Bartolomé de las Casas,
OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in
Hispaniola as a layman then became a
Dominican friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...
and priest. He was appointed as the first resident
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
of
Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "
Protector of the Indians
Protector of the Indians (Spanish: ''Protectoría de Los Indios'') was an administrative office of the Spanish colonies that deemed themselves responsible for attending to the well-being of the native populations by providing detailed witness acco ...
". His extensive writings, the most famous being ''
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
A, or a, is the first Letter (alphabet), letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name ...
'' and ''Historia de Las Indias'', chronicle the first decades of colonization of the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
. He described the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples.
Arriving as one of the first Spanish (and European) settlers in the Americas, Las Casas initially participated in, but eventually felt compelled to oppose, the abuses committed by colonists against the
Native Americans. As a result, in 1515 he gave up his Native American slaves and ''
encomienda'', and advocated, before King
Charles I of Spain
Charles V, french: Charles Quint, it, Carlo V, nl, Karel V, ca, Carles V, la, Carolus V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain ( Castile and Aragon) fro ...
, on behalf of rights for the natives. In his early writings, he advocated the use of African and white slaves instead of Natives in the West Indian colonies but did so without knowing that the Portuguese were carrying out "brutal and unjust wars in the name of spreading the faith". Later in life, he retracted this position, as he regarded both forms of slavery as equally wrong. In 1522, he tried to launch a new kind of peaceful colonialism on the coast of
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, but this venture failed. Las Casas entered the
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...
and became a friar, leaving public life for a decade. He traveled to
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
, acting as a missionary among the
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...
of
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
and participating in debates among colonial churchmen about how best to bring the natives to the Christian faith.
Travelling back to Spain to recruit more missionaries, he continued lobbying for the abolition of the ''encomienda'', gaining an important victory by the passage of the
New Laws in 1542. He was appointed Bishop of
Chiapas, but served only for a short time before he was forced to return to Spain because of resistance to the New Laws by the ''
encomenderos
The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...
'', and conflicts with Spanish settlers because of his pro-Indian policies and activist religious stance. He served in the Spanish court for the remainder of his life; there he held great influence over Indies-related issues. In 1550, he participated in the
Valladolid debate
The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of an indigenous people by European colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it was ...
, in which
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (11 June 1494 – 17 November 1573) was a Spanish Renaissance humanist, philosopher, and theologian.
Biography
In 1533 and 1534 Sepúlveda wrote to Desiderius Erasmus from Rome concerning differences between Eras ...
argued that the Indians were less than human, and required Spanish masters to become civilized. Las Casas maintained that they were fully human, and that forcefully subjugating them was unjustifiable.
Bartolomé de las Casas spent 50 years of his life actively fighting slavery and the colonial abuse of indigenous peoples, especially by trying to convince the Spanish court to adopt a more humane policy of colonization. Unlike some other priests who sought to destroy the indigenous peoples' native books and writings, he strictly opposed this action. Although he did not completely succeed in changing Spanish views on colonization, his efforts did result in improvement of the legal status of the natives, and in an increased colonial focus on the ethics of colonialism.
Life and time
Background and arrival in the New World
Bartolomé de las Casas was born in
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
in 1484, on 11 November. For centuries, Las Casas's birthdate was believed to be 1474; however, in the 1970s, scholars conducting archival work demonstrated this to be an error, after uncovering in the ''
Archivo General de Indias
The Archivo General de Indias (, "General Archive of the Indies"), housed in the ancient merchants' exchange of Seville, Spain, the ''Casa Lonja de Mercaderes'', is the repository of extremely valuable archival documents illustrating the history ...
'' records of a contemporary lawsuit that demonstrated he was born a decade later than had been supposed. Subsequent biographers and authors have generally accepted and reflected this revision. His father, Pedro de las Casas, a merchant, descended from one of the families that had migrated from France to found the Christian
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
; his family also spelled the name ''Casaus''.
According to one biographer, his family was of ''
converso'' heritage, although others refer to them as ancient Christians who migrated from France.
Following the testimony of Las Casas's biographer Antonio de Remesal, tradition has it that Las Casas studied a ''licentiate'' at
Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...
, but this is never mentioned in Las Casas's own writings.
Las Casas' first encounter with Indigenous peoples happened before he even sailed to the Americas. In his ''
Historia general de las Indias
''Historia general de las Indias'' (''General History of the Indies'') is the account by Spanish historian Francisco López de Gómara of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The first printing was in December 1552, in the workshop of Agust ...
'', he wrote of
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
' return to
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
, in 1493. Las Casas recorded having seen "seven Indians" in the entourage of
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
, being exhibited in the vicinity of the Iglesia de San Nicolás de Bari, along "beautiful green parrots, vibrant in color" and Indigenous artifacts. Pedro de Las Casas, Bartolomé's merchant father, left in
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
' second expedition. Upon his return, in 1499, Pedro de Las Casas brought to his son "a young Amerinidian."
Three years later, in 1502, Las Casas immigrated with his father to the island of
Hispaniola, on the expedition of
Nicolás de Ovando
Frey Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres (1460 – 29 May 1511 or 1518) was a Spanish soldier from a noble family and a Knight of the Order of Alcántara, a military order of Spain. He was Governor of the Indies ( Hispaniola) from 1502 until 1509, se ...
. Las Casas became a ''
hacendado
An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or ''finca''), similar to a Roman ''latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), ...
'' and slave owner, receiving a piece of land in the province of
Cibao
The Cibao, usually referred as "El Cibao", is a region of the Dominican Republic located at the northern part of the country. As of 2009 the Cibao has a population of 5,622,378 making it the most populous region in the country.
The region constit ...
. He participated in slave raids and military expeditions against the native
Taíno
The Taíno were a historic indigenous people of the Caribbean whose culture has been continued today by Taíno descendant communities and Taíno revivalist communities. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the pri ...
population of Hispaniola. In 1506 he returned to Spain and completed his studies of canon law at Salamanca. That same year he was ordained a deacon and then traveled to Rome where he was ordained a
secular priest
In Christianity, the term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or otherwise members of religious life. A secular priest (sometimes known as a diocesan priest) is a priest who commits themselves to a certain geogr ...
in 1507.
In September 1510, a group of
Dominican friars arrived in
Santo Domingo
, total_type = Total
, population_density_km2 = auto
, timezone = AST (UTC −4)
, area_code_type = Area codes
, area_code = 809, 829, 849
, postal_code_type = Postal codes
, postal_code = 10100–10699 ( Distrito Nacional)
, webs ...
led by
Pedro de Córdoba
Pedro de Córdoba OP (c.1460–1525) was a Spanish missionary, author and inquisitor on the island of Hispaniola. He was first to denounce the Spanish system known as the '' Encomienda'', which amounted to the practical enslavement of na ...
; appalled by the injustices they saw committed by the slaveowners against the Indians, they decided to deny slave owners the right to
confession
A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information th ...
. Las Casas was among those denied confession for this reason. In December 1511, a Dominican preacher Fray
Antonio de Montesinos
Antonio de Montesinos or Antonio Montesino (c. 1475 - June 27, 1540) was a Spanish Dominican friar who was a missionary on the island of Hispaniola (now comprising the Dominican Republic and Haiti). With the backing of Pedro de Córdoba and ...
preached a fiery sermon that implicated the colonists in the
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
of the native peoples. He is said to have preached, "Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before. Why do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted, without giving them enough to eat or curing them of the sicknesses they incur from the excessive labor you give them, and they die, or rather you kill them, in order to extract and acquire gold every day."
Las Casas himself argued against the Dominicans in favour of the justice of the
encomienda. The colonists, led by
Diego Columbus
Diego Columbus ( pt, Diogo Colombo; es, Diego Colón; it, Diego Colombo; 1479/1480 – February 23, 1526) was a navigator and explorer under the Kings of Castile and Aragón. He served as the 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indie ...
, dispatched a complaint against the Dominicans to the King, and the Dominicans were recalled from Hispaniola.
Conquest of Cuba and change of heart
![Reconstruction of Taino village, Cuba](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Reconstruction_of_Taino_village%2C_Cuba.JPG)
In 1513, as a chaplain, Las Casas participated in
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar's and
Pánfilo de Narváez
Pánfilo de Narváez (; 147?–1528) was a Spanish '' conquistador'' and soldier in the Americas. Born in Spain, he first embarked to Jamaica in 1510 as a soldier. He came to participate in the conquest of Cuba and led an expedition to Camagü ...
