mercancía, gentes pacíficas y plaga - D-Scholarship@Pitt ...

MERCANCÍA, GENTES PACÍFICAS Y PLAGA: BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS Y
LOS ORÍGENES DEL PENSAMIENTO ABOLICIONISTA EN EL ATLÁNTICO
IBÉRICO
Rubén A. Sánchez-Godoy, Ph. D.
University of Pittsburgh, 2009
This dissertation explores the process that drives Bartolomé de Las Casas from his early support
for introducing black slaves in the West Indies to his late and strong criticism of the Portuguese
slave trade in the third volume of The History of the Indies, and his regret for his early support of
slave trafficking. Seeking to move beyond the traditional apologetic approach, our argument
proceeds by a close genealogical reading of all of Las Casas’ known writings on the question of
slavery. Our hypothesis is that from a representation that presents African slaves as a necessary
commodity for the colonization of the New World, Las Casas will move toward a point of view
according to which black slaves are similar to the indigenous population that he had defended in
many of his works. However, this attempt to equate the black slaves with the indigenous
population remains unresolved in Las Casas’ work. In his last writings, Las Casas comes to think
of both slavery and slave population itself as a plaga.
We connect Las Casas’ texts with (1) the early laws proposed by the Spanish authorities
regarding black slaves, (2) the attempts of some Portuguese and Spanish chroniclers and
intellectuals to justify slavery, as well as some early criticisms of the enslavement of Africans,
and (3) the defense of the indigenous population that Las Casas proposes and develops. Our
research allows the recognition of an early and decisive moment in the debate about slavery in
the Iberian world. By following Las Casas’ texts about black slavery in the Indies, we can trace
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