The road to hell is often filled with good intentions. Few things better illustrate that than the efforts of Catholic priest Bartolome de las Casas to save Native Americans from mistreatment at the hands of Spanish conquistadores and European settlers. Not only did Casas fail to save the locals, but he also helped kick start the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which visited untold horrors upon millions. Below are twenty-five things about that and other plans that badly backfired.
A Human Rights Pioneer Who Tried to Help Mistreated Native Americans by Advocating for the Enslavement of Africans
Spanish historian and missionary Bartolome de las Casas (1484 – 1566) devoted his life to protesting the mistreatment of Native Americans by his fellow Europeans. A social reformer, he decried the enslavement of New World natives and the horrific cruelties to which they were subjected. In the process, he pioneered the development of ideas that led to the concept of modern human rights. He got there in a roundabout way. Las Casas sailed to the New World as a layman in 1502, and settled in Hispaniola – modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Granted an encomienda, or a hacienda worked by native slaves, he was fine with enslaving the locals at first. He even joined military expeditions to subjugate and capture more natives.
Eventually, his conscience bothered him. Las Casas became a priest, renounced his hacienda and slaves, called for an end to the encomienda system, and began to advocate for Native American rights. He saw the treatment of natives by Europeans as illegal and immoral, and in 1515 petitioned the authorities to protect the indigenous population. Until his death in 1566, he continued to tirelessly petition and write extensively in a bid to end the mistreatment and enslavement of the natives. In his bid to help New World natives, Las Casas advanced an argument that backfired disastrously, and led to untold horrors visited upon millions of Old World Africans. He called for the enslavement of Africans instead of Native Americans. He reasoned that Africans were fitter and more resistant to the Old World diseases that decimated Native Americans.