Description

Bartolome de las Casas, O.P. (1484-1566), was a 16th-century Spanish Dominican priest, writer and the first resident Bishop of Chiapas. With his father, las Casas emigrated to the island of Hispaniola, in 1502 on the expedition of Nicolas de Ovando, during which he witnessed the brutalities committed against the Tainos. He joined the Dominican monastery in Santo Domingo in 1523. There he continued his theological studies. He helped to oversee the building of a church in Puerto de Plata. He also began working on his History of the Indies in order to report many of the first hand experiences that he had witnessed in the conquest and colonization of New Spain. Las Casas played a significant historical role as an eyewitness to one of the most important eras in history. He made an abstract and copy of the diary Christopher Columbus kept of his voyages. He incorporated much of Columbus' writings, diary and log in his own history. Today, both the Columbus diary as well as the copy have disappeared but las Casas' abstract survived. He is an important source for the early period of Spanish Colonialism.