' conquest of
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
. He participated in campaigns at
Bayamo and
Camagüey
Camagüey () is a city and municipality in central Cuba and is the nation's third-largest city with more than 321,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Camagüey Province.
It was founded as Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe in 1514, by S ...
and in the massacre of
Hatuey
Hatuey (), also Hatüey (; died 2 February 1512) was a Taíno ''Cacique'' (chief) of the Hispaniola province of Guahaba (present-day La Gonave, Haiti). He lived from the late 15th until the early 16th century. One day Chief Hatuey and many of ...
. He witnessed many atrocities committed by Spaniards against the native
Ciboney
The Ciboney, or Siboney, were a Taíno people of western Cuba, Jamaica, and the Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti. A Western Taíno group living in central Cuba during the 15th and 16th centuries, they had a dialect and culture distinct from the Classi ...
and
Guanahatabey
The Guanahatabey (also spelled Guanajatabey) were an indigenous people of western Cuba at the time of European contact. Archaeological and historical studies suggest the Guanahatabey were archaic hunter-gatherers with a distinct language and cu ...
peoples. He later wrote: "I saw here cruelty on a scale no living being has ever seen or expects to see."
Las Casas and his friend Pedro de la Rentería were awarded a joint encomienda which was rich in gold and slaves, located on the Arimao River close to
Cienfuegos. During the next few years, he divided his time between being a colonist and his duties as an ordained priest.
In 1514, Las Casas was studying a passage in the book
Ecclesiasticus
The Book of Sirach () or Ecclesiasticus (; abbreviated Ecclus.) is a Jewish work, originally in Hebrew, of ethical teachings, from approximately 200 to 175 BC, written by the Judahite scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, on the inspiration of his fa ...
(
Sirach
The Book of Sirach () or Ecclesiasticus (; abbreviated Ecclus.) is a Jewish work, originally in Hebrew, of ethical teachings, from approximately 200 to 175 BC, written by the Judahite scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, on the inspiration of his fa ...
)
34:18–22 for a
Pentecost
Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christianity, Christian holiday which takes place on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the Ne ...
sermon and pondering its meaning. Las Casas was finally convinced that all the actions of the Spanish in the New World had been illegal and that they constituted a great injustice. He made up his mind to give up his slaves and encomienda, and started to preach that other colonists should do the same. When his preaching met with resistance, he realized that he would have to go to Spain to fight there against the enslavement and abuse of the native people. Aided by Pedro de Córdoba and accompanied by Antonio de Montesinos, he left for Spain in September 1515, arriving in Seville in November.
Las Casas and King Ferdinand
![FerdinandCatholic](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/FerdinandCatholic.jpg)
Las Casas arrived in Spain with the plan of convincing the King to end the encomienda system. This was easier thought than done, as most of the people who were in positions of power were themselves either encomenderos or otherwise profiting from the influx of wealth from the Indies. In the winter of 1515,
King Ferdinand lay ill in
Plasencia
Plasencia () is a walled market city in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Western Spain. , it has a population of 41,047.
Situated on the bank of the Jerte River, Plasencia has a historic quarter that is a consequence of the city's stra ...
, but Las Casas was able to get a letter of introduction to the king from the Archbishop of Seville,
Diego de Deza
Diego de Deza y Tavera (1444 – 9 June 1523) was a theologian and inquisitor of Spain. He was one of the more notable figures in the Spanish Inquisition, and succeeded Tomás de Torquemada to the post of Grand Inquisitor.
Early life
Deza wa ...
. On Christmas Eve of 1515, Las Casas met the monarch and discussed the situation in the Indies with him; the king agreed to hear him out in more detail at a later date. While waiting, Las Casas produced a report that he presented to the Bishop of Burgos,
Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca
Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca (1451–1524) was a Spanish archbishop, a courtier and bureaucrat, whose position as royal chaplain to Queen Isabella enabled him to become a powerful counsellor to Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Monarchs. He co ...
, and secretary
Lope Conchillos, who were functionaries in complete charge of the royal policies regarding the Indies; both were encomenderos. They were not impressed by his account, and Las Casas had to find a different avenue of change. He put his faith in his coming audience with the king, but it never came, for King Ferdinand died on 25 January 1516. The regency of
Castile passed on to
Ximenez Cisneros and
Adrian of Utrecht
Pope Adrian VI ( la, Hadrianus VI; it, Adriano VI; nl, Adrianus/Adriaan VI), born Adriaan Florensz Boeyens (2 March 1459 – 14 September 1523), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 January 1522 until his d ...
who were guardians for the under-age
Prince Charles. Las Casas was resolved to see Prince Charles who resided in
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...
, but on his way there he passed
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
and delivered to the regents a written account of the situation in the Indies and his proposed remedies. This was his "''
Memorial de Remedios para Las Indias''" of 1516. In this early work, Las Casas advocated importing black slaves from Africa to relieve the suffering Indians, a stance he later retracted, becoming an advocate for the Africans in the colonies as well. This shows that Las Casas's first concern was not to end slavery as an institution, but to end the physical abuse and suffering of the Indians. In keeping with the legal and moral doctrine of the time Las Casas believed that slavery could be justified if it was the result of
Just War
The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war i ...
, and at the time he assumed that the enslavement of Africans was justified. Worried by Las Casas' descriptions of the situation in the Indies, Cardinal Cisneros decided to send a group of
Hieronymite
The Hieronymites, also formally known as the Order of Saint Jerome ( la, Ordo Sancti Hieronymi; abbreviated OSH), is a Catholic cloistered religious order and a common name for several congregations of hermit monks living according to the Rule o ...
monks to take over the government of the islands.
Protector of the Indians
Three
Hieronymite
The Hieronymites, also formally known as the Order of Saint Jerome ( la, Ordo Sancti Hieronymi; abbreviated OSH), is a Catholic cloistered religious order and a common name for several congregations of hermit monks living according to the Rule o ...
monks,
Luis de Figueroa, Bernardino de Manzanedo, and Alonso de Santo Domingo, were selected as commissioners to take over the authority of the Indies. Las Casas had a considerable part in selecting them and writing the instructions under which their new government would be instated, largely based on Las Casas's ''memorial''. Las Casas himself was granted the official title of
Protector of the Indians
Protector of the Indians (Spanish: ''Protectoría de Los Indios'') was an administrative office of the Spanish colonies that deemed themselves responsible for attending to the well-being of the native populations by providing detailed witness acco ...
, and given a yearly salary of one hundred pesos. In this new office Las Casas was expected to serve as an advisor to the new governors with regard to Indian issues, to speak the case of the Indians in court, and send reports back to Spain. Las Casas and the commissioners traveled to Santo Domingo on separate ships, and Las Casas arrived two weeks later than the Hieronimytes. During this time the Hieronimytes had time to form a more pragmatic view of the situation than the one advocated by Las Casas; their position was precarious as every encomendero on the Islands was fiercely against any attempts to curtail their use of native labour. Consequently, the commissioners were unable to take any radical steps towards improving the situation of the natives. They did revoke some encomiendas from Spaniards, especially those who were living in Spain and not on the islands themselves; they even repossessed the encomienda of
Fonseca, the Bishop of Burgos. They also carried out an inquiry into the Indian question at which all the encomenderos asserted that the Indians were quite incapable of living freely without their supervision. Las Casas was disappointed and infuriated. When he accused the Hieronymites of being complicit in kidnapping Indians, the relationship between Las Casas and the commissioners broke down. Las Casas had become a hated figure by Spaniards all over the islands, and he had to seek refuge in the Dominican monastery. The Dominicans had been the first to indict the encomenderos, and they continued to chastise them and refuse the absolution of confession to slave owners, and even stated that priests who took their confession were committing a
mortal sin
A mortal sin ( la, peccatum mortale), in Catholic theology, is a gravely sinful act which can lead to damnation if a person does not repent of the sin before death. A sin is considered to be "mortal" when its quality is such that it leads t ...
. In May 1517, Las Casas was forced to travel back to Spain to denounce to the regent the failure of the Hieronymite reforms. Only after Las Casas had left did the Hieronymites begin to congregate Indians into towns similar to what Las Casas had wanted.
