[In the following essay, Hanke discusses how Spain's discovery of new civilizations in the sixteenth century sparked a number of religious and secular debates about how American Indians should be treated, most centering finally on whether American aboriginals should be regarded as rational beings or savages.]

The discovery of America precipitated a flood of theories which has not yet fully abated and, as Samuel Johnson declared, “gave a new world to European curiosity”.¹ The origin of the new world natives proved to be one of the most fruitful subjects for speculation. Columbus called them Indians but not for long did Spaniards consider them inhabitants of ancient India. Could they be remnants of the lost ten tribes of Israel?² Some Spaniards thought so but had no more evidence for their opinions than later students who asserted that the Incas of Peru were descendants of Mongols who, accompanied by elephants, came to America in the thirteenth century.³ Cotton Mather supposed that “the devil decoyed these miserable salvages hither,”⁴ and some patriotic Welshmen have long held that America was discovered in the twelfth century by Prince Madoc Ap Owen Gwynedd and that Welsh speaking Indians existed in the eighteenth century as living proof.⁵

Another problem which thoroughly agitated Spanish theorists was the question whether these copper colored natives were rational beings, barbarians, or a sort of intermediate species between men and beasts.⁶ Each of these views found adherents, and the literary strife amongst them produced numerous writings of interest to the historian. Bartolomé de Las Casas, the “Apostle of the Indians”, produced a magisterial work of almost nine hundred folio pages entitled Apologética Historia de las Indias designed to crush his opponents who contended that the Indians were savages whose services and belongings could properly be commandeered by the Spaniards.⁷ The history of human aberrations shows few more interesting exhibits than this little known work wherein Las Casas advanced the idea that the American Indians compared very favorably with the peoples of ancient times, were eminently rational beings, and in fact fulfilled every one of Aristotle's requisites for the good life.⁸ Las Casas also stated that his desire to deliver Spain from the error of thinking that the Indian were not rational beings constituted one of the eight reasons compelling him to write his Historia de las Indias, one of the greatest sources of information and misinformation on sixteenth century America.⁹

The Dominican Juan Ferrer, one of the first Spaniards to undertake the serious study of Mexican archæology, composed a treatise concerning the civilization of the Indians which he hoped would silence forever the doubts raised concerning their rationality.¹⁰ Likewise another Dominican, Domingo de Santo Tomás, announced in the prologue to his Grammática, o arte de la lengua general de los Indios de los Reynos del Peru¹¹ that his principal intention in offering to the king his account of the beauty and intricacies of the Indian languages was that:

Your Majesty might see very clearly how false is the idea—as many would persuade Your Majesty—that the natives of Peru are barbarians.

Parenthetically it should be observed that the Spaniards were not alone in considering the Indians as mere barbarians. Francis I, for example, declared them to be “savages living without the knowledge of God or the use of reason”.¹² This opinion was later adopted in the United States by frontiersmen who, not understanding the natives, solved the problem by declaring flatly that they were not human beings, and acted thereafter upon this assumption.¹³ Nor did the buffalo hunters during the early days of transcontinental railroad building regard the Indians as human beings.¹⁴

Spaniards also debated the question whether the Indians were plain pagans, or relapsed infidels who had been christianized centuries before by the apostle Thomas. Solórzano, one of Europe's greatest jurists in the seventeenth century, found this latter view widespread enough to require a denial.¹⁵ On a lower plane, many Spaniards who had personal contact with the natives wondered whether their disagreeable and bestial habits were merely superficial flaws which might be corrected by proper education or ineradicable defects.¹⁶

Many sixteenth century thinkers both in Spain and in America grappled with the complicated problem of determining whether God created the Indians free beings or whether they were slaves by nature in conformity with the Aristotelian conception. The authority of Aristotle to uphold slavery in America was invoked at least as early as 1519 when Las Casas and Bishop Juan de Quevedo locked horns at the first council on Indian affairs presided over by the young King Charles.¹⁷ Anyone familiar with the extensive literature which sprang up before 1860 to support negro slavery in the United States on theoretical grounds will realize how much passion was generated by the application of Aristotle to new world problems. When President Dew of William and Mary College declared that “it is the order of nature that the beings of superior faculties and knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should dispose of those who are inferior”,¹⁸ he started a controversy which rivalled in bitterness the polemic concerning Indian slavery in sixteenth century America.

