Returning
to Spain in 1506, he was ordained a deacon in Seville and resumed his studies for the
priesthood. He then went to Rome where he was
ordained a priest on the third Ember Day in Lent, 1507. Since Christopher Columbus had died, Las Casas
accompanied the Admiral’s older brother Bartholomew Columbus to a private audience
with Pope Julius II in order to help secure for Christopher’s son Diego the
inheritance promised by the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. During his visit with the Pope, Las Casas informed
the pontiff about events in the New World and the opportunity to convert natives. Later,
back in Spain, he completed his studies for a degree in canon law at Salamanca and then
journeyed to Hispaniola with Columbus’ son and heir Viceroy and Second Admiral Diego
Columbus. He took up his task as Indian doctrinero, the official catechist to the Indians,
but remained a holder of Indians and property, a contradiction his conscience could not
sustain much longer.
With the arrival of the
first Dominicans to Hispaniola in September of 1510, Las Casas’ status as a “gentleman-cleric”
was challenged. After observing the situation
on the island for over a year the call for justice rang-out when Friar Antón Montesino
delivered, on December 21, 1511, the fourth Sunday of Advent, his famous speech on behalf
of the Indians. Along with his Dominican
confreres he denounced as a mortal sin the encomienda
system of forced labor. It took Las Casas several more years and additional
witnessing of the abuses and atrocities of the conquest to have the first of what scholars
call his two great conversions. On Pentecost
of 1514, he renounced his ownership of Indians and the inter-island provisions business. He then started to preach his own provocative
sermons against the wrongs of the conquest, particularly the encomienda system.
Las Casas later wrote that the blinders fell from his eyes and he saw that
everything the Spaniards had done in the Indies from the beginning – all the brutal
exploitation and decimation of innocent Indians, with no heed for their welfare or their
conversion – was not only completely wrong, but also mortal sin.
In 1515 he returned to
Spain with Antón Montesino, with the intention of informing King Ferdinand of the
situation in the Indies (Isabella had died in 1504). Upon reaching Seville, Montesino
introduced Las Casas to the Dominican archbishop and advocate of Columbus, Fray Diego de
Deza, who had authority over all diocesan priests in the New World. The Archbishop provided letters of introduction to
influential persons in the royal household and the king, so that Las Casas and Montesino
could meet with the ailing king in Plasencia to convince him to redress the abuses of the
conquest. As a result, the Laws of Burgos were promulgated on
December 27, 1512, the first of numerous reform attempts by Las Casas. After the king’s death, Las Casas continued
his reform plans with the aging regent, Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros. He gave Las Casas
the title “Protector of the Indians”. Yet
it seems that Cisneros, like the late king, balanced a variety of competing political and
economic interests, which made significant reforms in the Indies difficult. Also, Cisneros’ dislike of Columbus and Las
Casas’ close relationship with the Columbus family cast a shadow on him in the eyes
of the Cardinal-Regent of Spain. Even so,
Cisneros did lend some support to Las Casas’ scheme to save the small remnant of
Indians still on the islands. Las Casas wanted to remove them from individual encomiendas and place them in self-sustaining
villages, known as the corregimientos or crown
free towns. However Cisneros’ tenure as
regent was cut short, he died November of 1517. After
the deaths of King Ferdinand and Cardinal Cisneros, Las Casas sought the support of the
new Flemish-born Spanish king, Charles -- Charles I (Spain, 1516-1556) = Charles V (Holy
Roman emperor, 1519-1558) -- , the grandson of the Catholic monarchs.
With letters from the
Flemish Franciscans in Hispaniola, Las Casas won speedy approval from Charles for another
of his early schemes, colonization by farmers instead of soldiers. He obtained a grant to
try his peaceful settlement idea in the early 1520’s on the north coast of South
America at Cumaná. This colony would have a
minimum of force and a maximum of persuasion to allow the Spaniards to live in fruitful
peace with the Indians. The project failed
because of the greed for slaving in the party assembled.
Las Casas saw he had compromised his duty to be protector of the Indians. In
the depths of discouragement, he left his work and entered the Dominican Order on the
Island of Hispaniola in 1522 at the age of 36.
Scholars call his
entrance into the Dominican Order the second conversion of Las Casas. He spent his initial
years studying theology and law, after which he was appointed prior of an out-post on the
north coast of Dominican Republic, Puerto de
Plata, where he founded a new community. Prevented from returning to Spain by his Dominican
superiors, he resumed his fight for the indigenous by preaching thunderously against the
abuses of the slave trade. Accused of withholding deathbed viaticum from an encomendero, he was ordered back to Santo Domingo,
and officially silenced by government order for two years. During this time he also began gathering materials
for his Historia General de las Indias, one of
the most valuable sources for the early discovery and colonization period, and from which
he later took the Apologética Historia, a
landmark in anthropology. About the year 1530
he began writing a Latin treatise, De Unico
Vocationis Modo Omnium Gentium ad Veram Religionem, which became one of the most
significant missionary tracts in the history of the Church.
Basically, it was a blueprint for his own later missionary experiments: the
spread of the Gospel by peaceful means alone, the need for understanding of doctrine and
clear catechesis prior to conversion, the need to respect and utilize native cultures as
part of the missionary enterprise.
Notes
