Liberty Matters
Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas and propaganda
Both Dr. Schwennesen and Dr. Edmondson have brought up friar Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566). The former, as evidence of how the Spanish Monarchy sought to end abuses against indigenous peoples and the latter as evidence of how inhumane its treatment of them was. However, none of them has questioned de Las Casas validity as an eyewitness testimony or his role as an early promoter of universal human rights.
Enrique Díaz Araujo questioned the friar as a legitimate source and he did so by compiling the opinion of many of his contemporaries and several historians between the 17th century and 20th century.[1] To give just one of the many examples of contemporary judgements consider what the then solicitor in Cuba, Pánfilo de Narváez y Antonio Velázquez, said of Las Casas in 1516: “This cleric is a lightweight, of little authority and credibility. He talks about what he doesn't know or hasn't seen.” Among the many critical judgments over the next centuries, we can point out that these came not just from the anti-Black Legend camp but also from those who were very much anti-Spanish Empire, such as William H. Prescott.[2]
María Elvira Roca Barea claims in her Imperiofobia y leyenda negra (Siruela, 2018)[3] considers Las Casas’ Brevísima relación as a quintessential example of Black Legend propaganda:
Only having fallen into the hands of propaganda has friar Bartolomé been able to become an apostle of human rights. His atrocities know no bounds: from justifying human sacrifices with the argument that it is the same as mass, except that the Indians are not able to metaphorically be in communion with their god, to defending the slave trade: so that the tame Indians do not have to work, the best thing is to bring in blacks who, as they have no soul, can be used for anything.
Edmondson claims that the Brevísima was “quickly translated into the major principal European languages”. However, Roca Barea notes that though the first edition was published in Seville in 1551, the first translation —into French— appeared more than 25 years later (1578). This first foreign language edition, as others that would come later, happen to coincide with specific historical moments. The French translation of 1578 corresponds to the Eternal Edict signed between the rebels in The Netherlands and John of Austria in 1577, then governor of the Spanish Netherlands.[4] Likewise, the English translation of 1583 was published five years before Phillip II´s armada attempted to dethrone Elizabeth I. Yet another English translation in 1656 was intended to justify the British military conquest of Spanish Jamaica during the Anglo-Spanish War of 1655-1660.
Roca Barea concludes that one of the lasting consequences of friar Bartolomé´s work is that of contributing significantly to the birth of the myth of the supposed indigenous Eden: “Rousseau's noble savage is genetically Lascasian. It doesn't matter if the native is a cannibal or a headhunter. His state of nature makes him intrinsically good.” Roca Barea says Aztec culture was totalitarian:
The Aztecs spent a good part of the year hunting people from neighboring tribes to sacrifice them in festivals that lasted three months and in which between 20,000 and 30,000 people were killed each year. The subjugated tribes of the region lived in terror, waiting for the day when that monstrosity would end. And it ended with the arrival of the Spanish, but not without the essential collaboration of many tribes....Neither Las Casas nor Rousseau ever felt, not even respect, but mere curiosity about the Indians. For both, all Indians are the same Indian, which is the quintessential expression of the European conviction that only we have been granted the gift of individuality.
This brings us to Francisco Pérez de Antón´s critique of Las Casas, which focuses on a controversy he had with the lesser-known Bishop of Guatemala Francisco Marroquín (1499-1563).[5] Pérez de Antón claims that Marroquín and Las Casas were “like water and oil.” Marroquín arrived in Guatemala when he was 30 and stayed there for the rest of his life, as opposed to Las Casas who never settled in any place, “always causing trouble.” Marroquín defended human rights for all, while Las Casas denied these rights to blacks, even proposing their importation and enslavement. Pérez de Antón adds:
More than a protector of the Indians, Las Casas aspired to be their messiah... Marroquín protected the Indians, not only with equal vigor and greater competence than Las Casas, but also by always seeking to create a climate in which Indians, Spaniards and mestizos could live together in a common space.
The Spanish Conquest of the Americas was, as all other conquests, not free from abuses. But up against those evils, Marroquín worked quietly to humanize and rectify them.
There is no whitewashing of the Spanish Conquest in recognizing that there was a Spanish Enlightenment. However, many have attempted to brush over equal or arguably greater abuses elsewhere by giving too much airtime and credit to caricatures of the Spanish Empire.
Endnotes
[1] Díaz Araujo, Enrique. Las Casas visto de costado: Crítica bibliográfica sobre la leyenda negra. 2nd ed. Guadalajara, México: Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, 2022. https://archive.org/details/diazaraujo.lascasasvistodecostado/page/n5/mode/2up.
[2] Prescott quoted in Díaz Araujo: “He was not an eyewitness to the events in New Spain, and he was very willing to believe anything that might contribute to his purpose and to overload, if I may say so, his argument with accounts of bloodshed and carnage, which by their very extravagance carried with them their own refutation”.
[3] Roca Barea, María Elvira. Imperiofobia y La Leyenda Negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y El Imperio Español. 3rd ed. Siruela, 2018, p. 310-321.
[4] In this edict, John had agreed to remove Spanish forces from the Netherlands, recognize feudal privileges of the different cities and dominions and to stop the process of administrative modernization in exchange for the indisputable acknowledgement of the King´s sovereignty —Phillip II of Spain— and the restoration of Catholicism. Though the edict appeared to have calmed the waters, a river of propaganda ensued to keep alive the secessionist sentiment and the Brevísima came in handy.
[5] Universidad Francisco Marroquín, one of the most classical liberal universities in the world, bears his name.
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