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Another Life

 | 
Mélanie Joseph-Vilain
, 
Judith Misrahi-Barak

The Proto-postcolonial Colonizer: Bartolomé de las Casas and the Turn from Slaver to Saver

Mark DeStephano S.J.

Résumé

Known to history as the ‘Defender of the Indians’, Bartolomé de las Casas (1474 or 1484-1556), a one-time encomendero, slaver, and slave-owner, underwent a dramatic religious conversion that led him to renounce his own practices and denounce slavery as an institution. This chapter will demonstrate that Las Casas’ former career as a civil and a canon lawyer, as well as the training he received in philosophy and theology in preparation for his service first as a secular priest and then as a Dominican, made him a singularly formidable opponent of those who sought to justify not only the taking of slaves, but also their terrible mistreatment at the hands of their Spanish overseers. Of particular interest is the concept of Las Casas as a ‘proto-postcolonial thinker’, who, centuries before academia’s recognition of Postcolonial Studies, offered critiques and employed strategies that would later become powerful tools in the repertoires of modern postcolonial critics. This chapter will take as a case study Chapter 125 of Book III of his landmark Historia de las Indias, in which Las Casas presents the story of an indigenous youth, Enriquillo, who tires of Spanish injustices and rebels against their tyrannical practices. Las Casas carefully demonstrates that Enriquillo’s cause is righteous, legal, and worthy of the support of the Spanish Crown. He argues clearly and persuasively that the proper approach to the conversion of the Indians must be that of love, understanding, and just treatment by all Spaniards.

Texte intégral

  • 1 Rand Parish, Helen and Harold E. Weidman, S.J. ‘The Correct Birthdate of Bartolomé de las Casas’. H (...)

1In 1518, many years after one of the truly exceptional conversions known to the world of Hispanic America, one-time encomendero, slaver, and slave-owner Bartolomé de las Casas (1474 or 14841-1556) posed a troubling question to a seventy-year-old man: ‘You, father, why do you want to go to the Indies, being so old and tired?’ The elder gentleman’s response was an apt retort for the period: ‘By my faith, sir, to die and leave my sons in a free and happy land’ (as quoted by Thomas 1993: 58). Yet, as Las Casas well knew, the Spanish colonies of the New World were anything but a ‘free and happy land’, especially for the native peoples of Hispaniola and Mexico, who were treading along a path of tears and suffering that would nearly lead to their extinction. No words could have been more poignant for the great Spanish ‘Defender of the Indians’, who loved his homeland but despised the abuses that were being committed in the name of the Spanish sovereigns. Still, Las Casas was undaunted; he was more than well acquainted with his opponents and their tactics—he had been one of them himself. And for the same reason, he was also their most dreaded adversary.

2Born and raised in Seville, young Bartolomé was exposed to the world of Spanish navigation to the Americas through his father, Pedro de las Casas, who had accompanied Columbus on his first voyage to the New World, as well as through his father’s brothers, who were members of the Peñalosa family. In 1493, Bartolomé watched as Columbus triumphantly paraded his ‘Indians’ and the treasures of the mysterious new continent through the streets of Seville. In November of that year, Las Casas’ father and three of his uncles, Francisco, Diego, and Gabriel Peñalosa, sailed with the Admiral of the Ocean Seas on his second voyage. Meanwhile, young Bartolomé began his education in the cathedral school in the Colegio de San Miguel, under the watchful eyes of two other Peñalosa uncles, Luis, who was a prebendary of the Cathedral of Seville, and Francisco, a royal musician to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (Giménez Fernández 1971: 67-68). Although he briefly served in the city militia which was sent to suppress the morisco uprising in Granada in 1497, the youth seems to have spent more time in studies than in engagement with the Muslim insurgents. By the time of his return to Seville in the next year, Bartolomé had acquired a fine education in the Latin language, probably in Granada, under the tutelage of the famed master Elío Antonio de Nebrija, as well as in the rudiments of canon law (Giménez Fernández 1971: 68). In that same year, when his father returned to Seville with Columbus from his second voyage (1498), Bartolomé was given charge of a young black boy who had been enslaved and given by the Admiral to Pedro de las Casas as a gift. The close friendship that the two youths developed sowed many of the seeds of Las Casas’ deep objections to slavery, which had already begun to trouble his conscience (Giménez Fernández 1971: 68). It is likely that Bartolomé was tonsured around this time, possessing the requisite personal integrity and intellectual skills in both Latin and bureaucratic affairs to continue his studies towards the priesthood.

3Unfortunately for modern scholarship, the chronology of Las Casas’ life during the next several years is shrouded in mystery and mired in scholarly debate and disagreement. Writing approximately fifty years after the death of Las Casas, the Dominican historian and biographer Father Antonio de Remesal records that Las Casas had studied law, both canon and civil, as well as theology, at Spain’s celebrated Pontifical institution of higher learning, the University of Salamanca (Wagner & Parish 1967: 4). Modern scholars have been unable to verify these facts, although several agree that Las Casas did earn law degrees at Salamanca, specializing in jurisprudence (Dutto 1902: 8; MacNutt 1909: 4-5). There is no doubt that Las Casas completed the degrees required to be ordained as a priest. Las Casas himself never mentions these studies in his own writings, raising scholarly doubt as to whether he ever received formal training in the law. Felix Jay’s modern critical edition of Remesal’s biography has substantiated much of what the historian wrote, however, definitive documentation has yet to be uncovered (2002). Another contemporary, Fray Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, also writes in his Historia general y natural de las Indias (1535) that Las Casas often referred to himself as ‘licenciado’, the most commonly used Spanish term for one holding a legal degree (Wagner & Parish 1967: 4-5). Despite the lack of definitive documentation, Las Casas’ legal training is apparent on virtually every page of his writings, especially in his magnum opus, the encyclopedic Historia de las Indias (1522-1566; published posthumously in 1875 and in its first critical edition in 1951), which he composed over a period of more than forty years.

