blc and the spanish empire hanke

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Bartolom De Las Casas and the Spanish Empire in America: Four Centuries of

MisunderstandingAuthor(s): Lewis HankeSource: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 97, No. 1 (Feb. 14, 1953), pp.26-30Published by: American Philosophical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3143727

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BARTOLOM1, DE LAS CASAS AND THE SPANISH EMPIRE IN AMERICA:FOUR CENTURIES OF MISUNDERSTANDING

LEWIS HANKEProfessor of Latin American History and Director, Institute ofLatin American Studies, University of Texas

(Read April 25, 1952)WHEN Ferdinand Cortez and his little band of

Spaniardsfought their way in 1519 from the tropi-cal shores of the coast of Mexico up to the highplateau and first saw stretched below them thegreat Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, gleaming on itslake under the morning sun, they experienced oneof the truly dramatic moments in the history ofAmerica. Fortunately we have the words of areporter worthy of the scene, the foot soldierBernal Diaz del Castillo, whose True History ofthe Conquest of New Spain is one of the classicsof the western world. He wrote:

Gazingon such wonderfulsights we did not knowwhat to say or whether what appearedbefore uswas real; for on the one hand there were great citiesand in the lake ever so manymore,and the lake itselfwas crowded with canoes,and in the causewayweremany bridgesat intervals,and in front of us stoodthe great City of Mexico, and w-e . . . we did noteven number four hundredsoldiers.Today, studying the copious records of the con-quest of America, we may be struck with a kindredastonishment that a few members of this same

Spanish nation, confronting multitudes of theirown countrymen, dared to maintain that the trulyChristian method of peaceful persuasion was theonly permissible way to achieve tle high purposeof that conquest. Most of these soldiers of Godwho insisted that the cross, not the sword, shouldbe the prime instrument of conquest, were friars,and, of these, the one who has come to symbolizethe movement was the Dominican Bartolome deLas Casas. His efforts, in a brutal period, toprotect the Indians from cruel treatment and ex-ploitation by his fellow countrymen, and his in-sistence that the newly discovered natives werehuman beings who should be Christianized by

1 More detailed information on this subject will be fouindin the writer's Bartolome de Las Casas: Bookmian,scholar and propagandist, Phila., Univ. of Penna. Press.1952. Research was aided by a grant from the AmericanPhilosophical Society.

peaceful means alone, astonish us today. And ifl.as Casas were able to see the tremendous influ-ence his writings have exerted in the world duringthe last four hundred years, he would probablybe as surprised as was Bernal Diaz del Castillostanding on the hill overlooking Mexico City withCortez and his handful of conquistadores.

The four-hundredth anniversary of the printingin Seville of the first books by Las Casas affordsus an opportunity to consider anew the historicinfluence and contemporary significance of thishotly disputed figure in the history of that greatprocession of events which sixteenth-centurySpaniards considered the most wondrous sincethe coming of Christ-the discovery, coinquest,and colonization of America. His contemporariesconsidered Las Casas variously to b1e a saintlyleader, a dangerous fanatic. or a sincere fool.Even today his memory is kept green by activedisputation; arguments over his reliability havebroadened out until the reputation of this one manhas become inextricably bound up with judgmentson the Spanish colonial regime as a whole.Unfavorable judgments are still being made, atleast in English-speaking lands, on what Spaniardscalled the great enterprise of the Indies. Didnot the late Judge Alan Goldsborough, in sentenc-ing the Puerto Rican Oscar Collazo to death forhis share in the attempt on the life of PresidentTruman, indulge in gratuitous references to theiniquities of the Spanish colonial system? Andwhen the Neuw York Times on May 14, 1951. edi-torialized on the four-hundredth anniversary ofthe University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, didit not consider the establishment of such a famouseducational institution a spark of civilization inthe horrors of Spanish treachery, greed. andoppression ?Las Casas was largely responsible for creatingthis dark picture of Spanish action in America,-et his life is not particularly well known. W\e do

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, VOL. 97, NO. 1. FEBRUARY, 195326


