Editing Bartolomé de las Casas (section)

=== Background and arrival in the New World ===
[[File:Bartolomé de las Casas Regionum 355385740 MG 8829 A3-f1.tif|thumb| Depiction of Spanish atrocities committed in the conquest of [[Cuba]] in Las Casas's  ''Brevisima relación de la destrucción de las Indias''. The print was made by two Flemish artists who had fled the Southern Netherlands because of their [[Dutch Revolt#Protestantism|Protestant]] faith: [[Joos van Winghe]] was the designer and [[Theodor de Bry]] the engraver. ]]

Bartolomé de las Casas was born in [[Seville]]' on 11 November 1484.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Parish|Weidman|1976|p=385}}</ref> For centuries, Las Casas's birthdate was believed to be 1474; however, in the 1970s, scholars conducting archival work demonstrated this to be an error, after uncovering in the ''[[Archivo General de Indias]]'' records of a contemporary lawsuit that demonstrated he was born a decade later than had been supposed.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Parish|Weidman|1976|loc=''passim''}}</ref> Subsequent biographers and authors have generally accepted and reflected this revision.<ref>e.g. {{harvcoltxt|Saunders|2005|p=162}}</ref> His father, Pedro de las Casas, a merchant, descended from one of the families that had migrated from France to found the Christian [[Seville]]; his family also spelled the name ''Casaus''.<ref name="Wagner Parish 1967 p1–3">{{harvcoltxt|Wagner|Parish|1967|pp=1–3}}</ref> According to one biographer, his family was of ''[[converso]]'' heritage,<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Giménez Fernández|1971|p=67}}</ref> although others refer to them as ancient Christians who migrated from France.<ref name="Wagner Parish 1967 p1–3" /> Following the testimony of Las Casas's biographer Antonio de Remesal, tradition has it that Las Casas studied a ''licentiate'' at [[Salamanca]], but Las Casas does not say so in his own writings.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Wagner|Parish|1967|p=4}}</ref>

Las Casas's first encounter with Indigenous peoples happened before he even sailed to the Americas. In his ''Historia de las Indias'', he wrote of [[Christopher Columbus]]' return to [[Seville]], in 1493.<ref>{{cite book |last1=de las Casas |first1=Bartolomé  |editor1-last=A. Clayton |editor1-first=Lawrence |editor2-last=M. Lantigua |editor2-first=David |title=Bartolomé de las Casas and the defense of Amerindian rights : a brief history with documents |date=2020 |publisher=The University of Alabama Press |location=Tuscaloosa |isbn=978-0-8173-9285-7 |pages=34–35}}</ref> Las Casas recorded having seen "seven Indians" in the entourage of Christopher Columbus, being exhibited in the vicinity of the Iglesia de San Nicolás de Bari, along with "beautiful green parrots, vibrant in color" and Indigenous artifacts.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|de las Casas|2020|pp=34–35}}</ref> Pedro de Las Casas, Bartolomé's merchant father, left in Columbus' second expedition. Upon his return, in 1499, Pedro de Las Casas brought to his son "a young Amerinidian."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Von Vacano |first1=Diego |title=Las Casas and the Birth of Race |journal=History of Political Thought |date=Autumn 2012 |volume=33 |issue=3 |page=407 |jstor=26225794 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26225794}}</ref>

Three years later, in 1502, Las Casas immigrated with his father to the island of [[Hispaniola]], on the expedition of [[Nicolás de Ovando]]. Las Casas became a ''[[hacienda|hacendado]]'' and slave owner, receiving a piece of land in the province of [[Cibao]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Giménez Fernández|1971|p=72}}</ref> He participated in slave raids and military expeditions against the native [[Taíno]] population of Hispaniola.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Wagner|Parish|1967|p=5}}</ref> In 1506, he returned to Spain and completed his studies of canon law at Salamanca. That same year, he was ordained a deacon and then traveled to Rome, where he was ordained a [[secular priest]] in 1507.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Orique|2017|pp=13}}</ref>

In September 1510, a group of [[Dominican order|Dominican]] friars arrived in [[Santo Domingo]] led by [[Pedro de Córdoba]]; appalled by the injustices they saw committed by the slave owners against the Indians, they decided to deny slave owners the right to [[confession (religion)|confession]]. Las Casas was among those denied confession for this reason.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Wagner|Parish|1967|p=11}}</ref> In December 1511, a Dominican preacher Fray [[Antonio de Montesinos]] preached a fiery sermon that implicated the colonists in the [[genocide]] of the native peoples. He is said to have preached: "Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dealt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? Wars in which you have destroyed such an infinite number of them by homicides and slaughters never heard of before. Why do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted, without giving them enough to eat or curing them of the sicknesses they incur from the excessive labor you give them, and they die, or rather you kill them, in order to extract and acquire gold every day."<ref name="Sanderlin" /> Las Casas himself argued against the Dominicans in favor of the justice of the [[encomienda]]. The colonists, led by [[Diego Columbus]], dispatched a complaint against the Dominicans to the King, and the Dominicans were recalled from Hispaniola.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Wagner|Parish|1967|pp=8–9}}</ref><ref>{{harvcoltxt|Wynter|1984a|pp=29–30}}</ref>