Editing Bartolomé de las Casas (section)

== Legacy ==
[[File:DelasCasasParraDF.JPG|thumb|Fray Bartolomé de las Casas depicted as Savior of the Indians in a later painting by [[Felix Parra]]]]
[[File:BartolomeNoreñaDF.JPG|thumb|''Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, convertiendo a una familia azteca'', by Miguel Noreña]]
Las Casas's legacy has been highly controversial. In the years following his death, his ideas became taboo in the Spanish realm, and he was seen as a nearly heretical extremist. The accounts written by his enemies [[Francisco López de Gómara|Lopez de Gómara]] and [[Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés|Oviedo]] were widely read and published in Europe. As the influence of the Spanish Empire was displaced by that of other European powers, Las Casas's accounts were utilized as political tools to justify incursions into Spanish colonies. This historiographic phenomenon has been referred to by some historians as the "[[Black legend (Spain)|Black Legend]]", a tendency by mostly [[Protestantism|Protestant]] authors to portray Spanish [[Catholicism]] and colonialism in the worst possible light.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Keen|1971|pp=46–48}}</ref>

Opposition to Las Casas reached its climax in historiography with Spanish right-wing, nationalist historians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries constructing a pro-Spanish [[White Legend]], arguing that the Spanish Empire was benevolent and just and denying any adverse consequences of Spanish colonialism.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Keen|1971|pp=50–52}}</ref><ref name="Comas passim">{{harvcoltxt|Comas|1971|loc=''passim''}}</ref> Spanish pro-imperial historians such as [[Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo|Menéndez y Pelayo]], [[Ramón Menéndez Pidal|Menéndez Pidal]], and J. Pérez de Barrada depicted Las Casas as a madman, describing him as a "[[paranoia|paranoic]]" and a [[monomania]]c given to exaggeration,<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Comas|1971|pp=520–521}}</ref> and as a traitor towards his own nation.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Comas|1971|pp=524–525}}</ref> Menéndez Pelayo also accused Las Casas of having been instrumental in suppressing the publication of [[Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda]]'s "Democrates Alter" (also called ''Democrates Secundus'') out of spite, but other historians find that to be unlikely since it was rejected by the theologians of both [[Alcalá de Henares|Alcalá]] and [[Salamanca]], who were unlikely to be influenced by Las Casas.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Comas|1971|p=515}}</ref>

=== Criticisms ===
{{See also|Black legend (Spain)}}
Las Casas has also often been accused of exaggerating the atrocities he described in the Indies, some scholars holding that the initial population figures given by him were too high, which would make the population decline look worse than it actually was, and that epidemics of European disease were the prime cause of the population decline, not violence and exploitation. Demographic studies such as those of colonial Mexico by [[Sherburne F. Cook]] in the mid-20th century suggested that the decline in the first years of the conquest was indeed drastic, ranging between 80 and 90%, due to many different causes but all ultimately traceable to the arrival of the Europeans.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Keen|1971|pp=44–47}}</ref> The overwhelming cause was the disease introduced by the Europeans. Historians have also noted that exaggeration and inflation of numbers were the norm in writing in 16th-century accounts, and both contemporary detractors and supporters of Las Casas were guilty of similar exaggerations.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Comas|1971|pp=502–504}}</ref><ref>{{harvcoltxt|Wagner|Parish|1967|p=245}}</ref>

The Dominican friars [[Antonio de Montesinos]] and [[Pedro de Córdoba]] had reported extensive violence already in the first decade of the colonization of the Americas, and throughout the conquest of the Americas, there were reports of abuse of the natives from friars, priests, and ordinary citizens, and many massacres of indigenous people were reported in full by those who perpetrated them. Even some of Las Casas's enemies, such as [[Toribio de Benavente Motolinia]], reported many gruesome atrocities committed against the Indians by the colonizers. All in all, modern historians tend to disregard the numerical figures given by Las Casas, but they maintain that his general picture of a violent and abusive conquest represented reality.<ref name="Comas passim" />

One persistent point of criticism has been Las Casas's repeated suggestions of replacing Indian with African slave labor. Even though he regretted that position later in his life and included an apology in his ''History of the Indies'',<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Comas|1971|p=}}</ref> some later criticism held him responsible for the institution of the [[Atlantic slave trade|transatlantic slave trade]]. One detractor, the abolitionist [[David Walker (abolitionist)|David Walker]], called Las Casas a "wretch... stimulated by sordid avarice only," holding him responsible for the enslavement of thousands of Africans.<ref name="Walker's Appeal" /> Other historians, such as [[John Fiske (philosopher)|John Fiske]] writing in 1900, denied that Las Casas's suggestions affected the development of the slave trade. [[Benjamin Keen]] likewise did not consider Las Casas to have had any substantial impact on the slave trade, which was well in place before he began writing.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Keen|1971|p=39}}</ref> That view is contradicted by [[Sylvia Wynter]], who argued that Las Casas's 1516 Memorial was the direct cause of Charles V granting permission in 1518 to transport the first 4,000 African slaves to [[Jamaica]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Wynter|1984a|pp=25–26}}</ref>