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BARTOLOME DE LAS CASASnot know where he is buried and the total amountof information on the man Las Casas is pitifullysmall. No contemporary wrote down a descrip-tion of his physical appearance and no painterrecorded it. Las Casas apparently felt no urgeto write an autobiographyand we have to dependlargely upon his historical and polemical writings,which are magnificently full of his public contro-versies, to provide the basis for our knowledgetoday about his place in history.We know that he was born in Seville in 1474,and may have studied at the University of Sala-manca before going to the New World in 1502,where his father and uncle had gone before him.He became a priest, but this did not prevent himfrom participating in the conquest of Cuba and re-ceiving Indians and land as a reward. In 1514 heexperienced a radical change of heart, came to feelthat the Indians had been unjustly treated by hiscountrymen, and determined to dedicate the re-mainder of his days to their defense.He became the renowned champion of the In-dians, and for half a century was one of the domi-nating figures of the most exciting and gloriousage Spain has ever known. In the years betweenhis great awakening in 1514 in Cuba and his deathat Madrid in 1566 at the age of ninety-two, hewas successively reformer at the court in Spain,unsuccessful colonizer in Venezuela, obstructor ofwars he considered unjust in Nicaragua, fighteron behalf of justice for the Indians in bitter de-bates among the ecclesiastics in Mexico, promoterof the plan to conquer and Christianize, by peace-ful means alone, the Indians in Guatemala, suc-cessful agitator before the Spanish court on behalfof many laws to protect the American natives, andBishop of Chiapa in southern Mexico. After hisfinal return to Spain in 1547 at the age of seventy-three, he served as attorney-at-large for the In-dians during the last two decades of his life, dur-ing which he also produced and published some ofhis most important works.Of those writings of Las Casas published in hisown lifetime, the tract that most immediately in-flamed the minds of Spaniards was the Very BriefAccount of the Destruction of the Indies. Thisunbridled denunciation of Spanish cruelty andoppression toward the Indians, full of horrifyingstatistics on the number of Indians killed andother harsh accusations, was printed in 1552 inSeville. The bellowing noises Las Casas madeas he conducted his furious assaults on many ofthe greatest leaders of the conquest did not pre-dispose men, either then or later, to appreciate

or to look closely into the footnote citations orlearned arguments that he developed in eight othertreatises and printed at about the same time andthe same place. Many translations of the VeryBrief Account were brought out in English, Dutch,French, German, Italian, and Latin and power-fully influencedthe world to believe that Spaniardsare inherently cruel, as evidenced by their treat-ment of the American Indians. The famous DeBry drawings used to illustrate many of thesetranslations, depicting gleeful Spaniards huntingIndians with mastiffs and butchering even womenand children in many unpleasant ways, spreadfar and wide the charges of Las Casas, even tothose who could not read. His writings, and thepolitical use made of them by several countries,ushered in the modern age of propaganda.

Englishmen above all used Las Casas transla-tions assiduously in their political disputes withSpain, and the legend of Spanish cruelty was car-ried to the English colonies in North America.Even before the Pilgrims left Holland the grue-some pictures which illustrated the Dutch edi-tions of Las Casas, according to William Bradfordin his famous History of Plimnloth Plantation,served to deter the Leyden congregation fromadventuring within the reach of so cruel and mur-derous fanatics. Such Puritan leaders as CottonMather had familiarized themselves with the storyof Spanish enormities as delineated by Las Casasin the many editions broughtout in England when-ever patriotism or political objectives requiredthatthe specter of a cruel and tyrannical Spain beevoked. John Phillips, the translator of the 1656edition, seems to have had more imagination thanhis predecessors, for he entitled it The Tears ofthe Indians: Being an Historical and true Accountof the Cruel Massacres and Slaughters of aboveTwentytMillions of innocent People . . . Writtenin Spanish by Casaus, an Eyewzitness of thosethings.The words of the translator of the 1699 versionreflected well the aims of those who brought LasCasas to the attention of the English-speakingworld. In the preface the translator says:This Bishop writes with such an Air of Honesty,Sincerity,and Charity,as would very well have be-come one of a betterReligion than that in which hehad the unhappinessto be educated. It may wellsurprisethe Readerto hear a SpanishPrelat declaimso loudlyagainst Persecution,and pleadso freely forLibertyof Conscience n a Countrysubjugated o theInquisition. To hear him in his dispute againstDoctor Sepulveda,deny all methodsof violence for

