PPT Slide

It is true that Las Casas did not at Valladolid attempt to defend

the character of all people in the world, nor did he work

there for any liberty except Indian liberty, but all through

his writings he fought the idea that slavery was good

for the men he saw in the New World, whether Indians or Negroes.

He once, early in his career, advised that Negroes born

as slaves in Spain should be brought to work in America to

spare the Indians, but soon after declared that,

since learning that the Portuguese had captured and enslaved

them unjustly, he now believed

ìthat it is unjust to enslave Negroes

as it is to enslave Indians,and for the same reasons.î

Lewis Hanke, 1949