I am Bartolomé de Las Casas, and I am a very important man in the history of the Americas, and the natives of its land. My work in the natives’ freedom gave me the name “Defender of the Indians,” and, by some, was called the “father of anti-imperialism and anti-racism.”
I was born in 1474, in Seville and my family was closely tied to the family of Christopher Columbus. Because of this, I went to the New World when I was rather young, and I did so dozens of times throughout my life. As a young boy, I first-hand saw the terrible conditions that the Native Americans were being forced into. I was immediately against it, and did everything I could to get them their rights.
At around 1510 I became ordained as a priest in Santo Domingo, and was the first priest to be ordained in the Americas. I believed that the enslavement the Natives were enduring was not only a crime, but was also a mortal sin in the eyes of the church, though I was relatively indifferent to the exact same treatment of the African Americans. In my work and speeches against the enslavement of the natives I sited both the bible, and the law, and once said “All the world is Human.” In 1516 I went back to Spain and pleaded the Natives’ case with King Ferdinand V., but when I got there I learned he had died, which pushed back my plans to colonize a group of Natives.
When I was finally able to, I founded a model colony in Santo Domingo, but the project failed horribly. The Natives became the target of a corrective
