Understand the hardships that the Indians

faced under Spanish rule and the role that Bartolome de Las Casas had in helping them.

Today De Las Casas PowerPoint De Las Casas Primary Source*Be sure to bring your video worksheet back to class tomorrow*

9/25/14

Fort San Lorenzo

San Lorenzo

In 1502, during his

fourth and final voyage, Christopher Columbus discovered the Chagres River.

By 1560, Pirates were raiding the area and the Spanish built Fort San Lorenzo between the years of 1587-1599.

In 1670, Henry Morgan ordered an attack that

left Fort San Lorenzo in ruins. He invaded Panama City the next year and used San Lorenzo as his base.

Killed all 300 hundred men of the garrison, and kept only 23 men of higher standing alive.

Bartolome de Las Casas

Spain's conquest of the New World was largely

driven by prospect of wealth, especially in gold and silver. Along the way, the Spaniards sought to Christianize the native peoples, or Amerindians, they encountered as they spread out across the continent.

Spain sponsored many exploratory expeditions, which were led by military commanders called conquistadors.

The Encomienda System

As rewards for their service and successful

missions, the king granted encomiendas to these conquistadors, as well as to other officials, soldiers, and colonists. These grants entitled their holders, who were called encomenderos, to tribute from the Amerindians of a particular region.

The natives were required to provide produce

and gold, but especially labor for the encomenderos' mining operations and other projects. In return, the encomenderos promised to protect the Amerindians and convert them to Christianity.

Not surprisingly, many Amerindians resisted

the encomienda system, which resulted in violence as the Spanish enslaved, tortured, and massacred the rebellious natives.

Most Spaniards paid little attention to the brutality. In their eyes, the Indians weren't really human anyway, so they were beneath their care. One man, however, disagreed. His name was Bartolome de las Casas.

Bartolome was born in Spain in 1484. His

father traveled with Columbus on the explorer's second voyage, and he brought back treasures and stories that sparked his son's curiosity.

In 1502, Bartolome headed for the New World for the first time. The young man impressed the governor so much by his hard work and leadership that he earned his own encomienda.

Bartolome the Encomendero

Pretty soon, though, Bartolome began to be

appalled by the Spaniards' treatment of the Amerindians. He despised the atrocities he witnessed, and he hated to see the natives forced to accept Christianity against their will.

Bartolome returned to Spain to study for the priesthood, received his ordination in 1507, and went back to the New World as a catechist to the Amerindians.

In 1514, he renounced his encomienda and started preaching against his former way of life.

Bartolome often spoke and wrote about a

better way to convert the Amerindians to the Christian faith. He wanted to convince them through love rather than by force and slavery.

He figured that maybe if Spaniards and Amerindians could live peacefully side by side, the natives would be more willing to embrace the Spanish religion and way of life.

A New Venture

In the early 1520s, Bartolome decided to put his

ideas into action. He founded a colony in Cumaná (modern Venezuela) that consisted of several villages where Spaniards and Amerindians lived and worked together freely.

The experiment might have worked, but neighboring encomenderos did not appreciate Bartolome's new way of treating the native peoples.

They incited their own Amerindians to attack, and that was the end of Bartolome's little colony.

Discouraged, Bartolome joined the Dominican order in

1523. He decided that he would concentrate on telling the Amerindians' story through writing and preaching and trying to gain legal protection for them.

His thunderous sermons echoed through the Spanish Empire, earning him enemies and sometimes an order of silence from the government. Bartolome didn't give up.

When he didn't preach, he wrote, advocating the peaceful spread of Christianity, describing the abuses suffered by the Amerindians, calling for humane treatment of the natives, and recounting the history of the New World.

In 1537, Pope Paul III issued a document declaring

that the Amerindians were human beings who were not to be deprived of their freedom or property.

Bartolome worked hard to spread the pope's document and enforce its decrees. In 1540, he returned to Spain to petition King Charles V on behalf of the Amerindians.

The king actually listened. In the New Laws of 1542, he abolished slavery and ended the encomienda system.