Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas

• Las Casas, Bartolomé de: a very short biographic overview from Encyclopaedia.com.
• Bartolomé de Las Casas, "Of the Island of Hispaniola" (1542) - Extract: “ God has created all these numberless people to be quite the simplest, without malice or duplicity, most obedient, most faithful to their natural Lords, and to the Christians, whom they serve; the most humble, most patient, most peaceful and calm, without strife nor tumults; not wrangling, nor querulous, as free from uproar, hate and desire of revenge as any in the world. . . . Among these gentle sheep, gifted by their Maker with the above qualities, the Spaniards entered as soon as soon as they knew them, like wolves, tiger and lions which had been starving for many days, and since forty years they have done nothing else; nor do they afflict, torment, and destroy them with strange and new, and divers kinds of cruelty, never before seen, nor heard of, nor read of….”
• Bartolome De Las Casas (1484-1566): “…Las Casas came to the Indies early, he knew Columbus and was the editor of the Admiral's journal. He knew conditions in the Americas first hand….”
• Bartolome de las Casas Defends the Rights of Native Peoples (1484-1566): “A historian, a theologian, Bartolome de Las Casas spent a large portion of his life fighting for the rights of native peoples of the New World….”
• Bartolome de Las Casas, Missionary, Priest, Defender of the Oppressed, 17 July 1566: “In 1502 he went to Cuba, and for his military services there was given an Encomienda, an estate that included the services of the Indians living on it. In about 1513 he was ordained priest (probably the first ordination in the Americas), and in 1514 he renounced all claim on his Indian serfs.”
• Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566): Texts in Spanish
• The Tale of Bartolome de las Casas, by Bob Corbett, 19 June, 1995: “…Las Casas did not campaign against slavery itself. His primary battle was to encourage, and demand, the practice of conversion and control of the Amerindians by peaceful means, not violence, war and cruelty. He had uncanny success in persuading the Kings of Spain, but their humanizing laws were constantly ignored in the colonies….”
• Atrocities of the Spanish Conquistadors in the West Indies, c. 1513: "This account is from Bartolome de Las Casas. He was a missionary and conquistador. He took part in the conquest of Cuba…."
• Bartolomé de Las Casas and his Defence of the Indians: from the Tairona Heritage Studies Center

Father Raymond Breton