stian
religion. After some opposition slaves were given the opportunity to
take over the Christian civilization largely because of the adverse
criticism[1] which the apostles to the lowly heaped upon the planters
who neglected the improvement of their Negroes. Made then a device for
bringing the blacks into the Church, their education was at first too
much dominated by the teaching of religion.

[Footnote 1: Bourne, _Spain in America_, p. 241; and _The Penn. Mag.
of History_, xii., 265.]

Many early advocates of slavery favored the enlightenment of the
Africans. That it was an advantage to the Negroes to be brought within
the light of the gospel was a common argument in favor of the slave
trade.[1] When the German Protestants from Salsburg had scruples about
enslaving men, they were assured by a message from home stating that
if they took slaves in faith and with the intention of conducting
them to Christ, the action would not be a sin, but might prove a
benediction.[2] This was about the attitude of Spain. The missionary
movement seemed so important to the king of that country that he at
first allowed only Christian slaves to be brought to America, hoping
that such persons might serve as apostles to the Indians.[3] The
Spaniards adopted a different policy, however, when they ceased their
wild search for an "El Dorado" and became permanently attached to the
community. They soon made settlements and opened mines which
they thought required the introduction of slavery. Thus becoming
commercialized, these colonists experienced a greed which,
disregarding the consequences of the future, urged the importation
of all classes of slaves to meet the demand for cheap labor.[4] This
request was granted by the King of Spain, but the masters of such
bondmen were expressly ordered to have them indoctrinated in the
principles of Christianity. It was the failure of certain Spaniards to
live up to these regulations that caused the liberal-minded Jesuit,
Alphonso Sandoval, to register the first protest against slavery in
America.[5] In later years the change in the attitude of the Spaniards
toward this problem was noted. In Mexico the ayuntamientos were under
the most rigid responsibility to see that free children born of slaves
received the best education that could be given them. They had to
place them "for that purpose at the public schools and other places of
instruction wherein they" might "become useful to society."[6]

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