be treated as
free men and Christians. That Ximenes was sincere in giving these orders
there can be no question. On more than one occasion he vehemently
declared that the Indians were as a matter of right and should and must
be as a matter of fact free men.

But all this was too late to save the Indians. Immediately upon Las
Casas's departure from Cuba, treatment of the Indians there and
elsewhere in the Indies became more harsh and oppressive, actually
tending toward extinction of the race. Moreover, when the bearers of the
petition of Narvaez and Antonio Velasquez finally got a hearing before
Ximenes, they were referred to the three Commissioners, who were about
to leave Spain for Hispaniola. They therefore went to see them, and
succeeded, apparently, to some degree in alienating them from Las Casas
and his colleagues and in prejudicing them against the Indians; to such
an extent that before their departure for Hispaniola Las Casas had begun
to doubt whether much real good would come from their mission. He and
the three Commissioners travelled to Hispaniola on separate ships, and
on their arrival in that island the three were more ready to confer with
others, even with his opponents, than with him.

It is true that Cardinal Ximenes gave detailed and generally admirable
directions to the Jeronimite Fathers as to the course which they were to
pursue; not only toward the natives of Cuba but also toward those of the
other islands and the continent. These provided that the natives were to
be well treated. They were to be formed into autonomous communities of
their own, under their own chiefs and owning their own land and cattle.
They were to be provided with churches, schools and hospitals, and were
to be converted to Christianity and educated. They were, however, to be
required to work for a part of the time in the gold mines of the
Spaniards, for which service they would be paid a percentage of the gold
obtained. In compensation for thus being deprived of what was fast
becoming the slave labor of the native islanders, the Spanish settlers
of Cuba were permitted each to hold as outright slaves four or five
Caribs from other islands, Negroes from Africa, or, in time, Red Indians
from the North American continent. The net result was that for a time
the Cuban natives were fairly well treated, though their fate was simply
postponed for a few years. At the same time there was generally
established in Cuba, as in most other l