vando's
governorship, this "pestilential disorder" took root without there being a
man who spoke or heeded or thought anything about it, notwithstanding that
such multitudes were being sacrificed, that out of the infinite number of
the inhabitants of whom the Admiral first wrote to the Catholic
sovereigns, there perished more than nine tenths in that brief period.
(21)

He took part in the second war against the Cacique Cocubano(22) in the
province of Higuey, of which he afterwards wrote the most horrifying
description. He related incredible cruelties, concluding thus: "All these
deeds, and others foreign to all human nature did my own eyes witness, and
I do not now dare to recount them, being hardly able to believe myself,
lest perhaps I may have dreamed them." Throughout these massacres Las
Casas, young, enthusiastic, generous-hearted, noble-minded, and with his
naturally keen sensibilities refined and sharpened by the best education
of his times, appears to have played his part with the others, neither
better nor worse than they, equally blind to the injustice and tyranny
practised upon the inoffensive and defenceless Indians and only eager for
his share of the profits derived from their sufferings. The contradiction
is as flagrant as in the case of the great Admiral who initiated the
system which brought all these horrors in logical sequence. The war in
Higuey finished with the capture of the unfortunate Cocubano, whom Ovando
caused to be hanged at San Domingo instead of allowing him to be torn to
pieces with pincers as the Spaniards demanded should be done. Such was
the quality of mercy in that Governor's heart.

The affairs of Las Casas prospered and he grew rich, though it is
difficult to believe that his yearly income from his properties amounted
to 100,000 castellanos--an enormous sum, given the value of money at that
time,--yet this is the figure he himself has given in his own writings.
(23)

Such being the attitude of a man of finer temperament during eight years
passed amidst scene of rapacious ferocity, something must be admitted to
explain the callousness of men of fewer sensibilities and lower moral
standards, who found themselves far removed from the usual restraint of
civilised society and confronted by many hard ships and severe
disappointments. The moral and physical condition of the majority of
these men was indeed deplorable. Many of them had staked all they could
obtain on this great ven