At the same time, most of the Catholic clergy who were arriving at the time found themselves horrified with the way Spaniards were acting in the New World, with most protesting by refusing to hear confessions from known slavers, including las Casas.
After witnessing many of these atrocities and massacres firsthand, and listening to the passionate sermons of priests denouncing the people of the island for oppressing and murdering the native people, las Casas would have a change of heart after some thinking. Giving up his estate and his slaves, he dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of the Indians, with mixed results.
One idea he proposed to the King involved the importation of African slaves rather than using Indian ones, as he thought at the time that the African slaves were simply war prisoners fairly captured in combat. He would later learn this to not be entirely the case and ultimately denounce any and all forms of slavery as inherently evil.
His career took him from the Indies to Mexico to Peru, repeatedly writing on the atrocities being perpetuated by Spaniards and begging the King to gain some more control of the situation. To which the King made several attempts, instituting new anti-slavery laws which were usually completely ignored.
There’s much more to him and his life, but the short of it is he got run out of most of the New World by angry settlers and colonists, and spent his later years writing and working in Madrid with the Royal Court, where he eventually died in 1566.
KrazyKyle213 on
Human rights are for the weak, 24/7 silver mining is for the strong
Rasputin-SVK on
As if the natives didn’t have the same capacity for cruelty
Several_Step_9079 on
Bartolome de las Casas was a Spanish bishop (something related to the church I don’t remember his rank that much) who was against native americans enslavement.
He seems like a cool dude huh?
He, instead, was in favor of the enslavement of black african people, so nah, not so cool.
Stejer1789 on
But we still need to convert them (although no need to erase their culture)
5 Comments
CONTEXT
Bartolomé de las Casas was a Spanish clergyman from Seville who traveled to the New World as a colonist and took part in the early conquests of Hispaniola and Cuba, eventually assembling for himself a small estate of land and native slaves.
At the same time, most of the Catholic clergy who were arriving at the time found themselves horrified with the way Spaniards were acting in the New World, with most protesting by refusing to hear confessions from known slavers, including las Casas.
After witnessing many of these atrocities and massacres firsthand, and listening to the passionate sermons of priests denouncing the people of the island for oppressing and murdering the native people, las Casas would have a change of heart after some thinking. Giving up his estate and his slaves, he dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of the Indians, with mixed results.
One idea he proposed to the King involved the importation of African slaves rather than using Indian ones, as he thought at the time that the African slaves were simply war prisoners fairly captured in combat. He would later learn this to not be entirely the case and ultimately denounce any and all forms of slavery as inherently evil.
His career took him from the Indies to Mexico to Peru, repeatedly writing on the atrocities being perpetuated by Spaniards and begging the King to gain some more control of the situation. To which the King made several attempts, instituting new anti-slavery laws which were usually completely ignored.
There’s much more to him and his life, but the short of it is he got run out of most of the New World by angry settlers and colonists, and spent his later years writing and working in Madrid with the Royal Court, where he eventually died in 1566.
Human rights are for the weak, 24/7 silver mining is for the strong
As if the natives didn’t have the same capacity for cruelty
Bartolome de las Casas was a Spanish bishop (something related to the church I don’t remember his rank that much) who was against native americans enslavement.
He seems like a cool dude huh?
He, instead, was in favor of the enslavement of black african people, so nah, not so cool.
But we still need to convert them (although no need to erase their culture)