4It is not unreasonable to think that Las Casas did, indeed, pursue studies in canon and civil law at Salamanca, as this was often the preparation given to would-be administrators, especially those who were already priests or those who were preparing for the priesthood (Kagan 1974: 97-98). What is more, after Columbus’s discovery of the New World, both the Crown and the Church undertook an intensive program of preparation for those destined to serve in the New World (Elliott 2007: 130). This was, indeed, the path that Las Casas would follow, as he and his father joined Nicolás de Ovando’s historic trip to Hispaniola in 1502. Bartolomé’s role was unclear. Most biographers believe that the young man had yet to be ordained a priest, and that he assumed the position of overseer of the family’s ranch, both because of his legal and clerical skills, or, perhaps, because of his ability also to serve as a doctrinero—a catechist—to the enslaved natives (Giménez Fernández 1971: 70). The general opinion of historians is that Las Casas participated in military actions against the native peoples on Hispaniola, especially as we find him describing Juan de Esquivel’s campaign against Higuey (Wagner & Parish 1967: 5). He may also have witnessed the Spanish massacre of natives at Xaraguá and is believed to have received one of the rebel slaves for his own use (Giménez Fernández 1971: 70).

5Having experienced, first hand, the terrible cruelties committed against the indigenous peoples in their own land, Las Casas grew ever more disillusioned with the abuses of the Spanish overseers. He found it especially troubling that Taínos were assigned to Spanish settlers for the purpose of mining gold and were subjected to profligate cruelty, illness, undernourishment, and even death. These experiences would plague Las Casas’ conscience and set him on a search to improve the living and workingconditions of the indigenous peoples. And while he did not wish to abolish the encomienda system (in fact, he felt that it was the best way to ensure the protection of the indigenous peoples), he did seek to re-structure them as pueblos, in which the State would only intervene for purposes of administration and evangelization (Giménez Fernández 1971: 70). If the Indians were to be made true Christians, they would have to be converted through love, and not through oppression and brutality.

6Sometime late in 1506, Las Casas returned to Spain and then made a trip to Rome, perhaps as a representative of the Diocese of Santo Domingo. It is believed that he was ordained in that same year, probably as a deacon (Las Casas 1992: 15). Upon his return to Hispaniola, the new governor, Columbus’s son Diego, awarded Las Casas with a tract of land which he could farm and with a repartimiento of slaves of his own. Although it may have been jarring to his conscience, Bartolomé continued his life not only as a doctrinero, but also as a farmer and slave owner—something he would later regret bitterly. He was ordained a priest, either in 1510 (Wagner & Parish 1967: 6) or 1512 (Giménez Fernández 1971: 72), and in 1513 he was assigned to Cuba, where he was given oversight of a large farm and repartimiento of Indians on the banks of the Arimao River. Although he saw to it that his Indians were well treated, Las Casas became completely absorbed in his work as an encomendero, even to the point of neglecting their religious formation and rejecting the criticisms of a Dominican friar (Giménez Fernández 1971: 74). The young priest had fallen prey to the illusions of power, greed, and glory that had smitten so many of his fellow countrymen.

7Las Casas relates that he was struck by the light of the Gospel while studying chapter 34 of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which, in turn, recalled to him the powerful and prophetic words spoken by a gifted Dominican preacher—probably Fray Pedro de Córdoba—in Santo Domingo some years before (Giménez Fernández 1971: 74). In a sermon preached in June of 1514, Las Casas sold his lands, renounced his repartimiento, and declared that he would be returning to Castile en route to Paris, where he wished to undertake further studies. Upon his return to Santo Domingo, the first stage of his journey, Las Casas explained to superiors his plan to return to the Spanish court, where he hoped to alert King Ferdinand of the abuses that were being committed against the native peoples in the colonies.

8Departing from Santo Domingo in September of 1515, Las Casas was able to arrange an extended audience with King Ferdinand by December of that same year. The king, who was extremely ill, referred the matter to his secretary, Lope de Conchillos, who, in turn, tried to dissuade Las Casas from his project by offering him a considerable sum of money. The priest rejected the offer outright, and hoped to obtain another meeting with the king. When the monarch refused to see the young cleric again, however, Las Casas was forced to present his petition formally to the king’s Minister for the Indies, Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, who publicly humiliated him in front of all of his assistants and servants (Giménez Fernández 1971: 75). The young priest returned to Seville, where he soon learned of the death of King Ferdinand. Determined to present his case to the new monarch, Las Casas went to Madrid and contacted Charles V’s co-regent in Castile, Adrian of Utrecht, sending him and Cardinal Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros, Archbishop of Madrid, a memorial (detailed report) on the abuses being perpetrated against the native peoples (April, 1516). Las Casas soon sent another memorial, this time suggesting measures to be taken to stop the injustices and sufferings (May, 1516). And in a final act of righteous indignation, the priest sent a memorial of the specific crimes and acts of bribery that were committed, even naming individual offenders. Almost miraculously, Las Casas’ work brought action. The righteous and zealous Cisneros immediately dismissed the corrupt secretary Conchillos and Bishop Fonseca, organized a commission to draft new legislation to govern the Indians, and appointed the young priest as one of its reporters.

