RMONS OF FRAY ANTONIO DE MONTESINOS. THE AWAKENING OF
LAS CASAS. PEDRO DE LA RENTERIA

The company of four Dominican monks under their Prior, Pedro de Cordoba,
had been increased until their community numbered twelve or fifteen men,
the severity of whose rule had been much augmented in the New World in
order to maintain the just proportion between their penitential lives and
the hard conditions of the colony in which they lived. Their observation
of what was happening around them and of the injustice and cruelty daily
practised on the natives in defiance of the wishes of the Spanish
sovereigns, forced upon them the duty of protesting against such violation
of all laws, human and divine. They had received into their community, as
a lay-brother, a man who, two years before, had murdered his Indian wife
and had afterwards fled to the forests where he lived as best he could.
The information furnished by this repentant criminal still further
amplified the insight of the monks into the treatment meted out to the
Indians and quickened their determination to attempt to stay the
iniquities of their countrymen.

The first man to raise his voice publicly in America against slavery and
all forms of oppression of the Indians was Fray Antonio de Montesinos, who
preached to the colonists of Santo Domingo a discourse, of which
unfortunately no full report now exists. The monks had made a point of
inviting the Viceroy, the Treasurer, Passamonte, and all the officials to
be present in church on the Sunday fixed for the sermon, and it was known
throughout the colony that a matter of particular importance was to be the
subject of the discourse, though no one suspected its nature. The text
chosen was from St. John: "I am the voice of one crying in the
wilderness," and the friar, who was blessed with the dual gifts of
eloquence and moral courage, drove his arguments and admonitions home with
such force that, though he was heard to the close without interruption,
the principal persons of the colony held a meeting after church and
decided that the preaching of such revolutionary doctrines must be
silenced. They repaired to the monastery to make their protest, and to
demand that Fray Antonio should retract or modify his words the following
Sunday. The Prior received the angry deputation and, after listening to
their demands, informed them that the discourse preached by Fray Antonio
represented the sentiments of the entire Dominican co