE SEA VOYAGE. Those who did go to the colonies found the voyage dangerous and costly. One traveler has related that it cost him about one hundred and eighty dollars for the pa.s.sage, and that he provided his own chickens and bread. The danger to sailing s.h.i.+ps from storms was much greater than it is today for steams.h.i.+ps. The voyage required three or four weeks and not uncommonly as many months.

THE NEED OF LABORERS. The hards.h.i.+ps and dangers of the voyage and the reports of suffering from famine and disease kept most people from going to the New World. Emigration was slow, amounting to about a thousand a year. There were always fewer capable white laborers than the landowners in the colonies needed for their work, for there was much to do in clearing the land and preparing it for use. The landowners were usually well-to-do Spaniards who did not like to work in the fields themselves. A great many of the laborers who migrated to America served in the army or went to the gold and silver mines of Mexico and Peru. The craze for gold constantly robbed the older colonies of their farm laborers. The landowners in the islands of the West Indies, during the early history of the colonies, made slaves of the Indians and compelled them to take the place of the laborers they needed and could not obtain.

INDIAN SLAVERY. The people of Europe thought that the whole world belonged to the followers of Christ. Non-Christians, whether Indian or negro, had the choice of accepting Christianity or of being made slaves. The choice of Christianity did not always save them from the fate of slavery. In this the Spaniards were no more cruel than their neighbors the English or the French. The Spanish planters from the beginning forced the Indians to work their farms. The gold seekers made them work in their mines.

The labor in every case was hard, and specially hard for the Indian unused to work. The overseers were brutal when the slaves did not do the tasks set for them. Hard usage and the unhealthful quarters rapidly broke down the natives. The white men also brought into the island diseases which they, with their greater experience, could resist, but from which, one writer says, the Indians died like sheep with a distemper.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SPANISH GALLEON s.h.i.+ps like this carried the Spanish emigrants to America]

SLAVERY DESTROYS THE WEST INDIANS. When the number of the Indians in Espanola and Cuba had decreased so much that there were not enough left to meet the needs of the planters, slave-hunters searched the neighboring islands for others. Finally, when the Indians were nearly gone, and the planters began to look to the mainland for their slaves, the king of Spain forbade making slaves of the Indians. Unfortunately he did not forbid them to capture negroes in Africa for the same purpose, and the change merely meant that negroes took the place of Indians as slaves. The story of the change is in great part the story of the life of Bartholomew de Las Casas.

LAS CASAS. The father of Las Casas was a companion of Columbus on his second voyage in 1493. He returned to Spain, taking with him a young Indian slave whom he gave to his son. This youth became greatly interested in the race to which his young slave belonged. In 1502 he went to Espanola to take possession of his father's estate. The planter's life did not long satisfy him and finally he became a priest. He moved from Espanola to Cuba, the newer colony.

Las Casas became convinced that Indian slavery was wrong, and gave his own slaves their freedom. In his sermons he attacked the abuses of slavery. He visited Spain in order to help the slaves, and secured many reforms which lessened the hards.h.i.+ps of their lot. Since the planters demanded more laborers and Las Casas thought the negro would be hardier than the Indian, he advocated negro slavery in place of Indian slavery as the less of two evils. Finally, in 1542, Las Casas persuaded his king, Charles V, to put an end to Indian slavery of every form.

His success came too late to benefit the natives of the West Indies. They had decreased until almost none were left. It is said that there were two hundred thousand Indians in Espanola in 1492, and that in 1548 there were barely five hundred survivors. The same decrease had taken place in the other islands. But the work of Las Casas came in time to save the Indians on the mainland from the fate of the luckless islanders.

NEGRO SLAVERY. Las Casas later regretted that he had advised the planters to obtain negroes to take the place of the Indians. Some negroes had been captured by the Portuguese on the coast of Africa during their explorations and taken to Europe as slaves. Columbus carried a few of these to the West Indies with him, and others had followed his example, but negro slavery had grown very slowly until after Las Casas stopped Indian slavery, when it increased rapidly in Spanish America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAS CASAS After the picture by Felix Parra in the Academy, Mexico. Las Casas is supposed to be imploring Providence to s.h.i.+eld the natives from Spanish cruelty]

THE MISSIONS OF THE MAINLAND. Las Casas became at one time a missionary to a tribe of the most desperate warriors located on the southern border of Mexico, in a region called by the Spaniards the "Land of War." Three times a Spanish army had invaded the country, and three times it had been driven back by the native defenders. Las Casas wished to show the Spaniards that more could be accomplished by treating the Indians kindly than by b.l.o.o.d.y warfare and conquest.

He and the monks whom he took with him learned the language of the Indians, and went among them not as conquerors but as Christian teachers. Their gentle manners and endless patience won the friends.h.i.+p of the Indians in time and changed the land of constant warfare into one of peace. They led the natives to destroy their idols and to give up cannibalism. The mission established among them and kept up by the monks who were attracted to it was only one of a great number which sprang up on the mainland.

THE WORK OF THE MISSIONS. Influenced by the work of Las Casas against Indian slavery and for Indian missions, the Spaniards bent their efforts to preserve and Christianize the natives wherever they came upon them in America. Catholic priests gathered the Indians into permanent villages, which were called missions. Within about one hundred years after the death of Columbus, or by 1600, there were more then 5,000,000 Indians in such villages under Spanish rule. Priests taught them to build better houses, checked their native vices, and suppressed heathen practices.

Every mission became a little industrial school for children and parents alike, where all might learn the simpler arts and trades and the customs and language of their teachers. Each Indian cultivated his own plot of land and worked two hours a day on the farm belonging to the village. The produce of the village farm supported the church. The monks or friars who had charge of the mission cared for the poor, taught in the schools, preserved the peace and order of the village, and looked after the religious welfare of all.