A Chicano Perspective on Los Quiñientos Años Claremont College - Catholic Campus Ministry

December 3, 1992

by Fr. Juan Romero

An English teacher may explain the use of adverbs by using the visual aid of a log. The where or how [ad] part of whatever you can do [verb] to or with a LOG is an adverb. You can jump OVER it; crawl THROUGH it; throw it UP; stand ON TOP OF it; walk AROUND it; look INTO it; sit DOWN UPON it. How one sees the log depends on one's perspective, on how one experiences it. The perspective on any story really depends very much on the one who is telling the story, and the experiences and reflection upon them that he or she brings. Perspective is sharpened in contrast to others who have a very defined viewpoint. It is much easier to discern and then articulate my opinion about a difficult topic when I know more clearly how other people with diverse opinions regard it. Clarity of perspective becomes difficult when I find myself strongly disagreeing from persons whose opinions or perspectives I usually share. Since he knows I have been involved in anticipating for almost nine years the Quiñientos Años anniversary, Fr. Frank has asked me to share my perspective. It is difficult for me because I empathize so much with certain critical perspectives, but finally come down on seeing the light of the Columbus event and its consequences as far outshining its darkness. (Some may dislike that imagery.) Mine is not the Chicano perspective, but that of a Chicano priest who has been exposed to liberation movements both in the United States and in Latin America. To describe my perspective I would like to return to the log and explore two pairs of adverbs in diagonal relationships: FROM ABOVE/FROM BELOW; and FROM THE INSIDE/FROM THE OUTSIDE. The log, or maybe better the ball, is life lived over a period of time (history). In the center of that log is a ball inside and within it. There is full dignity and quality of life there: the ability to act in freedom that is the essence of power. The situation of individuals and peoples is conditioned by where and how they live in relationship to that center: inside/outside; above or below it. There may be at once several combinations of those adverbs in the course of one’s own history or that of a nation. Each person’s or nation’s history would be conditioned by its relationship to the center, and each would then have a different perspective. The perspective of the impoverished is first of all FROM BELOW (desde abajo). It is also FROM OUTSIDE the center of power, in the margins of society, or on the periphery (desde afuera). Desde abajo y desde afuera is not the perspective of just the “poor,’’ but of the passive-voice “impoverished.” They are the objects, victims, of other people’s decisions over which they have little or no say, control, decison.

Juan Rodriguez was rewarded as the first one to sight land from the crow’s nest upon the mast of the Santa María. When he in truth cried out “¡Tierra!,” he personified the first diagonal relationship of FROM ABOVE and FROM THE INSIDE of the world of riches and power. This was the quintessential European perspective, of the known world in relationship to the unknown dragons beyond the seas. It was much different from that of the first Carib “Indians” who viewed FROM BELOW and FROM THE OUTSDE of the courts of power. They saw the Europeans arrive and experienced their oppressive presence in the longer term. The indigenous did not know what to think or say upon first seeing these foreigners with iron suits and strange faces of white skin, red hair and beards! They thought that the Spaniards were children of the sun insofar as they came from the East, and that Cortez might be a god, perhaps the coming (“Messianic” return) of Quetalcoatl. Enrique Dussel in his essay El Desafio Latino Americano, Desde Hace 500 Años, (CEHILA, Mexico pp. 9-18.) delineates the perspective of white Europe on America 500 years ago which can be described as from above and from inside (or within): l) Finding (la invención); 2) Un-covering (el des-cubrimiento); 3) Conquest (la conquista; 4) Evangelization (evangelización); 5) Encounter (encuentro). The first Liberation Theologians were the early European missionaries who made a prophetic critique of the conquest. Because of their European culture, their perspective was desde arriba/ from above. However, because of their incarnational and com-passionate solidarity with the suffering people, their perspective was also desde afuera/from outside of the center of European power. Contemporary Latin American theologians and critically conscious native peoples have a perspective that is desde abajo/from below as objects of oppression, and marginalized from outside the centers of power (the periphery). My own perspective is somewhat ambiguous, precisely because I really do belong to two different worlds that may enable me to see from above/below and at the same time from inside/outside. If I do not allow myself to become confused, my Chicano-Catholic perspective becomes a rich and full “sensurround.’’ A. PERSPECTIVES FROM ABOVE AND INSIDE l) The “finding” (invención) of America Since there was yet no “America” to be discovered, Columbus could not have thought in those terms. During the first fifteen years or so after Columbus arrived, there was a geographic recognition and refinement of the eastern part of Asia. Throughout his life, Columbus’ continued to insist that America was just the eastern extension of Asia. Since his hopes and dreams of grandeur depended on this perception, he felt he had to categorize this land in terms of the Asian territories he already knew. There was not yet any recognition of anything really “new.” 2) The “un-covering” (des-cubrimiento) of America, i.e. "discovery" of America. This is something like opening up a Christmas present or birthday present, or like lifting the lid of the cookie jar. There is an anticipation of coming upon something good that is expected, and sometimes there are surprises if what is un-wrapped/uncovered/opened is more than expected. When Europe and America met, there was an encounter of two moments, two worlds: the old with the new.

