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History of the Indies
The preaching of Fray Antonio de Montesinos is the
first important event in the controversy surrounding the justice or
injustice of the conquest of the Americas. His first sermon of this
kind was preached in the city of Santo. Domingo during the Advent of
1511, when the island was called "Hispaniola". Fray Bartolomé de las
Casas relates it in his History of the
Indies. In this
fragment, the first defence of the rights of the indigenous peoples
appears in response to the treatment they received from the
title-holders (encomenderos) and conquerors.
"Being Sunday, and the time to preach
having arrived, Fray Antón Montesinos ascended the pulpit and took as
the topic of his sermon, which had already been written together with
and signed by the others, Ego vox clamantis in deserto. Having
finished his introduction and having said something about the time of
Advent, he began to proclaim the sterility of the consciences of the
Spaniards of this island and the blindness in which they lived as well
as the danger they were in of being condemned for all eternity, not
being aware of the very serious sins in which, with so much
insensitivity, they were continuously living and in which they died.
Then he returned to the topic, thus saying:
"To let ye know I have ascended here to
tell you: I am the voice of Christ in the desert of this island, and
hence, it is for your benefit that with attention, and with all
your heart and with all your senses, ye hear it; this voice will be
the most new that ye have ever heard, the most bitter and harsh and
dangerous that ye could ever have heard."
"Ye are all in mortal sin and in it
ye all live and die, because of the cruelty and tyranny that ye use
with these innocent people. Tell me with what right and with what
justice do ye have these Indians in so cruel and horrible a servitude?
With what authority have ye waged so terrible a war on
these people who were docile and at peace in their lands, and why
have ye killed so many with a havoc never heard of before? How
ye have so oppressed and tired them, without giving them to eat
nor curing them in their illnesses, afflicted by such cruel
labours that lead them unto death! Or, to put it better, ye killed
them only to mine gold every day! And what concern do ye show
in teaching them about their God and Creator, that they should be
baptised, hear Mass, keep the days of obligation and Sundays? Are they
not men? Have they not rational souls? Are ye not under obligation
to love them like your very selves? Do ye not understand this? Do
ye not feel it? How can ye be so blind? Know for certain that in the
state in which ye find yourselves, ye cannot be saved."
In this way he explained himself, so that he left them
overwhelmed, many of them out of their senses, others more hardened
and some more remorseful, but none, from what I later understood,
converted. Having finished his sermon, he descended from the pulpit
with his head only slightly bowed, because he was not a man who wanted
to show fear – not that he was a fearful man, always doing and saying
what was necessary according to God's will – and with his companion he
went to his straw house, where, luckily, they had nothing to eat
except cabbage soup without oil. When he left the church, it was
filled with murmuring, which, as I believe, barely allowed the Mass to
finish.
When he and his companion had finished eating, even though it must not
have been very pleasant food, the entire city gathered at the house of
Admiral D. Diego Colón, son of the first person who discovered these
Indies, along with the king's officials... , and they decided to go
and reprimand the preacher and the other friars, if they did not
punish him for being a scandalous man, sower of new doctrine, unheard
of before, condemning all, and for speaking against the king and his
dominions in these Indies, affirming that they could not have the
Indians whom the king had given them, and these were very serious
things."
Fray Bartolomé de las Casas: History of the Indies
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