seemed like just men by the side of these new
speculators; but it was not possible to destroy natives faster than was
done in the countries under Spanish rule. The Germans, after all, were
forced to employ Spaniards to pursue the Indians when they attempted
to escape from this new system of farming into the mountains, and they
profited so well by the lessons of their Catholic hunters, that, upon
their departure, they hit upon new expedients for making the natives
productive. The German Governor constructed a great palisaded park, into
which he managed to drive all the Indians of the neighborhood, and then
informed them that they could issue from it only as slaves, unless they
paid a certain ransom, whose value he fixed. They were deliberately
starved into adopting one or the other alternative. Those who could
procure gold were let out to collect it, leaving their wives and
children as pledges of their return. Many of the others preferred to
die of hunger and thirst. When the ransomed natives departed with their
families, the Governor had them pursued, reparked, and subjected to
a repetition of this sponging process, and again a third time, so
admirably did it work. This strikes Las Casas as a refinement of
cruelty, which can be attributed only to the fact that these Germans
were Lutheran heretics, and never assisted at the mass. "This is
the way," he says, "that they conformed to the royal intention of
establishing Christianity in these countries!"

How did the Spaniards conform to it? Rude soldiers became the managers
of the different working gangs into which the Indians had been divided,
and it devolved upon them to superintend their spiritual welfare. Enough
has been said about their brutality; but their ignorance was no less
remarkable. Las Casas complains that they could not repeat the _Credo_,
nor the Ten Commandments. Their ignorance of the former would have been
bliss, if they had been practically instructed in the latter. John
Colmenero was one of these common soldiers who became installed in a
Commandery (_Encomienda_). When the missionaries visited his plantation,
they found that the laborers had not the slightest notions of
Christianity. They examined John upon the subject, and discovered to
their horror that he did not know even how to make the sign of the
cross. "What have you been teaching these poor Indians?" they asked him.
"Why, that they are all going to the Devil! Won't your _signin santin
cruces_ h