This week in Christian history: William Penn arrested, Bartolomé de Las Casas stands for Native Americans

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, August 13, 2023

Bartolomé de Las Casas denounces mistreatment of Native Americans – Aug. 15, 1514

Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566), a Dominican friar best known for his advocating for the rights of Native Americans in the Spanish Empire. | Public Domain

This week marks the anniversary of when Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spanish Dominican friar, preached a sermon that denounced the mistreatment of Latin America’s indigenous population.

A historian and missionary who supported the Spanish conquest of the Americas, de Las Casas came to oppose the Encomienda system that imposed forced labor on Native Americans.

“From that day until his death in 1566 he dedicated his life to building a movement to end the injustice of Spanish imperial rule over the Indians,” wrote history professor David M. Traboulay at the College of Staten Island in 2015.

“… the struggle for justice for the indigenous peoples of America by Fray Las Casas and members of his movement is significant and exemplary not only to understand the European discovery and conquest of the indigenous peoples of America at the dawn of modern history, but also to throw much needed light on how we should build new institutions to strengthen the ideals of human rights in our contemporary globalized world.”