Labe, Louise
(1520–1566)
French poet born as Louise Charly in
Lyon. The daughter of a rope maker, and
later the wife of one, she was given the
nicknameLa Belle Cordiere. She was edu-
cated in music and languages, and as a
writer joined a prominent literary circle in
Lyon. In 1555, the Lyon printer Jean de
Tournes published herEuvres(Works), a
volume of twenty-four love sonnets, an al-
legory entitledDebate Between Love and
Madness, three elegies, and twenty-four
poems written by others in her own praise.
The book went through several editions,
while the sonnets made her name among
the School of Lyons and have survived as
her best-known works. Labe fervently en-
couraged other women to exercise their
new found freedoms to write, speak, study,
and debate in the male-dominated world
of letters. Her erotic love poetry, however,
inspired scandal, as did a rumored pen-
chant for dressing as a man. She was ac-
cused of being a courtesan and was con-
demned by reformers such as John Calvin.
Las Casas, Bartolomée de .................
(1474–1566)
Spanish missionary and historian, known
today as an advocate for the rights and
liberty of Native Americans. Born in
Seville, he was the son of a middle-class
merchant who had little traditional school-
ing. His father and uncle joined the sec-
ond expedition of Christopher Columbus.
In 1502, Bartolomée voyaged to the New
World in the expedition of Nicolas de
Ovando, the new governor of Hispaniola,
in order to manage lands granted to his
father by Columbus. In 1510 he became
the first priest to be ordained in Spain’s
American colonies. He served as a mis-
sionary in Cuba, Mexico, Central America,
and Peru, and was appointed as the priest-
procurator of the Indies in 1516, with his
duties being to investigate fraud and abuse
of the Indians by the Spanish colonists. He
eventually came to oppose the system by
which the Spanish were destroying the cul-
ture of Native Americans, forcibly convert-
ing them to Christianity, and using them
as slaves. Las Casas advocated a new sys-
tem in which Europeans and Indians
would cooperatively work rural planta-
tions, but when one such experiment failed
on the coast of Venezuela, he gave up his
livelihood as a landowner and retired to a
Dominican monastery in Santo Domingo.
Las Casas’ stand on Native Americans
was based on the idea that the grant of
the right to colonize this part of the New
World by the pope was for the purpose of
converting Indians to Christianity, and not
for economic benefit. This aroused strong
opposition among the Spanish landown-
ers, who absolutely depended on forced la-
bor in order to make their plantations
profitable. He pled his case before King
Ferdinand II and the officials of Spain,
and won an important success with a code
of New Laws promulgated by Emperor
Charles V in 1542 that banned slavery in
Spain’s colonies, as well as the right of the