34 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and EnslavementLas Casas’s father was a struggling merchant; he and
several family members were involved in Christopher Co-
lumbus’s voyages to the New World. Bartolomé also joined
these enterprises, sailing for Hispaniola in the West Indies
with its governor in 1502. His service there was rewarded
with a royal land grant, an encomienda, which included
forced labor. Las Casas served as a catechism teacher (doc-
trinero) to the aboriginal peoples. Although some histori-
ans believe he was ordained to the priesthood before he left
Spain, others claim he was not ordained until 1512 or 1513.
He may have been the fi rst person to receive holy orders in
the Americas.
Th ese early years in the New World provided many
illustrations of the brutality and corruption of royal of-
fi cials toward those forced to labor for the Spanish over-
lords. Th rough his experiences in the New World, his study
of scripture, and the guidance of a Dominican confessor,
Las Casas came to a new appreciation of the plight of these
subject races.
In 1514 Las Casas gave a sermon announcing he was
giving his serfs back to the governor. He returned to Spain
in 1515, knowing that he had to pursue his campaign for
improved conditions for the native people in the heart of
the Spanish government. Las Casas found a powerful ally
in the archbishop of Toledo, Francisco Jiménez de Cisne-
ros. Together they designed the Plan para la reformación
de las Indias, which named Las Casas priest-procurator of
the Indies. Las Casas was also to take part in a commission
investigating the condition of the subject people.
Much of Las Casas’s life was spent honing his moral
and legal arguments against colonial oppression while try-
ing to gain access to the Spanish ruler, Charles I (Emperor
Charles V), and his infl uential courtiers. Las Casas’s impas-
sioned arguments before the Spanish Parliament in 1519
were instrumental in convincing the king to endorse a col-
ony of free Indians. Only Spaniards committed to peaceful
coexistence with the natives were allowed within the pre-
scribed zone (the coast of Paria). Lack of Spanish support,
open hostility from the defenders of the encomienda sys-
tem, and an aboriginal uprising took their toll on the com-
munity. By 1522 it was evident the project had failed.
Seeking solace in his religious vocation, Las Casas
joined the Dominican order in Santo Domingo shortly
thereaft er (1523). It was during this phase of his life that he
began to write one of his major works, the Apologética his-
toria summaria de las gentes Indias, and his magnum opus,he may have been the fi rst African to criticize European
colonization in the Americas.
By 1791, Cugoano had ended his long-standing em-
ployment with the Cosways and was apparently working
with the Sierra Leone Company as an active proponent of
emigration and repatriation. In his last known set of writ-
ings, a letter to Granville Sharp and a shorter version of
Th oughts and Sentiments written in 1791, Cugoano states
that he was planning to sail to New Brunswick, Nova Sco-
tia, and, from there, he was to join Nova Scotia ships to
Sierra Leone where he hoped to open a school for repatri-
ated Africans. No records exist detailing Cugoano’s later
life as he completely disappears from the historical record
aft er 1791.
See also: Abolition, Slave Trade; Atlantic Slave Trade
Walter C. RuckerBibliography
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wood Press, 1999.
de Las Casas, Bartolomé
Bartolomé de las Casas (1471?–1566) was a Spanish Do-
minican priest who spent much of his long life fi ghting
against the cruelty and subjugation of the indigenous peo-
ple and African slaves in the Spanish colonies in the New
World. Ironically, his empathy regarding the plight of the
Taino and other indigenous people led Las Casas to be one
of the fi rst to support the large-scale importation of African
slaves into the Spanish Americas.