78 CHAPTER 4 THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF COLONIAL LIFE
Bartolomé de Las Casas, the former encomen-
dero who had repented of his ways and later turned
friar, now joined the struggle against indigenous
slavery and the doctrines of Palacios Rubios. Of
the Requirement, Las Casas said that on reading it,
he could not decide whether to laugh or weep. Las
Casas argued that the papal grant of America to
the crown of Castile had been made solely for the
purpose of conversion; it gave the Spanish crown
no temporal power or possession in the Indies. The
indígenas had rightful possession of their lands by
natural law and the law of nations. All Spanish wars
and conquests in the New World were illegal. Spain
must bring Christianity to indigenous peoples by the
only method “that is proper and natural to men...
namely, love and gentleness and kindness.”
Las Casas hoped for a peaceful colonization of
the New World by Spanish farmers who would live
side by side with the natives, teach them to farm
and live in the European way, and gradually bring
into being an ideal Christian community. A series
of disillusioning experiences, including the de-
struction of an experimental colony on the coast of
Venezuela (1521), turned Las Casas’s mind toward
more radical solutions. His fi nal program called
for the suppression of all encomiendas, liberation
of the indígenas from all forms of servitude except
a small voluntary tribute to the crown in recom-
pense for its gift of Christianity, and the restoration
of their ancient states and rulers, the rightful own-
ers of those lands. Over these states the Spanish
king would preside as “Emperor over many kings”
to fulfi ll his sacred mission of bringing them to the
Catholic faith and the Christian way of life. The
instruments of that mission should be friars, who
would enjoy special jurisdiction over indigenous
peoples and protect them from the corrupting in-
fl uence of lay Spaniards. Although Las Casas’s pro-
posals appeared radical, they in fact served the
royal aim of curbing the power of the conquista-
dors and preventing the rise of a powerful colonial
feudalism in the New World. Not humanitarianism
but self-interest, above all, explains the partial offi -
cial support that Las Casas’s reform efforts received
in the reign of Charles V (1516–1556).
This question became crucial with the con-
quest of the rich, populous empires of Mexico and
Peru. The most elementary interests of the crown
demanded that the West Indian catastrophe should
not be repeated in the newly conquered lands. In
1523, Las Casas appeared to have won a major
victory. King Charles sent Cortés an order forbid-
ding the establishment of encomiendas in New
Spain (the name given to the former Aztec Empire),In sharp contrast to Spanish art that depicted the heroic civilizing infl uence of conquest
and colonization, this Mayan codex emphasized Spanish barbarism and the pivotal role
of enslaved Mayan labor in the colonial economy. [Tozzer Library of Harvard College Library]