Today we remember the life of Bartolomé de las Casas, one of the most important early
opponents of slavery and an influential advocate of the rights of native peoples.
In 1515, Las Casas became sickened by the exploitation and physical degradation of the
indigenous peoples in the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean.
As a result, he gave up his extensive land holdings and slaves and traveled to Spain
to petition the Spanish Crown to stop the abuses that European colonists were inflicting
upon the natives of the New World.
Las Casas rose to become one of the most influential thinkers of his day.
He elaborated his views on slavery and the rights of indigenous peoples in numerous tracts
including the extremely popular book: Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,
which was published during his lifetime.
Through his actions and writings, Las Casas became an important figure in the development
of, what we would now call, human rights.
In sixteenth-century Spain, slavery was a widely accepted practice, although increasingly
questioned.
Spanish law of the time considered all captives of war as potential slaves, yet there were
some important provisos and restrictions.
Theologians and philosophers in the School of Salamanca, including the incredibly influential
Luis de Vitoria, father of modern international law, restricted this practice only to include
captives of war who were not Catholic.
This category of people who could be enslaved included Lutherans, Muslim Turks, Orthodox
Slavs, non-Catholic Africans, and native peoples of the New World.
In addition, there existed the legal idea, modeled on Islamic laws regarding captured
peoples, which allowed non-Catholics to convert instead of becoming slaves.
Despite these legal caveats, Spanish conquerors enslaved large groups of the newly encountered
indigenous peoples in the Americas, working many of them to death in fields and mines.
Las Casas arrived on the island of Hispaniola (what is today Haiti and the Dominican Republic)
in 1502.
He soon became a land and slave owner, joining military expeditions against the native peoples
and becoming a priest in 1510.
However, after Las Casas' participation in the violent and destructive Spanish invasion
of Cuba in 1513, he began to view European interference in native affairs as illegal
and immoral.
He began his petitions in May of 1515 and continued writing them until his death in
1566 as he cajoled, shamed, and begged the Spanish crown to end its practices of violent
invasion and enslavement.
The Spanish government in return treated Las Casas' pleas with ambivalence, in part because
indigenous enslavement was so very profitable.
The government was not the only ambivalent actor.
Las Casas himself changed his rhetoric over time as he and his argument matured.
For instance, he originally advocated the use of African slaves instead of indigenous
Americans because Spaniards considered them to be hardier than natives.
In fact, African slaves often did have higher survival rates in the early years of invasion
because of their tolerance to European diseases due to Old World exposure.
Indigenous American peoples died quickly of such Old World illnesses as malaria and smallpox,
having no exposure immunity.
Europeans in the 16th century had no understanding of inoculation or immunity and assumed that
Africans were just naturally better suited for labor, assigning this trait to their race.
In making this argument, Las Casas may have inadvertently provided the Spanish government
endorsement of the new idea of slavery based on race, rather than the medieval concept
of slavery as the result of war and conquest.
Later in his life, las Casas advocated that all slavery be abolished, but the burgeoning
European empires paid little attention to this moral idea when so much wealth and power
was at stake.
Las Casas also later advocated that indigenous groups be allowed self-governance under the
Spanish crown.
His argument drew upon theologians and moral philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle.
The Spanish bureaucracy, however, viewed this question through an understanding of Islamic
law, which granted non-Muslims the use of their own courts and legal justice system.
Las Casas’ ideas percolated through the Spanish legal system, and indigenous peoples
were ultimately allowed to adjudicate in legal cases that involved only the native population.
In cases that involved the Spanish government, they could use the court systems with an advocate
known as a "protector" who would represent their interests and offer judgements based
on traditional indigenous customs.
They could use these indigenous practices as long as those customs were not deemed "heretical"
or against the Catholic faith.
Las Casas himself was appointed the first protector.
Until his death, Bartolomé de las Casas, worked tirelessly to prevent the enslavement
of all native people and later regretted wholeheartedly his advocacy of African slavery.
Indigenous and black activists and protestors for more than 500 years have taken up his
arguments to push for changes to the systems that have made them second-class citizens.
As we look around the world today at the legal and economic situation of many indigenous
communities, one wonders what Las Casas would make of it all and how much further we need to go.