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the propagation of the Truth, as more sutable[sic] to the Maxims of Mahometism han the Prin-ciples of Christianity:to hear him assert the NaturalRight of all Mankind to Liberty and Property,andinveigh against all Usurpationand Tyranny in thesmartestTerms,is enoughto moveany one'sWonder.and Pity too.The last English translation, or rather publica-tion based upon Las Casas, since the translatorswere no more faithful to the original text thanare some of our propagandists today, appeared inNew York in 1898. It was designed to inciteAmericans against the Spaniards in Cuba and wasentitled An Historical and True Accounlt of theCruel Massacre and Slaughter of 20,000,000 Peo-ple in the West Indies by the Spaniards. Thislast known version in English had one subtlepropaganda twist which no previous editor hadthought of. Although a number of the famoushorrible illustrations were reproduced, one pagein the book was left blank because, explained theeditor, the illustration originally planned to gothere was simply too frightful to include. As thehistorian Albert Bushnell Hart pointed out, Thebelief that the Spaniards were inherently cruel toall the natives and harsh to their own people hadgreat effect in bringing on the Spanish-Americanwar and the annexation of the Philippines.The most notable effect of the Las Casas treat-ises of 1552 and their many translations was feltin Spain itself. Up until about 1700 many Span-iards considered him one of their national glorieswho may have made mistakes but was still a greatman. After 1700 the tenderness of Spain to for-eign criticism became more noticeable and someSpaniards found it impossible to bring themselvesto believe that a Spanish Dominican, and a bishopat that, could have written such terrible accusa-tions against his own people. The veritable rashof reprints of the Very Brief Account of the De-struction of the Inldies that broke out during thetumultuous period of the wars for Spanish-American independence between 1810 and 1830turned Spaniards even more against Las Casas.Editions-all in Spanish-appeared in London,Bogota, Puebla, Philadelphia. Paris, Guadalajara,and Mexico City. It is a tremendous irony ofhistory that the writings of this single sixteenth-century Spaniard, addressing his own people inan effort to shock them into turning aside fromtheir ungodliness, came to be published in so manylands and so many languages that they served tocrystallize for centuries hostility against Spain.

A further irony is that this Christianman of peacewho emphasized the love of God and insisted onkindness toward the Indians aroused in Spaniardsso much animosity and bitterness. Las Casas ex-alted all the peaceful virtues in his writings, buthis whole life was an attack-a fierce and uncom-promising attack-on whatever he conceived to bebad for the Indians.Not only did his exaggerations deform the real-ity of Spanish action in America; they also fixedin many Spaniards' minds a false, or at least in-complete, concept of Las Casas and blinded themto his virtues. The praise, sometimes excessive,that has been bestowed upon him by his Domini-can brothers and others who have termed him atrue servant of God has been withheld by many,and in recent years he has even been called a pre-Marxist who preached the class struggle. Hissanity has been questioned, and once his work wasdescribed as the wretched and frenzied piety ofthe anarchical Father Las Casas. A Spanishbibliographer, in assessing opinion on Las Casastoday, considers his writings dangerously elo-quent, while a Mexican scholar describes him asanadmirabledevil-possessed person, whose egali-tarian concept of humanity was dangerouslymodern.Other voices have been raised in Spain, inAmerica, and elsewhere to defend and to explainLas Casas. The popularity of Las Casas is un-mistakable in some parts of Spanish America.Guatemala recently struck off a special postagestalmpin his honor and used his likeness on itsone-centavo coins; statues of him have beenerected in Mexico in years past. Some taxi-drivers in Mexico City know about Las Casas,and an interesting essay could be written on thepopularityof Las Casas in Spanish America. Theanonymous writer who urged that a statue of LasCasas be placed at some strategic spot in the NewWorld, such as the Isthmus of Panama, exempli-fied the wide-spread devotion to him in SpanishAmerica. And the bitterness which still exists inAmerica against the Spanisll conlquistadoresmaybe gauged by the fact that Mexican pullic opinionhas never permitted a statue to Cortez in the landhe conquered for Spain.The tumult and the shouting that accompaniedLas Casas throughout his life have lasted untiltoday. Historical perspective was long ago lost.and a set of cliches substituted. Few Spaniardsor non-Spaniards I)othered to learn more aboutI.as Casas tlhanthat he exaggerated the number

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BARTOLOMI DE LAS CASASof Indians killed. Just as in the case of our ownWilliam Lloyd Garrison, men have hesitated be-tween the views that he was a high-minded idealistof heroic accomplishmentsand that he was an im-practical fanatic who accomplishedsome few goodworks in a most disagreeable way. The greatand well-nigh insuperable problem faced by everystudent of Las Casas, then, is how to prevent theheat he generates from scorching the judgment ofthose who study his life. It is not difficult to un-derstand why four centuries of misunderstandinghave resulted.