Las Casas and Emperor Charles V: The peasant colonization scheme
When he arrived in Spain, his former protector, regent, and
Cardinal Ximenez Cisneros, was ill and had become tired of Las Casas's tenacity. Las Casas resolved to meet instead with the young king Charles I. Ximenez died on 8 November, and the young King arrived in
Valladolid
Valladolid () is a municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and de facto capital of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. It has a population around 300,000 peop ...
on 25 November 1517. Las Casas managed to secure the support of the king's Flemish courtiers, including the powerful Chancellor Jean de la Sauvage. Las Casas's influence turned the favor of the court against Secretary Conchillos and Bishop Fonseca. Sauvage spoke highly of Las Casas to the king, who appointed Las Casas and Sauvage to write a new plan for reforming the governmental system of the Indies.
Las Casas suggested a plan where the encomienda would be abolished and Indians would be congregated into self-governing townships to become tribute-paying vassals of the king. He still suggested that the loss of Indian labor for the colonists could be replaced by allowing
importation of African slaves. Another important part of the plan was to introduce a new kind of sustainable colonization, and Las Casas advocated supporting the migration of Spanish peasants to the Indies where they would introduce small-scale farming and agriculture, a kind of colonization that didn't rely on resource depletion and Indian labor. Las Casas worked to recruit a large number of peasants who would want to travel to the islands, where they would be given lands to farm, cash advances, and the tools and resources they needed to establish themselves there. The recruitment drive was difficult, and during the process the power relation shifted at court when Chancellor Sauvage, Las Casas's main supporter, unexpectedly died. In the end a much smaller number of peasant families were sent than originally planned, and they were supplied with insufficient provisions and no support secured for their arrival. Those who survived the journey were ill-received, and had to work hard even to survive in the hostile colonies. Las Casas was devastated by the tragic result of his peasant migration scheme, which he felt had been thwarted by his enemies. He decided instead to undertake a personal venture which would not rely on the support of others, and fought to win a land grant on the American mainland which was in its earliest stage of colonization.
The Cumaná venture
Following a suggestion by his friend and mentor
Pedro de Córdoba
Pedro de Córdoba OP (c.1460–1525) was a Spanish missionary, author and inquisitor on the island of Hispaniola. He was first to denounce the Spanish system known as the '' Encomienda'', which amounted to the practical enslavement of na ...
, Las Casas petitioned a land grant to be allowed to establish a settlement in northern
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
at
Cumaná
Cumaná () is the capital city of Venezuela's Sucre State. It is located east of Caracas. Cumaná was one of the first cities founded by Spain in the mainland Americas and is the oldest continuously-inhabited Hispanic-established city in South ...
. Founded in 1515, there was already a small Franciscan monastery in Cumana, and a Dominican one at Chiribichi, but the monks there were being harassed by Spaniards operating slave raids from the nearby Island of
Cubagua
Cubagua Island or Isla de Cubagua () is the smallest and least populated of the three islands constituting the Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparta, after Margarita Island and Coche Island. It is located north of the Araya Peninsula, the closest ...
. To make the proposal palatable to the king, Las Casas had to incorporate the prospect of profits for the royal treasury. He suggested fortifying the northern coast of Venezuela, establishing ten royal forts to protect the Indians and starting up a system of trade in gold and pearls. All the Indian slaves of the New World should be brought to live in these towns and become tribute paying subjects to the king. To secure the grant, Las Casas had to go through a long court fight against Bishop Fonseca and his supporters
Gonzalo de Oviedo and Bishop Quevedo of
Tierra Firme. Las Casas's supporters were
Diego Columbus
Diego Columbus ( pt, Diogo Colombo; es, Diego Colón; it, Diego Colombo; 1479/1480 – February 23, 1526) was a navigator and explorer under the Kings of Castile and Aragón. He served as the 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indie ...
and the new chancellor Gattinara. Las Casas's enemies slandered him to the king, accusing him of planning to escape with the money to
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...
or
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
. In 1520 Las Casas's concession was finally granted, but it was a much smaller grant than he had initially proposed; he was also denied the possibilities of extracting gold and pearls, which made it difficult for him to find investors for the venture. Las Casas committed himself to producing 15,000
ducats of annual revenue, increasing to 60,000 after ten years, and to erecting three Christian towns of at least 40 settlers each. Some privileges were also granted to the initial 50 shareholders in Las Casas's scheme. The king also promised not to give any encomienda grants in Las Casas's area. That said, finding fifty men willing to invest 200 ducats each and three years of unpaid work proved impossible for Las Casas. He ended up leaving in November 1520 with just a small group of peasants, paying for the venture with money borrowed from his brother in-law.
Arriving in
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
, in January 1521, he received the terrible news that the Dominican convent at Chiribichi had been sacked by Indians, and that the Spaniards of the islands had launched a punitive expedition, led by Gonzalo de Ocampo, into the very heart of the territory that Las Casas wanted to colonize peacefully. The Indians had been provoked to attack the settlement of the monks because of the repeated slave raids by Spaniards operating from Cubagua. As Ocampo's ships began returning with slaves from the land Las Casas had been granted, he went to Hispaniola to complain to the
Audiencia. After several months of negotiations Las Casas set sail alone; the peasants he had brought had deserted, and he arrived in his colony already ravaged by Spaniards.
Las Casas worked there in adverse conditions for the following months, being constantly harassed by the Spanish
pearl fishers
A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...
of
Cubagua
Cubagua Island or Isla de Cubagua () is the smallest and least populated of the three islands constituting the Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparta, after Margarita Island and Coche Island. It is located north of the Araya Peninsula, the closest ...
island who traded slaves for alcohol with the natives. Early in 1522 Las Casas left the settlement to complain to the authorities. While he was gone the native
Caribs
“Carib” may refer to:
People and languages
*Kalina people, or Caribs, an indigenous people of South America
**Carib language, also known as Kalina, the language of the South American Caribs
*Kalinago people, or Island Caribs, an indigenous pe ...
attacked the settlement of Cumaná, burned it to the ground, and killed four of Las Casas's men. He returned to Hispaniola in January 1522, and heard the news of the massacre. The rumours even included him among the dead. To make matters worse, his detractors used the event as evidence of the need to pacify the Indians using military means.
Las Casas as a Dominican friar
Devastated, Las Casas reacted by entering the Dominican monastery of Santa Cruz in
Santo Domingo
, total_type = Total
, population_density_km2 = auto
, timezone = AST (UTC −4)
, area_code_type = Area codes
, area_code = 809, 829, 849
, postal_code_type = Postal codes
, postal_code = 10100–10699 ( Distrito Nacional)
, webs ...
as a novice in 1522 and finally taking holy vows as a
Dominican friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...
in 1523. There he continued his theological studies, being particularly attracted to
Thomist
Thomism is the philosophical and theological school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Aquinas' disputed questions a ...
philosophy. He oversaw the construction of a monastery in
Puerto Plata on the north coast of Hispaniola, subsequently serving as
prior of the convent. In 1527 he began working on his ''History of the Indies'', in which he reported much of what he had witnessed first hand in the conquest and colonization of New Spain. In 1531, he wrote a letter to
Garcia Manrique,
Count of Osorno
Count of Osorno is a Spanish hereditary peerage which was granted on 31 August 1445 by John II of Castile to Gabriel Fernández Manrique, first Duke of Galisteo (1451), son of Garci Fernandez Manrique, first Count of Castañeda.
On the death ...
, protesting again the mistreatment of the Indians and advocating a return to his original reform plan of 1516. In 1531 a complaint was sent by the encomenderos of Hispaniola that Las Casas was again accusing them of mortal sins from the pulpit. In 1533 he contributed to the establishment of a peace treaty between the Spanish and the rebel
Taíno
The Taíno were a historic indigenous people of the Caribbean whose culture has been continued today by Taíno descendant communities and Taíno revivalist communities. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the pri ...
band of chief
Enriquillo
Enriquillo, also known as "Enrique" by the Spaniards, was a Taíno cacique who rebelled against the Spaniards between 1519 and 1533. Enriquillo's rebellion is the best known rebellion of the early Caribbean period. He was born on the shores of ...
. In 1534 Las Casas made an attempt to travel to
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
to observe the first stages of
conquest of that region by
Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro González, Marquess of the Atabillos (; ; – 26 June 1541) was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of Peru.
Born in Trujillo, Spain to a poor family, Pizarro chose ...
. His party made it as far as
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...
, but had to turn back to
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
due to adverse weather. Lingering for a while in the Dominican convent of
Granada
Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...
