De Las Casas (1484-1566) first arrived in what is now the Dominican Republic in 1511. Before his
conversion Las Casas participated in the
riches of the
new world. On the fourth Sunday of
Advent Las Casas heard a speech by a Dominican preacher named
Antonio de Montecimos. Montecimos preached against the peaple’s treatment of the native population and went so far as to refuse
communion to anyone who participated in it. When Las Casas read
Sirach 34 he gave up his
encomienda in order to be able to preach his revelation to others. Las Casas believes that the only way to stop the massacres in the new world is by getting the government to stop it. He travels to Spain to petition Ferdinand I.
The settlers claimed that the native people were barbaric, inferior, and even subhuman. The more academic cited Aristotle’s proposal of a subservient class of people. The other argument being used was that as non-Christians, it was their duty to convert the natives, and if anyone refused to convert or to recognize the Spanish crown that the Spanish had a legal right to wage war. Las Casas disagreed. He believed that all people are rational beings, and therefore no person can ethically claim domination over another. He asserted that a community that already had a form of rule or government in place could not legitimately be attacked for not obeying the pope. Nor was the rejection of Christianity reason to violate them.
I know beyond any shadow of doubt that they had, from the very beginning, every right to wage war on the Europeans while the Europeans never had just cause for waging war on the local peoples.
In 1544 Las Casas was ordained as a Bishop in Mexico. The Church’s approval was important for Las Casas. It offered him a certain amount of protection in Mexico, and also legitimacy back in Spain. In 1550 Juan Gines Sepulveda wrote a book defending the wars of conquest. Las Casas traveled to Spain to protest it’s publication. The king ordered a convention of theologians to discuss the issue. Sepulveda and Las Casas engage in a debate on the subject that lasted nearly a month. Las Casas won, and Sepulveda’s book is denied approval for the printing of his book.
I think it is too simple to say that Las Casas failed in his mission. It’s true that the practices of brutality in The Americas tragically continued. At the time he lived he was heard, and did influence official laws and policy. In the mid 1500s Charles V signed the “New Laws of the Indies”. Unfortunately the practices of brutality had become so much a part of life in the Americas, that the new laws signed by a remote king in Europe were never enforced.
Quote from A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Other facts thanks to Fr. Alfred A. Lopez, O.P., Ph.D.