labours he had lived for years at the theatre of his future work, and
understood the conditions of the colonial and native life.

As a matter of fact, Las Casas' mission did not dawn upon him until he
had enjoyed a very considerable practical experience in the industrial
affairs of the New World. His connection with this latter did not begin
with his own generation. He was the son of a shipmate of Columbus, who
had sailed with the great explorer in his first voyage, and who had
accompanied Ovando when that knight sailed out from Spain to take up his
Governorship of the Indies.

It was in Hispaniola, it appears, that Las Casas was ordained priest. In
the first place he lived the ordinary life of the Spanish settler in the
island. In common with everyone else, he accepted a
_repartimiento_--that is to say, a supply of Indian labourers--and was
undoubtedly on the road to riches when, little by little, the
inhumanity of slave-owning became clear to him. To one of his
enthusiastic temperament no half measures were possible. He gave up his
Indians forthwith, allowed his estate to revert to Nature, and began his
strenuous campaign, that had as its object the freedom of the native
races.

By 1517 he had succeeded in attracting a wide attention to his efforts.
Journeying to Spain, he persisted in his cause, and gave the high
authorities of that country little peace until they lent an ear to the
grievances of his dusky protégés. Las Casas was endowed to an unusual
extent with both eloquence and fervour, and both these attributes he
employed to the utmost of his powers in the service of the American
aborigines. Thus he painted the sufferings and the terrible mortality of
these unfortunate people with a fire and a force that left very few