Bartolome De La Casas

Bartolome de las Casas was a Spanish Bishop who spent a sizable portion of his adult life crusading for the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas, who were generally treated poorly under Spanish colonial rule. He advocated several different solutions to improve the treatment of the indigenous people. These included setting up towns for them, or towns where they could live side by side with the Spanish. He also fought for the abolition of slavery of the indigenous people. His work helped lead to the passage of the New Laws of 1542, which prohibited the enslavement of the native people of the Americas, but his ideas were also met with significant resistance both in Spain and in the colonies (PBS.org, 2010).

To promote his ideas, he undertook several ventures. De las Casas wrote several books that outlined the cruel treatment to which the indigenous people...
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