, he got into conflict with Rodrigo de Contreras, Governor of Nicaragua, when Las Casas vehemently opposed slaving expeditions by the Governor. In 1536 Las Casas followed a number of friars to
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
, where they began to prepare to undertake a mission among the
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...
Indians. They stayed in the convent founded some years earlier by Fray
Domingo Betanzos
Domingo Betanzos (died September 1549 at Valladolid) was a Spanish Dominican missionary to New Spain, who participated in the "Spiritual Conquest", evangelizing the indigenous.
Life
A native of León in Spain, he first studied jurisprudence at ...
and studied the
K'iche' language K'iche', K'ichee', or Quiché may refer to:
* K'iche' people of Guatemala, a subgroup of the Maya
* K'iche' language, a Maya language spoken by the K'iche' people
** Classical K'iche' language, the 16th century form of the K'iche' language
* Kʼich ...
with Bishop
Francisco Marroquín
Francisco Marroquín (1499 – April 18, 1563) was the first bishop of Guatemala, ''(in Latin)'' translator of Central American languages and provisional Governor of Guatemala.
Biography
Marroquín was born near Santander, Spain. He studied phil ...
, before traveling into the interior region called Tuzulutlan, "The Land of War", in 1537.
![Motolinia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Motolinia.jpg)
Also in 1536, before venturing into Tuzulutlan, Las Casas went to
Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, to participate in a series of discussions and debates among the bishops of the Dominican and
Franciscan order
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
s. The two orders had very different approaches to the conversion of the Indians. The Franciscans used a method of mass conversion, sometimes baptizing many thousands of Indians in a day. This method was championed by prominent Franciscans such as
Toribio de Benavente
Toribio of Benavente, O.F.M. (1482, Benavente, Spain – 1565, Mexico City, New Spain), also known as Motolinía, was a Franciscan missionary who was one of the famous Twelve Apostles of Mexico who arrived in New Spain in May 1524. His publishe ...
, known as "Motolinia", and Las Casas made many enemies among the Franciscans for arguing that conversions made without adequate understanding were invalid. Las Casas wrote a treatise called "''De unico vocationis modo''" (On the Only Way of Conversion) based on the missionary principles he had used in Guatemala. Motolinia would later be a fierce critic of Las Casas, accusing him of being all talk and no action when it came to converting the Indians. As a direct result of the debates between the Dominicans and Franciscans and spurred on by Las Casas's treatise,
Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III ( la, Paulus III; it, Paolo III; 29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549), born Alessandro Farnese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death in November 1549.
He came to ...
promulgated the
Bull
A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions,
includin ...
"
Sublimis Deus
''Sublimis Deus'' (English: ''The sublime God''; erroneously cited as ''Sublimus Dei'' and occasionally as ''Sic Dilexit'') is a bull promulgated by Pope Paul III on June 2, 1537, which forbids the enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the Am ...
," which stated that the Indians were rational beings and should be brought peacefully to the faith as such.
Las Casas returned to Guatemala in 1537 wanting to employ his new method of conversion based on two principles: 1) to preach the Gospel to all men and treat them as equals, and 2) to assert that conversion must be voluntary and based on knowledge and understanding of the faith. It was important for Las Casas that this method be tested without meddling from secular colonists, so he chose a territory in the heart of Guatemala where there were no previous colonies and where the natives were considered fierce and war-like. Because the land had not been possible to conquer by military means, the governor of Guatemala,
Alonso de Maldonado, agreed to sign a contract promising that if the venture was successful he would not establish any new encomiendas in the area. Las Casas's group of friars established a Dominican presence in
Rabinal
Rabinal is a small town, with a population of 15,157 (2018 census),Citypopulation.de
Population of cities & to ...
,
Sacapulas
Sacapulas is a town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché.
History
Pre Hispanic era
Worried about the defection of the aj K’ub’ul family chief -who had taken his family away in order to look for fertile and, above ...
, and
Cobán
Cobán ( kek, Kob'an), fully Santo Domingo de Cobán, is the Capital (political), capital of the Departments of Guatemala, department of Alta Verapaz in central Guatemala. It also serves as the administrative center for the surrounding Cobán mun ...
. Through the efforts of Las Casas's missionaries the so-called "Land of War" came to be called "
Verapaz", "True Peace". Las Casas's strategy was to teach Christian songs to merchant Indian Christians who then ventured into the area. In this way he was successful in converting several native chiefs, among them those of
Atitlán and
Chichicastenango
Chichicastenango, also known as Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, is a town, with a population of 71,394 (2018 census), and the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name in the El Quiché department of Guatemala. It is locate ...
, and in building several churches in the territory named
Alta Verapaz
Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and ...
. These congregated a group of Christian Indians in the location of what is now the town of Rabinal. In 1538 Las Casas was recalled from his mission by Bishop Marroquín who wanted him to go to
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
and then on to
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
to seek more Dominicans to assist in the mission. Las Casas left Guatemala for Mexico, where he stayed for more than a year before setting out for Spain in 1540.
The New Laws
![Leyes Nuevas1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Leyes_Nuevas1.jpg)
In Spain, Las Casas started securing official support for the Guatemalan mission, and he managed to get a royal decree forbidding secular intrusion into the Verapaces for the following five years. He also informed the
Theologians
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...
of
Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...
, led by
Francisco de Vitoria
Francisco de Vitoria ( – 12 August 1546; also known as Francisco de Victoria) was a Spanish Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian, and jurist of Renaissance Spain. He is the founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Sala ...
, of the mass baptism practiced by the Franciscans, resulting in a
dictum
In general usage, a dictum ( in Latin; plural dicta) is an authoritative or dogmatic statement. In some contexts, such as legal writing and church cantata librettos, ''dictum'' can have a specific meaning.
Legal writing
In United States legal ter ...
condemning the practice as sacrilegious.
But apart from the clerical business, Las Casas had also traveled to Spain for his own purpose: to continue the struggle against the colonists' mistreatment of the Indians. The encomienda had, in fact, legally been abolished in 1523, but it had been reinstituted in 1526, and in 1530 a general ordinance against slavery was reversed by the Crown. For this reason it was a pressing matter for Bartolomé de las Casas to plead once again for the Indians with Charles V who was by now
Holy Roman Emperor and no longer a boy. He wrote a letter asking for permission to stay in Spain a little longer to argue for the emperor that conversion and colonization were best achieved by peaceful means.
When the hearings started in 1542, Las Casas presented a narrative of atrocities against the natives of the Indies that would later be published in 1552 as ''
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
A, or a, is the first Letter (alphabet), letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name ...
''. Before a council consisting of Cardinal
García de Loaysa
Juan García de Loaysa y Mendoza (1478 in Talavera de la Reina, near Toledo, Spain – 22 April 1546 in Madrid, Spain) was a Spanish Archbishop of Seville and Cardinal.
Biography
His parents were nobles; at a very early age he entered the Domi ...
, the
Count of Osorno
Count of Osorno is a Spanish hereditary peerage which was granted on 31 August 1445 by John II of Castile to Gabriel Fernández Manrique, first Duke of Galisteo (1451), son of Garci Fernandez Manrique, first Count of Castañeda.
On the death ...
, Bishop
Fuenleal, and several members of the
Council of the Indies
The Council of the Indies ( es, Consejo de las Indias), officially the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies ( es, Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias, link=no, ), was the most important administrative organ of the Spanish Empire for the Amer ...
, Las Casas argued that the only solution to the problem was to remove all Indians from the care of secular Spaniards, by abolishing the encomienda system and putting them instead directly under the Crown as royal tribute-paying subjects. On 20 November 1542, the emperor signed the
New Laws abolishing the encomiendas and removing certain officials from the Council of the Indies. The New Laws made it illegal to use Indians as carriers, except where no other transport was available, it prohibited all taking of Indians as slaves, and it instated a gradual abolition of the encomienda system, with each encomienda reverting to the Crown at the death of its holders. It also exempted the few surviving Indians of
Hispaniola,
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
,
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
, and
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
from tribute and all requirements of personal service. However, the reforms were so unpopular in the New World that riots broke out and threats were made against Las Casas's life. The
Viceroy
A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning "k ...
of
New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...
, himself an encomendero, decided not to implement the laws in his domain, and instead sent a party to Spain to argue against the laws on behalf of the encomenderos. Las Casas himself was also not satisfied with the laws, as they were not drastic enough and the encomienda system was going to function for many years still under the gradual abolition plan. He drafted a suggestion for an amendment arguing that the laws against slavery were formulated in such a way that it presupposed that violent conquest would still be carried out, and he encouraged once again beginning a phase of peaceful colonization by peasants instead of soldiers.
