A Summary Of Bartlomé De Las Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas

Christianity itself might have been the main oppressor during the colonization of the Americas and not necessarily the greed or hunger for expansion. Bartolomé de las Casas, was a Spanish Bishop, who was sent to the Americas to teach the “Indians” about Christianity, but through his own eyewitness accounts saw the inhumane treatment of the Natives and criticized the Spanish monarchs and colonizers for being driven by greed and not their Christian beliefs. Although, de las Casas greatly criticized the Spanish, he himself, through his Christian teachings, was still indirectly oppressing the natives. In the excerpts titled, “Hispaniola” and “The Coast of Pearls, Paria, and the Island of Trinidad” from The Very Brief Relation

“They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim’s feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and his twelve apostles,.......” (from “Hispaniola”) Bartolomé describes a scene of treacherous acts done by the Christians, at first, he separates himself from those performing the acts by saying “....their victims….” but then says “Our Redeemer…..” still categorizing himself with Christianity and also with these men. The image about Christ and his twelve apostles (which he sees through the torture) tied to imagery about a hanging is key. This shows us that their Christian faith (which de las Casas also follows) is an inspiration in their form of torture, which therefore suggest that Bartolomé was indirectly involved with the oppression because he can’t see that his faith is the tool which the colonizers use as motivation and he can’t disassociate himself from

What’s particularly ironic about the writing is his inability to separate himself from the Christian church, which he blasts for the cruel treatment which they inflict on the natives, but never considered a possible flaw in the belief system. In the “The Coast of Pearls, Paria, and the Island of Trinidad” he writes, “......the ruffian tyrants getting their share of the captives who will be house slaves, and when in this ‘repartimiento’ a tyrant gets an old person or an invalid, he says, ‘Why did you give me this one?.......” the idea of the “repartimiento” was to distribute indian slaves and forcingly convert them to Christianity, de las Casas saw the wrongness of this system but would later go on to suggest that the indian slaves be replaced with African slaves. He would later regret that suggestion but it shows that Christianity was a tool for royal decrees and that he was still intrigued with converting others into Christianity.

Bartolomé de las Casas was highly outspoken (and sincere) about his advocation for the native peoples human rights, but his flaw was in his failure to see that the problem stemmed from Christian belief. This is clear in the subtext of his writings, the irony in his values and religious beliefs, his contrasting imagery between