Seville, Autumn 1520

Once again Las Casas was on a high. When the Emperor Charles signed his contract to settle Tierra Firme, Las Casas had his marching orders for reform. Even relations with the irascible bishop of Burgos, Fonseca, improved markedly after the departure of the king from La Coruña in late May, 1520. Las Casas’s grant was still immense. It covered 270 leagues from the Paria Peninsula in the east to near Santa Marta in the west. Inland, Las Casas’s grant ran to more than two thousand leagues, or virtually the entire continent of South America. Even given his disappointment at not obtaining the full thousand leagues, or more than three thousand miles of coastline, the grant was spectacular.

After the departure of the king and his court, Las Casas took the highway for Seville where he arrived late in the summer of 1520. Many of the principal cities in central Castile and León were still in revolt against the crown, so Las Casas traveled from Valladolid to Seville through the western province of Extremadura, the home of so many conquistadors of the New World. Armed with letters from the regent Adrian and Dominican friends, Las Casas moved slowly south through Simancas, La Nava, Peñaranda, Arenas de San Pedro, Oropesa, and La Puente del Arzobispo. His squire Francisco de Soto kept him company.