Las Casas: "The Apostle of the Indies"

by Alice J. Knight

And now, after having labored for the Indians for so many years, crossing and recrossing the ocean, traveling over hundreds of miles of wild country on foot, like St. Paul, "in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea," he might be seen, day after day and night after night, sitting at his desk, writing letters, memorials, and pamphlets in defense of his beloved Indians. He kept up a constant correspondence with all parts of the New World, and when he heard of any new outrage on the part of the Spaniards against the natives, he at once brought it to the attention of Prince Philip, now regent of the kingdom.

At the end of the year 1551 a number of Dominicans and Franciscans having been induced through his appeals to go out to the Indies, Las Casas went to Seville to see them off. For some reason they were delayed there for ten months, and during that time he was kept busy editing a number of his works, keeping two printing-presses going all the time.

Las Casas must have had a wonderful constitution. His hard life in a tropical country had neither weakened his body nor impaired his mind. All his time from the day of his return to Spain to the time of his death was spent in defense of the Indians; and through his untiring efforts their condition was much improved in Mexico and elsewhere.

Laws had already been passed which allowed the encomiendas, as the grants of land and Indians in Spanish America were called, to be held in a family only during two lifetimes. They then reverted to the crown. Thus the Indians were being gradually emancipated. There were also officers appointed to protect the interests of the crown in the reversion, so that it was no longer possible to repeat the horrors of Hispaniola.

When Las Casas heard that the proposal had been made to allow the holders of encomiendas to get possession of them in perpetuity, he went at once to the King and succeeded in preventing it. As Fiske says:

"It is worth remembering that pretty much the only praiseworthy thing Philip ever did was done under Las Casas' influence."

The activity of Las Casas was marvelous. His longest work was his "History of the Indies." At the age of ninety he wrote a "Memorial on Peru," said to be one of his best, and two years later, in 1566, he went to Madrid to speak in person for the Indians of Guatemala. He had heard through the Dominicans that that province had been deprived of its governing body, so that the Indians had no chance of justice, having to go to Mexico if they wished to make any appeal. He was successful in this mission, and the Audiencia was restored to Guatemala.

This was the last work of Las Casas. In July of that year, while still in Madrid, he was taken ill and died after a short illness, at the age of ninety-two.

As he lay dying, his brethren, the Dominicans, kneeling about the bed and reciting the prayers for the dying, he begged them to persevere in their defense of the Indians, and asked them to join him in prayer that he might be forgiven any remissness on his part in the fulfillment of his mission. He was beginning to tell them how he came to enter upon this work when his spirit departed.

Thousands of people attended the funeral of Las Casas. He was buried in Madrid, in the convent chapel of "Our Lady of Atocha."