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LAS CASA8 179 1445, died in Rome in 1535. He belonged to a family which counted among its members three Greek emperors reigning at Nicaea, viz. : Theodore I.,1206-'22; Theodore II., 1255-'9; and John IV., 1259-'61. He went to Italy on the final overthrow of the Byzantine empire, and found a refuge at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, who sent him twice to Greece to col- lect valuable manuscripts. Before his return the second time Lorenzo died, and Lascaris, at the invitation of Charles VIII. of France, re- moved to Paris about 1495, and began to teach Greek publicly. In 1503 and 1505 Louis XII. sent him as ambassador to Venice; and on the rupture between France and Venice in 1508 he remained there as a private citizen. In 1513, on the invitation of Leo X., he took charge of the Greek college and press lately founded in Borne, and published editions of many of the Greek classics. In 1516 he returned to Paris, and assisted Budseus in forming the royal li- brary at Fontainebleau. He was subsequently sent to Venice to procure Grecian youths to officiate in the Greek college contemplated by Francis I. Paul III. importuned him to re- turn to Rome, and he died a few months after his arrival there. He edited the works of several of the Greek poets, and translated into Latin some military treatises of Polybius. See Villemain, Lascaris (Paris, 1825). II. Constan- tine, a Greek grammarian, of the same family with the preceding, born in Constantinople, died in 1493. On the capture of his native city by the Turks he repaired to the court of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, who intrust- ed him with the education of his daughter. He taught Greek and rhetoric in Rome and Na- ples, and subsequently established in Messina a school which enjoyed great celebrity while he lived. Pie bequeathed his library and manuscripts to the senate of Messina. These were afterward carried to Spain, and are still preserved in the Escurial. His Grammatica Graca (Milan, 1476) was the first Greek book printed in Italy. LAS CASAS, Bartolom6 de, the apostle to the American Indians, born in Seville, Spain, in 1474, died in Madrid in July, 1566. His fa- ther accompanied Columbus both on his first and second voyages, and on the latter of these took with him his son, then 19 years of age, who till that time had pursued his studies with brilliant success at Salamanca. Bartolom6 went also on the third and fourth voyages of Columbus. On his return to Spain he entered the order of the Dominicans, with a view of being employed as a missionary to the Indians. He went to Santo Domingo in 1502, was or- dained there in 1510, and celebrated the first high mass that had ever been heard from a priest ordained in the new world. Two years afterward he accompanied Velasquez to Cuba as his chaplain, and attracted attention by the influence which his mildness and charity gained over the native population. He entered with zeal into the interests of the unfortunate In- dians oppressed by their European conquerors, and in 1515 sailed for Spain to obtain for them measures of redress. Cardinal Ximenes, who in the following year became regent, sent out three Hieronymite monks to correct the abuses complained of; but the efforts of this com- mission not satisfying the devotion of Las Casas, he soon returned again to Spain for stricter and more efficient regulations, and was appointed " universal protector of the Indies." At last, to save the Indians from the com- C';e extermination which threatened them, Casas, who had seen the African thriving and robust beneath the sun of Hispaniola, pro- posed the introduction of negro slaves to labor in mines and on sugar plantations, and relieve the natives. The plan which benevolence had suggested was quickly caught 'up by the col- onists, the traffic in negroes became a lucrative commerce, and the servitude of one race was only given up for that of another. Seeing the failure and perversion of his plan, Las Casas formed the project of establishing a col- ony under his own guidance, and obtained from Charles V. the gift of 270 leagues of land on the coast of Venezuela for this purpose. This plan too failing after a short trial, he retired for a time in despair to the Dominican con- vent at Santo Domingo. In 1527 he went as missionary and preacher through the provinces of Nicaragua and Guatemala, and into Peru and Mexico ; after which in 1539 he returned to Spain to explain to the emperor the situa- tion of the Indies and to obtain from him new reforms. Charles V., wishing to reward him for his many labors, appointed him to the rich bishopric of Cuzco. Las Casas declined this appointment, but accepted the next year the much poorer bishopric of Chiapas, in Mexico ; and at the age of 69 years he left Spain for the eighth time. His zeal in behalf of the Indians provoked a hostile attack from Sepulveda, an officer of the Spanish court, who undertook to justify the conduct of the Spaniards. To de- fend himself Las Casas wrote his work upon the destruction of the Indies, which contained many particulars of cruelties by the colonists, and was translated into several European languages. He met with difficulties in the administration of his bishopric, and having refused the sacra- ments to those of the colonists who reduced the Indians to slavery, he drew upon himself not only the hostility of the planters, but also the disapproval of the church. Abandoned by all, he returned finally to Spain in 1551, after having during 50 years signalized in America his zeal and his virtues. He retired to the convent of St. Gregory in Valladolid, and de- voted the remainder of his life to various com- positions, one of the most valuable of which, his "General History of the Indies," ^com- menced in 1527, has never been published. Several other works in Spanish, and two in Latin, also remain unpublished. The printed works were published in 1 vol. 4to (Seville, 1552). Several of his works were edited by