HAPTER VI. - LAS CASAS RETURNS TO SPAIN. NEGOTIATIONS. CARDINAL XIMENEZ
DE CISNEROS. THE JERONYMITE COMMISSIONERS

Las Casas was fully conscious of the hostility his mission was bound to
provoke, and how odious he would make himself, not only to the colonists,
but also to the members of the India Council, the courtiers, and to many
influential persons in Spain, all of whom had investments in the colonies
and drew incomes from the very abuses he was to combat; he therefore took
the precaution of drawing up a sworn and witnessed statement, ad perpetuam
rei memoriam, with the legal formalities dear to Spanish usage, in which
he recounted all the services of every kind that he had rendered in the
colonies. Lest obstacles might be put in the way of his departure, he
resorted to a little dissimulation and caused the report to be spread that
he intended to go to Paris to finish his law studies and take his degree
at the university there. The colonists, including the Governor, were
duped by this subterfuge and he departed in company with the Prior, who
took with him a deacon of his order, Fray Diego de Alberca. The first
stage of their journey was to Hispaniola, where the Prior was seized by a
severe illness, to which he succumbed in the town of San Juan de la
Maguana.

In the city of Santo Domingo, Las Casas encountered his old friend and
precursor in the defence of the Indians, Prior Pedro de Cordoba, to whom
he recounted all that had befallen him in Cuba, his newly found vocation,
and his intention to visit Spain and lay the case for the Indians before
the King. The Prior praised his resolution, but in wishing him all
success, he explained the situation he would find awaiting him in Spain,
where the all-powerful Bishop of Burgos, who was at the head of Indian
affairs, and the royal Secretary, Lope Conchillos, were entirely in favour
of the system of repartimientos and encomiendas, being themselves
shareholders in colonial enterprises. As not uncommonly happens, it was
on the estates of such absentee owners that the Indians were most cruelly
handled, being mercilessly overworked by overseers anxious to curry favour
at home by the remittance of ever-increasing revenues.

Although he was sufficiently impressed by what he heard, the zeal of the
new apostle was undiminished. The Dominican community in Hispaniola being
in sad need of funds, the Prior decided to profit by the occasion and to
send one of his monks with L