Bartolome de Las Casas Quotes
Bartolome de Las Casas was a Spanish Dominican friar, bishop of Chiapas in New Spain, and the most outspoken sixteenth-century defender of the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. After participating as an encomendero in the early conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba, he underwent a profound conversion in 1514 and devoted the rest of his long life to documenting and opposing Spanish abuses, advocating for indigenous rights at the Spanish court, and developing a sustained theological argument for the full humanity and freedom of the peoples of the New World. The quotes below are attributed to Bartolome de Las Casas, organized by topic.
Browse Bartolome de Las Casas by topic
Bartolome de Las Casas on Freedom
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“Christ seeks souls, not property. ... He who wants a large part of mankind to be such that ... he may act like a ferocious executioner toward them, press them into slavery, and through them grow rich, is a despotic master, not a Christian; a son of Satan, not of God; a plunderer, not a shepherd.”
p. 40
Bartolome de Las Casas on God
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Attributed to Bartolome de Las Casas:
“Christ did not come to enslave but to set free.”
Bartolome de Las Casas on Justice
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Attributed to Bartolome de Las Casas:
“All the peoples of the world are human.”
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Attributed to Bartolome de Las Casas:
“What right have we to subjugate those who have done us no wrong?”
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Attributed to Bartolome de Las Casas:
“Justice does not depend on the strength of the conqueror.”
Bartolome de Las Casas on Knowledge
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“Men, from their early years, are reared in the midst of goods of the body and senses, the source of corrupt behavior, and, because they constantly deal with them, know them better. But spiritual things, the goods of reason, and things intellectual, which are far removed from the senses, they do not know as well. Because they understand and are always dealing with material things, but spiritual things are not so readily evident, it happens that men, for the most part, are plunged into sinful conduct.”
p. 37 -
“And never have the Indians in all the Indies committed any act against the Spanish Christians, until those Christians have first and many times committed countless cruel aggressions against them or against neighboring nations.”
Wikiquote -
“After the wars and the killings had ended, when usually there survived only some boys, some women, and children, these survivors were distributed among the Christians to be slaves.”
Wikiquote -
“The Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and were put into the harshest, fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the field.”
History of the Indies(1561)
Bartolome de Las Casas on Life
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“With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim's neck, saying, "Go now, carry the message," meaning, Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains.”
History of the Indies(1561) -
“They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim's feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive.”
History of the Indies(1561)
Bartolome de Las Casas on Love
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“Christ wanted love to be called his single commandment. This we owe to all men. Nobody is excepted.”
p. 39
Bartolome de Las Casas on Mind
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“More than thirty other islands in the vicinity of San Juan are for the most part and for the same reason depopulated, and the land laid waste.”
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“It should be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the cause of their villainies.”
History of the Indies(1561)
Bartolome de Las Casas on Nature
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“...and never have the Indians in all the Indies committed any act against the Spanish Christians, until those Christians have first and many times committed countless cruel aggressions against them or against neighboring nations. For in the beginning the Indians regarded the Spaniards as angels from Heaven. Only after the Spaniards had used violence against them, killing, robbing, torturing, did t”
quoted in Euclid and Jesus, How and why the church changed mathematics and Christianity across two religious wars C. K. Raju, and quoted in C. K. Raju, Cultural Foundations of Mathematics , Vol. 10, Pt. 4 : The Nature of Mathematical Proof and the Transmission of the Calculus from India to Europe (India: Pearson Longman, 2007) -
“And of all the infinite universe of humanity, these people are the most guileless, the most devoid of wickedness and duplicity, the most obedient and faithful to their native masters and to the Spanish Christians whom they serve.”
Wikiquote -
“These people are the most devoid of rancors, hatreds, or desire for vengeance of any people in the world.”
Wikiquote
Bartolome de Las Casas on Politics
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Attributed to Bartolome de Las Casas:
“The pursuit of gold has covered the New World with blood.”
Bartolome de Las Casas on Time
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“Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits.”
History of the Indies(1561)
Bartolome de Las Casas on Truth
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“We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the forty years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain more than twelve million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like fifty million.”
Wikiquote