“Being-American” made sense for Europe only after Columbus. America was a treasure unveiled, opened up, found by the European world. The unveiling of America sparked curiosity for adventurers and scientists interested in investigation. 3) The “conquest” (conquista) of America Conquest is a mode of acting out domination by force of arms. It is the perspective of the victor who brings home the spoils of war. From the anti-Muslim world-viewpoint of Spain and Portugal, the growth of Christianity was perceived as a violent necessity of armed warfare. The “Holy War” mentality of the Crusaders’ against the “infidels” as enemies was projected upon the Indians. “¡Santiago a ellos!” was the war chant Cortez and his soldiers shouted. Remnants of this irrational and violent view may have been reflected in the desire for a triumphalistic celebration of the 500th Anniversary. 4) The “evangelization” (evangelización) of America A famous Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka has a sixth century fresco depicting the arrival of Buddhist monks as missionaries. The Catholic consciousness of the explicit process of evangelization dates from 1524 when the Franciscan Mission in Mexico was founded. However, instead of truly proclaiming the Good News of Salvation, “Evangelization” sometimes became an ambiguous process of justifying violent conquest, a legitimization of genocide. An authentic evangelization did take place with the Jesuit reductions, depicted in the movie The Mission, which opposed the Spanish “Christian” institutions in order to live and die next to the Indian peoples. 5) The “encounter” (encuentro) of two worlds This is the most recent ideological position. The year 1892 was the first in which the discovery of America was celebrated. Latin-American oligarchies found it opportune to guarantee their own power by exalting the figure of Christopher Columbus. In that year, Pope Leo XIII also wrote positively about Columbus. The celebrations in the last century looked out from and towards Europe as the CENTER of POWER, rather than towards and from the American Indian who was “done unto.” This was somewhat repeated this year with the emphasis of the European Common Market to be fully established by 1992, and the Olympic Games held in Barcelona. B. PERSPECTIVE FROM ABOVE, BUT (also) FROM OUTSIDE In general, Europe had treated the indigenous as objects of rape as a means of enrichment, just as tender sheep before lions. The earliest American theologians of liberation were committed Europeans. Their perspective was from above because of their cultural conditioning, but at the same time theirs was a view from the outside of the center of power because of their authentic commitment to AND incarnational solidarity with the impoverished and enslaved Indians of the new world whom they were serving. Since practically the very first hour, they denounced the conquest as acts of violence, as the “destruction of the Indies,” and as grave sin. Their prophetic critique of the conquest is one of the glories of Spain. No other colonial power had prophets so clearly criticizing the violent European occupation of the “Periphery” of the colonial Third World. Bartolomé de Las Casas is the one often cited.