9At the conclusion of the commission’s inquiries, Cisneros encountered great disagreement between the Franciscans and the Dominicans regarding the Indian question. He therefore ordered the Jeronymites to implement the reforms in the New World, and appointed Las Casas as defender of the Indians’ cause. As can be imagined, resistance from the settlers was stiff, well organized, and well-funded. Officials in Seville delayed the departure of the commissioners for Santo Domingo, and even managed to keep Las Casas from boarding the ship. As a consequence, he arrived thirteen days later on a much slower boat, which had given the Spanish colonists sufficient time to persuade the commissioners that the indigenous peoples were incapable of self-government (Giménez Fernández 1971: 76-77). This led to the disastrous decision to abandon their plans to organize the Indians into autonomous communities, much as Las Casas had imagined the pueblos to be. Even worse, the commissioners rejected their original plan to abolish the repartimientos, choosing to apply it only to individual slave holders in Castile. In June, 1517, the priest returned to Spain in the hopes of meeting with the new king, Charles V, and with Cisneros. Unfortunately, the Cardinal was ill unto death, and succumbed at Roa on November 8, 1517.

10A tireless warrior for the protection of the Indians, Las Casas continued to discuss the issue of Spanish abuse of the indigenous peoples with influential court members in Valladolid and professors at the University of Salamanca. Two years slipped by as the ‘Defender of the Indians’ waited, in vain, to be granted an audience with the new king. In the meantime, he did what he could to change the hearts and minds of those who could effect policy changes. By August, 1519, Las Casas had devised a plan of his own, asking for control of a large area between Cumaná and Atrato, along the borders of today’s Colombia and Venezuela. The priest’s plan was simple: to establish a settlement area in which Indians would be converted only by peaceful means, and where slavery was forbidden. Permission was granted by the government—and in the presence of Charles V—yet during the years 1520-1521, colonists and their supporters on both sides of the Atlantic did everything in their power to sabotage every aspect of the operation. It was shortly brought to total disaster.

11Reviled by many, tired from the many personal attacks, and questioning the purity of his own crusade, Las Casas retired to a Franciscan monastery in Santo Domingo, where, in conversation with Franciscan friar Juan Garceto, he decided to apply for acceptance into the Dominican Order. After one year of novitiate, from 1523- 1524, the priest made formal profession as a Dominican friar in April, 1524 (Giménez Fernández 1971: 83). He was to spend the next four years in the seclusion of the monastery, praying, thinking, and studying intensively, especially in the area of Thomist theology.

12In 1526, Las Casas was missioned to build a church in Puerto de Plata, Hispaniola, where he was to serve as chaplain to some thirty encomenderos and to the native population of the area (Giménez Fernández 1971: 84). As he found himself with much free time, and being more deeply interested in preparing his multifaceted theological and legal case against slavery in the New World, Las Casas began to compose a history of the Spanish conquest from its origins to his day. This work was to become what we know today as the first version of the Dominican’s landmark Historia de las Indias (1522-1566), which may be considered one of the greatest ‘proto-postcolonial’ documents written in Hispanic America in that it foreshadows many of the attitudes and employs many of the strategies that will become the center of later postcolonial critique.

  • 2 All textual references are to the Historia de las Indias, ed. Lewis Hanke (México, D.F. : Fondo de (...)

13Las Casas’ long and highly-detailed account of the Spanish conquest of the New World had four goals: (1) to demonstrate that the Indians were rational human beings who could be ‘civilized’ according to European customs; (2) to disprove theologically that the Spanish colonizers had the obligation to subdue the indigenous peoples forcibly because of their sins as pagans; (3) to argue philosophically and theologically that it was both possible and preferable to bring the Indians to the Catholic faith through love, patient instruction, and appreciation of the native cultures; and, (4) to illustrate the numerous cruelties and abuses that were being perpetrated against the Indians—who were the king’s innocent subjects—under the pretext of serving the Crown and the Church (Prologue).2 His portrayal of the many abuses perpetrated by the Spaniards is structured like one, exceedingly extensive legal deposition, which combines both canon and civil law, and highlights Las Casas’ vast knowledge of Thomistic philosophy, theology, and biblical and Spanish history, which he acquired both at the University of Salamanca and in the seminary.

  • 3 It is significant to note that ‘Enriquillo’, the hero of Las Casas’ narrative, became, over time, t (...)

