Talk:Bartolomé de las Casas

message: I have been exasperated by the fact that, when I search the net, I find that there are mentions of two distinct persons, living far apart in time, with this same name. This article deals with the first and more famous man. But the references to Las Casas or to Bartholome de las Casas in many places, such as the Catholic Encyclopedia 1907-1913 is evidently to a later person. This later person wrote on Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, so it is physically impossible that he is the same person as the subject of this article. I want information on the later Bartholome de las Casas. Can anyone help? WikiSceptic 08:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Two of them

message: Unexact, this article is biased by a modern point of view. The most important fact is that he defended the fact the that indians were humans having a soul when some catholic theoligist believed they were non-human, finally the pope agreed with. Of course he was also considering that the Spanish colons committed crimes against the indians... but this is not essential in reguard of the importance of the question of the human nature of the indians.
Well I didn't know his book so the article was not wrong but I'm sure of whatI write before too. I'm not how should I call the debate about human nature of the Indian : Contreverse de Valladolid in french (Valladolid controvesy ?????)
no, the humanity of indians was discussed before the controverse of Valladolid in the times of Isabelle
the Catholic. From that point on, the official stand of the Catholic Church was that the indians were
human beings. I think you saw the film, but this does not respect history, I fear.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.16.199.194 (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You should read the article again I think.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:05, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

text: did a million die from Spanish diseases? yes, who cares if 1 or 2 or 20 million,  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.38.155.134 (talk) 14:34, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Controversy over the Humanity of the Amerindians

message: There seems to be some controversy about the year of his birth (1474 or 1484).  Here is the source for the 1484 date:  Helen Brand Parish and Harold E Weidman, S.J., "The Correct Birthdate of Bartolomé de Las Casas," Hispanic American Historical Review 56, no. 3 (August 1976): 385-403.  I include this since it's been reverted once.  Antandrus 01:50, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Added as a footnote (after quite some delay!) grendel|khan 21:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: birthdate

message: Anybody know more about "De thesauris in Peru"?--Dynamax 19:56, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  De thesauris in Peru 

message: Could someone give a reference to the 'claim that Las Casas was descended from a converso family'? Many thanks. --House of Shin 08:11, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There are some references about it in the The Spanish Empire of Hugh Thomas.--Menah the Great 19:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Converso? 

message: [[Image:As you can see in this picture, Bartolomeu do not sign as Bartolome de las Casas. He signed as "Bartomeu Casaus". It means that like Cristòfor Colom, he was from Barcelona, Mallorca or Valencia, in general from the catalan kingdom.
I thing that this shoud be understanded in the context of the fight castillians-catalans for the control of new world wich hapened at the end of the sixteen century.
This document is a part of a sentence he wrote when he was bishop of Chiapas (México).
You can see the image in:
http://www.histocat.com/htm/secc_inv_11_02.htm
:According to Catalan chauvinism, all people involved in American discovery (except bloody conquistadors like Cortés and Pizarro, of course) were Catalans. They name Collumbus as "Colom", Vespuccio as "Despuig"... and now Las Casas is "Casaus"? LOL! The reality is that he was born in Seville in 1484, son of Pedro de las Casas, a possible converso merchant from Tarifa, and his wife Isabel de Sosa. Other well-known relative of Las Casas is his uncle Francisco de Peñalosa (they had different surnames because in 15th Century, Spaniards used to choose one of the four of their grandparents), that also travelled to Hispaniola in Ovando's journey. If that signature is authentic, the word "Casaus" may be just a poor latinization, like the signature "Siliceus" of Toledo's Bishop Guijarro. I don't see any "Bartolomeu" in the image.
:By the way, there was never a "Catalan kingdom" (at the time, modern day Catalonia was only the County of Barcelona, the only one of the four parts of Crown of Aragon that was not a kingdom) and there was not any "fight" between Castilians and Catalans in the New World. Ferdinand II decided that Italy was part of Aragon and the West Indies part of Castile, but both Castilian and Aragonese people were able to emigrate or fight in both territories. Well known Catalans in the New World include the friars Bernal Buyl and Pere Margarit, strong enemies of Collumbus in Hispaniola; Joan Orpí, 17th Century founder of Barcelona, Venezuela; and Gaspar de Portolà, 18th Century conquistador of California. None of these few examples had to hide his origins.--Menah the Great 20:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bartolomeu Casaus was a Catalan 