However, another Dominican priest Antonio Montecino preceded De Las Casas, and became the first Bishop in America. The Dominicans came in 1508, and they were outraged by the treatment of the Indians. Montecino, as early as 1511—less than two decades after Columbus came to America, anticipated the prophetic denunciations of Bishop Oscar Romero of this century. Bishop Montecino fulminated his blistery denunciations from Santo Domingo, the new “center” of what was still PERIPHERY, the American continent, in relation to Europe:

¿BY WHAT RIGHT are you are people in sin (Europeans) destroying an innocent people (native peoples)? ¡for which you deserve damnation....! ¿Are they not human beings? ¿Do they not have souls with minds? ¿Are you not commanded to love them? ¡Stop [the violence]! (My translation from quote of + Antonio Montecino inscribed on a memorial image of the first Bishop of Santo Domingo. Spanish punctuation for emphasis.)

C. LATIN AMERICAN CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE (From Below and Outside) Indigenous/Latin Americans, Indio o Nego; Mestizo o Blanco, have perceived the event of 1492 as an “¡Invasión!” This perspective of the INVASION of a continent is a Copernican revolution for the meaning of 1492. It is also the actual perspective of Latin Americans as well as many Native Americans. The words “rape” and “genocide” are not too shrill to express their perspective. Rape includes intrustion and invasion, and is by nature violent. INTRUSION means to get inside by violent means. INVASION means to penetrate without permission; to work one’s way in without the right to do so. It is said that the numbers of Jews slaughtered by Hitler in the Holocaust was small by comparison to the number of Indians killed by the European invasion of America. The Indians of El Salvador on Feb. 11, 1988 recognized this, and repudiated the foreign INVASION of America. They called for a stop to its consequent GENOCIDE and ETHNOCIDE of their “subpueblos” and cultures. They, furthermore, called for a total rejection of celebration of the Quincentennial of the “foreign invasion.’’ In 1987 the Mexican Indians declared: “We have been fooled! We were enslaved on el Dia de La Raza, and we are still in mourning. The conquest was something terrible, and it continues.’’ One of them said, “The Europeans came to enslave us, not to be our brothers, and I feel sad.” At alarming rates, Indians died of new diseases brought in by the European, and by the fire and smoke that came out of the extremities of their arms and hands. For them, October 12 is, then, a day of mourning and penitence, not one of celebration. Black Nationalists have a unique perspective of their history in this country which is echoed by Malcom X in the new movie when he exclaims, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us!” Their perspective might also be described as from below and from outside. D. CHICANO PERSPECTIVE: From Above/Below and From Outside/Inside

