Bartolomé de las Casas
(1484 – 1566)
Dominican friar and social reformer
European colonization of the Americas
• Colonial expansion had a significant impact on
world history: a historical change of
geographical space and the beginning of
modern age.
• Colonialism produced a new world system,
with the development of mercantilism.
Before European ‘conquest’
• Maya civilization: established during the PreClassic period (c. 2000 BC to 250 AD). Many
Maya cities reached their highest state of
development during the Classic period (c. 250
to 900 AD), and continued until the arrival of
the Spanish.
• Geographic area: South Mexico, Guatemala,
Belize and Honduras, i.e., more than
1,000 km.
• Aztec Empire: It originated in 1427 as a triple
alliance between the city-states Tenochtitlan,
Texcoco and Tlacopan, and reached its
maximal extent in 1519 just prior to the arrival
of the Spanish conquistadors led by Cortés.
Cortés managed to topple the Aztec empire by
allying with some of the traditional enemies of
the Aztecs.
Tenochtitlan
Inca Empire
• Inca civilization arose from the highlands of
Peru in the early 13th century.
• Inca Empire was the largest empire in preColumbia America. Capital: Cusco (14381533).
• Area of extension:
2
• 1438: 800,000 km
• 1527: 2,000,000 km2
Columbus 4 voyages
Portuguese Colonization
The Making of Spanish Colonial Empire
• Speed
• Smallness of people and means used
(Colombus second voyage: only 1,200 men)
• The need of workforce (Labour)
• Colombus himself, to regulate Native
American labour, introduced the encomienda
(entrust) system.
Encomienda
• the spanish crown granted a person a
specified number of natives, who were forced
to do hard labour (death if they resisted).
• instruct them in the Spanish language and in
the Catholic faith.
• Encomienda = slavery.
• Mining (silver, gold) and the beginning of Atlantic Slave Trade
(African Holocaust), which is generally divided in two eras.
• The First Atlantic system started (on a significant scale) in about
1502 and lasted until 1580 (when Portugal was temporarily united
with Spain). It accounted for 3% of all Atlantic slave trade.
• Primarily for American colonies of the Spanish and Portuguese
empires.
• While the Portuguese traded enslaved people themselves, the
Spanish empire relied on the asiento system, awarding merchants
(mostly from other countries) the license to trade enslaved people
to their colonies.
• During the first Atlantic system most of these traders were
Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly during the era.
Other Major Colonizations
• Cuba (1511): Diego de Velazquez de Cuellar
• Mexico (1519-21): Hernan Cortes. Only 600 men,
13 horses, and 11 ships (even though Aztec had a
regular army and a State organization)
• Peru (1532-3): Francisco Pizarro, with less than
200 men and 27 horses.
• Number of Spanish colonists/settlers who lived
permanently in the Americas at the end of XVI
century: 150,000.
Conquest of the Americas
• Why so easy? (A historiographical issue)
• American Natives did not know fire-arms (+
horses, wheel, etc.)
• Illnesses (i.e., Smallpox)
• (some historian even use the argument of)
Cruelty of “conquistadores” in opposition to the
“myth of the peaceful, noble savage”
• But two decisive factors were: 1) intolerance of
native people toward their sovereign; and 2)
conflictuality among different indigeneous
groups.
Life
• 1484 Born in Sevilla
• 1498 Began studies
• 1502 Emigrated (with his father) to Hispaniola
(Dominican Republic and Haiti). Participated in
slave raids and military expeditions
• 1506 Ordained deacon in Sevilla
• 1510 Arrival of first Dominicans to Hispaniola
• 1511 Fray Antonio de Montesinos famous homily
condemning the encomienda. He also decided to
deny slaveowners (among them De las Casas) the
right to confession.
• In 1513, as a chaplain, Las Casas participated in
the conquest of Cuba. He later wrote: "I saw
cruelty on a scale no living being has ever seen or
expects to see."
• 1514 Conversion: all the actions of the Spanish in
the New World had been illegal and a great
injustice.
• 1515 Returns to Spain with de Montesinos to
meet King Fernando and advocate for indigenous
rights.
• 1516 He wrote Memorial de Remedios para Las
Indias (in which he advocated importing slaves
from Africa).
• 1517 became ‘Protector of Indians’, an
administrative office of the Spanish colonies, that
was responsible for attending to the well being of
the native populations.
The peasant colonization scheme
• The pubblication of the Memorial de
Remedios para Las Indias was followed by the
proposal to King Charles V of a ‘peasant
colonization scheme’
• 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 suggested the importation of African
slaves.
• He also advocated proposed 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.
• The recruitment was difficult. In the end a
much smaller number of peasant families
were sent with insufficient provisions and no
support. It turned into a disaster.
• Las Casas was devastated by this failure, and
decided instead to undertake a personal
venture (Venezuela).
(Life again)
• 1518-21 The Cumaná venture: allowed to
establish a settlement in northern Venezuela.
Peaceful colonization experiment which failed.
This tragic outcome made turn his life in a
new direction.
• 1522 Enters the Dominicans.
• 1523 The Encomienda was abolished, but
then reinstituted in 1526 and in 1530 a
general ordinance against slavery was
reversed.
