Bartolomé de las Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566) was a Spanish Dominican friar, bishop, and historian who became the foremost advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas during the era of Spanish colonization. A former encomendero who underwent a radical conversion of conscience in 1514 while in Cuba, he spent decades lobbying the Spanish Crown for legal protections for Native Americans, producing the landmark legal-theological treatise In Defense of the Indians and the harrowing eyewitness account A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. His 1550–1551 Valladolid debate against Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, in which he argued that indigenous peoples possessed full rational humanity and natural rights, stands as one of the earliest formal human-rights proceedings in Western history. Appointed Bishop of Chiapas in 1544, he departed his diocese by 1546–1547, finding enforcement of his reforming ideals impossible, and formally resigned the see in 1550, but continued writing and lobbying in Spain until his death. His thought is widely recognized as a foundational source for twentieth-century liberation theology.