Bishop of Chiapas
![Iglesia de San Pablo, Valladolid](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Iglesia_de_San_Pablo%2C_Valladolid._Fachada.jpg)
Before Las Casas returned to Spain, he was also appointed as Bishop of
Chiapas, a newly established
diocese
In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...
of which he took possession in 1545 upon his return to the New World. He was consecrated in the Dominican Church of San Pablo on 30 March 1544. As Archbishop
Loaysa strongly disliked Las Casas, the ceremony was officiated by Loaysa's nephew,
Diego de Loaysa,
Bishop of Modruš, with
Pedro Torres
Pedro Torres Cruces (born 27 April 1949 in Humilladero) is a Spanish former road bicycle racer. He was a GC contender in Grand Tours.
His first was the 1972 Vuelta. In the following year he placed 5th overall in the Vuelta and won the King ...
,
Titular Bishop
A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese.
By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox ...
of ''Arbanum'', and
Cristóbal de Pedraza,
Bishop of Comayagua
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa (1916 established, successor to the Diocese of Comayagua, erected 1561) is the only Metropolitan see in Honduras, whose ecclesiastical province covers the whole country. , as co-consecrators.
["Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas (Casaus), O.P. "](_blank)
''Catholic-Hierarchy.org
''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' is an online database of bishops and dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Catholic Churches. The website is not officially sanctioned by the Church. It is run as a private project by David M. Cheney in ...
''. David M. Cheney. Retrieved February 29, 2016 As a bishop Las Casas was involved in frequent conflicts with the encomenderos and secular laity of his diocese: among the landowners there was the conquistador
Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Bernal Díaz del Castillo ( 1492 – 3 February 1584) was a Spanish conquistador, who participated as a soldier in the conquest of the Aztec Empire under Hernán Cortés and late in his life wrote an account of the events. As an experience ...
. In a
pastoral letter
A pastoral letter, often simply called a pastoral, is an open letter addressed by a bishop to the clergy or laity of a diocese or to both, containing general admonition, instruction or consolation, or directions for behaviour in particular circumst ...
issued on 20 March 1545, Las Casas refused
absolution
Absolution is a traditional theological term for the forgiveness imparted by ordained Christian priests and experienced by Christian penitents. It is a universal feature of the historic churches of Christendom, although the theology and the pr ...
to slave owners and encomenderos even on their death bed, unless all their slaves had been set free and their property returned to them.
Las Casas furthermore threatened that anyone who mistreated Indians within his jurisdiction would be excommunicated. He also came into conflict with the Bishop of Guatemala
Francisco Marroquín
Francisco Marroquín (1499 – April 18, 1563) was the first bishop of Guatemala, ''(in Latin)'' translator of Central American languages and provisional Governor of Guatemala.
Biography
Marroquín was born near Santander, Spain. He studied phil ...
, to whose jurisdiction the diocese had previously belonged. To Las Casas's dismay Bishop Marroquín openly defied the New Laws. While bishop, Las Casas was the principal consecrator of
Antonio de Valdivieso,
Bishop of Nicaragua
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
(1544).
The New Laws were finally repealed on 20 October 1545, and riots broke out against Las Casas, with shots being fired against him by angry colonists.
After a year he had made himself so unpopular among the Spaniards of the area that he had to leave. Having been summoned to a meeting among the bishops of New Spain to be held in
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
on 12 January 1546, he left his diocese, never to return.
At the meeting, probably after lengthy reflection, and realizing that the New Laws were lost in Mexico, Las Casas presented a moderated view on the problems of confession and restitution of property, Archbishop
Juan de Zumárraga of
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
and Bishop
Julián Garcés
Julián Garcés, O.P. (''Ordo Praedicatorum'', "Dominican Order") was a Spanish Dominican priest born in Munébrega in the Kingdom of Aragon. Made Bishop in the Diocese of Yucatán in 1519 and subsequently first acting bishop of New Spain in t ...
of
Puebla
Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...
agreed completely with his new moderate stance, Bishop
Vasco de Quiroga
Vasco de Quiroga (1470/78 – 14 March 1565) was the first bishop of Michoacán, Mexico, and one of the judges (''oidores'') in the second Real Audiencia of Mexico – the high court that governed New Spain – from January 10, 1531, to April 16, ...
of
Michoacán had minor reservations, and Bishops
Francisco Marroquín
Francisco Marroquín (1499 – April 18, 1563) was the first bishop of Guatemala, ''(in Latin)'' translator of Central American languages and provisional Governor of Guatemala.
Biography
Marroquín was born near Santander, Spain. He studied phil ...
of
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
and
Juan Lopez de Zárate
''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...
of
Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
did not object. This resulted in a new resolution to be presented to viceroy Mendoza. His last act as Bishop of Chiapas was writing a ''
confesionario'', a manual for the administration of the sacrament of confession in his diocese, still refusing absolution to unrepentant encomenderos. Las Casas appointed a vicar for his diocese and set out for Europe in December 1546, arriving in Lisbon in April 1547 and in Spain on November 1547.
The Valladolid debate
![Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Juan_Gin%C3%A9s_de_Sep%C3%BAlveda.jpg)
Las Casas returned to Spain, leaving behind many conflicts and unresolved issues. Arriving in Spain he was met by a barrage of accusations, many of them based on his Confesionario and its 12 rules, which many of his opponents found to be in essence a denial of the legitimacy of Spanish rule of its colonies, and hence a form of
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
. The Crown had for example received a fifth of the large number of slaves taken in the recent
Mixtón War
The Mixtón War (1540-1542) was a rebellion by the Caxcan people of northwestern Mexico against the Spanish conquerors. The war was named after Mixtón, a hill in Zacatecas which served as an Indigenous stronghold.
The Caxcanes
Although othe ...
, and so could not be held clean of guilt under Las Casas's strict rules. In 1548 the Crown decreed that all copies of Las Casas's Confesionario be burnt, and his Franciscan adversary, Motolinia, obliged and sent back a report to Spain. Las Casas defended himself by writing two treatises on the "Just Title" – arguing that the only legality with which the Spaniards could claim titles over realms in the New World was through peaceful proselytizing. All warfare was illegal and unjust and only through the papal mandate of peacefully bringing Christianity to heathen peoples could "Just Titles" be acquired.
As a part of Las Casas's defense by offense, he had to argue against
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (11 June 1494 – 17 November 1573) was a Spanish Renaissance humanist, philosopher, and theologian.
Biography
In 1533 and 1534 Sepúlveda wrote to Desiderius Erasmus from Rome concerning differences between Eras ...
. Sepúlveda was a doctor of theology and law who, in his book ''Democrates Alter, sive de justis causis apud Indos'' (Another Democrates, or A New Democrates, or on the Just Causes of War against the Indians) had argued that some native peoples were incapable of ruling themselves and should be pacified forcefully. The book was deemed unsound for publication by the theologians of Salamanca and Alcalá for containing unsound doctrine, but the pro-encomendero faction seized on Sepúlveda as their intellectual champion.
To settle the issues, a formal debate was organized, the famous
Valladolid debate
The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of an indigenous people by European colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it was ...
, which took place in 1550–51 with Sepúlveda and Las Casas each presenting their arguments in front of a council of jurists and theologians. First Sepúlveda read the conclusions of his ''Democrates Alter'', and then the council listened to Las Casas read his counterarguments in the form of an "Apología". Sepúlveda argued that the subjugation of certain Indians was warranted because of their sins against Natural Law; that their low level of civilization required civilized masters to maintain social order; that they should be made Christian and that this in turn required them to be pacified; and that only the Spanish could defend weak Indians against the abuses of the stronger ones. Las Casas countered that the scriptures did not in fact support war against all heathens, only against certain
Canaanite tribes; that the Indians were not at all uncivilized nor lacking social order; that peaceful mission was the only true way of converting the natives; and finally that some weak Indians suffering at the hands of stronger ones was preferable to all Indians suffering at the hands of Spaniards.
The judge, Fray
Domingo de Soto
Domingo de Soto, O.P. (1494 – 15 November 1560) was a Spanish Dominican priest and Scholastic theologian born in Segovia (Spain), and died in Salamanca (Spain), at the age of 66. He is best known as one of the founders of international law a ...
