Skip to main content

Bartolome de Las Casas: Political Theorist and Historian

  • Chapter
  • 199 Accesses

Abstract

Bartolomé de Las Casas, who fought so stoutly for the Indians from his conversion in 1514 in Cuba until his death in 1566 in Spain, has usually been considered a noble humanitarian or a saintly fanatic, when harsher epithets have not been applied to him. Few of his friends or enemies have realized that under the fire and brimstone of his invective there existed a closely reasoned structure of political thought based upon the most fundamental concepts of medieval Europe.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. For a résumé of past and present interpretations, see Silvio Zavala, New Viewpoints on the Spanish Colonization of America (Philadelphia, 1943), 17–28. The latest study is by Manuel Giménez Fernández, Nuevas consideraciones sobre la historia, sentido y valor de las bulas alejandrinas de 1493 referentes a las Indias (Sevilla, 1944).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ricardo Levene, Introducción a la historia del derecho indiano (Buenos Aires, 1924), 56–57.

    Google Scholar 

  3. John L. Myres, “The influence of anthropology on the course of political science, “Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1909 (London, 1910), 591, 592–94.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Blakey, History of Political Literature, II (London, 1855), 365–70.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Quoted by José Toribio Medina, El descubrimiento del Océano Pacifico, II (Santiago, 1913–1920), 516.

    Google Scholar 

  6. For a listing of the titles of these works and detailed information on this whole subject, see the author’s Las teorías políticas de Bartolomé de Las Casas (Buenos Aires, 1935.)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Antonio María Fabié, Vida y escritos de Don Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, II (Madrid, 1879), 577–78.

    Google Scholar 

  8. For exact citation to this order and for other information on the subject, see the writer’s “Free speech in sixteenth-century America”, Hispanic American Historical Review, XXVI (1946), 135–49.

    Google Scholar 

  9. James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, I (London, 1924), 302. 2 Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, III: 322.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Translation by Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, IV (London, 1855), 577–78. For the original Spanish, see Las Casas, Colección de tratados, 1552–1553 (Buenos Aires, 1924), 230.

    Google Scholar 

  11. For a detailed description of this, see the writer’s article on this subject, “Francisco de Toledo and the just titles of Spain to the Inca empire”, The Americas, III (Washington, 1946), 3–19.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Ibid., pp. 17–18. 2 Ibid., p. 18.

    Google Scholar 

  13. James Ernst, Roger Williams (New York, 1932), 80, 101–3, 130.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Antonio María Fabié, Vida y escritos de fray Bartolomé de las Casas, I (Madrid, 1879), 235.

    Google Scholar 

  15. See the writer’s Cuerpo de documentos del siglo XVI (México, 1943), 27, 324.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Fabié, op. cit., I: 237.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, I:1.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Ibid., I: 17–18.

    Google Scholar 

  19. John L. Brown, The Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem of Jean Bodin: a critical study (Washington, 1939), 85.

    Google Scholar 

  20. “La superchería en la historia del descubrimiento de América,” Humanidades, XX (La Plata, 1930), 169–184. Carbia wrote a number of articles on this topic, most of which are cited in his La crónica oficial de las Indias Occidentales (Buenos Aires, 1940). For a penetrating criticism of Carbia’s attitude, see Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, I (Boston, 1942), 20, 23, 206 and vol. II: 289.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, III: 343.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Ibid., I: 539.

    Google Scholar 

  23. On the Academy’s various actions, see Cesáreo Fernández Duro’s report in the Boletín de la Real Academia de Historia, XLII (1903), 5–59.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Saco’s article “La Historia de las Indias por Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, y la Real Academia de la Historia de Madrid” first appeared in the Revista hispanoamericana de Madrid on February 12, 1865. Later he republished it in his Historia de la esclavitud de la raza africana en el mundo nuevo y en especial en los países américo-hispanos, tomo 1 (Barcelona 1869), Apéndices, pp. 373–80. The latter version is the one used here.

    Google Scholar 

  25. History of Spanish Literature, II (Boston, 1872), 46.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois, “XXVI Congreso Internacional de Americanistas”, Tierra firme, I (Madrid, 1935), 133–38.

    Google Scholar 

  27. One of the best and most recent examples of this is Rómulo D. Carbia’s Historia de la leyenda negra hispanoamericana (Buenos Aires, 1943).

    Google Scholar 

  28. Some bibliographical assistance for such a study will be found in the writer’s “Dos palabras on Antonio de Ulloa and the Noticias Secretas”, Hispanic American Historical Review, XVI (1936), 479–514.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Agustín Rivera y Sanromán, Principios críticos sobre el virreinato de la Nueva España: sobre la revolución de independencia, I (Lagos, 1884), 262–75.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Arthur S. Aiton, “The secret visita against Viceroy Mendoza,” New Spain and the Anglo-American West, I (Los Angeles, 1932), 29.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Motolinía, Historia de los indios de la Nueva España (Barcelona, 1914), 17–19. Ed. by Daniel Sánchez García.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Documentos inéditos de América, II: 113, 117, 118–19.

    Google Scholar 

  33. León Fernández, Colección de documentos para la historia de Costa Rica, VI (San José, 1881–1907), 206–207.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Archivo General de Simancas, Estado 2660. Consulta of March 12, 1638.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Estudios de historiografía de la Nueva España. Con una introducción de Ramón Iglesia (Mécixo, 1945), 10.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Ramón Iglesia, Cronistas e historiadores de la conquista de México (México, 1942), 47–48.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, I (Boston, 1942), 68, 70–71.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1951 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hanke, L. (1951). Bartolome de Las Casas: Political Theorist and Historian. In: Bartolomé de Las Casas. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6298-4_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6298-4_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-5839-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-6298-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics