[Gutenberg 23613] • Las Casas: "The Apostle of the Indies"

Bartolome de las Casas, O.P. (1484-1566), was a 16th-century Spanish Dominican priest, and the first resident Bishop of Chiapas. 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. With his father, he emigrated to the island of Hispaniola in 1502 on the expedition of Nicolas de Ovando, during which he witnessed the brutalities committed against the Tainos. He became a priest eight years later, and served as a missionary to the Arawak (Taino) of Cuba in 1512. He began what became known as the "Black Legend," which created stereotypical imatges of the Spaniards as rapacious colonists and Indians as innocents. He is commemorated as a missionary in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on July 17. In 2000, the Roman Catholic Church began the process to beatify him.