These ordinances, after enjoining a general kind treatment of the
natives, recommend that small pieces of land be assigned to them on
which to cultivate corn, yucca, cotton, etc., and raise fowls for
their own maintenance. The "encomendero," or master, was to construct
four rustic huts for every 50 Indians. They were to be instructed in
the doctrines of the Christian religion, the new-born babes were to be
baptized, polygamy to be prohibited. They were to attend mass with
their masters, who were to teach one young man in every forty to read.
The boys who served as pages and domestic servants were to be taught
by the friars in the convents, and afterward returned to the estates
to teach the others. The men were not to carry excessively heavy
loads. Pregnant women were not to work in the mines, nor was it
permitted to beat them with sticks or whips under penalty of five gold
pesos. They were to be provided with food, clothing, and a hammock.
Their "areytos" (dances) were not to be interrupted, and inspectors
were to be elected among the Spaniards to see that all these and
former dispositions were complied with, and all negligence on the part
of the masters severely punished.

The credit for these well-intentioned ordinances undoubtedly belongs
to the Dominican friars, who from the earliest days of the conquest
had nobly espoused the cause of the Indians and denounced the
cruelties committed on them in no measured terms.

Friar Antonia Montesinos, in a sermon preached in la Española in 1511,
which was attended by Diego Columbus, the crown officers, and all the
notabilities, denounced their proceedings with regard to the Indians
so vehemently that they left the church deeply offended, and that same
day intimated to the bishop the necessity of recantation, else the
Order should leave the island. The bishop answered that Montesinos had