14In no section of the Historia do we find a clearer presence of Las Casas’ former life and work as a canon and civil lawyer than in Chapter 125 of Book III, in which the priest narrates the legal case of an indigenous youth, Enriquillo3, who has been horribly abused by Spanish authorities in Hispaniola. The Dominican’s training as a humanist, linked with his deep religious faith and his acute sense of historical perspective, make the Historia an outstanding text in which to trace the multiple transformations in the Spaniard’s thought-processes and actions—the intersection of attitudes that developed gradually in the mind and spirit of Bartolomé the young student, then in Las Casas the barrister, and finally in Bishop Las Casas, the fearless cleric, powerful intellectual, and master rhetorician. What is more intriguing, however, is the encounter with Las Casas as an astute proto-postcolonial writer who, four hundred years before their identification in Western academic circles, began to develop some of the techniques that would later become characteristic of postcolonial writers.

15Las Casas’ first prong of attack against the Spanish abusers is his construction of Chapter 125 of Book III of the Historia as a counter-discourse (Ashcroft 1999b: 56) to what the Spanish colonizers saw to be the justified treatment of savages (Hanke 1959: 13). Rather than presenting the case of Enriquillo as yet another example of an unwarranted indigenous uprising, the Dominican presents the facts of the historical event not to justify the conduct of his countrymen, but to condemn it. He begins his narrative in medias res with the phrase ‘Por este tiempo’ [‘At this time’], situating the reader in the midst of the action, when ‘cosas acaescieron notables’ [‘significant things occurred’] (259). The historian is careful to identify the precise location of the events—Hispaniola—, and then specifies the nature of these events: ‘como los indios della se iban acabando’ [‘how the Indians of that island were dying off’] and ‘no cesasen por eso de los trabajar y angustiar los españoles que los tenían’ [‘despite that, the Spaniards who owned them would not stop working them and making them suffer’] (259). Las Casas the Spaniard does not fail to implicate other Spaniards in these terrible events, even to the point of naming them individually. He speaks of a cruel overseer of Indians, Valenzuela, locating him as a ‘vecino de la villa de Sant Juan de Maguana’ [‘resident of the town of San Juan de Maguana’], who is ‘harto mozo liviano’ [‘a very frivolous young man’], and who has followed the footsteps of his father in this ‘inicua y tiránica posesión dellos’ [‘iniquitous and tyrannical possession of them’] (259).

  • 4 Aquinas, along with Aristotle, defines tyranny clearly: ‘If an unjust government is carried on by o (...)

16Las Casas’ use of the term ‘tyrannical’ is highly significant, and marks him as an avant-garde thinker in the mode of later postcolonial writers, even while living in the Spanish Empire at one of the early moments of its expansion. Being a learned student both of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, Las Casas knew well that the Angelic Doctor had defined tyranny as an ‘unjust government’ and had warned that ‘the Lord therefore threatens such rulers’ (De Regno I.2.10-11).4 Aquinas specifies that the Christian subject need only obey an authority that comes rightfully from God, and clarifies that authority may be found not to come from God in two ways: either how it was obtained or how it is used (Commentary on the Sentences, Sent. II, Dist.44, Quaes.2, Art.2). Authority may be illicitly established in two ways: either through a ‘defect in the person, that he is unworthy’, or, that the power was defectively obtained, such as through violence or simony (Ibid.). Of greatest interest to Las Casas was one of Aquinas’s most controversial teachings:

But the abuse of authority can be twofold: (1) either as it is ordered by an authority, contrary to that for which the authority was ordained, as if he were to order an act of sin contrary to virtue, and authority is ordered to induce and preserve virtue; and then not only is one not to obey the authority, but is even held not to obey, as the Holy Martyrs suffered death rather than obey the impious order of tyrants; (2) or because they compel their subjects to something to which the order of their authority does not extend... and then the subject is not held to obey, but neither is he held to disobey.
(Commentary on the Sentences, Sent. II, Dist.44, Quaes.2, Art.2)

17Armed with these theological weapons, Las Casas now has effectively implicated Valenzuela in a criminal action and will move on to present the facts against him. The Dominican next introduces the hero of the episode, ‘Enriquillo’, who is the ‘cacique y señor’ (‘local tribal leader and lord’) of the repartimiento. It must be noted that Las Casas uses the diminutive form of the name ‘Enrique’ by adding ‘-illo’, which is a twofold act of postcolonial liberation. On the one hand, the priest speaks in the voice of the patriarchal European guardian by referring to the native chief, whom he does not know personally, by his given name—a Spanish name—even as Las Casas prepares an incendiary attack against his fellow Spaniards, who are also patriarchs in their status as encomenderos. At the same time, Las Casas’ bold act of doing this proclaims that he does, indeed, consider himself to be an intimate friend of the Indians, even to the point of acknowledging Enriquillo’s role of leadership in their tribal social structure. Later in the narrative, Las Casas notes that the diminutive of the name was first used by the Franciscans, who had trained Enriquillo as a child (260). This simple act of naming also undermines the binary distinction between colonizer and colonized, that is so central to the imperial project (Ashcroft 1999b: 23-27). The priest thereby creates Enriquillo as a subject, establishing him as the protagonist and center of analysis and not relegating him to the margins of concern as a prototype of a conquered race. In this way, Las Casas has employed the powerful postcolonial tool of affiliation, by which he reconnects the colonial narrative of life in the repartimiento with the social reality of indigenous Hispaniola, giving depth and strength to the history and traditions of Enriquillo’s people (Ashcroft 1999b: 105-107). So as to lend a greater sense of authenticity to his narrative, the priest is careful to provide geographical details about the region, such as the distances of the mountains from the ocean, which is the locus of Enriquillo’s saga.

