ry tranquil state, purified
from heresy and evil."

Wonderful and humiliating is it to observe how little these first
impressions of the Indians and these elevated Christian aspirations
influenced his conduct in dealing with them, once he was master of their
destinies.

The declared purposes of the second voyage of 1493 were the colonisation
of the newly discovered countries, the conversion of the natives, and the
extension of his discoveries. Pope Alexander VI. had conferred the lands
thus far discovered and others to be discovered upon the sovereigns of
Castile and Leon, with the fullest rights over navigation, and imperial
jurisdiction over the western hemisphere. The Bull bestowing these
concessions was dated the fourth of May, 1493, in the first year of his
pontificate. An imaginary line, drawn from pole to pole and passing one
hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, separated the spheres of
Spanish and Portuguese exploration, and the Bull expressly laid down as
the principal reason for this grant, that the natives would be converted
to Christianity.(14)

The conditions imposed by the Pontiff corresponded perfectly to the
sincere desires of the Spanish sovereigns, who had, from their first
knowledge of the existence of the Indians, displayed the keenest and
tenderest zeal to provide for their welfare. They instructed Columbus to
deal lovingly with the Indians, to make them generous gifts, and to show
them much honour; and if perchance any one should treat them unjustly, the
Admiral should punish him severely.(15)

This second expedition was composed of 1500 men, of whom twenty were
horsemen; many knights and gentlemen, especially from Seville, and some
members of the royal household also went. The number of officials of
various grades appointed to exercise problematical functions in the new
colony exceeded the necessities of the case and gave promise of the many
dissensions and petty conflicts which were not slow in declaring
themselves. A priest, Father Buil, and other ecclesiastics were sent to
undertake the instruction and conversion of the Indians; in all, seventeen
ships left the Bay of Cadiz on September 25, 1493.(16) Upon his arrival at
Hispaniola, the Admiral found the little colony he had left there
completely exterminated, and learned from his friend the Cacique
Guacanagari that, after his departure for Spain, the Spaniards had fallen
to quarrelling amongst themselves and had scattered t