Account of slavery spawned legend

By Miguel Encinias
For the Journal
The Black Legend was based on the account of one person: Fray Bartolome de Las Casas.
In 1542 the reformist friar wrote his book, "A Very Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies."
Las Casas had come to the New World in 1502 and was given an encomienda as a reward for his participation in expeditions. An encomienda was a royal land grant that included the labor of its Indian inhabitants. It was a common practice in the Spanish conquest.
He was ordained a priest around 1510, and in 1514 renounced the system and returned his slaves to the governor. He began a lifetime crusade of speaking up for Indian rights. Las Casas received audiences at levels as high as the king and published many papers.
In 1583, Thomas Dawson published an English version of Las Casas' "Destruction" that he translated from a French translation by Jacques de Migrodde. Dawson called it "The Spanish Colonie."
His book began with a preface bearing the title, "Spanish Cruelties and Tyrannies Perpetrated in the West Indies Commonly Termed the Newe Found Worlde."
The English had already broken off from the Catholic Church and were trailing far behind the Spaniards in their imperialistic aspirations. Dawson's book, with its added commentary, was used as anti-Spanish propaganda. For centuries the Black Legend that resulted remained an obstacle in relations between Anglo America and its neighbors to the south.
But, as John A. Crow says in his book "The Epic of Latin America," Las Casas made two fundamental mistakes.
One was his recommendation that black slaves be brought in to do work the Native Americans were not fitted by tradition to do -- something he regretted in later life.
The second was his hyperbole, which, Cook says, "was oftentimes so exaggerated as to be ludicrous."
For instance, Las Casas wrote that in Mexico one Spanish soldier killed 10,000 Indians with his lance in one hour. Crow points out that at that rate he would have had to kill almost three a second.
Crow further writes, "In this work Las Casas claimed that the Spaniards had killed ... a grand total (by 1541) of 15 to 20 million Indians ... somewhat more than the total native population of both Americas at that time from Alaska to Patagonia."
(Scientists to this day continue to argue over what the population of the New World was before exposure to Europeans in 1492, with estimates ranging from a few million to more than 70 million.)
Las Casas died in 1566 at the age of 92 and did not witness the work performed by the friar educators who followed in his footsteps -- Motolinia, Gante, Zumarraga and many others.
These friars also devoted their lives to the welfare of the Indians and to the transition that history had mandated for them.
Las Casas' actions and writings helped foster better conditions for Native Americans under Spanish rule and led to the eventual banishment of slavery. He now is remembered as the father of the Laws of the Indies more so than the source of the Black Legend.
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Miguel Encinias is an Albuquerque historian. His novel "Two Lives for Oñate" is scheduled for publication on Nov. 1 by the University of New Mexico Press.