18The Dominican demonstrates that he is conscious of this act of rebellion against his own people by immediately juxtaposing elements of the European discourse of imperialism, which, at first glance, seem humdrum and of no particular significance. Enriquillo is raised from the time of his childhood in a Franciscan monastery, in a Spanish town whose name is, ironically, ‘Vera Paz’ [‘True Peace’]. The priest further employs affiliation by supplying his readers with the Indian name of the province—Xaraguá—and engages in the process of acculturation by educating his Spanish audience as to the proper pronunciation of the name: ‘Xaraguá, la última sílaba aguda’ [‘Xaraguá, the last syllable acute’] (259). Readers learn something of the history of Hispaniola as they hear of King Behechio, who ruled in Xaraguá and was one of the five great indigenous kings of the island. Las Casas is careful to establish that these are the leaders of the native peoples, and that deference is to be shown both to the indigenous past and to the present-day social structure. King Behechio is an excellent example of the success of the missionaries in that he had been taught to read and write by the Franciscans, had learned Christian doctrine quite well, spoke Spanish well, and acted according to the dignity that he had learnt from the friars (259).

19Although this section of the text is undeniably the voice of the conqueror who feels a sense of cultural superiority, Las Casas is, in truth, subverting the imperialist discourse. His portrayal of King Behechio challenges several widely-held European prejudices regarding the Indians: (1) they were not rational beings and therefore were not human beings; (2) they were incapable of any kind of learning; (3) as such, they could never learn the Catholic faith and put it into practice; and, (4) they were lazy by nature and were incapable of constructing a productive society (Hanke 1935: 6-25). Typical descriptions of them read like lists of every human vice known:

Antonio de Villasante expressed the general opinion of the colonists when he emphatically deposed that neither Indian men nor women knew how to govern themselves as adequately as the rudest Spaniard. If allowed to run free, he declared, the Indians would revert to their former habits of idleness, nakedness, dancing, eating spiders and snakes, patronizing witch doctors, drunkenness, improvidence, and gluttony. (Hanke 1974: 9-10)

20Las Casas’s commentary debunks various aspects of this misguided thinking. King Behechio is the ruler of a productive and flourishing region of the island. Not only has he learned to read and write a European tongue, he also speaks Spanish very well. The priest notes that the king is ‘asaz bien doctrinado’ (‘well-versed in doctrine’), proving that he is not an irrational beast but rather an intelligent and sensitive convert to the faith, and verifying that, given a chance, the Indians will make good Catholics. Enriquillo is just such a citizen of this province.

  • 5 A caption of a 1505 woodblock engraving makes the observation of the Indians that: ‘They take for w (...)
  • 6 The same woodblock describes the people of the New World as being, ‘blue in color with square heads (...)
  • 7 In 1611 Covarrubias defines ‘grave’ as, ‘... vale autoridad y calidad, como una persona grave’ [‘it (...)

21Continuing with the story of Enriquillo, Las Casas explains that the young cacique has been trained in the very same religious doctrine, and that he married a young Indian woman—Lucía—of a noble and honored family, ‘en haz de la Sancta Madre Iglesia’ [‘in the bosom of Holy Mother Church’], as Christians (259). With this statement, the priest dispels the unfounded claim by Spanish colonists that the indigenous peoples were incapable of living stable family lives as Christians, and were only given to lewdness and carousing.5 Equally important is his observation that Enriquillo was a tall and ‘gentil hombre de cuerpo bien proporcionado y dispuesto’ [‘a good-sized man who was well-proportioned and fit’], which responds directly to medieval European myths of far-flung continents that were inhabited by the ‘monstrous races’ described by St. Augustine in the City of God.6 It is significant that the Dominican also notes that Enriquillo’s face was ‘ni hermosa ni fea’ [‘neither handsome nor ugly’] (260). By normalizing the Indian’s body (the body of the Other), the priest subverts the exoticizing tendencies of the colonial narrative by presenting Enriquillo as a ‘normal’ married man in the confines of his homeland. In Las Casas’ mind, the indigenous peoples should not be thought of as the objects of desire of titillated European imaginations, which would become so commonplace in the cultural production of colonial projects the world over. The priest’s assault on Spanish colonial practices keeps the reader’s attention focused on the issue at hand—one of justice, not of leisurely travel through the empire (Ashcroft 1999b: 94-94). He underlines this fact by next observing that Enriquillo’s face was that of an ‘hombre grave y severo’ [‘a serious and rigorous man’] (260). The Dominican exalts this native by using Spanish terms that denote great solemnity, prudence, and demonstrated ability to lead.7 In yet another proto-postcolonial attack against the colonizing and civilizing project of his countrymen, Las Casas destroys the European stereotype that the Indians are incapable of governing themselves and are unable to establish any form of commonwealth (Ashcroft 2001: 164-165).

