What Bartolome De Las Casas Promote Social Justice Latin America Do Indigenous People Shared Perspective

Bartolome De La Casas

Bartolome de las Casas was a Spanish Bishop who spent a sizable portion of his adult life crusading for the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas, who were generally treated poorly under Spanish colonial rule. He advocated several different solutions to improve the treatment of the indigenous people. These included setting up towns for them, or towns where they could live side by side with the Spanish. He also fought for the abolition of slavery of the indigenous people. His work helped lead to the passage of the New Laws of 1542, which prohibited the enslavement of the native people of the Americas, but his ideas were also met with significant resistance both in Spain and in the colonies (PBS.org, 2010).

To promote his ideas, he undertook several ventures. De las Casas wrote several books that outlined the cruel treatment to which the indigenous people were subjected at the hands of Spanish colonists in an effort to engender sympathy for their plight and spur an emotional reaction that could lead to action. He also sought funding in Spain for farms and towns that could operate with his vision of harmonious interaction between Spanish and natives. Further, he worked as a religious man to promote the idea of Christian love as a guiding principle for interactions with indigenous peoples. Native peoples should not be forced to become Christian, but rather that the Spanish would set a good example of Christian behavior that would convince the natives to give up their old religions.

I do not believe that the indigenous people would have shared de las Casas' perspective fully. They would clearly have appreciated certain aspects of his views, for example being treated like human beings equal to the Spanish. They would have appreciated his work against slavery, forced labor and other abuses. Such things were clearly horrible for the indigenous people and any cessation of those activities would have very much been welcomed. From that perspective, the indigenous people were likely at least a little bit grateful for his work.

However, de las Casas worked from a Spanish and Christian worldview that was not shared by the native populations in the Americas. His vision of setting up towns and farms for them to live is clearly derived from the Spanish worldview; the indigenous worldview may not have had any role for either towns or farms. The indigenous peoples were not farmers or townspeople originally, so such artificial social constructs were foreign to them. There is question as to whether or not the indigenous people of the Americas would have welcomed such constructs, regardless of their social standing within those constructs.

Similarly, de las Casas may have advocated peaceful conversion to Christianity, but he still advocated conversion. This, too, was likely not received well by the indigenous people, who had their own religions. They may have been open-minded about learning a new religion, but they may not have been. De las Casas, like the other Spaniards, saw conversion as necessary and good, and something that had to happen. Arguably, the native population would have viewed conversion to the conqueror's religion as an affront to their culture, and not something that would particularly desirable.