Infante was there, upon a powerful horse, accompanied by his people, looking out his share, but as a man who, for his part, did not care for gain; for, of the forty-six souls which fell to his fifth, he speedily made his choice, as all his principal riches were in his contentment, considering with great delight the salvation of those souls which before were lost."

Thus, favored by special blessings, dispensations and indulgences from the pope, and under the powerful patronage of HENRY, Prince of Portugal, the African slave trade commenced. The bodies of the heathen were allotted to their Christian captors, their souls to God, and thus the account with heaven was balanced.

By slow degrees, the Portuguese prosecuted their discoveries along the African coast until 1493, when the southernmost point (the Cape of Good Hope) was doubled by BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these discoveries, and the Portuguese vessels returned home with an assortment of African products, of which slaves, gold dust, ivory, skins, etc. formed the principal part. The slaves were disposed of principally to grandees and men of wealth in Portugal and Spain. Those countries were fully stocked with a laboring population, and the introduction of negro slave labor, to any great extent, would have been productive of distress and revolution. The demand for negro slaves from Africa was, therefore, limited, as they only served to vary and swell the train of attendants that belonged to the wealth, fashion, and grandeur of those days. It was reserved for the New World to give a new and extended impulse to the African slave trade.

THE INTRODUCTION AND PROGRESS OF COMMERCIAL SLAVERY IN AMERICA.

The discovery of the New World by COLUMBUS, in 1492, cast into the shade the maritime enterprise of the Portuguese, which had been prosecuted with great perseverance and daring on the western coast of Africa, during the previous half century. A new continent rose up before the world's

narrow vision, and nearly all the nations of Europe prepared to avail themselves of this new and grand field of aggrandizement. Spain, at this time, was the most advanced country on the continent of Europe. The Spaniards took the lead in the New World, and the first benefits of the discovery and the greater extent of territory fell to them. The West India islands were first explored and conquered, and, acting on the old idea of taking possession of the heathen as an inheritance, the natives with which these islands swarmed were at once seized upon as slaves and divided out among the colonizing Christians in encomiendas and repartimientos. The island of St. Domingo was discovered by COLUMBUS on his first voyage, 1492. The Licentiate ZUAZO gives the number of natives at that time as 1,130,000. Others estimate it much higher. The enumeration by the Governor, OVANDO, in 1508, represents 70,000 Indians, and when DIEGO COLUMBUS assumed the government of the island they were reduced to 40,000. In 1514, ALBUQUERQUE, a new repartidor, appointed by Spain, arrived to make a repartition of the Indians, and found but 13,000 remaining.

COLUMBUS, in his account of the discovery of the island of Hispaniola, thus speaks of the aborigines: "They are a loving, uncovetous people, so docile in all things, that I assure your highnesses I believe in all the world there is not a better people or a better country: they love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the sweetest and the gentlest way of talking in the world, and always with a smile."

As early as 1530, the principal West India islands, especially St. Domingo and Cuba, were so nearly depopulated that Indian slaves were brought from the main land to supply in part the deficiency. The Pearl Coast, now known as Venezuela, was horribly ravaged by the Spaniards in order to obtain these slaves. This supply gave out in a few years. In 1537, only one hundred and thirty Indian slaves, native and imported, were found in the island of Cuba. In 1550, a letter from St. Domingo to the Emperor states: "There is scarcely a single native left on the island, and those Indians

who have been brought to the island as slaves, the greater part have fled into the depths of the country, as the companionship of the Spaniards is abhorrent to them."

FERDINAND, in his official dispatches to the West India Admiral, dated Seville, June 6, 1511, says: "The conversion of the Indians is the principal foundation of the conquest, that which principally ought to be attended to." It may be said that the conversion of the Indians in the West India islands was thoroughly accomplished in about twenty-five years from the time they were discovered and occupied by the Spaniards, as, during this period, the knife, the bullet, bloodhounds and horrible oppression, the converting agencies of the Christians, had done their perfect work, and scarcely a vestige of the happy millions who, but a few years before had inhabited these islands, remained.

The same system of converting the heathen on the main land had already commenced, and the powerful effects of the Christianity of the age were visible in the rapid extinction of the native races, which, in some localities, was complete. A widely extended country like Mexico, and other regions in South America escaped total depopulation.