The question most important of all to the Spanish crown was what capacity did the Indians have to absorb the elements of a Spanish and a Christian civilization. Was it true, as Pope Alexander VI was informed by representatives of Ferdinand and Isabella, that

these very peoples living in the said islands and countries believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and to be trained in good morals.¹⁹

Fortunately for the papacy, it was not called upon to resolve this question because the bulls of donation of Pope Alexander VI and of Pope Julius II conferred upon the crown of Spain the power to direct church as well as state affairs in the new found world. The king became the head of the church, responsible for rescuing the millions of Indians from idolatry and paganism, as well as the supreme leader of the state.²⁰

This unique species of dominion²¹ gave rise to many thorny problems, and the attempt of the king of Spain to wield at the same time what medieval theorists referred to as the two swords of secular and spiritual dominion immensely complicated all aspects of colonial administration. This peculiar situation combined with the spirit of the Spanish people at the end of the Reconquest of their lands from the Saracens, which a modern historian²² has aptly described as a merkwürdige Mischung von Gott und Gewinn, explains the flood of theories occasioned by the discovery of America. From the earliest years of the conquest, theologians, jurists, missionaries, colonists and officials thronged the antechambers of the Council of the Indies presenting memorials, petitions and even whole treatises on the many complicated issues which speedily arose.

The theoretical and highly debatable questions outlined above, some of which have not been entirely settled today,²³ early raised the dust of controversy in almost every department of Spanish administration in the newly discovered lands. Rarely was any part of the Spanish Indian policy conceived or developed without some reference to them.

One may not agree with Sir Arthur Helps when he asserts:

I have not the slightest doubt that the account in the Bible of the origin of our first parents and the unity of the human race (which will be found constantly referred to) was the cause of millions of people, whole nations, being maintained upon the earth.

Those Indians whom the Spanish priests and statesmen were able to preserve from the cruelty and recklessness of their countrymen, owed their preservation to this basis of thought, that whatever appearances might say to the contrary, the conquerors and conquered were originally of one race.²⁴

Yet the theories which exercised the Spaniards of the sixteenth century cannot be dismissed as mere antiquarianism for their practical application to Spanish Indian policy was evident throughout the sixteenth century.

For example, if the Indians were rational beings, could they with justice be deprived of their lands and made to work or to pay tribute?²⁵ If savages, was not this fact at least a partial justification for Spanish rule in the Indies?²⁶ If the Carib Indians were cannibals, did not this unnatural vice make necessary their enslavement by Spaniards?²⁷ Was it just to brand Indian slaves?²⁸ Was it a Christian act, even when necessary, to use force to induce the natives to accept Christianity?²⁹ How much religious instruction should be given them before baptism and, once converted, did this multitude of newly won souls have the right to participate in all the sacraments?³⁰ Las Casas, who insisted that the Indians must be properly catechized before baptism, sternly opposed such missionaries as Friar Marcos Ardon who was supposed to have baptized over a million natives in Guatemala.³¹ This difference of opinion attained the proportions of a first class theological dispute and, at the request of Las Casas, the Emperor Charles V submitted the problem to the foremost theologians of Salamanca for resolution.³²

Matters which directly concerned the revenue of the crown in America were also the subject of endless wrangling. Was the crusade tithe (cruzada) to be levied on the wealth won by Spaniards in the new world? As early as 1519, two “very learned Parisian doctors of theology of great authority”, were set to study this problem by Cardinal Adrian, the commissary general of the cruzada,³³ and did so for fifteen days, arriving at a complicated and tentative solution.

