mpetent to pronounce on the soundness of the theories of
Columbus, so was it admitted, with far greater reason, to be within their
competence to pronounce upon the question of the extension of slavery in
the Indies, although that matter was treated as one of secular policy,
belonging to the India Council. Kings and governments contended, when
they could, for the exercise of their royal powers in temporal matters,
independently of the spiritual control, but the line of distinction was a
fine one, not easily drawn, and the basis of Spain's claim to the Indies
and to the exercise of jurisdiction in America was the Bull of Alexander
VI. issued in May, 1493. The express condition on which the Pope granted
the Bull was, that the conversion of the Indians should be the primary
care of the Spanish government, and this condition was so clear and
binding that it amounted to a reservation to the Pope of an oversight of
the means to be adopted for that end. As it was within the recognised
power of the Pope to grant such rights and jurisdiction, and to attach
conditions thereto, it was equally within his power to annul or withdraw
them if the Spanish sovereigns failed to fulfil those conditions. Hence
the government of the Indies, in all that pertained to the moral
well-being and religious instruction of the natives, was, beyond question,
within the legitimate exercise of ecclesiastical control. The exposition
of the case by Las Casas, supported by the mass of evidence he was able to
furnish and the testimony of the Scotch Franciscan and others, convinced
the theologians that their duty, both to religion and to the King bound
them to intervene and to correct abuses in open violation of the declared
intentions of the sovereigns from the time of Isabella that the Indians
should be free men, whose conversion to Christianity was their first duty.
The theologians bound themselves by a common oath, that no opposition
should discourage them, and that each and all of them would not desist
from their single and united efforts, until success had crowned them. It
was decided that the first step should be to exhort the members of the
Council: this failing of result, they would address their remonstrances to
the Chancellor, after him to M. de Chievres, who was nearest the person of
the King, and in the last resort the monarch himself should be made to
understand his responsibility. Should nothing come of their exhortations,
they bound themselves