Note 6 — Chapter V
Charles William O'Reilly translation
Bartholomew de las Casas, a Spanish prelate, born at Seville in 1474, and died at Madrid 1566. He set at liberty the Indians who had fallen to his share in the division of Cuba, when it was conquered by Columbus, and interested himself for them with King Ferdinand. With a strange inconsistency, however, he became the author of the slave trade, by his proposal to purchase negroes from the Portuguese in Africa to supply the planters with labourers, which suggestion was unfortunately adopted.—(Translator).