, summarised the arguments. Sepúlveda addressed Las Casas's arguments with twelve refutations, which were again countered by Las Casas. The judges then deliberated on the arguments presented for several months before coming to a verdict. The verdict was inconclusive, and both debaters claimed that they had won.
In 1552, Las Casas published ''
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
A, or a, is the first Letter (alphabet), letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name ...
''. This book, written a decade earlier and sent to the attention of then-prince
Philip II of Spain, contained accounts of the abuses committed by some Spaniards against Native Americans during the early stages of colonization. In 1555 his old Franciscan adversary
Toribio de Benavente Motolinia
Toribio of Benavente, O.F.M. (1482, Benavente, Spain – 1565, Mexico City, New Spain), also known as Motolinía, was a Franciscan missionary who was one of the famous Twelve Apostles of Mexico who arrived in New Spain in May 1524. His publis ...
wrote a letter in which he described Las Casas as an ignorant, arrogant troublemaker. Benavente described indignantly how Las Casas had once denied baptism to an aging Indian who had walked many leagues to receive it, only on the grounds that he did not believe that the man had received sufficient doctrinal instruction. This letter, which reinvoked the old conflict over the requirements for the
sacrament
A sacrament is a Christianity, Christian Rite (Christianity), rite that is recognized as being particularly important and significant. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites. Many Christians consider the sacraments ...
of
baptism
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...
between the two orders, was intended to bring Las Casas in disfavour. However, it did not succeed.
Later years and death
![Valladolid San Gregorio 20080815](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Valladolid_San_Gregorio_20080815.jpg)
Having resigned the Bishopric of Chiapas, Las Casas spent the rest of his life working closely with the imperial court in matters relating to the Indies. In 1551 he rented a cell at the
College of San Gregorio, where he lived with his assistant and friend Fray Rodrigo de Ladrada. He continued working as a kind of procurator for the natives of the Indies, many of whom directed petitions to him to speak to the emperor on their behalf. Sometimes indigenous nobility even related their cases to him in Spain, for example, the
Nahua
The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...
noble
Francisco Tenamaztle
Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''.
Nicknames
In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed "Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as ''Pater Comunitatis'' (father of ...
from
Nochistlán
Nochistlán () is a city in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, on December 3, 1531, hired Cristóbal de Oñate to establish a village in Nochistlán; the village would be named Guadalajara to honor Guzmán for having b ...
. His influence at court was so great that some even considered that he had the final word in choosing the members of the
Council of the Indies
The Council of the Indies ( es, Consejo de las Indias), officially the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies ( es, Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias, link=no, ), was the most important administrative organ of the Spanish Empire for the Amer ...
.
One matter in which he invested much effort was the political situation of the
Viceroyalty of Peru
The Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Virreinato del Perú, links=no) was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed fro ...
. In Peru, power struggles between
conquistador
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...
s and the viceroy became an open civil war in which the conquistadors led by
Gonzalo Pizarro
Gonzalo Pizarro y Alonso (; 1510 – April 10, 1548) was a Spanish conquistador and younger paternal half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of the Inca Empire. Bastard son of Captain Gonzalo Pizarro y Rodríguez de Aguilar (senior) ( ...
rebelled against the New Laws and defeated and executed the viceroy
Blasco Núñez Vela
Blasco Núñez Vela (c. 1490 – January 18, 1546) was the first Spanish viceroy of South America ("Viceroyalty of Peru"). Serving from May 15, 1544 to January 18, 1546, he was charged by Charles V with the enforcement of the controversial N ...
in 1546. The emperor sent
Pedro de la Gasca
Pedro de la Gasca (June 1485 – 13 November 1567) was a Spanish bishop, diplomat and the second (acting) viceroy of Peru, from 10 April 10 1547 to 27 January 1550.
Biography
Pedro de la Gasca studied at the University of Salamanca and the U ...
, a friend of Las Casas, to reinstate the rule of law, and he in turn defeated Pizarro. To restabilize the political situation the encomenderos started pushing not only for the repeal of the New Laws, but for turning the encomiendas into perpetual patrimony of the encomenderos – the worst possible outcome from Las Casas's point of view. The encomenderos offered to buy the rights to the encomiendas from the Crown, and Charles V was inclined to accept since his wars had left him in deep economic troubles. Las Casas worked hard to convince the emperor that it would be a bad economic decision, that it would return the viceroyalty to the brink of open rebellion, and could result in the Crown losing the colony entirely. The emperor, probably because of the doubts caused by Las Casas's arguments, never took a final decision on the issue of the encomiendas.
In 1561, he finished his ''Historia de las Indias'' and signed it over to the College of San Gregorio, stipulating that it could not be published until after forty years. In fact it was not published for 314 years, until 1875. He also had to repeatedly defend himself against accusations of treason: someone, possibly
Sepúlveda, denounced him to the
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition ( es, Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition ( es, Inquisición española), was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand ...
, but nothing came from the case. Las Casas also appeared as a witness in the case of the Inquisition for his friend Archbishop
Bartolomé Carranza de Miranda, who had been falsely accused of heresy. In 1565 he wrote his last will, signing over his immense library to the college. Bartolomé de Las Casas died on 18 July 1566, in Madrid.
Works
''Memorial de Remedios para las Indias''
The text, written 1516, starts by describing its purpose: to present "The remedies that seem necessary in order that the evil and harm that exists in the Indies cease, and that God and our Lord the Prince may draw greater benefits than hitherto, and that the republic may be better preserved and consoled."
Las Casas's first proposed remedy was a complete moratorium on the use of Indian labor in the Indies until such time as better regulations of it were set in place. This was meant simply to halt the decimation of the Indian population and to give the surviving Indians time to reconstitute themselves. Las Casas feared that at the rate the exploitation was proceeding it would be too late to hinder their annihilation unless action were taken rapidly. The second was a change in the labor policy so that instead of a colonist owning the labor of specific Indians, he would have a right to man-hours, to be carried out by no specific persons. This required the establishment of self-governing Indian communities on the land of colonists – who would themselves organize to provide the labor for their patron. The colonist would only have rights to a certain portion of the total labor, so that a part of the Indians were always resting and taking care of the sick. He proposed 12 other remedies, all having the specific aim of improving the situation for the Indians and limiting the powers that colonists were able to exercise over them.
The second part of the ''Memorial'' described suggestions for the social and political organization of Indian communities relative to colonial ones. Las Casas advocated the dismantlement of the city of Asunción and the subsequent gathering of Indians into communities of about 1,000 Indians to be situated as satellites of Spanish towns or mining areas. Here, Las Casas argued, Indians could be better governed, better taught and indoctrinated in the Christian faith, and would be easier to protect from abuse than if they were in scattered settlements. Each town would have a royal hospital built with four wings in the shape of a cross, where up to 200 sick Indians could be cared for at a time. He described in detail social arrangements, distribution of work, how provisions would be divided and even how table manners were to be introduced. Regarding expenses, he argued that "this should not seem expensive or difficult, because after all, everything comes from them
he Indiansand they work for it and it is theirs." He even drew up a budget of each pueblo's expenses to cover wages for administrators, clerics, Bachelors of Latin, doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, advocates, ranchers, miners, muleteers, hospitalers, pig herders, fishermen, etc.
''A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies''
''A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies'' ( es, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias) is an account written in 1542 (published in
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
in 1552) about the mistreatment of the
indigenous peoples of the Americas
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...
in colonial times and sent to then-Prince
Philip II of Spain.
One of the stated purposes for writing the account was Las Casas's fear of Spain coming under
divine punishment
Divine judgment means the judgment of God or other supreme beings within a religion.
Ancient beliefs
In ancient Sumerian religion, the sun-god Utu and his twin sister Inanna were believed to be the enforcers of divine justice. Utu, as t ...
and his concern for the souls of the native peoples. The account was one of the first attempts by a Spanish writer of the colonial era to depict the unfair treatment that the indigenous people endured during the early stages of the Spanish conquest of the
Greater Antilles
The Greater Antilles ( es, Grandes Antillas or Antillas Mayores; french: Grandes Antilles; ht, Gwo Zantiy; jam, Grieta hAntiliiz) is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean Sea, including Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, a ...
