HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



283 



men ; for fuch a piece of weaknefs was very diftant from 

 that or any other pope : but folely to fupport the natu- 

 ral rights of the Americans againft the attempts of their 

 oppreifors, and to condemn the injuftice and inhumanity 

 of thofe, who, uuder the pretence of fuppofing thofe 

 people idolatrous, or incapable of being inftru&ed, took 

 from them their property and their liberty, and treated 

 them as Haves and beafts. The Spaniards, indeed, would 

 have been more pitiable than the rudeft favages of the 

 new world, if they had waited for a decifion from Rome 

 before they would acknowledge the Americans to be 

 true men. It is well known, that long before the pope 

 defpatched that bull, the Catholic kings had earneftly re- 

 commended the inftru&ion of the Americans, had given 

 the mod careful orders that they mould be well treated, 

 and that no wrong mould be offered either to their pro- 

 perty or their perfons ; and had fent feveral bimops to 

 the new world, and fome hundreds of muTionaries at the 

 royal expenfe, to teach thofe fatyrs the faith of Jefus 

 Chrift, and train them in the Chriftian mode of life. In 

 1 53 1 , fix years before that bull was out, the French mif- 

 lionaries alone had baptized in Mexico more than a mil- 

 lion of thofe fatyrs \ and in 1534, the ferfTfnary of the 

 Holy Crofs was founded in Tlatelolco, for the inftru&ion 

 of a confiderable number of thole large apes, where they 

 learned the Latin language, Rhetoric, Philofophy, and 

 Medicine. If at firft the Americans were elteemed fa- 

 tyrs ; 



" nec in fervitutem redigi deberc, ac quicquid fecus fieri contigerit irritum & 

 " inane, ipfofque Indos, & alias Gentes Verbi Dei prsedicatione, & exemplo 

 " bonse vitse ad dictam Fidem Chrifti invitandos fore. Audtoritate Apoftolica 

 *' per praefentes literas decernimus, & declaramus, non obftantibus praemiffis, 

 " cseterifque contrariis quibufcunque." — Datum Romse anno 15 3 7. IV. Non. 

 Iun. Pontificatus noftri anno III. Quefta, e non altra e quella famofa bolla, per 

 la quale s'e fatto un si grande fchiamazzo. 



