Nor was the royal favor short lived or confined to the reign of Ferdinand. In November, 1518, another royal decree from Ferdinand's successor, Charles I, appointed Velasquez Adelantado of all lands which he personally or through his agents might discover, and endowed him with one-fifteenth part of all the revenues which might be obtained from them. At this time Velasquez was already busy with enterprises of exploration, and his efforts were redoubled under this incentive. But in so doing he suffered the same fate that he himself had inflicted upon Diego Columbus. For he sent Hernando Cortez, who had been alcalde of Santiago de Cuba, upon the expedition which resulted in the conquest of Mexico; upon achieving which transcendent exploit, Cortez repudiated him and his authority, much as Velasquez had repudiated the authority of Columbus in Hispaniola.
The year 1515 marked a turning-point in the early history of Cuba. In that year Las Casas began his great crusade in behalf of the natives. At first, as we have seen, he accepted and approved the repartimiento system, and himself with his partner and close friend Pedro de Renteria took several hundred Indians as his wards and servants on the land which had been allotted to him at Trinidad. But when he became "converted," as he himself described it, he was convinced that the system, which had degenerated into little else than slavery, was wholly evil and could be nothing else, putting all who practised it in imminent danger of hell fire. To this conviction he was brought through consideration of what he had heard Dominican friars preach in Hispaniola.
At this time his partner, Renteria, was absent, in Jamaica, and Las Casas was ignorant of his views on the subject. Moreover, he realized that the natives whom he had in his possession belonged to Renteria as much as to him, and he could not properly do anything which would be injurious to the interests of his partner. Accordingly he went to Velasquez and told him that his conscience would no longer permit him to hold slaves, and he must therefore release them; but he wished the matter held in abeyance and confidence until the return of Renteria, in order that the latter might protect his own interests as he saw fit. In addition, he passionately adjured Velasquez, for the sake of his own soul, to free all the natives and to abolish the repartimiento system. Velasquez did not follow this advice, but he continued to hold Las Casas in the highest esteem and to show him all possible favors.
Las Casas then at once began publicly preaching against the sin of slavery, and proclaiming the right of the natives to equal freedom with the Spaniards; a course which gave great offense to many in the island but in which Velasquez protected him. Then he determined to hasten at once to Spain and to lay the matter before the King, who in his various cedulas and messages to Velasquez had expressed so much concern for the welfare of the Indians. He accordingly wrote to Renteria, in Jamaica, that he was called to Spain on imperatively urgent business, and that unless he, Renteria, could return to Cuba at once, he would have to go without seeing him first, which he would regret to do. Upon receiving this letter, Renteria immediately hastened back to Cuba; and then was disclosed one of the most extraordinary coincidences in history.
The meeting of the two friends was in the presence of Velasquez and others, and nothing was said by Las Casas concerning his plans, nor did Renteria say anything about his own affairs. But as soon as they were alone together, Renteria announced that he was planning himself to go to Spain, and that he would therefore accompany Las Casas. He then explained that while in Jamaica he had gone for a time into "retreat" at a Franciscan monastery, and while thus engaged in pious meditation had become convinced that the Indians of Cuba were being very badly treated, and had resolved to go to Spain and there to plead their cause before the King, especially asking for the foundation of schools and colleges in which the Indian youth could be educated. The astonishment and delight of Las Casas at hearing this was equalled only by the similar feelings of Renteria when in turn Las Casas told him the purpose of his proposed mission to Spain. Hundreds of miles apart, and entirely unknown to each other, the two friends at precisely the same time had been cherishing the same noble purposes. It was quickly agreed between them that Las Casas alone should undertake the mission, that their native wards should be surrendered at once to Velasquez, and that their land and other property should be sold, if necessary, to provide Las Casas with the money needed for his journey. In his departure from Cuba and his journey to Spain, Las Casas was also greatly assisted by Pedro de Cordova, the head of the Dominican Order in Hispaniola.
Simultaneously with the departure of Las Casas another and very different mission was dispatched to the same goal. This was one consisting of Narvaez and Antonio Velasquez—not the Governor, Diego Velasquez—bearing a petition to the King to the effect that the repartimiento system should be transformed into one of absolute and perpetual slavery; so that the land-owners might hold their Indians permanently, and bequeath them to their heirs like any other property. That this was sent simultaneously with Las Casas's going is not to be regarded as a coincidence, however. It is altogether probable that the action was inspired by knowledge of the purpose of Las Casas and by a determination to forestall him or to defeat him.
How Ferdinand would have decided between the two, whether the impassioned eloquence of Las Casas or the gold which Narvaez and Antonio Velasquez bore with their petition, would have been the more potent, must ever remain matter of uncertainty; for he was never called upon to make the decision. Before the issue could be put to him, on January 23, 1516, he died. In the interregnum, before the arrival of the new King, Charles I, from Flanders, Cardinal Ximenes was Regent, and it was to him that Las Casas addressed himself; after he had first been scornfully received and his mission ridiculed by Bishop Fonseca, of Burgos. The great Cardinal had long been an advocate of humane treatment of the Indians, and was quite ready to listen to Las Casas, calling into council for the purpose several other prelates and statesmen. Early in the hearings, in order to make sure of his ground, Ximenes bade the clerk to read the full text of the laws relating to the Indians, and that functionary, being a partisan of the advocates of slavery, purposely misread one important clause. Las Casas cried out, "That is not the law!" Ximenes bade the clerk to read it again. He did so, with the same perversion; and again Las Casas exclaimed, "The law says no such thing!" Annoyed, Ximenes rebuked Las Casas and threatened him with a penalty if he interrupted again. "Your Lordship is welcome to send my head to the block," retorted the undaunted Las Casas, "if what the clerk has read is in the law!" Other members of the Council thereupon snatched the laws from the clerk's hand, and found that Las Casas was right, whereupon the clerk wished that he had never been born, while Las Casas, as he himself modestly records, "lost nothing of the regard which the Cardinal had for him or of the credit which he gave to him."
The result of the conferences was that Ximenes authorized Las Casas, Palacios Rubios and Antonio Montesino to prepare the draft of a plan for emancipating the Indians and providing for their just government and education. When the plan was completed and adopted there was some question as to whom it should be entrusted for execution. Ximenes invited Las Casas to nominate a commission, but the latter declined because his long absence from Spain had left him unfamiliar with men there and their qualifications. The Cardinal therefore decided to select a commission from among the monks of the Order of St. Jerome. That Order was selected because, while the Dominicans and Franciscans were already settled in Hispaniola and Jamaica and had committed themselves to a certain policy toward the Indian question, the Jeronimites had not yet gone thither and were quite without bias or predisposition.
This was on July 8, 1516. The following Sunday the Cardinal and other members of the council, and also Las Casas, went to the Jeronimite monastery, near Madrid, to attend mass and to make a selection of three Commissioners or judges from among the twelve who had been nominated by the head of the Order. There Las Casas was received with much distinction by the monks and by the Cardinal, to the chagrin of his enemy the Bishop of Burgos, who was present in the congregation. After some consideration, Ximenes then announced that Las Casas should be provided with money and letters of