bartalome de las cases recruiter of the black masses

When his writings were finally translated and spread around Europe, there was public outrage that pressured the Spanish monarchy to issue “New Laws” in 1542. The study we present of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the 'Apostle of the Indians', demonstrates the astonishing freshness of the thought and actions of this 16th-century Spanish prelate whose opposition to slavery and insistence on respect for cultural differences as the basis of liberty and peace remain of topical interest today. While others argued that Indians were less than human, and therefore it was justified to enslave them, Las Casas argued that Indians were fully human, created in the image of God, and should not be enslaved.

He went on to leave his encomienda, join a monastery, and become the first priest ordained in the New World.īartolome’ de Las Casas spent the next 60 years of his life in and out of monasteries, reading, writing, praying, and fighting for the rights of native Americans. Las Casas was deeply moved by Montesino’s preaching and gave his life to Jesus Christ. I am a voice crying in the wilderness … the voice of Christ in the desert of this island … You are all in mortal sin … on account of the cruelty and tyranny with which you use these innocent people. Are these not men? Have they not rational souls? Must not you love them as you love yourselves?” He wrote many petitions, treatises, and books on the subject of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. He participated in slave raids and military expeditions against indigenous populations throughout the West Indies. However, in 1511, Las Casas’ life changed when he heard a sermon by a Dominican friar named Antonio de Montesino: Bartolomé de Las Casas was a prolific writer. A revisionist view of Bartolom de las Casas as the ‘author’ of the introduction of African slaves to the Indies/Americas in the early 16th century. How did Bartolome de las Casas contribute. Of course there were crimes, and monstrous crimes at that. But even a minimal respect for historical truth shows that this is simply false. In the early 16 th century, Bartolome’ de Las Casas left Spain for Hispaniola, where he became a manager of an encomienda. The Black Legend was apparently the product of an understandable revulsion against the monstrous crimes committed in the Americas by the Spanish conquistadors. Spanish landowners wielded heavy-handed power, which they abused for many years. Despite Isabella’s orders not to enslave or otherwise mistreat the indigenous peoples (and that they receive a fair wage), the ecomienda system quickly deteriorated into slave-like serfdom. These estates were called encomiendas, where natives were encouraged to live and work. In 1503, about a decade after Christopher Columbus landed in Hispaniola, Queen Isabella issued a decree that granted certain Spanish benefactors an estate of land in the New World.

Bartalome de las cases recruiter of the black masses