"Bartolomé de Las Casas"

This blog post is comprised of my notes on the headnote about Bartolomé de Las Casas in the 7th edition of The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume A.

"Bartolomé de Las Casas"

• lived from 1474-1566
• Casas was an apologist for Native American rights.
• His initial beliefs were created because of the injustice of seizing Native Americans and creating a pageant of them, which he witnessed at the Spanish court when Columbus returned from one of his voyages.  Though he didn't understand the moral implications of the act at the time, he later developed deep feelings about it.
• Cases writes that even he initially had a moral blindness to the wrongs and that he participated in them while serving as a member of the new royal governor's party in the New World.
•  It was after becoming a priest that Casas renounced the slave system because he felt that it ran contrary to religious (Christian) teachings.
• He took his beliefs and a case to Spain, where he was appointed the 'protector of Indians' and allowed to found a peaceful colony in Venezuela, meant to be an example of what he believed.  This venture was, however, unsuccesfull, so Casas retreated to a monestary and remained there from 1522 until 1529.
•  In the 1530's, Casas returned to political activism and was able to initiate widespread effect when Pope Paul III forbade all enslavement of people.  This then spurred Emperor Charles V of Spain to create the New Laws, which protected Native Americans and forbade their enslavement.
• Casas tried to enforce these New Laws from 1544 until 1547 as a bishop in Chiapas, Mexico; however,  when Charles V revoked the laws because of the resistance settlers put forth against them, Casas returned to Spain and instead wrote about his crusade against the treatment of Native Americans in the West Indies.