"One of the leading people likewise among the Moravians, has written me several very earnest letters upon the subject. Nay even the church of Rome, has been honored by the endeavors of one of her sons, the benevolent and indefatigable Bishop of Chiapa, (Las Casas) against this crying sin."[1]
In 1783, his attention was called to the case of the ship Zong or Zung.
This vessel, Luke Collingwood, master, sailed from St. Thomas, off the coast of Africa, for Jamaica, with 440 slaves and 14 whites on board, Sept. 6th, 1781. In November, she made Jamaica; but the master mistaking it, as he said, for Hispaniola, ran her to leeward. Sickness and mortality dreadfully prevailed, so that by 29th Nov. 60 slaves and 7 whites had died, besides a great number being dangerously ill. The master then made a proposal to his officers to throw the sick slaves into the sea, because, said he, if they die on board, the loss will fall upon the owners of the ship—but if they are thrown overboard for the preservation of the ship, the underwriters will have to bear it; besides, it will be mercy to save them from a lingering
3
- ↑ An absurd and cruel charge, has been widely spread against this holy man, at first on the authority of the Spanish historian, Herrera, and after him, of Robertson and Charlevoix, &c, who copy from Herrera that, led away by his fond pity for the perishing Indians, he recommended the African slave trade as a substitute. This calumny has been triumphantly refuted by the Abbe Gregoire, in the 4th Vol. of the Transactions of the Class of Moral and Political Sciences of the French Institute. The grounds of the refutation may be here briefly stated.
Herrera wrote thirty years after the death of Las Casas and displays much enmity towards him, and he quotes no authority whatsoever for his assertions. Several writers were cotemporary with Las Casas, some of whom were his enemies and endeavored to render him odious and contemptible—but none of them mention this charge.
Sepulveda was his personal antagonist. Lopez de Gomara, in his "General History of the Indies," defames him in other respects—yet neither mentions this accusation. Remesal, author of the history of Chiapa and Guatimala, is silent respecting it. Don Juan Lopez and Racine, both authors of ecclesiastical histories, eulogize him greatly, but say nothing of it. His own memoirs, written by himself, deposited in the libraries of Mexico and Madrid, in several places mention the African slaves, and express the same commiseration for their sufferings, as so remarkably distinguished him to the Indians. See also Preface to Clarkson's Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the human species.
