If Columbus, through a daring and momentous act, lessened the geographic and cultural distances between two worlds, it fell to Las Casas, a man driven by profound Christian beliefs and untamed humanism, to attempt to bridge the informational gap created by the forced incorporation of America into the Spanish empire.
Daniel Castro, 2007237
Bartolome de las Casas, one of the priests who influenced the pope to recognize the Indians’ humanity, received an encomienda in Cuba. After becoming an encomendero, Las Casas began meditating on Ecclesiasticus 34: 24, “He that sheddeth blood and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire are brothers.” Las Casas soon absolved his encomienda Indians of tribute obligations and spent the rest of his ninety-two-year-long life defending the rights of Indians. The teachings of Las Casas, who became Bishop of Chiapas, had an impact throughout the New World and influenced the content of the New Laws of 1542.238
Las Casas argued that Indians were rational beings who had the right to freely choose their religion, their place of residence, and their job. For taking this relatively moderate stance, other Church officials, government administrators, and encomenderos bitterly attacked Las Casas. In some of his less moderate moments, Las Casas declared that instead of being hailed as heroes and receiving titles of nobility, Cortes and Francisco Pizarro (the conquistador of Peru) should have been hanged as common criminals. As bishop, Las Casas instructed priests not to give absolution to encomenderos.239 The following summarizes Las Casas’s views on the Indian:
Indians are free by law and by natural right and owe nothing to the Spanish nor to any other nation. Through unjust wars they were cruelly subjugated. After thus being subjugated, they were placed in the most extreme conditions of servitude, such as the encomienda and the repartimiento. Even the devils in hell could not invent such violations of natural and divine order. Encomiendas are inherently depraved, perverse, and beyond the bounds of law and reason. Why should free men be distributed against their will, ordered around like a herd of cattle, even if it were for a saint?240
In his most dramatic effort on behalf of the Indian, Las Casas debated the renowned Spanish scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda. Prior to the debate, the king ordered that all further raids and expeditions be halted until the rights of Indians could be defined. The Crown intended that the debate, which occurred in the Spanish city of Valladolid in 1550 and 1551, would clarify the legal position of Indians. Even though the pope’s 1537 decree established Indians’ humanity, it did not state under what circumstances Spaniards could justifiably wage war against them.
Sepulveda based his arguments on the fifth book of Aristotle’s Politics. He declared that: 1) Indians were barbarous and that their natural condition was that of submission to more civilized peoples, 2) they were idolatrous and practiced human sacrifice, which justified intervention to prevent crimes against natural law, 3) intervention was justified to save innocent lives, and 4) intervention would facilitate Christian evangelization. In direct opposition to the principle later enunciated at Nuremberg, Sepulveda claimed soldiers must not question the justice of a war, as that did not concern them.241
Las Casas, in a five-day oral presentation in Latin, argued that Indians should enjoy the same rights as Spaniards. He claimed that it insulted the Almighty and bordered on blasphemy to suggest
That He would have peopled an entire hemisphere with people who were as brutish and incapable as Sepulveda claimed they were. He also emphasized that Christianity could not properly be propagated by the sword. Rather than forcing Christianity on natives, Las Casas advocated conversion as it was carried out at the dawn of Christianity, when people were slowly shown the true way.242
Rather than facing each other, the debaters made oral arguments to a fourteen-man panel of judges. These judges never issued a collective decision. Sepulveda so impressed the Mexico City municipal council that it voted to buy him 200 pesos worth of Mexican jewels and clothing to reward him for his efforts and “to encourage him in the future.” Other observers felt Las Casas prevailed in the debate, noting that he could publish his views on the Conquest in 1552, while Sepulveda did not receive permission to publish his.243
Las Casas was successful in that he created a moral climate in which the Crown was forcefully reminded of its obligation to defend Indians against their oppressors and to do what it could to improve their lot. His efforts led the Crown to pass legislation favoring the Indian and to take other steps to defend the indigenous population. This was a commitment for which, as historian J. H. Elliott noted, “It is not easy to find parallels in the history of other colonial empires.”244
After the Valladolid debate, Las Casas remained in Spain to lobby in the royal court on behalf of Indians. After realizing that the immediate abolition of the encomienda was a political impossibility, Las Casas sought to prevent encomiendas from being inherited by the children of encomenderos. He continued his efforts on behalf of the Indian until his death in 15 66.245
Las Casas must be recognized as one of the most vociferous critics of the Spanish colonization project and as one of the most prolific writers of treatises, histories, and countless other documents about colonial Indoamerica. He repeatedly raised questions few of his contemporaries considered. However, when judged by modern standards, Las Casas (and his contemporaries) can be faulted on several counts. He never questioned imposing an alien religious belief such as Christianity on peoples who already had well-defined theological beliefs. Although he acted on behalf of the oppressed, Las Casas never worked with the indigenous to transform them from passive objects to active subjects responsible for determining their fate. Finally, he accepted the proposition that subjecting native people to Spanish rule would leave them better off than they had been before the Conquest.246
World History
