CASAS, BARTOLOMEO DE LAS, bishop of Chiapa in Mexico, was born of a noble family at Seville in 1474. At the age of nineteen he went to St Domingo with his father, who had accompanied Columbus in his first voyage. Soon after his return he entered the order of Dominicans, with the view of being employed as a missionary to the Indians. In 1533 we find him residing in the island of St Domingo, where, as we learn from Oviedo Valdes, he was successful in putting an end to the wars which had raged between the Spanish settlers and the Indians in consequence of an outrage committed on the wife of their chief in 1519. This peace, however, proved but of short duration, and was followed by the massacre of nearly all the natives.
Before this time Las Casas had presented to Charles V. several memoirs in favour of the Indians; but finding his
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Casabon. efforts in this direction fruitless, he proposed to found a colony, and prevailed on the emperor to appoint him governor of Cumana. He set sail with 300 Castilian emigrants, whom he distinguished by the badge of the white cross, and arrived at Porto Rico in 1519, but immediately after sailed for Cumana. On his arrival there, Gonzalo Ocampo, commandant of the place, refused to recognise his authority, and Las Casas was compelled to repair to St Domingo to lay his case before the governor-general. In his absence the Indians massacred all the colonists except a few who escaped to the small island of Cuhagna, and the colony became extinct. His zeal on behalf of the Indians led him several times to Spain, and provoked a hostile attack from Sepulveda, canon of Salamanca, and historiographer to Charles V. The emperor prohibited the publication of this memoir; but it was nevertheless printed at Rome, and circulated throughout Spain by the monks. It was refuted by Las Casas, then bishop of Chiapa, in a work entitled "Brevissima Relacion de la Destruccion de las Indias;" and although Sepulveda still pressed his accusation before the emperor, he procured no decision.
The devotion of Las Casas to the cause of the Indians gave rise to the accusation which has been revived by modern historians, that he recommended to the Spaniards the trade in negroes, in order to substitute the blacks for the Indians in the labours of the colonies. But M. Grégoire, in a memoir entitled Apologie de B. de Las Casas, inserted in the fourth volume of the Mémoires de la Classe des Sciences Morales et Politiques de l'Institut, has refuted this imputation. In addition to this, there are still extant three manuscript volumes in folio containing the memoirs, official and familiar letters, political and theological works, of Las Casas, which show that the author deeply sympathized with the sufferings of the African race.
The works of Las Casas are, 1. Brevissima Relacion de la Destruccion de las Indias; 2. Principia quedam ex quibus procedendum est in disputacione, ad manifestandam et defendendam justitiam Indorum; 3. Utrum reges et principes, jure aliquo vel titulo et salva conscientia civis ac subditi a regia corona alienare et alterius dominii particularis ditioni subicere possint? Frankfurt, 1571; 4. Various tracts and pieces on theology and morals. The original edition of Las Obras de D. Barth. de Las Casas, Seville, 1552, was printed in Gothic characters, and is very scarce.