message: Could the author please document the evidence of Las Casas' direct influence on Montaigne? Various scholars (Marcel Bataillon, William Hamlin, Tom Conley) have said there is no evidence that Montaigne ever read Las Casas, although it is not impossible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.245.142.137 (talk) 20:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influence on Montaigne 

message: This statement seems like it was put in as a form of damage control. It has no citaiton, and is not articulated with the same level of quality as the rest of the paragraph. Most importantly, it is not backed up with evidence. 
To avoid the burden of slavery on them, Las Casas proposed that Africans be brought to America instead, though he later changed his mind about this when he saw the effects of slavery on Africans.
--Whenhumor (talk) 01:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slavery Issue 

message: I have added a note in the legacy section about the criticism of Las Casas by 19thC abolitionist David Walker. I am not trying to warp the article "against" the subject, and obviously the language should be cleaned up if people feel it is not a fair representation. Hljómalind (talk) 13:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  David Walker 

message: The beginning paragraph states "As a settler in the New World he witnessed, and was driven to oppose, the torture and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists".
This is not only factually wrong, but also clearly biased.
1) The Spanish did not engage in "Genocide" this is a 20th century word with very clear connotations. At no time did the Spanish want to exterminate the Indians as a race. For one, they did not want to exterminate the Indians because they were interested in converting them. Secondly, they depended on them as labor force through systems such as the Mita and Encomienda, and later through debt peonage. The very fact that the King passed the New Laws, and that Queen Isabela of Castille proclaimed the Indians as her subjects and forbid their enslavement shows that Genocide was neither planned, nor carried out. Military conquest? Exploitation? Human Rights abuses? absolutely. This is not "Genocide" however, and mislabeling it as such only harms our understanding of events that were really acts Genocide, i.e, The Armenian Genocide, The Holocaust, Rwanda, etc.
Recent scholarship shows that the severe decrease in Native population was not due to the active, willful execution of a genocidal campaign, but caused by disease and epidemics.
2) If anyone has actually read Short Account of Destruction of the Indies,it is obvious that de Las Casas exaggerates many points. While it is necessary to condemn the brutality with which the Natives were treated and conquered, this work needs to be read in context and taken with a grain of salt - De Las Casas needed to convince the King of the need to pass laws legislating the treatment of the natives and the Encomienda System, and therefore he stretched the truth to make his argument more convincing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.176.240.206 (talk) 08:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction/Bias/Black Legend 

message: The text says Las Casas (LC) went to Mexico in 1538, debated there and then the bull "sublimus dei" was issued because of these discussions. The bull was issued in 1537, though, one year before.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sublimus_Dei  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Econautx (talk • contribs) 15:02, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, I'll check with the source and see how that discrepancy is explained.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I had reversed the order of events making it look as if the meeting in Oaxaca took place while Las Casas was waiting to go to Spain in 1538, when in fact the meeting was in 1536 before Las Xasas entered Tuzulutlan. Thanks for noticing!·Maunus·ƛ· 17:05, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chronological inconsistency in "A dominican friar" 

message: A number of non-English words, such as "agricultor" and "posteriority", appear in this article. A fluent English speaker, preferably someone who knows about de Las Casas, needs to go through this and correct/improve the writing, while maintaining the meaning. MayerG (talk) 06:00, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe you're not as fluent as you think you are. Nonetheless feel free to change any words you find odd to something more common. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not being an expert on de las Casas, I did not want to make changes that might alter the meaning. I don't know precisely what the editor who entitled a section "Las Casas in Posteriority" meant by that, none of the meanings in the OED of the rare word posteriority fitting this usage; perhaps "Las Casas in Posterity" was meant? So rather than guess at the intention of other editors, I hope that someone who knows the content and context of the article can improve it. I'm glad to see that some improvements have already been made.MayerG (talk) 02:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I did mean posterity when I wrote that, and when I wrote "agricultor" I must obviously have been thinking in Spanish. If you have ever corrected a college essay you will know that also fluent English speakers make odd word choice and grammar mistakes. That is why copy editors exist.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vocabulary 

