First off, you have to fully grasp that Las Casas meant every word above quite literally. This statement, from his last will and testament, came at the end of a life most of which was dedicated to documenting the “unjust, barbarous, and tyrannical manner” in which the Spanish conquistadores accomplished their genocide of the Americas. He was there with Kolumbus as “these godless, evil and ignoble acts” were perpetrated. Las Casas was also there at the king’s court watching the actual loot roll in, watching all of Spain “prosper” from the “bloody wealth usurped at the price of much ruin and many massacres.” There is no hyperbole in the Las Casas description, if only because it’s impossible to overstate the enormity of the crime.
But most importantly it’s imperative to understand Las Casas’ confidence that “God will direct his ire and fury upon all Spain.” This prediction was meant with absolute literalness. It was not some figurative turn of phrase just to provide metaphorical amplification of the accusations against the nation of Spain. Las Casas, the Catholic priest, actually believed this stuff – that some supernatural and omnipotent being would in fact punish Spain for these crimes by the literal destruction of the Spanish people. It’s critical that you get this if you’re going to get a handle on Las Casas, most of whose life was consumed with this fear for the Spanish empire’s survival and in turn was dedicated to saving that empire from his god’s “ire and fury.”
Now, Las Casas was no saint. And neither, for that matter, was his god. Daniel Castro accurately pegs Las Casas as fundamentally an agent of Spanish imperialism. In Castro’s Another Face of Empire Las Casas is featured in the title role as the smiley face of Spanish imperial conquest of the Americas.(1) This would be as opposed to the frowny face of bloody subjugation embodied in the conquistador colonialists doing the actual dirty work of genocide and looting. Castro shows clearly that Las Casas was devoted to stopping the colonists’ genocide of the indigenous population of the Americas in favor of “a form of systematic benevolent imperialism that ideally would result in the best of all possible worlds for all concerned.”(2) In other words, conquest and plunder without all the muss and fuss and a happy ending with rainbows and lollipops for everyone. Sure.
And Las Casas’ god was no better. This god in fact demanded of Spain and Las Casas the impossible: both conquer (”convert”) the indigenous population and do it in a fashion that tickles their fancy. Do all that and everything’ll be hunky dory by god. But at least don’t kill them every one in such a barbaric manner because that just turns god’s stomach and he’ll have to destroy all of Spain in return. That was heaven’s the tall order for the “benevolent” imperialism of Las Casas if he was to save his beloved Spain.
Well at this point in the story you might want to simply say fuck Las Casas and his god and be done with it and you wouldn’t be half wrong if you did.
But you’d be enough wrong for it to matter because you’d be missing some things that can be helpful to the oppressed and exploited. So don’t give up on the imperialist agent Las Casas and the Spanish genocide of the Americas just yet. Hopefully your forbearance will be rewarded in Part Two.
1. Castro, Daniel. Another Face of Empire. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007.
2. Ibid., 72.
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