My own perspective is somewhat ambiguous because I belong to two different worlds that can enable me to see from above/below and at the same time from inside/outside. My reflections are likely more theological than anthropological or historical, but that is also a significant dimension of who and what I am, and I ask your indulgence. Blood is the current of life, and also often the companion of violence. My Spanish father Cortez mated with my Indian mother Malinche. Their children are “Los Hijos de La Chingada” who are my brothers and sisters and American Me (film). The violence of rape was mingled, sometime along the way, with willing cooperation in love. I love my mother, and I love my father. They are both part of me, and I of them, and-- in joy and sometimes sadness-- I fully accept them and myself. I am not cut in half by my ancestors' mixed blood, but enriched by it—both sides—ALL SIDES. Not to appreciate myself and what makes me who I am would lead to a debilitating anonymity often described as a “poor self-image” that I might likely dislike or even hate. Before being Chicano, I am first of all a human being and then a baptized Christian. The deep root of my real dignity is the consciousness that I am created in the image of God! In spite of that rich inheritance of human dignity that is specified though my particular ancestors, I also inherit the "sin of the world." The rejection of God’s love at the dawn of creation is reflected in the events of Good Friday, in my own sins, and continued in the institutionalized violence (phrase of Latin American Bishops, 1968 Conference in Medellin, Columbia) in past and present. I am a part of this fallen world, but rejoice that it is ––and I with it–– already radically redeemed in the blood of Christ and through the promise of salvation/liberation. O Felix Culpa! ("O happy fault that merited such a redeemer…." - Sung on Holy Saturday before the newly lighted Paschal Candle) (Gen. 3:15) Out of the evil of crucifixion, comes–––in God’s paradoxical plan worked out through His love––the greatest good of salvation of the whole world. God calls a people to Himself. This is a source of Thanksgiving Pilgrims’ pride. A Chicano perspective sees this in a 1540 picnic of Conquistadores and Indians at the Rio Grande at what is now know as El Paso. It promised messianic peace and foreshadowed the ultimate sharing at the banquet table of the Lord by all peoples/all nations together. But in the meantime, there is struggle; hay lucha, agonía, y aún muerte. The PLAZA DE LAS TRES CULTURAS in Mexico City is marked with a placard that reads (in paraphrase): “Ni derrumba, ni victoria, pero un parto doloroso de un pueblo nuevo.” In the process of struggle, and of commingling blood, life is lived, death is done, and there is love: God’s love for us, ours for God and for one another. This is the concept of MESTIZAJE that is central to Chicano identity. It is not Mexican - [hyphen], “minus,” American, but a real plus! The GUADALUPE EVENT certainly helped to unify the various strands in tension. Blessed Mary is depicted neither as Spanish nor as Indian, but interestingly as mestiza even before the new race was fully formed. She helped to achieve self-acceptance, and anticipated in her person the new "peoplehood" (LA RAZA NUEVA) of the new world that we long to have, be, and radically already ARE. The peoplehood forged in the blood of the biblical covenant is reflected in the PUEBLO. "LA RAZA" is not racist, nor a nationalistic term, but a WAVE of the

biblical plan of God who calls us to "form a new People to Himself" (Eucharistic Prayer). October 12, 1492 marks a new era in human history, the beginning of a new people that is continually being formed in this new world. The mission of all in this one continent called America is not to absorb or assimilate (much less annihilate other races and cultures—GENOCIDE!) but for each to be enriched by the other and strive to be come not a “blah” or series of “blahs” (milk toast, vanilla) but a truly New People called to co-create and populate the New World of justice, peace, and love. This is a continuing process that will be finally culminated only on that great and final day of the Lord's return in glory. The coming of the New World gives new direction to the whole world of today. The polarities used to be EAST/WEST (Europe and the "new world"), but now are NORTH/SOUTH (within the American continent and throughout the whole world). That is the new perspective of fact, as well as of choice! The people of this new world have the destiny, I believe, to help make this whole world new. As we struggle along in the "ALREADY" of this world, I invite personal and common prayer and work to joyfully preparing for the fullness of the "NOT YET" of the New World to come. �NOTES ON BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS Cf. The Rediscovery of Las Casas, by Helen Rand Parish, Bancroft Library, Graduate Theological Union/University of California at Berkeley, 1992. [Summary/paraphrase-JR] On Palm Sunday in 1493, Columbus, just back from the new world with eight “Indians,” led a cofradía of Penitentes in a procession at Sevilla. The young eight-year old Bartolomé De Las Casas was there with his father. The Holy Week Procession, that included Columbus and his eight Indians, impressed both Bartolomé and his father, and both decided to accompany Columbus on subsequent journeys. Bartolomé's father was a merchant who got the opportunity to accompany Columbus on his second voyage of 1493. Bartolomé waited until 1502, nine years later when he became a young man of 18, and went with Columbus to the new world. After his Columbian journey, Bartolomé went to Rome with his older brother who had also been to the new world. Both of them, called by the same name (?!), gave a double report to Pope was Julius II. Bartolomé stayed in Rome, and at the age of 23 was ordained to the priesthood five years later in 1507. He returned to Spain to earn his Bachelor of Laws degree, and then again set out to Hispaniola, to the area of Santo Domingo, with Diego Columbus who was the son of the famous explorer. Bartolomé was appointed as Official Catechist for the Indies. Las Casas was among those who warmly welcomed Fray Antonio Montesino, O.P. to the new world when the Dominicans arrived at Santo Domingo in 1510. Montesino was convinced that the encomendia system was mortal sin, and he prophetically denounced the cruelty to the Indians. De Las Casas was not at the time convinced by these denunciations. He left for Cuba as an army chaplain, and thought it was paradise. While there, he was able to charm the natives with his very pleasing