During the last fifty years, however, scholarshave been increasingly pointing out that Las Casaswas Imuchmore than a propagandist. He wasalso a historian, whose History of the Indies re-mains one of the basic documents of the discoveryand early conquest of America. He has come tobe recognized as a political theorist of importance,and as one of the first anthropologists of America.Likewise his contributions in the fields of geog-raphy, philosophy, and theology are being studiedtoday. Although sixteenth-century Spain was aland of eminent scholars and bold thinkers, few ofhis contemporarieswere more independent in theirjudgments, more learned in upholding their opin-ions, or more universal in their range of intereststhan Las Casas.Today, as the world gropes to find some honestbasis for an enduring peace among peoples of di-verse cultures, it is not the multiplicity of his intel-lectual interests nor the single-minded devotion ofthis friar to the Indians which excites our respectand sympathy as much as his attitude toward non-Spaniards and non-Christians. For Las Casasrejected the popular view that the Indians dis-covered in Spain's onward rush through the landsof the New World were beasts, nor did he sub-scribe to the theory that they were slaves by na-ture, according to the Aristotelian view, or child-like creatures with such limited understandingthat

they were to be treated as perpetual minors. LasCasas, on the contrary, insisted that the civiliza-tion of the strange beings brought to the noticeof the world by the discovery of America not onlydeserved study but also respect. He advancedthe idea that Indians of the New World comparedvery favorably with the peoples of ancient timesand maintained that the Maya temples in Yucatanwere not less worthy of admiration than the pyra-mids in Egypt, thus anticipating the conclusionsof twentieth-century archaeologists. Most start-ling of all his views, at least to the proud Span-

iards of his day who dominated the Europeanworld, was the statement that in some respectsIndians were superior to Spaniards.Other Spaniards at the time of the conquestheld that all these new peoples were an inferiortype of humanity which should be submitted tothe rule of Spaniards. One of the greatest juristsand thinkers of the time, Juan Gines de Sepuilveda,felt no hesitation in pronouncing Indians to be notquite men, above monkeys to be sure, but un-worthy of being considered in the same class withSpaniards.Las Casas pitted all of his enormous vitality,wide learning, and skill in debate against theseviews. He passionately urged that the Indians,though different from Spaniards in color, customs,and religion, were humanbeings capableof becom-ing Christians, with the right to enjoy their prop-erty, political liberty, and human dignity, and thatthey should be incorporated into the Spanish andChristian civilization rather than enslaved or de-stroyed. One more step was thus taken alongthe road of justice for all races in a world of manyraces. For though Las Casas started out as adefenderof Indians only, he cameto oppose Negroslavery as well for the same reasons, and towork for the liberty of all the people of theworld.He believed, with a profound conviction, thatpeoples everywhere might be civilized if onlypeaceful Christian methods were employed, andthat no nation exists today, or could exist, nomatter how barbarous,fierce, or depraved its cus-toms, which may not be attracted and convertedto all political virtues, and to all the humanity ofdomestic, political and rational men. Even thewandering, half-naked savages of the coast ofFlorida are rational men who may be taught.They are merely in that rude state in which allother people existed before receiving instruction.We see here the first emphatic statement after theinvention of printing of that self-evident truthproclaimed by the Declaration of Independenceand immortalized by Abraham Lincoln in theGettysburg Address That all men are createdequal.What greater fruit could the discovery of Amer-ica and of her many diverse peoples have bornethan the conclusion of Las Casas: All the peopleof the world are men ? To me it is clear thatthis belief of Las Casas, or hypothesis if you will,will survive the centuries and will come to be

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LEWIS HANKErecognized as one of Spain's greatest contribu-tions to the world.Herein lies the present-day and, indeed, theenduring significance of this friar for modernmen. Do not the principles he advocated for therelations between peoples of the New World havea more universal application; indeed, does he not

[PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC.

have a special and urgent meaning for the wholeworld today? May we not more properly de-scribe him, as did Manuel Jose Quintana over acentury ago, as an honor not only to Spain, hutto America and to the whole world ? The Chil-ean Nobel poet, Gabriela Mistral, expresses itsimply: Las Casas is an honor to mankind.

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blc and the spanish empire hanke

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