All this arose owing to want of curiosity on the part of the governors in those lands, at that time, who did not use the diligence necessary for ascertaining the truth, and also owing to certain reports of the Bishop of Chiapa who was moved to passion against certain conquerors in his bishoprick with whom he had persistent disputes, as I knew when I passed through Chiapa and Guatemala[17]. Though his zeal appears holy and estimable, he said things on the right to this country gained by the conquerors of it, which differ from the evidence and judicial proofs which have been seen and taken down by us, and from what we who have travelled over the Indies enquiring about these things, leisurely and without war, know to be the facts[18].
[Note 17: See the introduction to my _Voyages of Sarmiento_ p. x.]
[Note 18: Sarmiento here refers to the efforts of Las Casas to protect the natives from the tyranny and cruelties of the Spanish settlers. He appears to have been in Guatemala when Las Casas arrived to take up his appointment as Bishop of Chiapas, and encountered hostility and obstruction from certain "conquistadores de su obispado," as Sarmiento calls them. On his return to Spain, the good Las Casas found that a certain Dr Sepulveda had written a treatise maintaining the right of Spain to subdue the natives by war. Las Casas put forward his _Historia Apologetica_ in reply. A Junta of theologians was convoked at Valladolid in 1550, before which Sepulveda attacked and Las Casas defended the cause of the natives. Mr. Helps (_Spanish conquest in America_, vol. iv. Book xx. ch. 2) has given a lucid account of the controversy. Sarmiento is quite wrong in saying that Las Casas was ignorant of the history of Peru. The portion of his _Historia Apologetica_ relating to Peru, entitled _De las antiguas gentes del Peru_, has been edited and published by Don Marcos Jimenez de la Espada in the "Coleccion de libros Españoles raros ó curiosos" (1892). It shows that Las Casas knew the works of Xeres, Astete, Cieza de Leon, Molina, and probably others; and that he had a remarkably accurate knowledge of Peruvian history.]
This chaos and confusion of ignorance on the subject being so spread over the world and rooted in the opinions of the best informed literary men in Christendom, God put it into the heart of your Majesty to send Don Francisco de Toledo, Mayor-domo of your royal household, as Viceroy of these kingdoms[19]. When he arrived, he found many things to do, and many things to amend. Without resting after the dangers and long voyages in two seas which he had suffered, he put the needful order into all the things undertook new and greater labours, such as no former viceroys or governors had undertaken or even thought of. His determination was to travel over this most rugged country himself, to make a general visitation of it, during which, though it is not finished, it is certain that he has remedied many and very great faults and abuses in the teaching and ministry of the Christian doctrine, giving holy and wise advice to its ministers that they should perform their offices as becomes the service of God, and the discharge of your royal conscience, reducing the people to congregations of villages formed on suitable and healthy sites which had formerly been on crags and rocks where they were neither taught nor received spiritual instruction. In such places they lived and died like wild savages, worshipping idols as in the time of their Inca tyrants and of their blind heathenism. Orders were given to stop their public drinking bouts, their concubinage and worship of their idols and devils, emancipating and freeing them from the tyrannies, of their _curacas_, and finally giving them a rational life, which was before that of brutes in their manner of loading them as such.