19. A Lesser Known Fact About a Famous Do-Gooder
Bartolome de las Casas (1484 – 1566), a Spanish missionary and historian, devoted his life to stand up for Native Americans mistreated by his fellow Europeans. He protested the enslavement of New World natives and the horrific cruelties to which they were subjected. In the process, he pioneered the development of ideas that led to the concept of modern human rights. He got there in a roundabout way. Las Casas sailed to the New World as a layman in 1502, and settled in Hispaniola – the island that contains today’s Dominican Republic and Haiti. He was granted an encomienda, or a hacienda worked by native slaves, and was fine with enslaving the locals at first. He even joined military expeditions to capture and enslave more natives.
Las Casas had a change of heart, however, when his conscience began to gnaw at him. He became a priest, renounced his hacienda and slaves, called for an end to the encomienda system, and advocated for the indigenous population’s rights. He saw the mistreatment of natives by Europeans as illegal and immoral, and in 1515 petitioned the authorities to protect Native Americans. Las Casas continued to tirelessly petition and write extensively to end the mistreatment and enslavement of the natives, until he drew his final breath in 1566. However, in attempting to help New World natives, he advanced an argument that led to untold horrors visited upon millions of Old World Africans. Las Casas called for the enslavement of Africans instead of Native Americans. He figured that Africans were fitter and more resistant to the Old World diseases that decimated Native Americans.
