Bartolome de las casas biography summary example

A proponent of African slavery before denouncing it and repenting, a prophet who predicted the fall of the Spanish empire owing to its sinfulness, a priest, bishop, reformer, and scholar, Father Batolomé de las Casas fought the good fight, ran the race, and kept the faith—and that until his very end.

“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”
– Samuel Johnson

Some features of the news seem too much with us: the colonial suppression of peoples and their cultures, racial subjugation and abuse (systemic or otherwise), the direst physical exploitation of those oppressed, even the denial of their very humanity. In fact, this mix could be the prominent feature of our Weltanschauung.

And yet, notwithstanding its ubiquity, the mix is not news. In our hemisphere it is five hundred years old. Moreover, it was named, opposed, debated, and addressed in a lesson for the ages. What should astonish us is that this

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Term	Definition
Encomienda	It was a grant from the Spanish government allowing one subject f the Spanish Crown in amerika to claim a group of Native Americans as their own and force that group to work the nation. At the same time, he received the benefits of their labor. The encomendero would become their protector and baptize them as Catholics in exchange.
Conquistador	Spanish conquerors from the 15th to 17th centuries.
Old World	Reference to europe but sometimes Africa and Asia as well

Bartolomé dem las Casas Biography

Bartolomé dem las Casas was born in Spain in 1484. In 1502, he left for Hispaniola, serving the Spanish crown. Casas fought for the crown and assisted in conquering and enslaving the Caribbean islands. For his efforts, Casas was awarded an encomienda. Around 1512, Casas was ordained as a friar though he continued to profit from the encomienda.

Around 1511, missionaries arrived in Hispaniola and preached about the encomienda as

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Bartolomé de las Casas and 500 Years of Racial Injustice

This year marks the 500-year anniversary of the pricking of one man's conscience. Bartolomé de las Casas, sickened by the exploitation and physical degradation of the indigenous peoples in the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean, gave up his extensive land holdings and slaves and traveled to his homeland in Spain in 1515 to petition the Spanish Crown to stop the abuses that European colonists were inflicting upon the natives of the New World.

 

Las Casas (above) 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 Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, which was published during his lifetime (c. 1484–1566). Through his actions and writings, Las Casas became an important figure in the development of ideas of what we would now call human rights.

In sixteenth-century Spain, slaver