Of even greater import to the crown treasury was the question whether the newly converted Indians should pay the church tithe (diezmo). The right to collect diezmos in the Indies had been granted by Pope Julius II to the Catholic Kings on Dec. 16, 1501.³⁴ Governor Ovando was thereupon instructed by royal order of March 20, 1503 to collect diezmos from Indians and colonists alike.³⁵ Gradually there developed opposition among the friars engaged in converting the Indians to the payment of the tithe by their charges. The crown recognized the danger of rousing opposition among the newly won souls by insisting on payment and a royal order sent out to Mexico on Aug. 2, 1533 decreed that temporarily no church tithe as such should be demanded from the Indians but that the amount of the tithe should be secretly added to the tribute required of the Indians.³⁶ Thus would the crown receive its due without stirring up unnecessary trouble. A generation later in Mexico, Archbishop Montúfar clashed with Friar Alonso de la Vera Cruz on this question. Montúfar held that Indians should pay³⁷ while the friar not only opposed the Archbishop but wrote a treatise on the subject entitled Relectio De Dicimis which was confiscated at Montúfar's suggestion and has not yet been published.³⁸

Another issue of great importance to the Holy office of the church was whether the Inquisition ought to protect Indians as well as Spaniards from the disintegrating spirit of heresy. Fortunately for the Indians, they were generally not touched by the Inquisition on account of their rudeza e incapacidad as Solórzano put it.³⁹ Bishop Landa's torture of Indians in Yucatan suspected of idolatry shows what might have happened throughout Spanish America.⁴⁰

Finally, must Indian children be taught Latin and instructed in the subtleties of Thomas Aquinas, or should they be drilled in a simple program of “reading, writing, and 'rithmetic”?⁴¹

Astonishing as these questions may appear to the modern reader, the undeniable fact remains that they were solemnly and passionately discussed in Spain and the Indies in the sixteenth century.⁴² Critics have not hesitated to condemn these disputes as meaningless, absurd and hypocritical. Without attempting to hand down a pontifical judgment one may say that answers to the questions given above, and to other specific issues created by the conquest, could only be settled to the Spaniards' satisfaction when the policy determined upon was firmly grounded in some generally accepted concept of the Indian which would satisfy their sense of justice.

Notes

1. The World Displayed; or, a Curious Collection of Voyages and Travels, I (London, 1759), xxx.

2. See Appendix A. for a detailed bibliography showing the persistence of this hardy fallacy.

3. John Ranking, Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, Mexico, Bogota, Natchez, and Talomeco in the Thirteenth Century, by the Mongols, Accompanied with Elephants (London, 1827).

4. Magnalia Christi Americana, I (Hartford, 1820), 503.

5. Thomas Stephens, An Essay on the Discovery of America by Madoc Ap Owen Gwynedd in the Twelfth Century (London, 1893). One of the most amusing relics of this belief is in a recent catalogue of Maggs Brothers of London (Catalogue No. 502, Item 5909) where an engraving of William A. Bowles is solemnly described as representing “one of a colony of Welsh descent in North America, called the Madawgwys”.