message: This article looks really good. I'll review the various reference and other sources I know of to see if there is any question of too much or too little weight anywhere, not that I anticipate those problems arising, or perhaps more highly regarded sources not used. That should probably be before the formal reviewer comes in. But I honestly don't see any of those problems being likely. John Carter (talk) 19:59, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: OK, this is a peer review of the article being submitted before the GA reviewer arrives. I hope it, and any subsequent discussion, prove to be useful. 
Anyway, I consulted the readily available print reference books and their articles on the subject first. 
The first reference source I consulted is the Encyclopedia of Religion edited by Lindsay Jones on pages 5322-5323. It is rather short, unfortunately, but there is nothing of real substance included in that article which is not also discussed in this one. They still got his birth date wrong, which is strange. The only things I see it mentioning that are not specifically mentioned here are his famous sermon in the Church of the Holy Spirit four months after reading Ecclesiasticus. It also mentions that his book Advice and Regulations for Confessors (1545), quoting, "advocated denial of the sacraments of the church to all who had Indians and did not 'pay a just wage'" on page 5322. That might be worth mentioning. The bibliography speaks very highly of Manual Giménez Fernández's unfinished biography Bartolomé de las Casas, 2 volumes (Seville, 1953-1960). I'm guessing it's in Italian, but it might be worth including in the bibliography. 
The next one consulted is the New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, volume 8, pp. 340-341. This is another very short article. The only substantial variation I see is about the Short Account, which it says "was in large part responsible for the development of the 'Black Legend'". So it gives the book a bit more "credit" for that than this article does, which probably doesn't matter much. It's bibliography includes L. Hanke's The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia 1949) and G. Gutiérez's Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Poor of Jesus Christ (Maryknoll, 1993). 
Somewhat surprisingly, Encyclopedia Britannica has a rather lengthy article on the subject, on pages 168-169 of the 7th volume. It gives the date of his "famous sermon" as August 15, 1514, and says that he announced that he was returning his Indian servants to the Governor in that sermon. It states briefly that he requested that the Apostolic History of the Indies not be published until after his death, and says later rather more clearly that he had in 1559 requested that it should be published only (in quotations, presumably from something by las Casas) "after forty years have passed, so that, if God determines to destroy Spain, it may be seen that it is because of the destruction that we have wrought in the Indies and His just reason for it may be clearly evident". It includes this direct quote from the Short Account (p. 36 of some unnamed edition): "The reason why the Christians have killed and destroyed such an infinite number of souls is that they have been moved by their wish for gold and their desire to enrich themselves in a very short time." It also talks about his Confesionario, "in which he forbade absolution to be given to those who held Indians in encomienda. The rigorous enforcement of his regulations led to vehement opposition on the part of the Spanish faithful during Lent of 1545 and forced Las Casas to establish a council of bishops to assist him in his task. But soon his uncompromising pro-Indian position alienated his colleagues, and in 1547 he returned to Spain."
It refers to Sepulveda's book as Democrates II as opposed to Democrates Alter, and the subtitle as "Concerning the Just Cause of the War Against the Indians". Insignificant, just noting it. It for whatever reason gives rather passing attention to the debates, less than a paragraph total for the subject, as the others do. They aren't mentioned at length by either of the earlier two here either, but that may reflect some form of pro-English language bias, I'm thinking. It discusses how "At the suggestion of Francisco de Toledo, the viceroy of Peru, the king ordered all the works, both published and unpublished, to be collected." Presumably published, as well, although that isn't specifically indicated. Regarding his lasting influence, it was Bolivar himself was inspired by some of the letters of Las Casas, as were some of the heroes of Mexican independence. That might be worth noting. It also indicates that Las Casas became prominent again in the 20th century in connection with the Indigenista movements of Peru and Mexico. Finally, "The modern significance of Las Casas lies in the fact that he was the first European to perceive the economic, political, and cultural injustice of the conolonial or neocolonial system maintained by the North Atlantic powers since the 16th century for the control of Latin America, Africa, and Asia." The bibliography includes a few other works, including Hanke's books Bartolome de Las Casas: Historian (1952), and Aristotle and the Indians (1959), which together with Hanke's other works probide a comprehehsive survey of his life and work. It also mentions Arthur Helps' The Life of Las Casas: The Apostle of the Indies (1868, reissued 1980).
Lastly, consulting the second edition of Africana, volume 3, pp.516-517. Obviously, it also is rather short, and, rather clearly, has more than a bit of a content bias toward Africa and the African diaspora. It describes Las Casas as being "known as the most unrelenting advocate of Native American interests before the Spanish Crown" and says "he became the first colonist of the sixteenth century to denounce the injustice of African slavery."  Regarding his History of the Indies, it says "during the process of rewriting his Historia de las Indias, he had access to previously uncirculated writings on the history of the Portuguese slave trade. Las Casas was shocked as he read and comprehended the parallels between Native American servitude and the commerce of African slaves."
Now, based on all this, I honestly cannot see any reason personally, as someone who isn't a GA reviewer, to believe the article as it stands does not meet GA criteria. None of the above comments, with the possible exception of the date of his "famous sermon", strike me as being necessarily so important that their comparative lack of coverage would disqualify it for GA class. Having said that, I would welcome any responses. The editor who nominated this article for GA has gone on break for a while, and I am more than willing to step in and do what I can to help ensure that his very good work on this article receives the respect it deserves, and I honestly think that includes the article being at at least GA status. Some of these other points might be relevant for FA, but even there I'm not sure how big a deal they might be. John Carter (talk) 16:19, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: And by the way - the reason I don't use Hanke much is because I  think his work is mostly been superseded, and also because he tends to write a very "white legend" type account that I don't think is congruent with more contemporary scholarship. I* can include more of Hanke's work if there are particular places where you think his viewpoints are missing.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:21, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

