![]() Unfortunately, these laws were repeatedly flouted by greedy settlers. The result of that meeting was promulgation of the Nuevas Leyes de 1542, which dealt a severe blow to the encomienda. Following service in New Spain (Mexico), Nicaragua, Peru and Guatemala, he obtained an audience with Charles V. Discouraged, he took refuge in a monastery run by Dominicans, an order he eventually joined.īut such an indomitable spirit could not be quenched for long. ![]() The Indians in the designated area, who had been feuding with the Spanish settlers, found themselves the target of a punitive expedition that arrived at the same time as Las Casas. That the effort failed was hardly the fault of Las Casas. Jiménez named him “Protector of the Indies” and, in 1520, authorized him to found a model colony in Santo Domingo. Fortunately, he found an ally in the regent, Cardinal Francisco Jiménez y Cisneros. On arrival, he learned that the king had died and that his grandson and successor, Charles V, was out of the country. In 1516 Las Casas returned to Spain to plead the Indians’ case with King Ferdinand V. The former referred to lands “commended” to settlers and the latter to the requirement that Indians work these lands for little or no pay and frequently under the lash. This experience launched Las Casas on his lifelong crusade against mistreatment of Indians, as exemplified by two institutions known as the encomienda and the repartimiento. Told he would, he made this poignant reply: “Then I will not be a Christian, for I would not again go to a place where I must find men so cruel!” The condemned chief asked if he would find the white man there. In his Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Las Casas relates that Hatuey was given a chance to embrace christianity before being burned so that his soul might go to heaven. But he had one consolation: Hatuey’s death gave him vivid material for his exposé of Spanish cruelty toward the Indians. Though Las Casas intervened in Hatuey’s behalf, he was overruled by the governor. Captured, he was sentenced by the governor, Diego Velázquez, to be burned alive. Leading opposition forces against the Spanish invasion was a chief named Hatuey. It was there that Las Casas first began to gain his reputation as a protector of the Indians. The following year he accompanied the expedition that set forth from Hispaniola to occupy Cuba. Ordained at Santo Domingo, capital of Hispaniola, he was the first priest ever to be consecrated in the colonies. ![]() In 1510, at age 36, Las Casas finally entered the priesthood. In 1502 he accompanied the conquistador Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo to the New World in what was then the greatest armada ever sent out from Spain. Though he studied both divinity and law, he took only a law degree when he completed his studies in 1498. ![]() For one who attained such prominence as a cleric, Bartolomé was rather tardy in taking religious orders. A common soldier under Columbus in his first voyage to the New World, he acquired enough wealth in the Indies to send his son to the prestigious University of Salamanca. His father, of humble origin, could accurately be described as a nouveau riche. First known as a protector of Indians, he also became an advocate of black Africans who had been brought over by the Spaniards as slaves. As far back as the l5th and l6th centuries, a remarkable man devoted the greater part of his 92 years on earth to ameliorating the lot of non-Caucasian people who lived in the vast Spanish empire. Liberation theology didn’t begin with the Berrigan brothers or Bishop Ruiz. Mention liberation theology and images that immediately come to mind are those of 1960s-style antiwar, anti-establishment priests like the Berrigan brothers or, more recently, Bishop Samuel Ruiz García and his obvious sympathy with the downtrodden Indians and Zapatista rebels in Chiapas.
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