6. There is some question whether the Spaniards did look upon the Indians as animals. Felix de Azara, the Spanish naturalist (1746-1821) declared that the first Spaniards considered the Indians half men or rather an intermediate species [Viajes por la América Meridional, Francisco de las Barras de Aragón, ed., II (Madrid, 1923), 86.] Pablo Hernández denied this [Organización social de las Doctrinas guaraníes de la Compañía de Jesús, I (Barcelona, 1913), 43-47.] He likewise denied the truth of the statements made by Solórzano [Disputationes de Indiarum Jure, I, Lib. I, Cap. VII (Madrid, 1629)] that some Spaniards considered Indians to be beasts deprived of reason. A consideration of the evidence to be later presented in this chapter will show that Hernández's criticisms are far from valid. One specific instance may be given here. Friar Pedro de Gante, who had early in his career praised the ability of the Indians [Cartas de Indias (Madrid, 1877), 52] but in a letter to Philip II in 1558 describing the difficulties of converting the Indians, declared “empero la gente comun estava como animales sin razon yndomables que no lo podiamos traer al gremio y congregacion de la yglia ni a la doctrina ni a sermon … huyan como salvajes de los frailes” [A. H. N. Cartas de Indias, Caja I, Num. 65.] Moreover Francisco de Vitoria found it necessary to discuss in De Indis the questions “whether the use of reason is a prerequisite of capacity for ownership” and whether the Indians were mentally unsound.

7. The Apologética Historia remains today one of the least read of all of the works of Las Casas. A few chapters of the work were published by Jiménez de la Espada as De las antiguas gentes del Perú (Madrid, 1892). But not until 1909 was the complete version brought out in Madrid by Manual Serrano y Sanz. The only student to make any considerable use of the Apologética Historia has been Serrano y Sanz in “Doctrinas psicológicas de Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas” [Revistas de Archivos, Bibliotecas, y Museos, XVII, 59-75], although according to Serrano y Sanz it is “la obra del P. Las Casas en que mejor se ve el pensamiento filosófico, la cultura y la psicología individual del autor.”

8. For further information on this point see the writer's Las Ideas Políticas de Bartolomé de Las Casas (Buenos Aires, 1934). The nineteenth century abolotionists in New England showed a somewhat similar attitude toward negroes. Their sympathy gradually developed into a concept of the negro as a superior being fitted by nature to participate instantly in all the higher manifestations of culture which centuries of modern civilization had produced. Even Charles Sumner believed this as late as 1870 according to Sumner Welles, Naboth's Vineyard, I (New York, 1928), 394.

9. Historia de las Indias, Prólogo.

10. Victor Francis O'Daniel, Dominicans in Early Florida (New York, 1930), 100-101.

11. Valladolid, 1560.

12. Cited by George E. Ellis in his article on “Las Casas and the relations of the Spaniards to the Indians” in Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, II (Boston, 1889), 225.

13. Arthur P. Whitaker, The Spanish American Frontier (New York, 1927), p. 26.

14. Francis J. McConnell, Christianity and Coercion (Nashville, 1933), 12. Apparently whenever relatively advanced races and relatively backward races meet, some members of the former group adopt an uncompromising attitude toward the possibilities of the backward people. For example Governor Benjamin D'Urban at the end of a war against the natives in South Africa in a public proclamation referred to the natives as “irreclaimable savages”, William Miller Macmillan, Bantu, Boer, and Briton: The Making of the South African Native Problem (London, 1929), 123. On this point see also the suggestive study by Jean Finot, Le Préjugé des Races (Second ed., Paris, 1906).

15. Política Indiana, Lib. I. Cap. VIII., Nos. 16-27. Later Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, a Mexican revolutionary, writing under the pseudonym of José Guerra, composed an erudite dissertation to prove the coming of St. Thomas, and published it in volume II of his Historia de la Revolución de Nueva España, antiguamente Anahuac (London, 1813). Mier held that the evangelization of America by the apostle gave to the Pope greater rights over the new world than to the King of Spain. The birth and development of this legend, the use made by it by the Jesuits, and its death are described by Enrique de Gandía in his Historia crítica de los mitos de la conquista Americana (Madrid, 1929), cap. X. See also the chapter by Mariano Cuevas on “¿ Hudo en el Anahuac evangelización prehispánica?” in his Historia de la Iglesia en México, I (México, 1922), cap. IV. As late as 1924 Carl Maria Kaufmann, archaeologist and Catholic priest, expressed the belief in Amerika und Urchristentum. Weltverkehrswege des Christentums nach den Reichen der Maya und Inka in vorkolumbischer Zeit (Munich, 1924) that Christianity came first to Central and South America about the fifth or sixth century.