text: The page is in very good shape. I'd intended to do the review but am myself on wikibreak (though, strangely here). If no-one else picks it up soon, I'll take the review. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:54, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: These articles have a very good description of the circumstances of las Casas' "change of heart" (sermon on p. 31).·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:44, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review 

message: Sure, it's a pretty broad consensus that slavery and encomienda are all wrong, but I wonder if constructions like "he reformed his views" really fit in a work devoted to the unbiased and disinterested presentation of facts. Eh.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.180.248.30 (talk) 03:02, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moral Bias? 

message: As a Spanish native speaker, I find it very strange that the subject of this article is referred to as "Las Casas", which is an arbitrary subset of his surname. The usual convention with this kind of surnames is to use the full "De las Casas" or "de las Casas". See, for instance, Juan de la Cierva, Fernando de la Rúa or Juan de la Cosa. If no one objects, I will change it as soon as I have time for it. Asuranceturix 09:09, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right that this is a little weird, but it is the general convention used in the literature. There is for example an entire convention also in Spanish for calling the study of his life as work "estudios lascasianos". So please don't change it.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 04:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You will see this usage in Spanish language literature as well. For examples " Las Casas fue, en efecto, airado fiscal de las iniquidades perpetradas por muchos de los conquistadores, y elocuente apologista del indigena y sus derechos" "y que Las Casas es el primer europeo que criticó con vehemencia la injusticia de la esclavización de negros por los portugueses en África." And many others.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 04:51, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Las Casas" vs "De las Casas" 

message: Under occupation, it lists "Religious, bishop, writer, apologist"
"Religious" and "apologist" are not really occupations, correct?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.64.221.211 (talk) 16:45, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope. You are right.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:14, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

text: As a noun, "religious" can mean a monk or a nun... AnonMoos (talk) 07:50, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Occupation: Apologist 

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message: Bartolomé's father was Pedro de Las Casas, and Francisco de las Casas was his uncle who was a captain of a ship on Columbus' second voyage. Antonio de Remesal is the only source that states that BVarotlomé's father was Francisco, but Remesal is mistaken as the best and most recent biographies show (based on the actual records of the de las Casas family, unavailable to Remesal).·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:02, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Father's name

message: According to the introduction by Anthony Pagden in the Nigel Griffin translation of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Penguin, 2004), Bartolomé de las Casas died in 1576, not 1566.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.49.82.65 (talk) 11:03, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Date of death

message: Long ago, I happened across a work by Las Casas, which isn't included in the present article. I originally found it as Del único modo de atraer a todos los pueblos a la verdadera religión, which means "On the Only Way to Attract All Peoples to the True Religion." It's included in the corresponding article in the Spanish Wikipedia here, along with yet more works. So perhaps it would be good for the 2 Wikipedias (English and Spanish) to cross-check each other. Oaklandguy (talk) 04:37, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: This particular work has been translated into English! Here is a listing from an academic library.  Oaklandguy (talk) 05:13, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  More works by Las Casas (with notable example); cross-check with article in Spanish Wikipedia 

message: Do any page watchers know more about the Fountain to Bartolomé de las Casas? ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:32, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fountain to Bartolomé de las Casas