who had given them a new country, caused him to be released at once, and recalled Bobadilla.

Nicholas de Ovando was now appointed to rule Hispaniola, and it was with him that Las Casas went out, as we shall see in the next chapter.

CHAPTER III

A NEW WORLD

When Las Casas arrived in Hispaniola with Ovando, the new governor, they were greeted by the news that a huge nugget of gold had been found, weighing thirty-five pounds. It was shaped like a flat dish, and to celebrate the discovery of such a treasure, a banquet was given and a roast pig served up on this novel platter. The nugget was sent to Spain, as a present to King Ferdinand, on the same ship as the infamous Bobadilla, the deposed governor, but the ship was wrecked in a terrible storm soon after leaving port, and both the nugget and the governor went down into the depths of the ocean.

Las Casas and his companion also heard that there had been another uprising of the Indians and that many had been captured and made slaves.

Queen Isabella had instructed Ovando that the Indians must be free, only paying tribute, as all Spanish subjects did, and that they should be recompensed for the work they did in the mines. The good Queen little knew how far her officers were from treating them as she had commanded.

Las Casas does not seem to have felt any particular pity for the Indians in the beginning. Like the rest of the adventurers, he had come to seek his fortune in the New World, where there seemed such wonderful chances to grow rich. He obtained from the governor an estate of his own, took Indians as slaves, and sent some of them to work in the mines, though he did not abuse nor overwork them, as others did. For eight years he not only held Indians as slaves, but he was with Ovando during a second war against the natives in one of the provinces of Hispaniola, and saw terrible deeds of cruelty, yet never appears to have made a single protest. This seems very strange when we think of what he said and did against slavery a few years later, and how his whole after life was spent in the service of these oppressed people. His eyes, however, were not yet opened, and he looked at things after the fashion of his time.

Ovando was a good governor, Las Casas says, "but not for Indians." He was a little, fair-haired man, gentle in manner, and most polite, but he made everybody understand that he intended to be obeyed. When any gentleman became troublesome, Ovando would invite him to dine with him, talk so pleasantly and flatteringly to his guest that he would think the governor must mean to do something very grand for him, and then, suddenly pointing down the harbor, would ask in which of the ships lying at anchor the gentleman would like to take passage for Spain. The poor man, confused and alarmed, yet afraid to protest, would very likely say that he had no money to pay his fare. Whereupon the very polite little governor would at once tell him not to let that trouble him, as he, Ovando, would provide the funds. And off the gentleman would have to go from the dinner table to the ship.

But although Ovando ruled the white men well, he was neither just nor kind to the Indians. He gave them out in lots of fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred, to those who wanted them, and the poor creatures were worked to death and abused without mercy. When, in desperation, they would rise against their tyrants, they were punished savagely, being burned alive, torn to pieces by bloodhounds, and drowned in the ocean or the rivers, even helpless little children often being treated in this way.

In 1510 four Dominican friars came over to Hispaniola and settled in San Domingo. The Sunday after their arrival one of them preached a sermon on the glories of heaven,—a discourse that Las Casas heard, and one that made a great impression on him. In the afternoon the Prior asked to have the Indians sent to the church to be taught; so they came,—men, women, and children; and this custom the Dominicans continued every Sunday afterward.

Some time in this same year Las Casas was ordained priest. We should like to know how he came to take this step, but he tells us nothing about it. He threw himself into his new duties with the same energy that he had used in his business, and began at once to teach the Indians, as the Dominicans were doing. Whatever he did, all his life long, he did with all his might, and very soon he became famous all over the island for his learning and goodness.

The little settlement of four Dominicans had increased by the end of the next year to twelve; nor had they been there many months before they began to have their eyes opened to the wrongs the Indians were suffering at the hands of the white men.

A Spaniard who had killed his wife in a fit of jealousy and had been hiding for two or three years, repenting of his crime and tired of living in concealment and fear, came to the Dominicans by night and begged them to take him in and let him stay with them as a lay brother. When they were convinced that the man was truly repentant they received him. He told them of the dreadful cruelties of which he and others had been guilty toward the natives, and the good fathers soon felt that they must look into the matter. This they did, and were not long in coming to the conclusion that it was a great evil to make slaves of the Indians and that they must do something to put a stop to it. So they fasted and prayed, and conferred together, and finally decided that one of their number, Father Antonio Montesino, should preach a sermon on the subject.

The week before the sermon was to be preached all the Dominicans went throughout the town and invited every one, from the governor down to the humblest citizen, to come to the church on the following Sunday, which was the First Sunday in Advent, to hear the sermon, which, they said, would be upon a new subject, interesting to all of them.

Of course every one was curious to hear what would be said, and when Sunday came the church was crowded. There was the governor, Diego Columbus, in his pew, with his wife,—a grand-niece of King Ferdinand,—and there were the officers of the colony, all the prominent citizens, in fact, everybody in the town. Father Montesino preached from the text: I am "the voice of one crying in the wilderness."

He told the congregation that they were living in mortal sin because of their cruelty and their tyranny over the innocent natives. He told them plainly that by their oppression, their cruel tortures, and the forced labor in the mines to which they subjected these helpless people, they were killing the whole race, and he declared that they had no chance of salvation while they continued in such sin.

You may be sure that Father Montesino's hearers were both frightened and angry at this bold sermon. All honor to the brave man who dared to preach it and to the little company of his brethren who stood with him! It was the first voice raised in the new world against slavery.

That afternoon the citizens had a meeting at the governor's house and appointed a committee to visit and rebuke the preacher. However, this accomplished nothing, as neither Father Montesino, the Prior of the little community, nor any of the brotherhood was at all moved by their threats, and all they obtained from the Dominicans was an agreement that Father Montesino should preach again the next Sunday and endeavor to please his congregation as far as his conscience would permit.

The committee told everybody that the Father was going to retract,