personality, but within a few years he saw for himself that paradise become hell. He witnessed EXPLOITATION: men killed in the gold mines, women abducted, and starvation. On Pentecost Sunday of 1514, at the age of 30, Las Casas underwent a public CONVERSION. He then, as was the fate of Dominican Friar Antonio Montesino, begin to preach “sensational” prophetic sermons, but to deaf ears. Two years later, in 1516, Las Casas went “to tell the king” about the oppressive situation, and fifty years later, in 1566, he was still “telling the king” that millions of Indians had been exterminated by conquest. At that time, he was still energetically urging MASSIVE REFORMS. Bartolomé De Las Casas was a priest, became a Dominican Friar, was then ordained a bishop who later retired. During his life, he was also a statesman at Court, and a great Prophet of Liberation. His was an eventful and meaningful life, but his greatest achievement was authoring and promoting Las Nuevas Leyes de Las Indias/the New Laws of the Indies. These served as the Magna Carta of Indian Rights, and were promulgated as law by the 1542 encyclical SUBLIMIS DEUS.

Leyes y Ordenancas Nuevamente Hechas por Su Majestad/ Pa la governación de las Indias y buen tratamietno y conservación de los Indios: que se han de guardar en el consejo y audiencias reales que en ellas residen: por todos los otros governadores/jueces y personas particulares de ellas. CON PRIVILEGIO IMPERIAL

Throughout his career, after his conversion, he proclaimed and fought for the human and civil rights of the Native American, and he was an apostle of promoting Racial Justice. He pleaded with four rulers of Spain on behalf of the native Americans, influenced three popes, wrote thousands of pages, drafted several reform measures, testified on behalf of Indians, and traveled across the Atlantic at least ten times! FIRST REFORM EFFORT: 1516-1522 Upon the death of rapacious Ferdinand in 1516, Las Casas presented a list of “abuses” and proposed “reforms” to the Regent Cardinal Cisneros. Las Casas had met the Cardinal in Rome ten years earlier when he had, with his brother, visited Pope Julius II. The native population of the new world had by now shrunk tremendously, and the Cardinal liked the idea of saving a remnant by establishing free CROWN TOWNS that would pay tribute to the king. This would remove the Indians from the encomendias, and place them in self-sustaining villages. The Hieronymite Friars were contracted to help set this project up, but they did not come through. Las Casas as “Advocate for the Indians” was opposed to opening up a new slave trade of the Bahamnian Indian. Cardinal Cisneros was displeased with that, and wanted to return Las Casas in chains to Spain, but he had already left on his own. The following year, in 1517, Cardinal Cisneros died.

