as, unfortunately for his
reputation in after-ages, added another provision, namely, that each
Spanish resident in the island should have license to import a dozen
negro slaves.

The origin of this suggestion was, as he informs us, that the colonists
had told him that, if license were given them to import a dozen negro
slaves each, they, the colonists, would then set free the Indians. And
so, recollecting that statement of the colonists, he added this
provision. Las Casas, writing his history in his old age, thus frankly
owns his error: "This advice, that license should be given to bring
negro slaves to these lands, the _clerigo_ Casas first gave, not
considering the injustice with which the Portuguese take them and make
them slaves; which advice, after he had apprehended the nature of the
thing, he would not have given for all he had in the world. For he
always held that they had been made slaves unjustly and tyrannically;
for the same reason holds good of them as of the Indians." The above
confession is delicately and truthfully worded--"not considering"; he
does not say, not being aware of; but though it was a matter known to
him, his moral sense was not watchful, as it were, about it. We must be
careful not to press the admissions of a generous mind too far, or to
exaggerate the importance of the suggestion of Las Casas.

It would be quite erroneous to look upon this suggestion as being the
introduction of negro slavery. From the earliest times of the discovery
of America, negroes had been sent there. But what is of more
significance, and what it is strange that Las Casas was not aware of, or
did not mention, the Hieronymite Fathers[31] had also come to the
conclusion that negroes must be introduced into the West Indies.
Writing in January, 1518, when the fathers could not have known what was
passing in Spain in relation to this subject, they recommended licenses
to be given to the inhabitants of Espanola, or to other persons, to
bring negroes there. From the tenor of their letter it appears that they
had before recommended the same thing. Zuazo, the judge of residencia,
and the legal colleague of Las Casas, wrote to the same effect. He,
however, suggested that the negroes should be placed in settlements and
married. Fray Bernardino de Manzanedo, the Hieronymite father, sent over
to counteract Las Casas, gave the same advice as his brethren about the
introduction of negroes. He added a proviso, which does not appea