16. José de Acosta, De natura novi orbis libri duo et de promulgando Evangelio apud Barbaros sive de procurando Indorum salute (Salamanca, 1589). The first three books are all useful but his opinion is well illustrate by his statement in Book I, Chap. VIII, “Barbarorum ineptitudinem non tam a natura, quam ab educatione, et consuetudine profiscisci”. Acosta also combats “the common opinion that they are a brutal and bestial people, without understanding” in his Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Madrid, 1792), Book 6, Chap. 1.

    As early as Feb. 24, 1513 a royal order directed that the sons of Indian chieftains in Española should be taught Latin grammar by a special teacher, A. de I., Indiferente General 419, Lib. 4, pp. 107-108. That this was no mere polite gesture may be seen from the royal order to the Casa de Contratación, dated April 22, 1513, directing that “veynte artes de gramatica e veynte pares de escrivanias y veynte manos de papel e diez volumes de evangelios e omelias” be sent to the teacher in Española, ibid., Indiferente General 419, Lib. 4, p. 124 vuelto.

17. Las Casas gives a spirited account of the battle in his Historia de las Indias, Lib. III, caps. CXLIX-CLI. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, the most distinguished sixteenth century proponent of the idea, was opposed by Las Casas at the Valladolid dispute of 1550. Gaspar de Recarte was one of the few who cited Aristotle who really understood the theories involved. In his “Tratado del servicio personal” written in 1584, Recarte insisted that even though the Indians were inferior beings who should be governed by Spaniards, these governors rule in the interests of the Indians. Otherwise, according to Aristotle, the Spanish rule would be tyrannical. The whole of Recarte's important treatise is published by Mariano Cuevas, Documentos inéditos del siglo XVI para la historia de México (México, 1914), 354-385.

18. Edwin R. Embree, Brown America (New York, 1931), 17. No. extended or serious study of the theoretical struggle concerning negro slavery in the United States has yet been made but valuable information may be obtained from William E. Dodd, The Cotton Kingdom (New Haven, 1919); F. W. Sargent, England, The United States, and the Southern Confederacy (Second ed., London, 1864); William A. Smith, Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery, as Exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States: with the Duties of Masters to Slaves (Nashville, 1856); Geraldine Hopkins Hubbard, A Classified Catalogue of the Collection of Anti-slavery Propaganda in the Oberlin College Library, Oberlin College Library, Bulletin, Vol. II (Oberlin, 1932), No. 3; L. D. Turner, Anti-Slavery Sentiment in American Literature Prior to 1865 (Washington, D. C., 1929); Gilbert H. Barnes, The Anti-Slavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (New York, 1933); Thomas R. Dew, The Pro-slavery Argument (Charleston, 1852); Goldwin Smith, Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery? (Oxford, 1863); Caroline L. Shanks, “The biblical anti-slavery argument”, Journal of Negro History, XVI (1931), 132-157; John Bachman, Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race (Charleston, 1850); for other useful references see Edward Channing, A History of the United States, V (New York, 1921), 142-169.

19. This passage comes from the bull Inter Caetera issued May 3, 1493. Frances G. Davenport, European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies to 1648, I (Washington, D. C., 1917), 76.

20. This union of powers explains the occupation of the Council of the Indies with all manner of religious matters. The Council even once solemnly discussed the question whether Chinese converts to Christianity in Manila should be made to cut off their pigtails as a visible sign of their emancipation from paganism, A. de I., Filipinas 339, Libro DDI, Parte II, p. 155 vuelto. Common sense fortunately ruled and the Council decided in the negative.

21. William Robertson, History of America, II (London, 1777), 353.

22. George Friederici, Der Charakter der Entdeckung in Amerika, seine Eroberung und Durchdringung Charackterisiert, I (Stuttgart, 1925), 311.

