CHAPTER IX. - KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN SPUR. THE COURT PREACHERS. FURTHER
CONTROVERSIES

As has been heretofore explained, Las Casas perceived that his efforts to
obtain support for his project would come to naught, unless it could be
made plain to the Council that some material benefit would accrue to the
royal revenues; he therefore turned his attention to forming a plan which
should comprehend the conversion of the Indians by gentle and peaceful
means and likewise yield a profit to the Crown. He conceived the idea of
forming a species of order of knighthood, whose members were to be known
as Knights of the Golden Spur. They were to number fifty selected men,
each of whom should furnish two hundred ducats, which he deemed would
amount to a sufficient sum for the expenses of founding the colony. The
knights were to wear a dress of white cloth, marked on the breast with a
red cross, similar to the cross of Calatrava, but with some additional
ornamentation. The purpose of this costume was to distinguish them in the
eyes of the Indians from all other Spaniards.

A grant of one thousand leagues of coast, beginning one hundred leagues
above Paria, and with no limits in the hinterland, was asked for the
colony, in return for which concession a payment of fifteen thousand
ducats was promised to the Crown during the first three years, which sum
should afterwards become an annual income until the seventh year; from the
seventh to the tenth year, the income would be thirty thousand ducats, and
beginning with the eleventh year, it would reach the sum of sixty
thousand. The foundation of three fortified towns, with at least fifty
Spaniards in each, was promised within the first five years. The religious
propaganda was to be carried on by twelve Franciscan and Dominican friars,
whom Las Casas was to be allowed to choose: for this purpose the King was
asked to solicit the necessary faculties from the Holy See. Such, in
brief, was the plan which Las Casas conceived for spreading civilisation
on the American coast and winning the Indians to Christianity. His own
jurisdiction within the conceded territory was to be absolute, and all
Spaniards whatsoever were to be forbidden by royal command, and under pain
of severe penalties, to cross its borders. The only discoverable road to
liberty lay through absolutism, under a benevolent despot.

The most obvious flaw in this scheme was the difficulty--amounting indeed
to impossibility--o