THE TREASURE REVEALED 227 



Even though Las Casas never won a clear-cut and lasting 

 victory in his life-long struggle for justice for the Indians, he 

 did much to ameliorate conditions in the New World and to 

 sharpen men's consciences in the treatment of their fellow 

 men. The result of his efforts in the more organized tribes of 

 the mainland are visible today in the mixed populations of 

 Spanish-Indian blood that have worked out a common destiny 

 in Central and South America. It is difficult to raise a just 

 comparison with the northern fate of the Indians under Eng- 

 lish conquest, because they were much less advanced socially 

 than the Indians of Mexico and Central America. But in 

 condemning the cruelty and brutality of the time among the 

 Spanish conquistadors, men like the Dominican fathers Mon- 

 tesino, Vitoria, and especially Las Casas remind us of the 

 slow triumph of justice over brutality in human relationships. 

 They were the forerunners in the long fight for freedom that 

 developed in the western hemisphere, ending in the great 

 revolutionary movements of the two Americas. Spiritually 

 they were the Bolivars and Washingtons of an earlier day. 