, particularly the island of
Hispaniola. Las Casas's point of view can be described as being heavily against some of the Spanish methods of colonization, which, as he described them, inflicted great losses on the indigenous occupants of the islands. In addition, his critique towards the colonizers served to bring awareness to his audience on the true meaning of Christianity, to dismantle any misconceptions on evangelization. His account was largely responsible for the adoption of the
New Laws of 1542
The New Laws (Spanish: ''Leyes Nuevas''), also known as the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians (Spanish: ''Leyes y ordenanzas nuevamente hechas por su Majestad para la gobernación de las Indias y buen t ...
, which abolished native slavery for the first time in European colonial history and led to the
Valladolid debate
The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of an indigenous people by European colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it was ...
.
The book became an important element in the creation and propagation of the so-called
Black Legend – the tradition of describing the Spanish empire as exceptionally morally corrupt and violent. It was republished several times by groups that were critical of the Spanish realm for political or religious reasons. The first edition in translation was published in Dutch in 1578, during the religious persecution of Dutch Protestants by the Spanish crown, followed by editions in French (1578), English (1583), and German (1599) – all countries where religious wars were raging. The first edition published in Spain after Las Casas's death appeared in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
during the
Catalan Revolt of 1646. The book was banned by the
Aragonese inquisition in 1659.
The images described by Las Casas were later depicted by
Theodore de Bry
Theodor de Bry (also Theodorus de Bry) (152827 March 1598) was an engraver, goldsmith, editor and publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. The Spanish Inquisition forced de Bry , a Protestant, to fl ...
in copper plate engravings that served as a medium of the
Black Legend against Spain
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of visible spectrum, visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or fi ...
.
''Apologetic History of the Indies''
![Bartolomé de las Casas (1552) Disputa o controversia con Ginés de Sepúlveda](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas_%281552%29_Disputa_o_controversia_con_Gin%C3%A9s_de_Sep%C3%BAlveda.png)
The ''Apologetic Summary History of the People of These Indies'' () was first written as the 68th chapter of the ''General History of the Indies'', but Las Casas changed it into a volume of its own, recognizing that the material was not historical. The material contained in the ''Apologetic History'' is primarily
ethnographic
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...
accounts of the indigenous cultures of the Indies – the
Taíno
The Taíno were a historic indigenous people of the Caribbean whose culture has been continued today by Taíno descendant communities and Taíno revivalist communities. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the pri ...
, the
Ciboney
The Ciboney, or Siboney, were a Taíno people of western Cuba, Jamaica, and the Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti. A Western Taíno group living in central Cuba during the 15th and 16th centuries, they had a dialect and culture distinct from the Classi ...
, and the
Guanahatabey
The Guanahatabey (also spelled Guanajatabey) were an indigenous people of western Cuba at the time of European contact. Archaeological and historical studies suggest the Guanahatabey were archaic hunter-gatherers with a distinct language and cu ...
, but it also contains descriptions of many of the other indigenous cultures that Las Casas learned about through his travels and readings. The history is
apologetic
Apologetics (from Greek , "speaking in defense") is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and ...
because it is written as a defense of the cultural level of the Indians, arguing throughout that indigenous peoples of the Americas were just as civilized as the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
civilizationsand more civilized than some European civilizations. It was in essence a comparative ethnography comparing practices and customs of European and American cultures and evaluating them according to whether they were good or bad, seen from a Christian viewpoint.
He wrote: "I have declared and demonstrated openly and concluded, from chapter 22 to the end of this whole book, that all people of these our Indies are human, so far as is possible by the natural and human way and without the light of faith – had their republics, places, towns, and cities most abundant and well provided for, and did not lack anything to live politically and socially, and attain and enjoy civil happiness.... And they equaled many nations of this world that are renowned and considered civilized, and they surpassed many others, and to none were they inferior. Among those they equaled were the Greeks and the Romans, and they surpassed them by many good and better customs. They surpassed also the English and the French and some of the people of our own Spain; and they were incomparably superior to countless others, in having good customs and lacking many evil ones."
This work in which Las Casas combined his own ethnographic observations with those of other writers, and compared customs and cultures between different peoples, has been characterized as an early beginning of the discipline of
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
.
''History of the Indies''
The ''History of the Indies'' is a three-volume work begun in 1527 while Las Casas was in the Convent of Puerto de Plata. It found its final form in 1561, when he was working in the Colegio de San Gregorio. Originally planned as a six-volume work, each volume describes a decade of the history of the Indies from the arrival of
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
in 1492 to 1520, and most of it is an eye-witness account.
It was in the ''History of the Indies'' that Las Casas finally regretted his advocacy for African slavery, and included a sincere apology, writing, "I soon repented and judged myself guilty of ignorance. I came to realize that black slavery was as unjust as Indian slavery... and I was not sure that my ignorance and good faith would secure me in the eyes of God." (Vol II, p. 257)
"History of the Indies" has never been fully translated into English. The only translations into English are the 1971 partial translation by Andrée M. Collard, and partial translations by Cynthia L. Chamberlin, Nigel Griffin, Michael Hammer and Blair Sullivan in UCLA's ''Repertorium Columbianum'' (Volumes VI, VII and XI).
''Archiving Christopher Columbus' Journal''
De Las Casas copied Columbus' diary from his 1492 voyage to modern-day Bahamas. His copy is notable because Columbus' diary itself was lost.
''De thesauris in Peru''
Legacy
![BartolomeNoreñaDF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/BartolomeNore%C3%B1aDF.JPG)
Las Casas's legacy has been highly controversial. In the years following his death, his ideas became taboo in the Spanish realm, and he was seen as a nearly heretical extremist. The accounts written by his enemies
Lopez de Gómara and
Oviedo were widely read and published in Europe. As the influence of the Spanish Empire was displaced by that of other European powers, Las Casas's accounts were utilized as political tools to justify incursions into Spanish colonies. This historiographic phenomenon has been referred to by some historians as the "
Black Legend", a tendency by mostly
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
authors to portray Spanish
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and colonialism in the worst possible light.
Opposition to Las Casas reached its climax in historiography with Spanish right-wing, nationalist historians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries constructing a pro-Spanish
White Legend
The Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra española, link=no) is a theorised historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Its proponents argue that its r ...
, arguing that the Spanish Empire was benevolent and just and denying any adverse consequences of Spanish colonialism.
Spanish pro-imperial historians such as
Menéndez y Pelayo,
Menéndez Pidal, and J. Pérez de Barrada depicted Las Casas as a madman, describing him as a "
paranoic" and a
monomania
In 19th-century psychiatry, monomania (from Greek , one, and , meaning "madness" or "frenzy") was a form of partial insanity conceived as single psychological obsession in an otherwise sound mind.
Types
Monomania may refer to:
* De Clerambaul ...
c given to exaggeration, and as a traitor towards his own nation. Menéndez Pelayo also accused Las Casas of having been instrumental in suppressing the publication of
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (11 June 1494 – 17 November 1573) was a Spanish Renaissance humanist, philosopher, and theologian.
Biography
In 1533 and 1534 Sepúlveda wrote to Desiderius Erasmus from Rome concerning differences between Eras ...
's "Democrates Alter" (also called ''Democrates Secundus'') out of spite, but other historians find that to be unlikely since it was rejected by the theologians of both
Alcalá and
Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Herit ...
, who were unlikely to be influenced by Las Casas.
Critiques
Las Casas has also often been accused of exaggerating the atrocities he described in the Indies, some scholars holding that the initial population figures given by him were too high, which would make the population decline look worse than it actually was, and that epidemics of European disease were the prime cause of the population decline, not violence and exploitation. Demographic studies such as those of colonial Mexico by
Sherburne F. Cook
Sherburne Friend Cook (1896-1974) was an American physiologist, who served as professor and chairman of the department of physiology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was notable as a pioneer in population studies of the native peopl ...
in the mid-20th century suggested that the decline in the first years of the conquest was indeed drastic, ranging between 80 and 90%, due to many different causes but all ultimately traceable to the arrival of the Europeans. The overwhelming main cause was disease introduced by the Europeans. It has also been noted by historians that exaggeration and inflation of numbers was the norm in writing in 16th-century accounts, and both contemporary detractors and supporters of Las Casas were guilty of similar exaggerations.
