It is rather remarkable, that the first forerunners and coadjutors
should have been men in power.
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.
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