The time had now come for their
discovery.
The business of colonisation had kept pace with that of discovery.
In several of the islands, and in various parts of Terra Firma, and in
Darien, settlements had been established, under the control of
governors who affected the state and authority of viceroys. Grants
of land were assigned to the colonists, on which they raised the
natural products of the soil, but gave still more attention to the
suggar-cane, imported from the Canaries. Sugar, indeed, together
with the beautiful dye-woods of the country and the precious metals,
formed almost the only articles of export in the infancy of the
colonies, which had not yet introduced those other staples of the West
Indian commerce, which, in our day, constitute its principal wealth.
Yet the precious metals, painfully gleaned from a few scanty
sources, would have made poor returns, but for the gratuitous labour
of the Indians.
The cruel system of repartimientos, or distribution of the Indians
as slaves among the conquerors, had been suppressed by Isabella.
Although subsequently countenanced by the government, it was under the
most careful limitations. But it is impossible to license crime by
halves,- to authorise injustice at all, and hope to regulate the
measure of it. The eloquent remonstrances of the Dominicans,- who
devoted themselves to the good work of conversion in the New World
with the same zeal that they showed for persecution in the Old,-
but, above all, those of Las Casas, induced the regent Ximenes to send
out a commission with full powers to inquire into the alleged
grievances, and to redress them.
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