Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (review)

Daniel Castro has composed a highly readable and well-thought-out study of Bartolomé de las Casas in the context of his times. It constitutes a nice dose of reality about a figure who, even today, generates sharp points of view. Castro notes that Las Casas's accomplishments were rarely as grand as his aspirations and that his supposedly benign plans for the natives did not permit them autonomy or their own path to conversion. "Although he claimed to act for the oppressed, he rarely acted with them, and there is no evidence that at any time he worked with the natives to transform them from passive objects into active subjects responsible for transforming their own fate" (5).

While Las Casas's reputation lies on his supposed efforts to obtain better treatment for the Indians, it is a rare author who makes a concerted effort to assess the practical outcome of his work among them. Also often overlooked by students of Las Casas is his deep commitment to convert the natives to Christianity. "From his writings and practice it is apparent that as a Spaniard he fully shared his compatriots' belief that the dissemination of the Christian faith was their divinely ordained mission" (7). Las Casas never appeared to have grasped the inherent contradiction of seeking to impose a foreign religious system on cultures that already possessed well-defined theological beliefs and carefully constructed cosmologies. "It was not until the waning years of his life that his deeds and words raised the possibility of Spain's withdrawal or the renunciation of its possessions in the New World" (11).

The book is divided into a substantial introduction, six chapters whose titles do not always immediately reveal their topics, and a conclusion. The bibliography is extensive, but does not cite any archival materials. It does, however, note many published chronicles and sets of original documents.

Las Casas and his fellow religious reformers sometimes took on the same behavior that they denounced among the colonists: they rarely consulted with the natives about matters that concerned them. Consequently, the native peoples were largely subject to the views of their supposed clerical protectors. "The indigenous people were rarely, if ever, consulted or allowed to express their opinion about matters that concerned them" (33). With negative attitudes toward the Indians so pervasive among the colonists and officials, Las Casas felt that one of his major duties was to emphasize the Indians' spiritual and physical virtues.

That the reformers ultimately relied on the crown to enact legislation to ameliorate the plight of the natives constituted a definite flaw in their system, for the king could not afford to alter the existing system for fear of incurring significant financial losses. A good example of this problem is the Laws of Burgos, which provided no provisions for enforcement. "In his early proposals, Las Casas showed almost a total disregard for the cultural integrity of those he was supposed to protect. In these early memorials, he seemed indifferent to the way in which converting them to Christianity, moving them into reducciones, or making them subjects of Spain might have affected their traditional way of life" (76).

Castro points out that one of the greatest ironies about Las Casas's career is that, although he was largely devoted to the cause of the Indians, during his nearly forty years in the Americas he rarely had direct contact with them. Further, Las Casas never learned any native languages, which made him dependent on interpreters for his communication with the indigenous peoples. He had little understanding of the numerous social distinctions among the Indians. "However, Las Casas's inability to understand the complexity of class differentiations among the natives lent support to the creation of a dominant native class...