Watch actor Benjamin Bratt (Quechua), read the words of Dominican Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish Bishop who in 1551 wrote A History of the Destruction of Hispanola, in which he describes the atrocities he witnessed in the Indes under Columbus rule. Fr. Bartolomé, (1484-1566) spent 50 years of his life actively fighting slavery and the violent colonial abuse of indigenous peoples. He is seen as one of the first Europeans to advocate for universal human rights. Bartolomé de Las Casas was a Dominican Friar who was among the first colonists to arrive in the West Indes from Spain. He was initially a participant in, and then vehemently opposed the brutalities committed against the indigenous Tainos, Arawaks, and Caribs at the hands of Columbus during his reign as Governor of the Isles. In 1515, Fr. Bartolomé gave up his Indian slaves and encomienda, and advocated, before King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, on behalf of rights for the natives. In his early writings, he advocated the use of African slaves instead of Natives in the West-Indian colonies; consequently, he has been criticized for being partly responsible for the beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade. Later in life, he retracted those early views as he came to see all forms of slavery as equally wrong. #HumanRights #IndigenousPeoplesDay #ColumbusDay #NativeAmericanDay #History #ChristopherColumbus
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 15:29:53 +0000