A growing ''corpus'' of scholarship has sought to deconstruct and reassess the role of Las Casas in Spanish colonialism. Daniel Castro, in his ''Another Face of Empire'' (2007), takes on such a task. He argues that he was more of a politician than a humanitarian and that his liberation policies were always combined with schemes to make colonial extraction of resources from the natives more efficient. He also argues that Las Casas failed to realize that by seeking to replace indigenous spirituality with Christianity, he was undertaking a religious colonialism that was more intrusive than the physical one.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Castro|2007|p=}}</ref> The responses to his work are varied. Some claim that Castro's portrayal of Las Casas had an air of anachronism.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Boruchoff|2008|p=}}</ref><ref>{{harvcoltxt|Rubiés|2007|p=}}</ref> Others have agreed with Castro's deconstruction of Las Casas as a nuanced and contradictory historical figure.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Krippner |first1=James |title=Review of Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism |journal=The Americas |date=2007 |volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=309–311 |doi=10.1353/tam.2007.0152 |jstor=30139119 |s2cid=144324584 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30139119 |issn=0003-1615}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Clayton |first1=Lawrence A. |title=Review of Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism |journal=The International History Review |date=2008 |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=355–357 |jstor=41220110 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41220110 |issn=0707-5332}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Heath |first1=Charles | title=Daniel Castro, Another Face of Imperialism: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. 234 pp. ISBN: 978-082233939-7. $21.95.  |journal=Itinerario |date=July 2008 |volume=32 |issue=2 |pages=158–160 |doi=10.1017/S0165115300002151|s2cid=162744994 }}</ref>

=== Cultural legacy ===
[[File:Monumento a Bartolomé de las Casas (Sevilla).JPG|thumbnail|Monument to Bartolomé de las Casas in [[Seville]], Spain.]]

In 1848, Ciudad de San Cristóbal, then the capital of the Mexican state of [[Chiapas]], was renamed [[San Cristóbal de Las Casas]] in honor of its first bishop. His work is a particular inspiration behind the work of the Las Casas Institute at [[Blackfriars, Oxford|Blackfriars Hall]], Oxford.<ref name="Las Casas Institute" /> He is also often cited as a predecessor of the [[liberation theology]] movement. Bartolomé is [[Calendar of saints (Church of England)|remembered]] in the [[Church of England]] with a [[Commemoration (Anglicanism)|commemoration]] on [[July 20|20 July]],<ref>{{cite web|title=The Calendar|url=https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/churchs-year/calendar|access-date=2021-03-27|website=The Church of England|language=en}}</ref> on 18 July, and at the [[Calendar of Saints (Lutheran)|Evangelical Lutheran Church]] on 17 July. In the [[Catholic Church]], the Dominicans introduced his cause for [[canonization]] in 1976.<ref name="McBrien" /> In 2002 the church began the process for his [[beatification]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.la-croix.com/Archives/2002-10-03/Ouverture-de-la-cause-de-beatification-de-Bartolome-de-La-Casas-_NP_-2002-10-03-166954|title=Ouverture de la cause de béatification de Bartolomé de La Casas|newspaper=La Croix|date=October 3, 2002|via=www.la-croix.com|access-date=6 July 2020|archive-date=7 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707081658/https://www.la-croix.com/Archives/2002-10-03/Ouverture-de-la-cause-de-beatification-de-Bartolome-de-La-Casas-_NP_-2002-10-03-166954|url-status=dead}}</ref>

He was among the first to develop a view of unity among humankind in the New World, stating that "All people of the world are humans," and that they had a natural right to [[liberty]] – a combination of [[Thomism|Thomist]] rights philosophy with [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustinian]] [[political theology]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Tierney|1997|pp=272–274}}</ref> In this capacity, an [[ecumenical]] human rights institute located in [[San Cristóbal de las Casas]], the Centro Fray Bartolomé de las Casas de Derechos Humanos, was established by Bishop [[Samuel Ruiz]] in 1989.<ref name="Frayba" /><ref>Michael Tangeman, ''Mexico at the Crossroads: Politics, the Church, and the Poor''. Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books 1995, p. 72.</ref>
[[File:Residencial Las Casas en Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico.jpg|thumb|left|Residencial Las Casas in Santurce, San Juan]]
[[Residencial Las Casas]] in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico is named after Las Casas.

He is also featured on the [[Guatemalan quetzal]] one centavo coin (Q0.01).<ref>{{cite web|title=Bills and Currency in Current Circulation|url=http://www.banguat.gob.gt/inc/ver.asp?id=/en/currency%20and%20bills/Monedas%20y%20Billetes%20Translation.htm&e=18108|publisher=Banco de Guatemala|access-date=12 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923100258/http://www.banguat.gob.gt/inc/ver.asp?id=%2Fen%2Fcurrency%20and%20bills%2FMonedas%20y%20Billetes%20Translation.htm&e=18108|archive-date=September 23, 2013|url-status=live}}</ref>

The small town of [[Lascassas, Tennessee]], in the United States has also been named after him.<ref name="school">[http://www.les.rcs.k12.tn.us/Welcome.htm A Glimpse at the History of Lascassas School] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120211155113/http://www.les.rcs.k12.tn.us/Welcome.htm |date=February 11, 2012 }}, Lascassas School website, accessed April 19, 2008.</ref>