The Flemish King, Charles I, came to Spain, and approved the more human and long lasting bloodless plan of Las Casas who was proposing that the new world be colonized by farmers, instead of by soldiers. Powerful nobles of Spain were opposed to the idea of their peasant population emigrating to the new world, and so they tried to stop it. Nevertheless, the Spanish Main set sail to what is now Venezuela. Some of the peasants who had left to try farming in the new world, diverted their efforts to the more lucrative slave trade. The inevitable reaction to that oppression was an Indian Uprising and MASSACRE of friars and officials. The Venezuela outpost was destroyed. This must have been a disappointment to Las Casas. Afterwards, in 1522, when he was almost 40, Las Casas began to look more deeply within himself. He was advised to “look after his own soul,” and entered the Dominican Order in Santo Domingo, the capital of Hispaniola. However, he was gratified to learn later that the Peasant-Farmer idea had worked, and it blossomed in the 16th century. Community schemes became the corregimiento or Free Crown Towns, an alternative to the Encomendia. Las Casas underwent a dozen years of “inner renewal” during which he “seemed to sleep.” He went through his year of novitiate as a Dominican, and studied theology for three more years. He then spent six years as the founder and Father Prior of a Dominican monastery at Puerto Plata where he watched the boat loads of enslaved Bahamians dying on the beaches. This bothered him greatly, and he wrote impassioned memorials that through others eventually reached Spain. When he was 46, Las Casas became a moving force of the Reform Commission of 1529 which culminated in the 1530 law BANNING INDIAN SLAVERY! This was a high point of his renewed prophetic vigor, although his denunciations in sermons and advice in the confessional still seemed to go unheeded. He made appropriate complaints to the proper authorities, and as a result was recalled to the capital. There he was forbidden to preach for two years, and this must have been a heavy penance for a member of the Order of Preachers. He retreated in peace to continue his long-term project of collecting material for the General History of the Indies. As a primary source for this history, Las Casas copiously quoted from a copy of Columbus’ Log of the First Voyage. Those extensive quotes become the basis of our own current knowledge of the famous Log whose original was lost without any other copy remaining. An uninformed and prejudiced friar alleged that the “besitial sins” of the Indians condemned them to total extinction by God. He used his theory as a pretext to promote the repeal of the Anti-slavery Ordinance. Fray De Las Casas prayed fervently, and his prayer was answered. An Indian guerrilla by the name of Chief Enriquillo [somewhat like Estevan, Popé, Geronimo, etc.] had been effectively disarming the Spanish military expeditions and exhausting the Hispaniola treasury for fifteen years! “Little Henry” was a Christian, educated by Franciscans, but had fled to the mountains in order to escape mistreatment. While in the hills, he became a magnet for runaway Indians and black slaves. Enriquillo signed a peace treaty with a Spanish captain, but Las Casas knew it was a fragile treaty. He asked his superior to visit the Indian, and to help strengthen the keeping of the treaty. Las Casas brought Enriquillo to the Capital where he settled with all his people. Through the grace of god, and Las Casas own human qualities, the treaty was assured, and the

Way of LOVE and PEACE ultimately conquered. The Indians were Christianized, and became loyal vassals of the king. Las Casas penned his work on evangelization through non-violence, (El Unico Camino), The Only Way to Bring all Peoples to the True Faith. When he was almost 50, in 1539, Las Casas sailed from Hispaniola with a Dominican Bishop to Peru. However, they landed in Central America instead, and decided to stay there. Las Casas tried to put into effect his own teaching on El Unico Camino, but he encountered fierce opposition from the Spanish settlers themselves. Unchecked slavery contributed to the decline in Indian population. Moreover, Indians were flogged for coming to Catechism! And Fray Bartolomé himself was pulled down from the pulpit for preaching against armed expedition to the interior! All of this made provoked within him the just anger of a prophet. He was able to focus that anger in a positive way by cooperating effectively with the reform administration that was operating in Mexico City where he returned. After the disaster of the Conquest in its various manifestations, Las Casas attended the landmark Mexican Ecclesiastical Conference of 1536. This was a prototype of Latin American Bishops’ meetings in Brazil, Medellin, Puebla, and Santo Domingo. Las Casas’ vision and suggestions were supported fully by the pro-Indian Franciscan Bishop Fray Juan de Zumáraga who, influenced by Las Casas, proposed the following: 1) Conquests are unjust and illegal. 2) Conversion is to be done by preaching and example, not by force. 3) The Church is to punish those who harm or enslave the natives.

