Another face of empire: Bartolome de Las Casas and the restoration of the Indies
Description
In 1514, at the age of thirty, the Spanish cleric Bartolome de Las Casas underwent a profound spiritual transformation that caused him to 'condemn the repartimientos or encomiendas as unjust and tyrannical and to leave his Indians and renounce them to the governor.' From that moment on he emerged as the most unrelenting and abrasive defender of the Indians in the history of Latin America. Las Casas' legacy is complex and difficult to evaluate in absolute terms. As a uniquely multifaceted individual, Las Casas is remembered as a priest, writer, politician, theologian, prophet and jurist among other things. For his efforts on behalf of the Indians, Las Casas is variously depicted as a savior of the Indians, an apostolic prototype of love, piously fanatic, the creator of the 'Black Legend' of the Spanish conquest, or as an 'authentic expression of the true Spanish conscience.' This study of Las Casas attempts to re-interpret his life and work from the perspective that he was a benevolent and paternalistic representative of Spanish imperialism in America rather than the unblemished larger-than-life hero depicted by his admirers. Perhaps one of the most revealing and significant examples of the Las Casas' role as another face of Spanish imperialism can be found in the similarity between some of his early proposals, and those put in practice by viceroy Francisco de Toledo in Peru in the late sixteenth-century. Whereas Las Casas had suggested his policies to the crown as a benevolent form of systematizing the exploitation of the land and its inhabitants and as a measure to prevent the decimation of the Indians, Toledo's application of his own policies were designed to increase the imperial sphere of influence and while they resulted in a considerable increment in profits for the crown, they also brought about a significant decrease of the indigenous population In order for Las Casas to be fully understood, he must be seen not only in the context of defender of the Amerindians, but as a full, active and willing participant in the imperialist domination of the New World by Spain, and perhaps the best known representative of benevolent Spanish imperialism in our continent