disappointed, desperate man, as will be seen from a portion of his
letter. The letter, intended for the sovereigns, was addressed, as was
the custom, to their secretary.

"Considering what need we have for cattle and beasts of burden ... their
Highnesses might authorize a suitable number of caravels to come here
every year to bring over said cattle and provisions. These cattle might
be paid for with _slaves_ taken from among the Caribbeans, who are
a wild people fit for any work, well built and very intelligent; and
who, when they have got rid of the cruel habits to which they have been
accustomed, will be better than any other kind of slaves."

Horrible, all this, we say, but it was the fifteenth century. Slavery
had existed for ages, and many still believed in it, for men like the
good Las Casas were few. Moreover, Columbus was tormented by a feeling
of not having "made good." He had promised his sovereigns all sorts of
wealth, and instead he had been able to collect only an insignificant
amount of gold trinkets on Haiti. Desperate for some other source of
wealth, in an evil moment he advised slave-catching.

Besides considering himself to have fallen short in the royal eyes, he
was hounded by the complaints and taunts of the men who had accompanied
him. They hated work, so he tried to appease them by giving them
authority to enslave the natives; and, as our good Las Casas wisely
remarks, "Since men never fall into a single error ... without a greater
one by and by following," so it fell out that the Spaniards were cruel
masters and the natives revolted; to subdue them harsher and harsher
measures were used; not till most of them had been killed did the
remaining ones yield submissively.