23. For example, as will be shown in this essay, some sixteenth century Spaniards thought that Indians could never be real Christians. This idea persisted for centuries. As late as 1788 José Alcedo stated that he dared “to venture the assertion that since the year 1528, when Panfilo de Narváez first set foot on the coast of West Florida … there has never been a single instance of a Florida Indian being genuinely converted and remaining steadfast in the Catholic religion to the day of his death”, in Documents Relating to the Commercial Policy of Spain in the Floridas (Deland, 1931), A. P. Whitaker, ed., 81.

    G. René-Moreno, the Bolivian historian, has declared that Christianity is for white people alone. He states that inferior beings, such as Indians, do not understand Christianity, nor can Christianity be adapted to their needs, Biblioteca Boliviana: Catálogo del archivo de Mojos y Chiquitos (Santiago de Chile, 1888), 93.

24. The Spanish Conquest in America, I (London, 1900), 204-205. A judge of the audiencia in Lima, Dr. Diego Andrés Rocha, composed a treatise entitled Tratado único y singular del Origen de los Indios del Perú, México, Santa Fé y Chile (Lima, 1681) in which he upheld the thesis, giving two hundred “proofs”, of the common origin of Spaniards and Indians.

25. Las Casas emphatically replied no to this question and devoted a large part of his life in representing to the government that Indians were rational beings. He defended this position in practically every one of his numerous writings and produced a bulky polemic, the Apologética Historia de las Indias, dedicated to this end alone.

    It may be pointed out that few English colonists or writers had a good word to say for the Indians. Even the missionaries, such as John Eliot, eager as they were to do the Indians good, made little effort to appreciate the good qualities of the Indian. William Byrd of Virginia (1674-1774) in The Dividing Line tried to hold the balance even.

    The Jesuits in Brazil and on the “reductions” of Paraguay likewise endeavored to protect the Indians under their charge by the same theoretical arguments brought forward by Las Casas. Pablo Hernández, Organización Social de las Doctrinas Guaraníes de la Compañia de Jesús, I (Barcelona, 1913), 43-83; Robert Southey, History of Brazil, III (London, 1817), 638. Other works which contain useful information on this subject are J. M. de Madureira, “A libertade dos indios e a Companhia de Jesus,” Revista do Instituto Historico E Geographico Brasileiro. Tomo Especial. Congresso Internacional de Historia de America, IV (Rio de Janeiro, 1927), 1-160; Rodríguez Octavio, Les sauvages Américains devant le droit, Hague. Académie de droit internationale. Recueil des Cours, 1930, I (Paris, 1931), 177-292; J. Lucio de Azevedo, Os Jesuítas no Grão-Pará: suas Missões e a Colonazação (Second ed., Coimbra, 1930); João Francisco Lisboa, Apontamentos, noticias, e observaçãoes para servirem á historia do Maranhão (Maranhão, 1853), Libs. V-VII; F. A. de Varnhargen, Os Indios Bravos e O Sr. Lisboa, Timon 3° (Lima, 1867); Alfonso de E. Taunay, Historia Geral das Bandeiras Paulistas, I (São Paulo, 1924).

26. Solórzano and many other theorists thought so [Política Indiana, Lib. 1, Cap. II, No. 19.] This idea has had a long history in Spain and in other countries as well. Of course, if the Indians were considered barbarians, almost anything could be justly done to them by the Spaniards. As late as 1832 Charles Darwin on his trip through Argentina observed that “every one here is convinced that this is a most just war (the bitter war of Rosas against the Indians) because it is against Barbarians. Who would believe in this age that such atrocities could be committed in a Christian civilized country?”, The Voyage of the Beagle (Harvard Classics Edition), 115. Even in this twentieth century, the excuse given by the Peruvian upper classes for their harsh treatment of the Indian is that they are animals, not men, W. E. Hardenburg, The Putumayo (London, 1912), 37. It is interesting to note that the same general reasons are adduced by Captain Elbridge Colby in an article entitled “How to fight savage tribes” in a recent number of the American Journal of International Law, vol. XXI (1927), 279-288.

