Las Casas, Bartolomé de (bärtōlōmā` dā läs kä`säs), 1474–1566, Spanish missionary and historian, called the apostle of the Indies. He went to Hispaniola with his father in 1502, and eight years later he was ordained a priest. In 1514 he began to work for the improvement of conditions among the indigenous population, especially for the abolition of their slavery and of the forced labor of the encomienda encomienda (ānkōmyān`dä) [Span. encomendar=to entrust], system of tributory labor established in Spanish America.
..... Click the link for more information. . He devoted the rest of his life to that cause, going to Spain to urge the government to action, converting uncivilized tribes, and striving to break the power of Spanish landholders over native laborers. He tried unsuccessfully to establish a model colony for people of indigenous descent (1520–21), went to Peru with a royal cedula prohibiting native enslavement, worked among the native people of Guatemala, and for a brief time (1544–47) was bishop of Chiapa. In his concern to help the indigenous people of South America he endorsed the proposal to import African slaves, but repented his action almost immediately. Chiefly through his agency, humanitarian laws, called the New Laws, were adopted (1542) to protect the indigenous people in Spanish colonies, although later alterations, notably those of Pedro de la Gasca Gasca, Pedro de la (pā`thrō thā lä gäs`kä), c.1485–1567?, Spanish colonial administrator.
..... Click the link for more information. , rendered them almost ineffective. The writings of Las Casas contain good anthropological and historical material. He spent much of his time writing the monumental Historia de las Indias (1875–76); for selections in English translation, see Tears of the Indians (ed. by John Phillips, 1953) and Devastation of the Indies (1974).

Bibliography

See biographies by H. R. Wagner (1967), and J. Friede and B. Keen, ed. (1971).

Las Casas, Bartolomé de

(born August 1474, Sevilla?—died July 17, 1566, Madrid) Spanish historian and missionary, called the Apostle of the Indies. He sailed on Christopher Columbus's third voyage (1498) and later became a planter on Hispaniola (1502). In 1510 he became the first priest ordained in the Americas. He devoted his life to protesting the mistreatment of the Indians, with whom he worked in Guatemala, Peru, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Mexico. His call for an end to the encomienda system aroused implacable opposition. His proposed and quickly regretted solution, the importation of slaves from Africa, was adopted, but the servitude of the Indians had already been irreversibly established. His Brief Report on the Destruction of the Indians (1552) and his unfinished History of the Indians inspired Simón Bolívar and other revolutionary heroes. See also black legend.