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![]() Between 15, he wrote several texts attacking the encomenderos and accusing persons and institutions of the sin of oppressing the Indians. At the same time, he stated that evangelization and conversion should be done through peaceful persuasion and not through violence or coercion. He argued that the Indians were free subjects of the Castilian crown, and their property remained their own. ![]() Las Casas became an avid critic of the encomienda system. The work was published by his own request after his death. In 1527, he began to write the Historia Apologética (Apologetic History), one of his major works, which served as an introduction to his masterpiece Historia de las Indias (History of the Indies). During the following years, Las Casas produced his most important works. This was the beginning of a very prolific writing period. In 1523, he joined the Dominican order and became the prior of the Convent of Puerto De Plata. Las Casas traveled to the new colony from Spain in 1520, but two years later had to return to Santo Domingo after his experiment failed due to the opposition of the powerful encomenderos and the attacks of native communities of the region.Īfter his failure, Las Casas decided to devote his life to religious service. This settlement was located on the Gulf of Paria in the present-day Venezuela. The emperor Charles V appointed Las Casas as the priest-procurator of the Indies, the head of a commission to investigate the status of the Indians, and in 1519 supported his project to found communities of both Spaniards and Indians. For this reason, during his stay in Spain he conceived the Plan para la reformación de las Indias (Plan for the Reformation of the Indies). Las Casas sought to change the methods of the Spanish conquest, and believed that both the Spaniards and indigenous communities could build a new civilization in America together. In 1514, he returned his Indian serfs to the governor of Santo Domingo, and a year later, traveled to Spain to defend the natives and plead for their better treatment. Like many other Spanish missionaries who had traveled to America and experienced the brutality of the conquest, Las Casas became an advocate for the Indians and a critic of the brutal exploitation of indigenous slave labor and the lack of serious religious instruction. Due to his service, the Spanish crown rewarded him with an encomienda (a royal land grant including native inhabitants) as it was the custom of the time to pay for the services of those Spaniards participating in the exploration of the new territories. During his first twelve years in the New World, Las Casas participated in various expeditions of conquest in the Caribbean. He was probably the first person ordained as a priest in America, on either 1512 or 1513. He became a doctrinero, lay teacher of catechism, and began evangelizing the indigenous people, whom the Spaniards called Indians. In 1502 he left for Hispaniola, the island that today contains the states of Dominican Republic and Haiti. Bartolomé de Las Casas was born in 1484 in Sevilla, Spain.
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