27. Columbus advised enslavement of the Caribs as early as Jan. 30, 1494 in a memorial to Ferdinand and Isabella, in Martín Fernández de Navarrete, Colección de los viajes y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles desde fines del siglo XV, I (Madrid, 1825), 231-232. The Rodrigo de Figueroa residencia taken in 1521-1522 contains much important unpublished material on the Spanish Carib policy, A. de I., Justicia 45-47.

28. The infrequently cited “Información en derecho del Licenciado Rojas (Quiroga) sobre algunas provisiones del real consejo de Indias” contains material on this point, in D. I. I., X, 333-513. The document is incorrectly labelled Rojas and was composed in 1535 by Vasco de Quiroga, later Bishop of Michoacan. Rojas did write a “Parecer … para el herrar de los indios esclavos, año de 1528”, ibid., X, 517-525. Andrés de Cereceda presented a memorial on the same subject entitled “Las dubdas que se sienten para herrar los indios que los caciques dan por esclavos, son estas,” ibid., X., 513-516.

29. Las Casas argued in a treatise entitled De unico vocationis modo that force should never be used. This treatise has never been published in full though Las Casas in his Historia (Lib. III, caps. CXVII, CLI, CLIII, CLIV) gives the gist of his argument. This idea was stoutly opposed in the sixteenth century and consequently the treatise was not popular. Antonio de Remesal knew of only four copies existing in the seventeenth century, Historia de Chiapas y Guatemala (Madrid, 1619), Lib. X, Cap. 24. The Mexican bibliophile, Dr. Nicolás León, was fortunate enough to find in 1888 a part of this rare treatise which he describes in Noticia y descripción de un Códice del Ilmo. Dr. Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas, existente en la Biblioteca Pública del Estado de Oaxaca (Morelia, 1889).

    Las Casas was not the only advocate of peaceful conversion for this method was tried out in several parts of the Indies.

30. Antonio de Herrera, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del mar Océano (Madrid, 1601-1615), Dec. II, Lib. II, Cap. 15.

31. Fr. Guillermo Vázquez Núñez, “La conquista de los indios americanos por los primeros misioneros”, Biblioteca Hispana Missionum, I (Barcelona, 1930), 190. Friar Ardon “era poco escrupuloso en el Catecismo y sobre esto tuvo algunos disgustos con el P. Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas y los demás frailes dominicos”.

    On the general controversy see Pedro de Agurto, Tractado de que se deven administrar los Sacramentos de la Sancta Eucharistia y Extremaunction a los indios de esta Nueva España (México, 1573); Jerónimo de Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, Lib. III, Cap. 45; Memoriales de Fray Toribio Motolinia, Luis García Pimentel, ed. (México, 1903), 116-117. Some valuable references may be found in Gregorio de Santiago Vela, Ensayo de una Biblioteca Ibero-Americana de la Order de San Augustin, I (Madrid, 1913), 34-35.

32. The decision of the theologians was printed by Henry Stevens, Parescer O Determinaciõ de los señores theologos de Salamanca sobre de que no deben ser baptizados los yndios sin examinaciõ estrecha de su voluntad y concepto del sacramento, 1541 (London, 1854). The opinion was later printed in D. I. I., III, 543-553.

33. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, Lib. III, cap. CLIII.

34. D. I. I., XXXIV, 22-24.

35. Ibid., XXXI, 163.

36. Genero García, El clero de México durante la dominación española (México, 1907), 22-23.

37. D. I. I., IV, 491-530.

38. Montúfar considered these views heretical, Robert Ricard, Études et Documents Pour l'Historie Missionaire de l'Espagne et Portugal (Paris, 1931), 92. Vera Cruz was hauled up before the Inquisition in Mexico, A. H. N., Papeles de Inquisición, Leg. 4427, No. 5. His treatise was never published and is now to be found among the manuscripts in the Escorial (Signatura K. III. 6).

