Las Casas: another oppressor who was somewhat conversant with the language of the oppressed – Part Three

Before proceeding with Las Casas let’s make sure we’re all on the same page as far as context goes.

History had inserted this Spanish priest at the dawning moment and location of what remains the most massive act of genocide known to the species. (1) We’ll provide some estimates of the magnitude of the horror, but if you can remember only one figure to associate with European conquest of the Americas, use this: 95%. That’s the percentage decimation generally agreed upon by bourgeois scholars of this holocaust. After the Europeans were done “bringing light” to the peoples of the Americas, only about 5% of those indigenous inhabitants remained. (2)

In absolute numbers the estimates of the carnage vary. The lower estimates are that there were 75,000,000 to 100,000,000 “pre-Kolumbian” inhabitants of the Americas, with 8,000,000 to 12,000,000 living north of Mexico. Higher estimates are 145,000,000 for the entire hemisphere, with 18,000,000 north of Mexico. Just to be clear, then, the context here is the commencement of the annihilation of between 71,000,000 and 137,000,000 persyns by the European empires. (3)

Of course Las Casas wasn’t around throughout the entirety of this genocide. (4) But the invaders were so rapacious in their endeavors that even in the span of Las Casas’ life much of the slaughter had already been accomplished. For example, in Kolumbus-named “Hispaniola” (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) the indigenous population of 8,000,000 was dispatched within the first 21 years of the conquistadores’ onslaught. Las Casas himself estimated 20,000 massacred in one day’s sadistic spree. (5)

So, in the interest of clear and comprehensive accuracy, this was the horrific context. And Las Casas’ claim to history’s attention is largely predicated on his being one of only a few Europeans to define, report, and declaim these events as the horrors they were. David Stannard calls Las Casas “the most passionate and humane European advocate for the Indians of his own time and for many years to come.” (6) That’s true. And it goes a long way as a class analysis of the nascent first world nations. Las Casas is the best they’ve got to offer up to the oppressed, and, sorry, but Las Casas just wasn’t all that.

We spotlight the very extraordinary character of the context in which Las Casas operated because, well, because you’d think that with these first world swine, you’d think that with a context of this, uh, nature, you’d think a context of this nature would produce at least one, from amongst an entire nation of these oppressors, at least one genuine servant of the oppressed. At least one parasite who, in light of such cataclysmic butchery, decided to change sides entirely and join wholeheartedly with the oppressed. Just one. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? That a context of such consequence would have an impact persuasive enough to wrench loose just one oppressor from a nation of millions. You’d think the genocide of a continent would do that. Just one nation traitor dislodged from the parasitic mass. Just one. You’d think. But no, the best we can get, the cream of this crop of oppressors, is a  Bartolomé de Las Casas, “The Protector of the Indians.”

“… The simple knowledge that something is wrong in his kingdom is quite sufficient to ensure that the king will see that it is corrected, for he will not tolerate any such evil for a moment longer than it takes him to right it.” (7)

This is the “protection” that Las Casas offered against human slaughter on a world historic scale: criminally nonsensical and fruitless appeals to the perpetrators (the Spanish monarchy) as though they were not in fact perpetrators, all with unquestioning loyalty to the ideological basis for the perpetration (blindly assuming that the Americas were of course part of “his (Spain’s) kingdom”). All of Las Casas’ work as “Protector of the Indians” – his voluminous writings detailing this holocaust, his speeches “in defense of the Indians,” his illustrations of “Spanish cruelties” – were produced out of this if-the-good-king-only-knew liberal imperialist sensibility.

“Most powerful sovereigns: all of Christendom should hold great celebrations, and especially God’s Church, for the finding of such a multitude of friendly peoples, which with very little effort will be converted to our Holy Faith, and so many lands filled with so many goods, very necessary to us in whom all Christians will have comfort and profits.” (8)

It’s the Las Casas formula for “benign” imperialism. “Comfort and profits,” of course, for the oppressor nation. And for the indigenous millions of the Americas: immaculate oppression. Conquest that’s not really conquest, exploitation that’s not really exploitation, oppression that’s anything but oppression. All made possible by no sweat “conversions,” since you just know those “Indians” will jump at the chance to prostrate themselves before the Spanish empire and rapturously offer up their “many lands filled with so many goods” to those for whom they are so “very necessary,” i.e., the marauding Spaniards. In a nutshell, it’s liberal “hearts and minds (and souls)” imperialism.

So the very best that this catastrophic context can extract from the oppressor nation is a goddamn liar. It is simply a lie to propose that the oppressed will voluntarily and cheerily welcome their oppressors, or, indeed, that they should. It is simply a lie to propose that conquest and oppression are separable. It is simply a lie to propose distinguishing between the conquistador shock troop arm of Spanish imperialism and that of the centralized monarchy. And it is simply a lie to propose distinguishing between liberal imperialism and imperialism. Stamping Spanish imperialism with the approval of his cheesy “Protector of the Indians” imprimatur was just the perfect liberal touch: Las Casas was doing his bit for Spanish conquest absolutely every bit as much as those “colonists” genocidally hacking away in the “new world” – it was simply a division of imperialist labor.

Daniel Castro presents a detailed accounting of the paucity of actual benefit to the oppressed resulting from the efforts of this clerical agent of imperialism, efforts which “rarely translated into tangible gains.” (9) Las Casas was pretty much materially useless to the oppressed “of his time.” He was less than useless to them ideologically, what with his cheerleading celebration of Spanish conquest while preaching to the oppressed little other than “conversion” to submission and defeat.

We initially promised to show you some things that Las Casas, despite himself, might have to offer to the oppressed today. It may seem that we’re just stringing you along on that, while really using the time for extended Las Casas bashing. That wouldn’t be all that bad, actually. Knocking another of the oppressors’ iconic “gifts” to the oppressed off his false pedestal is always a worthy aim. But Daniel Castro has done that pretty effectively for now, and we’ve got bigger and more contemporary fish to fry. No, we haven’t gone on with Las Casas to such length to further defrock this particular imperialist agent. It’s just that the lessons to be drawn here for the oppressed require that the stage be set completely.

That setting now accomplished, we raise the curtain on lessons from Las Casas in Part Four.

Sources:

Castro, Daniel, Another Face of Empire, Durham, N.C., 2007.

Stannard, David E., American Holocaust, New York, 1992.

1. Stannard, p. x, “The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.” Stannard’s book is highly recommended as arguably the most comprehensive and vivid exposition of the horrors of European conquest of the Americas.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. See Final Solution for one example of the yankkkee ingenuity employed to continue this genocide up to the present day.

5. Stannard, p. 71.

6. Stannard, p. 210.

7. Castro, p. 10.

8. Ibid., p. 18.

9. Ibid., p. 6. 

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