4) Adult Indians are to be given proper instruction and preparation before baptism. (No more mass baptisms, such as those by the Franciscan Custodia are to be permitted.)

Based on the ideas and written suggestions of Bartolomé De Las Casas, drafted by Cardinal Contarini, and proposed by Bishop Fray Juan de Zumarága, these points were written as Papal Decrees in 1537 and promulgated as law in the 1542 encyclical SUBLIMIS DEUS which served as the Magna Carta of Indian Rights. This is referred to as the New Laws of the Indies. With his taking on the responsibilities as Bishop, in the “Land of True Peace,” he had highest hopes that he would be able to spread “peaceful conversion” to a wider region. Bartolomé de Las Casas came back to the New World in 1545 for the fifth time as Bishop of Chiapas. He was not, however, well received. To the oligarchy in the colonies–––rich settlers, large landholders, leading officials, the new bishop had become “the most hated man in the Indies.” A fellow reformist Dominican bishop in nearby Nicaragua was actually murdered. The High Court was not supportive, and Las Casas was called to Mexico for a meeting of the new world’s hierarchy. On his way, he received the bad news that the Emperor, under heavy pressure from the richest and most recalcitrant factions of settlers, had accepted a huge sum of gold from Peruvian Indian holders to revoke the Law of Inheritance! This new sadness, nevertheless, animates Las Casas who dominated the Mexico City gathering with forcefulness and brilliance. He notified the Viceroy and Mexican

High Court that they were all in a state of automatic excommunication for cutting off the hand of a priest in Antequera. Las Casas challenged the divine rights of kings with twelve secret rules for confessors, designed to help enforce all the new Laws. He wrote an open letter to the young Regent, Crown Price Phillip advising him that “ecclesiastics are exempt from the coercive power of secular princes and judges” even for the crime of high treason. We warned Prince Philip that he could incur automatic excommunication, and thereby nullify his power to rule! He then finished compiling his list of “Abuses”” and proposed “Reforms” and left America for good. While back in Spain, de Las Casas knocked down an accusation of high treason and actually strengthened the remaining New Laws. For five days, Friar Bartolomé read judges his overwhelming “Defense of the Indians against Slanderers,” and the suspension of conquests and the anti-slavery laws remained intact! De Las Casas resigned his bishopric, and arranged the liberation of all the slaves in his diocese. He replaced the corrupt President of the Central American High Court, and named his own episcopal successor. He was now truly the “General Representative of All the Indians” at the Spanish court. He had a daily opportunity to commute for two hours with the Spanish Court at Valladolid. He used the time well dealing with reports and petitions of friars and bishops and even administradores, powers-of-attorney signed by native chiefs, appeals written by penniless old conquistadores. In his last great tract, The Treasures of Peru, De Las Casas demonstrates that the Inca is the true owner of the “treasures” in the bombs of the past Incas, and ends with Las Casas’ proposal for free and independent Indian kingdoms under their native rulers, lined into a commonwealth attached to the Spanish Crown! The tireless Bartolomé de las Casas died at court in 1566 at the age of 82. As always he thought he had failed; and as always, his impact was greater than he knew. For his weapons had been prodigious: a vast knowledge of America, expertise in jurisprudence and theology, skills as a prolific writer and powerful speaker, and the laws and political institutions and ecclesiastical tools that he himself helped forge. A great convocation (Junta Magna) was called two years after his death; and the incomplete reforms he had obtained allowed the Indian population to regain its numbers, though not its freedom. Nevertheless, his influence on succeeding centuries was incalculable. Today, he is acknowledged as the father of American history and anthropology, a forerunner of democracy whose works were treasured by Thomas Jefferson, the real founder of modern international law. His fifty years of struggle for the liberation of the oppressed remains an inspiration for countless men and women, missionaries, martyrs, bishops, politicians, and writers who are working in Latin America for the rights of the poor and the Indians. Settlers, large landholders, lead Las Casas or him daily ration of food….