    Much manuscript material is available for the study of diezmos in sixteenth century America. A rich collection of over eight hundred pages is in the Archivo de Indias entitled “Documentos respectivos a si deben o no diezmos los Indios—1531-1555”, Indiferente General 2978. Other opinions are to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris) Fonds Espagnols, Ms. 325, fol. 342-345 and Fonds Espagnols, Ms. 174, fol. 107-108. See also Mariano Cuevas, Documentos inéditos del siglo XVI para la historia de México (México, 1914), 227, 231, 241, 243.

    Dr. Francisco Carrasco del Saz composed a book on the subject which Solórzano speaks of highly, but the work has apparently disappeared.

39. Política Indiana, Lib. IV, Cap. XXIV, No. 18. However, a few legal proceedings against Indians have been published in Publicación de la Comisión Reorganizadora del Archivo General y Público de la Nación, (México, 1910), I (Proceso inquisitorial del cacique de Texcoco), and III (Procesos contra indios idólatros y hechiceros). See also Henry C. Lea's The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies (New York, 1908), 211.

    As late as the eighteenth century, Villaroel believed that the Indians ought to be subjected to the Inquisition because of their widespread and persistent idolatry, Herbert I. Priestley, The Coming of the White Man (New York, 1929), 137.

40. José Toribio Medina, “Fray Diego de Landa, Inquisidor de los indios en Yucatán”, Proceedings. International Congress of Americanists, London, 1912 (London, 1913), 484-496.

41. A typical statement against the higher education of the Indians may be seen in the letter of Gerónimo López to the Emperor, Oct. 20, 1541 in D. I. U., XI, 147-150. The prebendary Morin presented an important “Memoria de avissos para el real consejo de Indias”, wherein he advises that the Jesuits, newly arrived in New Spain, be ordered to set up no Indian colleges. If some have already been erected, the Indians are to be taught only Christian doctrine, to sing, to play musical instruments and how to assist in the celebration of Mass. A de I., Mexico, 1841. Zumárraga worked for Indian education in New Spain [A. de I., Mexico, 1088, Lib. 3, p. 1 vuelto and Bol. Acad. Hist., XVII, 29-31] which the Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza approved in general, D. I. I., I, 204. The Bishop of Cuzco, in a letter to the King dated Feb. 11, 1577, advocated as necessary for the salvation of the natives, the foundation of an Indian university which should educate mestizos (Indian and Spanish half breeds), zambahigos (Indian and negro half breeds) and negroes, A. de I., Lima, 305. Of course, one of the serious objections to Indian education was its cost. An ingenious step was taken by Charles V, when by a cédula dated Dec. 25, 1551, he ordered Francisco de Chaves, as punishment for ill-treating the Indians, to pay for the erection of a school for Indian children, D. I. I., XVIII, 480.

42. Curiously enough, a few non-Spaniards became interested in the theoretical problems raised by the conquest of America. The earliest written opinion on the right of the King of Spain to the Indies was composed by a Scotchman, John Major, in 1511. Pedro Leturia, “Maior y Vitoria ante la conquista de América”, Estudios Eclesiásticos,, año 11 (Madrid, 1932), No. 41, pp. 44-82. The Emperor Maxiimilian wondered whether the natives of the new world could be saved and proposed questions on this subject to the Abbé Trithème who delivered a formal judgement. A few years later Claude Seyssel treated the problem in his De Divina Providentia Tractatus (Paris, 1520). For information on both writers see Louis Capéran, Le Problème du Salut des Infidèles (Paris, 1912). For general theorists see Joseph Schmidlin, “Katolische Missionstheoretiker des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts”, “Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 3. Heft (1911), 213-227.

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