• 1527 he began working on his History of the
Indies
• 1536 debate with Franciscan orders on the
conversion of the Indians (conversion must be
voluntary and based on a knowledge and
understanding of the Faith). On this issue he
wrote Only Way of Conversion, A work on
peaceful evangelization.
• 1537 Celebrates Pope Paul III’s promulgation of
Sublimis Deus, (papal bull that proclaimed the
Indians truly human and capable of receiving the
gospel).
• 1537 in Guatemala trying to employ his new
method of conversion.
• 1538 in Mexico.
• 1540 back in Spain with the purpose to
continue the struggle against the colonists'
mistreatment of the Indians.
• 1542 writing of "Brevísima relación de la
destrucción de las Indias“, later published in
1552.
• 1542 the Emperor signed the “New Laws”:
illegal to use Indians as carriers (except where
no other transport was available), prohibited
all taking of Indians as slaves, gradual
abolition of the encomienda system.
• the reform wes unpopular in the New World:
riots against the encomenderos. De las Casas
was also not satisfied with the laws as they
were not drastic enough.
• 1544 Bishop of Chiapas. He was involved in
frequent conflicts with the encomenderos. After
a year he had made himself so unpopular among
the Spaniards of the area that he had to leave.
His last act was writing a manual (confesionario)
for the administration of the Sacrament of
Confession in his diocese, still refusing absolution
to unrepentant encomenderos.
• 1547 back to Spain
• 1548 the Crown decreed that all copies of Las
Casas's confesionario be burnt
• 1550-51 Valladolid debate
• Having resigned the Bishopric of Chiapas, he
spent the last part of his life working closely
with the imperial court in matters relating to
the Indies.
• 1561 he finished his Historia General de las Indias
stipulating that it could not be published until
after forty years (but it was published in 1875).
• 1560s years of Spanish Inquisition. He had to
keep defending himself against accusations of
treason, and also appeared as a witness in the
case of the Inquisition against his friend
Archbishop de Miranda, falsely accused of heresy.
• 1566 died in Madrid.
Writings
• 1516 Memorial de Remedios para Las Indias:
he advocated importing slaves from Africa to
relieve the suffering Indians, a stance he later
retracted, becoming an advocate for the
Africans in the colonies as well.
• At the beginning De las Casas's concern was
not the existence of slavery, but the end the
abuse of the Indians.
• 1552 (1542) A Short Account of the
Destruction of the Indies
• Theodor de Bry (1528-98 , Engraver) [La
leyenda negra]
• History of the Indies, work in 3 volumes begun in
1527 where he described the history of the Indies
from the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
• In this book he regretted his advocacy for African
slavery: "I soon repented and judged myself guilty
of ignorance. I came to realize that black slavery
was as unjust as Indian slavery... and I am not
sure that my ignorance and good faith would
secure me in the eyes of God”.
Valladolid debate
• Discussion of the Valladolid Board concerned the
treatment of natives of the ‘New World’. it
opposed two main attitudes towards the
conquests of the Americas.
• For De las Casas: dispute with Juan Gines de
Sepulveda, a doctor of theology and law. In 1550
Sepulveda wrote Democrates Alter, or on the just
causes of War against the Indians, in which he
argued that the native people were naturally
inferior and were destined to perpetual servitude
to Christian Europeans.
• the debate was theoretical.
• Sepúlveda: using Aristotle asserted that the
Indians were naturally predisposed to slavery.
• De las Casas: Aristotle's definition of the
"barbarian" and the natural slave did not
apply to the Indians, who were fully capable
of reason and should be brought to
Christianity without force or coercion.
• Supporters of De las Casas: part of the
monarchy, which wanted to control the power
of the encomenderos.
• Supporters of de Sepúlveda: colonists and
landowners who benefited from the system.
Result of the Debate
• both parties declared that they had won the
debate, but neither received the desired
outcome.
• De las Casas saw no end to Spanish wars of
conquest in the New World
• Sepúlveda did not see the New Laws'
restricting the power of the encomienda
system.
Final Political Considerations
• With the destruction of the ‘old’ religious and
ritual organization, catholic missionaries had a
significant role: gap in spiritual and
psychological life.
• Creation of a political-administrative
apparatus (first governors and than viceroys)
that slowly substituted the power of
conquistadores (which became ‘simple’
encomenderos).
• Genocide: De las Casas argued that 15 milions
of Native American were killed.
• In 1500 80 millions people lived in the
Americas, while only 10 millions were alive at
the middle of the century.
• Population in Mexico: 25 millions before the
“conquista” and only 1 million in 1600.
• The end of the encomienda system would have
been like ordering the destruction of the system
on which the whole colonial system was built.
• De las Casas advocate of a peaceful colonization,
though he radicalized his thought in the last
period of his life (against the conquest and duty
of the restitution).
• From assimilation to the “relativity of cultures”
(in the polemic against Sepulveda).
• The concept of barbarism and the descovery
of the other (see Tzvetan Todorov)
• Collective responsability
After his death
• he was seen as a heretical extremist, and
some pamphlets against his thought were
widely read and published.
• Black Legend
• accused of exaggerating the atrocities he
described in the Indies
• Liberation theology