22Las Casas next recounts that Enriquillo served the ‘mancebo’ Valenzuela, which is to say that Valenzuela is in the age of adolescence and still under the authority of his father, as opposed to the Indian, who is experienced, sage, and already a proven leader (Covarrubias 1989: 784). The priest remarks that daily, Enriquillo withstood his servitude and the injustices committed against him with patience, even to the point of having one of his only valuable possessions, a mare, taken from him by Valenzuela (259). In an even more outrageous affront, the youth attempted to violate, as Las Casas puts it, the sacrament of Enriquillo’s marriage and the person of his wife, and, because the cacique complained, the Spaniard had him beaten. The Dominican remarks that Enriquillo was, ‘para que se cumpliese el proverbio: agraviado y aporreado’ [‘so that the proverb might be fulfilled, maligned and beaten’] (260). It should be noted that much of Las Casas’ description casts Enriquillo as a Christological figure who is unjustly mistreated and endures his suffering patiently.

23Enriquillo’s odyssey was just beginning. After failing to dissuade Valenzuela from his evil actions, the Indian next went to Governor Pedro de Vadillo, who threatened to imprison the cacique or put him in the stocks if he complained any further of Valenzuela (260). In a side comment, the Dominican remarks that this was the treatment that the indigenous peoples always received from the justices and ministers of the king in the Indies (Ibid.). Undaunted, Enriquillo went to the highest civil authorities in the Indies, the Audiencia Real, or appellate court, and the Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias, or Authority for Indian Affairs, where he was given a letter of support and told to return to the governor. The Dominican notes that this is the same procedure that is followed in Spain, where those who are maligned are given letters and sent back to their assailants, which is exactly what happened to Enriquillo when he returned to Vadillo and Valenzuela (Ibid.). Las Casas makes the scathing comment that the Spaniards, with no fear of God or the law, more frequently preferred to give the Indians beatings and whippings rather than food, consolation, and rest. Enriquillo willingly suffered these same indignities at the hands of Valenzuela again, even though, the priest quips, ‘con más justa razón pudiera ser señor suyo el indio’ [‘with greater reason, the Indian could have been his lord’] (Ibid.). This, of course, is the height of daring: for a Spaniard to declare that an inferior native would be capable or worthy of being the master of any European, under any circumstances, was unthinkable. And yet, Las Casas now begins his even more egregious offense of defending rebellion itself.

24Enriquillo now takes flight with a small number of his fellow Indians, ‘confiado en su justicia y en su tierra, que era áspera’ [‘trusting in his justice and in his land, which was rugged’] (261). The priest explains that the cacique determined that he would no longer serve his enemy, nor would he send any other Indian to the Spaniards; he would defend himself in his own land. Las Casas now makes one of the key points of his defense: ‘esto llamaron los españoles y llaman hoy alzarse y ser rebelde Enriquillo, y rebeldes y alzados los indios, que con verdad hablando, no es otra cosa que huir de sus crueles enemigos, que los matan y consumen’ [‘this the Spaniards called and call today Enriquillo’s uprising and being a rebel, and the Indians rising up and being rebellious, which, properly speaking, is nothing other than fleeing from their cruel enemies, who kill and consume them’] (261). When Valenzuela arrived with a troop to arrest the Indians, Enriquillo confronted him with his armed men, telling Valenzuela that he should turn back. According to Las Casas, the ‘mozo’ [‘adolescent’] Valenzuela, who believed the Indians to be slaves and despised them more than ‘estiércol de la plaza’ [‘excrement of the town square’], began to call him ‘perro’ [‘dog’] and other wretched names (Ibid.). Las Casas the attorney records these happenings as a way of invoking the Law of Burgos of 1512, in which it was expressly stated that, ‘no one may beat or whip or call an Indian dog (perro) or any other name unless it is his proper name’ (as quoted by Hanke 1959: 15).

25The foolhardy young Spaniard rushes upon the Indians, however they only kill one or two, hitting the others over the head (261). Enriquillo orders his men not to follow, proving that his use of force is defensive and not offensive. Once again, the Dominican demonstrates that the ‘savage’ is well versed in Catholic doctrine, which he has either learned from the Franciscans or knows by the light of his natural reason. In this case, the priest wishes his readers to see that Enriquillo has complied with the tenets of the Just War Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas, and which were well known to Las Casas both as a theologian and as a lawyer (Friede 1971: 164-165). Las Casas underscores the fact that, after his defeat at the hands of the natives, Valenzuela returns to San Juan de la Maguana, ‘su soberbia lastimada, puesto que no curada’ [‘his pride wounded, although not cured’], exposing the grievous ‘deadly sin’ by which the arrogant youth is afflicted (261). Finally, a force of some seventy or eighty men is sent by the Audiencia and meets a similar fate, with there being, once again, only a few Spaniards killed by the natives.

  • 8 For an excellent analysis of the entire debate, see Hanke 1974.