It cannot be said that the fearful amount of misery and death which now, after the lapse of more than three centuries, casts a lurid glare over the early course of the Spaniards in the New World, attracted no attention at the time, or met with no opposition. Certain humane and philanthropic individuals belonging to several of the religious orders of the day, took a truly humane and noble stand in relation to the hideous acts of the conquerors to which they were eye-witnesses. Among these good men, LAS CASAS stands preeminent for his purity of purpose, his self-sacrificing spirit, zeal, courage and ability. Some twelve Dominican monks residing in Hispaniola were, as a body, thoroughly opposed to the cruelties practised upon the Indians by the Spaniards; and one of these monks, Father ANTONIO MONTOSINO, became conspicuous for his bold and active measures tending to a more humane policy. But the grand result proved that all

the efforts of these good men-extraordinary in their dayavailed nothing. Their strength failed, their limbs withered, and their voices were hushed in death as one by one they disappeared, leaving the evil tide of human affairs to roll over the New World with overwhelming volume and power.

With the early destruction of the aborigines in the West India islands and some of the countries on the American continent, originally overrun by the Spaniards, an imperative demand for laborers arose, and thus the way for the importation of negro slaves from Africa was opened.

In 1501, by royal permission, a few negro slaves were imported into Hispaniola. One of the conditions of this importation was, that the negro slaves should be of those born among Christians in Spain, that they might aid in converting the heathen in the New World. But as these negroes did not prove enduring specimens of muscular Christianity, resort was had to the pure heathen article in Africa, and a small invoice of these was imported into St. Domingo, in 1503. The king, in a letter to OVANDO, the Governor of St. Domingo, dated Segovia, Sept. 1505, says: "I will send more negro slaves as you request; I think there may be a hundred." Some of these negro slaves ran away among the natives and caused much mischief. As the natives diminished the demand for negro slaves increased, and the importations became greater. The royal historiographer, HERRERA, states that the king informed the Admiral Don DIEGO COLUMBUS, in 1510, that he had ordered the officials at Seville to dispatch fifty negroes to work the mines in Hispaniola. The following sentence occurs in a letter of the king, dated June, 1511, to an officer in the colony named Sampier. "I do not understand how so many negroes have died." The 24th of October, 1511, the king gave the following order to the officials of Seville: "Pay to Pedro de Ledesma, our pilot, that which is due to him for the last voyage made at our com. mand, to transport negroes to Hispaniola."

It appears that the exportation of negro slaves to the West India islands was at first under the immediate supervision of

the crown, and the business was somewhat limited up to 1517, when CHARLES V. granted to the governor, DE BRESA, a Fleming, the monopoly of importing 4,000 negroes into the West India islands within the period of eight years. LAS CASAS has been charged by his enemies with being the first cause of the importation of negro slaves into the Spanish colonies. This is manifestly unjust. It is true, however, that in 1517, LAS CASAS, in his zeal to alleviate the sufferings of the Indians, and save them from total annihilation. under the horrid atrocities of the Spaniards, to which he was an eye-witness, advised the importation of negro slaves. LAS CASAS speedily repented of his error, and in writing his own history subsequently, he says:

"This advice, that license should be given to bring negro slaves to these lands, the Clerigo CASAS first gave, not considering the injustice with which the Portuguese take them, and make them slaves; which advice, after he had apprehended the nature of the thing, he would not have given for all he had in the world. For he always held that they had been made slaves unjustly and tyrannically; for the same reason holds good of them as of the Indians."

In 1523, another monopoly grant was given to De Bresa, before the first had expired, and the last permitted the importation of 4,000 negro slaves into the Indies in eight years.

DE BRESA Sold these grants to a company of Genoese merchants, and negroes were sold at a very high price, FIGUEROA, writing to the Emperor from St. Domingo, July, 1520,

says:

Negroes are very much in request; none have come for about a year. It would have been better to have given DE BRESA the customs' duties (i. e. the duties that had usually been paid on the importation of slaves), than to have placed a prohibition."

Owing to the continued remonstrances of the colonists by reason of the scarcity of slaves, the monopoly granted to DE BRESA was recalled in 1524, and instead of it, permission was granted for the importation of 1,500 negroes to Hispaniola ; 300 to Cuba; 500 to Porto Rico; 300 to Jamaica; and 500