Source:piomoa.es

Las Casas’ slander caused outrage not only among the Spanish conquistadores and settlers in America, but also among many of the friars, among them the so-called Franciscan “twelve apostles of Mexico”, who not only ensured the protection of the Indians, often in conflict with the civil authorities, but also their instruction in various trades, which they learned quickly. One of the most prominent of these, Toribio de Benavente, called by the Indians Motolinía, i.e. “the poor”, worked intensively in Mexico, Nicaragua and Guatemala, learned the Nahuatl language and carried out the first ethnographic and historical studies of the cultures of those lands, in particular his Historia de los indios de la Nueva España (History of the Indians of New Spain). Some of his works were lost. To refute Las Casas, he wrote to Carlos I, pointing out the latter’s exaggerations and slander, and his sick attitude: “He had no peace in New Spain, nor in Hispaniola, nor in Nicaragua nor in Guatemala, nor did he learn the language of the Indians, nor did he humble himself or apply himself to teaching them”; and describes him as “restless, inopportune, boisterous and litigious”, a “harmful injurer” who slandered Cortés, “he is not right in saying what he says and writes and prints, and hereafter, as will be necessary, I will tell his jealousy and his works how far they go and where they stop, and whether he helped the Indians here or harassed them”. “All his dealings have been with some unsettled people so that they tell him things that he writes with his passionate spirit against the Spaniards”.

San Cristobal de las Casas cacthedral, Chiapas

San Cristobal de las Casas cacthedral, Chiapas

Several Indian notables asked for protection against the “grievances and annoyances” of the Spaniards, something unrelated to the exterminating murder of millions attributed to them by Las Casas, and for his appointment as bishop of Chiapas. And the friar went to Chiapas as bishop in 1545. His bishopric was not, as Motolinía indicates, of any advantage for the instruction of the Indians in religious matters or in practical trades. Instead, he promoted from the first moment attacks and discord among Spaniards. He excommunicated the president of the Audiencia, imprisoned the dean of the cathedral, harassed priests except one, denying them the authority to hear confessions, encouraged the faithful to denounce priests who misbehaved according to his criteria. In his Notices and Rules for Confessors he wrote: “Everything done so far in the Indies has been morally unjust and juridically null and void”. This somewhat obsessive and denouncing activity ended up provoking the rebellion of the Spaniards, without the Indians feeling alluded to by one or the other. Las Casas went to Mexico for a meeting of bishops, who paid little attention to him. Then, without asking anyone’s permission, he returned to Spain in 1547, from where he did not return to the Indies, having served fruitlessly in Chiapas, but without officially resigning the bishopric until three years later. Once at court, he continued his polemics with the humanist Ginés de Sepúlveda, with whom he had a famous debate in 1550-51, succeeding in having his opponent’s book Democrates Alter banned.

To understand the real situation that had come about in New Spain, between constant tensions between the friars and the civil authorities, the testimony of the Englishman, very Hispanophobic, Henry Hawks, in 1572, can be useful: “The Indians revere the friars because thanks to them they are free and do not know slavery”. “The magistrates of the country favour the Indians very much (…) If any Spaniard harms an Indian (…) he is instantly punished in the same way as if he had done it to a Spaniard”. If the harm occurred in lands far from the cities, “the Indian keeps quiet, waiting for a better occasion, and then, taking a neighbour with him, he goes to Mexico, even if it is twenty leagues away, and presents his complaint. At once he is heard, even if the oppressor is a gentleman or a strong bourgeois, at once he is sent for and punished in his goods and in his person (…) This is the reason why the Indians are so calm and urbanised (…) If they were not favoured in this way, the Spaniards would quickly finish them off or they would murder the Spaniards”.

Motolinía had very hard confrontations and problems with the authorities, but his missionary, economic and intellectual work, based on a realistic appreciation of the facts and conflicting interests, became the model that made it possible to establish one of the most internally peaceful empires in history. Las Casas, on the other hand, did nothing of any benefit for the Indians, although he harmed the Spaniards as much as he could. He represents the radical agitator, somewhere between enlightened and disturbed, who believes he has found the causes and causes of the evils that afflict humanity. And for this reason – and for his propagandistic ammunition against Spain – he has enjoyed thousand times more credit and veneration than Motolinía.

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