26Las Casas now mounts the most powerful section of his defense of the Indians against the Spaniards. He states that news of Enriquillo’s victories spread throughout the island, and that Indians from all over flee from the service and oppression of the Spaniards to join the refuge and banner of Enriquillo’s cause, for he is a ‘castillo roquero inexpugnable’ [an ‘indestructible castle made of rock’] (261). The priest compares the Indian to David, whom many joined in fleeing the tyranny of Saul, as one reads in chapter 22 of the Book of Kings (Ibid.). The Dominican has now conferred incontrovertible justification upon Enriquillo’s actions, for, as was demanded of every Medieval and Renaissance author, he has invoked one of the supreme cultural authorities—in this case, the highest authority of them all, the Word of God itself. At least in terms of canon and civil law, Las Casas has now subverted colonial logic by applying the Western epistemology and discourse of religious justification to the cause of the Other (Ashcroft 1999a: 167). By doing so, the Dominican has moved the Indians from their position of marginality to one of inclusion—an act that was to be fiercely contested in the celebrated disputation at the royal court in Valladolid between Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1550-1551).8

27Las Casas reiterates the fact that Enriquillo taught his men how to defend themselves against the Spaniards, adding pointedly that, ‘nunca permitió que algunos de los que a él se venían saliese a hacer saltos ni matar español alguno, sino solamente pretendió defender a sí e a los suyos de los españoles’ [‘never permitted that any of those who came to him should attack or kill any Spaniard, but only permitted them to defend themselves and their families against the Spaniards’] (262). At this point in the chapter, the Dominican states the obvious: ‘Cuán justa guerra contra los españoles él y ellos tuviesen y se lo sometiesen y lo eligiesen por señor y rey los indios que a él venían’ [‘how just a war he and the Indians who subjected themselves to him and elected him as lord and king should (have been judged) to have had’] (Ibid.). The priest once again points out that the Holy Scriptures prove the justice of the natives’ cause, for it is just like the sacred history found in the Book of Maccabees. In yet another subversive stroke that would later become a powerful postcolonial strategy, Las Casas recalls one of the greatest figures of Spanish history—Don Pelayo, the immortal Christian hero of the Battle of Covadonga (ca. 718-725)—, who was the initiator of the Reconquest, the great struggle for freedom waged by his own countrymen against the Muslim invaders of Spain (711-1492). Las Casas observes that Enriquillo and his followers could rightfully be inflicting far worse damages upon the Spanish tyrants for having treated them cruelly, killed many of them, diminished their population, and usurped their lands, as Don Pelayo had justly done against Spain’s enemies (262).

28The Dominican theologian and jurist adds a critical element to his argument: self-defense and recovery of what has been unjustly taken is a natural right of peoples and is a form of justice—a theological truth defended long ago by St. Thomas Aquinas. The lawyer refutes the lame assertion made by some colonists that the Indians had no right to take action against any Spaniard, but could only appeal to the king of Spain, the ‘señor natural’ [‘rightful Lord’], for restitution, noting that the native kings and rulers of the island never recognized the rightful authority of the Spanish king, and were subjected to every kind of outrage from the moment of the Spanish arrival (262). He boldly declares that, ‘nunca hobo en esta isla jamás justicia, ni jamás se hizo en desagraviar los indios vecinos y moradores della, y, dondequiera que falta justicia se la puede hacer a sí mismo el opreso y agraviado’ [‘there was never justice on this island, and its local Indians and inhabitants were never indemnified, and, wherever justice is absent, the oppressed and injured can exact it for him or herself’] (Ibid.). Las Casas the lawyer continues his legal defense by appealing to jurisprudential tradition: ‘Esta es maxima de los juristas y la dicta y enseña la razón natural’ [‘This is a maxim of jurists, and natural reason declares and teaches it’] (Ibid.).

29Las Casas’ case does not depart entirely from the colonial discourse, as he concludes by reasserting the authority of the Crown and the Church:

Por lo dicho no se deroga el principado supremo y universal de los reyes de Castilla sobre todo este orbe, concedido por la Sede apostólica, si en él entraren y dél usaren como entrar deben y dél usar, porque todo ha de tener orden y se ha de guiar, no por lo que a cada uno se le antojare, sino por reglas de la razón. [‘Therefore, the supreme and universal primacy of the kings of Castile over all the earth, as granted by the Apostolic See, is not annulled, if they become involved in it and use it as they should become involved in it and should use it, because everything must have an order and be guided, not by whatever one wishes, but rather by rules of reason’]. (262-263)

30Still, he has argued powerfully that the rule of the Crown is central in the proper administration of the Indies and the king’s subjects who live there. Once again, the priest’s training as an attorney shines forth in his use of the term ‘derogar’ [‘annul’], which is frequently used in a legal context in Spanish and is defined by Covarrubias only by citing its legal equivalent in Latin (1989: 452). In particular, Las Casas has achieved his goal of exposing evils, identifying their perpetrators, and reminding the Crown of its original mission in the New World: to bring the justice and love of the Christian Gospel to those who lived in ignorance of it.

31While Chapter 125 of Book III of the Historia is but one miniscule section of the massive Lascasian corpus, it does provide readers with a concise example of the priest’s abilities as a proto-postcolonial thinker in an age of aggressive Spanish colonial expansion. While not trained in postcolonial reasoning or discourse production, the Dominican is a perfect exemplar of a proto-postcolonial turn from being a slaver of Indians to a saver of Indians, who employed every aspect of his former life and training to destroy what had once been his own way of life. As Chapter 125 demonstrates, the Las Casas who had grown up with the slave trade as a boy, mastered Latin, and studied civil and canon law and theology, appears in the structuring of the argumentation, extreme attention to detail, choice of vocabulary, citation of biblical and Classical authorities, recollection of Spanish history, and adduction of legal arguments in virtually every paragraph. Yet, in a fascinating twist, Las Casas turns against the evildoers among his own countrymen, smashing every intellectual attempt to justify the abuses of the Spanish colonial project in the New World, and preferring, rather, to advocate for the good of all human beings, no matter what their race or language. Rightly is Las Casas remembered as the ‘Defender of the Indians’; chapter 125 of Book III of the Historia substantiates the assertion that he might also be justly hailed as one of the greatest proto-postcolonial thinkers and writers of the Spanish colonial age.

Bibliographie

Works Cited

Aquinas, Thomas. De Regno. Trans. Gerald B. Phelan. Rev. I. Thomas Eschmann, O.P. Joseph Kenny, O.P., ed. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1949.

Aquinas, Thomas. Selected Political Writings. Ed.A.P. D’Entrèves. Trans. J. G. Dawson. Oxford: Blackwell, 1959.

Ashcroft, Bill. Post-Colonial Transformations. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Ashcroft, Bill, et al. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. 1991. New York: Routledge, 1999a.

Ashcroft, Bill, et al. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies. 1998. New York: Routledge, 1999b.

Covarrubias, Sebastián de. Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (1611 y 1674). Martín de Riquer, ed. Barcelona: Editorial Alta Fulla, 1989.

Elliott, J. H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830. 2006. New Haven: 2007.

Dutto, Louis Anthony. The Life of Bartolomé de Las Casas. Saint Louis: B. Herder, 1902.

Friede, Juan. ‘Las Casas and Indigenism in the Sixteenth Century’, in Friede and Keen, 127-234.

Friede, Juan, and Benjamin Keen, eds. Bartolomé de Las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work. De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971.

Giménez Fernández, Manuel. ‘Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Biographical Sketch’, in Friede and Keen, 67-125.

Hanke, Lewis. All Mankind Is One: A Study of the Disputation Between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda on the Religious and Intellectual Capacity of the American Indians. De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974.

Hanke, Lewis. Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959.

Hanke, Lewis. The First Social Experiments in America: A Study in the Development of Spanish Indian Policy in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press, 1935.

Jay, Felix. Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474-1566) in the Pages of Father Antonio de Remesal. Lewiston, NY. Edward Mellen Press, 2002.

Kagan, Richard L. Students and Society in Early Modern Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.

Las Casas, Bartolomé de. Historia de las Indias. 3 tomos. 1951. México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1981.

Las Casas, Bartolomé de. The Only Way. Helen Rand Parish, ed. Trans. Francis Patrick Sullivan, S.J. Mahwah, NJ. Paulist Press, 1992.

Macnutt, Francis Augustus. Bartholomew De Las Casas: His Life, His Apostolate, and His Writings. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1909.

Parish Rand, Helen, and Harold E. Weidman, S.J. ‘The Correct Birthdate of Bartolomé de las Casas’. Hispanic American Historical Review 56 (1976): 385-403.

Sullivan, Francis Patrick, S.J. Indian Freedom: The Cause of Bartolomé de las Casas, 1484-1566. Kansas City, MO. Sheed & Ward, 1997.

Thomas, Hugh. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

Wagner, Henry Raup and Parish Rand, Helen. The Life and Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967.

Notes

1 Rand Parish, Helen and Harold E. Weidman, S.J. ‘The Correct Birthdate of Bartolomé de las Casas’. Hispanic American Historical Review 56 (1976): 385-403.

2 All textual references are to the Historia de las Indias, ed. Lewis Hanke (México, D.F. : Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1981). All translations from the original Spanish text are my own.

3 It is significant to note that ‘Enriquillo’, the hero of Las Casas’ narrative, became, over time, the prime exemplar of the noble Indian of the Dominican Republic. Thus, we find that he is also the protagonist and hero of Manuel de Jesús Galván’s great national novel of the Dominican Republic, Enriquillo (1879), which also bears his name.

4 Aquinas, along with Aristotle, defines tyranny clearly: ‘If an unjust government is carried on by one man alone, who seeks his own benefit from his rule and not the good of the multitude subject to him, such a ruler is called a tyrant—a word derived from strength—because he oppresses by might instead of ruling by justice’ (Aquinas 1949: De Regno I.2.11).

5 A caption of a 1505 woodblock engraving makes the observation of the Indians that: ‘They take for wives whom they first meet, and in all this they have no rule’ (as quoted by Hanke 1959: 5).

6 The same woodblock describes the people of the New World as being, ‘blue in color with square heads’ (as quoted by Hanke 1959: 4).

7 In 1611 Covarrubias defines ‘grave’ as, ‘... vale autoridad y calidad, como una persona grave’ [‘it means authority and quality, as of a ‘grave’ person’] (1989: 657).

8 For an excellent analysis of the entire debate, see Hanke 1974.

Auteur

Saint Peter’s College
A Roman Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus since 1976, was ordained in 1988. A native of Palisades Park, New Jersey, U.S.A., Father DeStephano was awarded his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Spanish from Fordham University. As part of his Jesuit formation, he earned four degrees in Theology at the University of Toronto: Bachelor of Sacred Theology, Master of Divinity, Master of Theology, and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology. Following studies in Theology, Father DeStephano continued his education at Harvard University, where he was awarded his master’s and doctoral degrees in Romance Languages and Literatures, with specialization in Medieval and Golden-Age Spanish Literature. Currently, Father DeStephano is Chairman and Professor of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, and Director and Professor of the Asian Studies Program at Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.A.

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