The Dominican friars
Antonio de Montesinos
Antonio de Montesinos or Antonio Montesino (c. 1475 - June 27, 1540) was a Spanish Dominican friar who was a missionary on the island of Hispaniola (now comprising the Dominican Republic and Haiti). With the backing of Pedro de Córdoba and ...
and
Pedro de Córdoba
Pedro de Córdoba OP (c.1460–1525) was a Spanish missionary, author and inquisitor on the island of Hispaniola. He was first to denounce the Spanish system known as the '' Encomienda'', which amounted to the practical enslavement of na ...
had reported extensive violence already in the first decade of the colonization of the Americas, and throughout the conquest of the Americas, there were reports of abuse of the natives from friars and priests and ordinary citizens, and many massacres of indigenous people were reported in full by those who perpetrated them. Even some of Las Casas's enemies, such as
Toribio de Benavente Motolinia
Toribio of Benavente, O.F.M. (1482, Benavente, Spain – 1565, Mexico City, New Spain), also known as Motolinía, was a Franciscan missionary who was one of the famous Twelve Apostles of Mexico who arrived in New Spain in May 1524. His publis ...
, reported many gruesome atrocities committed against the Indians by the colonizers. All in all, modern historians tend to disregard the numerical figures given by Las Casas, but they maintain that his general picture of a violent and abusive conquest represented reality.
One persistent point of criticism has been Las Casas's repeated suggestions of replacing Indian with African slave labor. Even though he repented that position later in his life and included an apology in his ''History of the Indies'', some later criticism held him responsible for the institution of the
transatlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
. One detractor, the abolitionist
David Walker, called Las Casas a "wretch... stimulated by sordid avarice only," holding him responsible for the enslavement of thousands of Africans.
Other historians, such as
John Fiske writing in 1900, denied that Las Casas's suggestions affected the development of the slave trade.
Benjamin Keen
Benjamin Keen (1913–2002) was an American historian specialising in the history of colonial Latin America.
Keen received his PhD from Yale and taught at Amherst College, West Virginia University, and Jersey State College before joining Northe ...
likewise did not consider Las Casas to have had any substantial impact on the slave trade, which was well in place before he began writing. That view is contradicted by
Sylvia Wynter
''The Honourable'' Sylvia Wynter, O.J. ( Holguín, Cuba, 11 May 1928) is a Jamaican novelist, /sup> dramatist, /sup> critic, philosopher, and essayist. /sup> Her work combines insights from the natural sciences, the humanities, art, and anti-c ...
, who argued that Las Casas's 1516 Memorial was the direct cause of Charles V granting permission in 1518 to transport the first 4,000 African slaves to
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
.
A growing ''corpus'' of scholarship has sought to deconstruct and reassess the role of Las Casas in Spanish colonialism. Daniel Castro, in his ''Another Face of Empire'' (2007), takes on such a task. He argues that he was more of a politician than a humanitarian and that his liberation policies were always combined with schemes to make colonial extraction of resources from the natives more efficient. He also argues that Las Casas failed to realize that by seeking to replace indigenous spirituality with Christianity, he was undertaking a religious colonialism that was more intrusive than the physical one. The responses to his work are varied. Some claim that Castro's portrayal of Las Casas had an air of anachronism. Others have agreed with Castro's deconstruction of Las Casas as a nuanced and contradictory historical figure.
Cultural legacy
![Monumento a Bartolomé de las Casas (Sevilla)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Monumento_a_Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas_%28Sevilla%29.JPG)
In 1848, Ciudad de San Cristóbal, then the capital of the Mexican state of
Chiapas, was renamed
San Cristóbal de Las Casas
San Cristóbal de las Casas (), also known by its native Tzotzil name, Jovel (), is a town and municipality located in the Central Highlands region of the Mexican state of Chiapas. It was the capital of the state until 1892, and is still cons ...
in honor of its first bishop. His work is a particular inspiration behind the work of the Las Casas Institute at
Blackfriars Hall
Blackfriars Priory (formally the Priory of the Holy Spirit) is a Dominican religious community in Oxford, England. It houses two educational institutions: Blackfriars Studium, the centre of theological studies of the English Province of the D ...
, Oxford.
He is also often cited as a predecessor of the
liberation theology
Liberation theology is a Christian theological approach emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed. In certain contexts, it engages socio-economic analyses, with "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". I ...
movement. Bartolomé is
remembered in the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
with a
commemoration
Commemoration may refer to:
*Commemoration (Anglicanism), a religious observance in Churches of the Anglican Communion
*Commemoration (liturgy)
In the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church, a commemoration is the recital, within the Li ...
on
20 July, on 18 July, and at the
Evangelical Lutheran Church on 17 July. In the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, the Dominicans introduced his cause for
canonization
Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...
in 1976.
In 2002 the church began the process for his
beatification
Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...
.
He was among the first to develop a view of unity among humankind in the New World, stating that "All people of the world are humans," and that they had a natural right to
liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
– a combination of
Thomist
Thomism is the philosophical and theological school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Aquinas' disputed questions a ...
rights philosophy with
Augustinian Augustinian may refer to:
*Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine
*Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs
*Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo
* Canons Regular of Sain ...
political theology. In this capacity, an
ecumenical human rights institute located in
San Cristóbal de las Casas
San Cristóbal de las Casas (), also known by its native Tzotzil name, Jovel (), is a town and municipality located in the Central Highlands region of the Mexican state of Chiapas. It was the capital of the state until 1892, and is still cons ...
, the Centro Fray Bartolomé de las Casas de Derechos Humanos, was established by Bishop
Samuel Ruiz
Samuel Ruiz García (3 November 1924 – 24 January 2011) was a Mexican Catholic prelate who served as bishop of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, from 1959 until 1999. Ruiz is best known for his role as mediator during th ...
in 1989.
Residencial Las Casas
Residencial Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, more commonly known as Residencial Las Casas, Caserio Las Casas or Las Casas, is a public housing complex located in San Juan, Puerto Rico consisting of 417 housing units. It is under the management of the ...
in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico is named after Las Casas.
He is also featured in the
Guatemalan quetzal
The quetzal (; code: GTQ) is the currency of Guatemala, named after the national bird of Guatemala, the resplendent quetzal. In ancient Mayan culture, the quetzal bird's tail feathers were used as currency. It is divided into 100 ''centavos,'' ...
one cent (Q0.01) coins.
The small town of
Lascassas, Tennessee Lascassas (also Las Casas or Las Cassas) is an unincorporated community in Rutherford County, Tennessee, near the city of Murfreesboro. Its geographic coordinates are 35°55'49"N, 86°17'28"W. The ZIP Code for Lascassas is 37085.
The community's ...
, in the United States has also been named after him.
[A Glimpse at the History of Lascassas School](_blank)
, Lascassas School website, accessed April 19, 2008.
He is a central character in the H. R. Hays
historical novel ''The Takers of the City'', published in 1946.
[Libraries holding ''The Takers of the City''](_blank)
Valladolid debate
The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of an indigenous people by European colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it was ...
is the centre of the story of a novel “Las Casas vor Karl V” by Reinhold Schneider
He is the subject of the poetic sequence "Homage to Bartolomé de Las Casas" by the American poet
Daniel Tobin, which appears in his book ''Double Life''.
See also
*
Fountain to Bartolomé de las Casas
Notes
Footnotes
Citations
References
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* Gunst, Laurie. "Bartolomé de las Casas and the Question of Negro Slavery in the Early Spanish Indies." PhD dissertation, Harvard University 1982.
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* From ''Apologética historia de las Indias'' (Madrid, 1909), originally translated for ''Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946, 1954, 1961).
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External links
Biblioteca de autor Bartolomé de las Casas
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Mirror of the Cruel and Horrible Spanish Tyranny Perpetrated in the Netherlands, by the Tyrant, the Duke of Alba, and Other Commanders of King Philip IIFrom the Collections at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
''Bartolomé de las Casas Statement of Opinion,''(1542.) From the Collections at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
''Narratio Regionum Indicarum per Hispanos Quosdam Deuastatarum Verissima''From the Collections at the Library of Congress
Las Casas' Articulation of the Indians' Moral Agency: Looking Back at Las Casas Through Fichte – Rolando Pérez.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Casas, Bartolome De Las
1474 births
1566 deaths
16th-century Spanish historians
16th-century Mesoamericanists
16th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Mexico
16th-century male writers
Abolitionism in South America
Roman Catholic missionaries in New Spain
People of the Colony of Santo Domingo
Dominican bishops
Encomenderos
Historians of Mesoamerica
People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar
People from Seville
Philosophers of law
Roman Catholic activists
Roman Catholic writers
Spanish Dominicans
Spanish human rights activists
Spanish Mesoamericanists
University of Salamanca alumni
History of Chiapas
School of Salamanca
Anglican saints