So early as in the year 1503, a few slaves had been sent from the
Portuguese settlements in Africa into the Spanish colonies in America.
In 1511, Ferdinand the Fifth, king of Spain, permitted them to be
carried in great numbers. Ferdinand, however, must have been ignorant in
these early times of the piratical manner in which the Portuguese had
procured them. He could have known nothing of their treatment when in
bondage, nor could he have viewed the few uncertain adventurous
transportations of them into his dominions in the western world, in the
light of a regular trade. After his death, however; a proposal was made
by Bartholomew de las Casas, the bishop of Chiapa, to Cardinal Ximenes,
who held the reigns of the government of Spain till Charles the Fifth
came to the throne, for the establishment of a regular system of
commerce in the persons of the native Africans. The object of
Bartholomew de las Casas was undoubtedly to save the American Indians,
whose cruel treatment and almost extirpation he had witnessed during his
residence among them, and in whose behalf he had undertaken a voyage to
the court of Spain. It is difficult to reconcile this proposal with the
humane and charitable spirit of the bishop of Chiapa. But it is probable
he believed that a code of laws would soon be established in favour both
of Africans and of the natives in the Spanish settlements, and that he
flattered himself that, being about to return and to live in the country
of their slavery, he could look to the execution of it. The cardinal,
however, with a foresight, a benevolence, and a justice which will
always do honour to his memory, refused the proposal, not only judging
it to be unlawful to consign innocent people to slavery at all, but to
be very inconsistent to deliver the inhabitants of one country from a
state of misery by consigning to it those of another. Ximenes,
therefore, may be considered as one of the first great friends of the
Africans after the partial beginning of the trade.