#Bartolomé de Las Casas

[geopolicraticus]

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

The Destruction of the Indies according to de las Casas

Monday 11 November 2024 is the 540th birthday of Bartolomé de las Casas (11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566), who was born in Seville on this date in 1484.

Bartolomé de las Casas arrived at Hispaniola as a young man, became a Dominican friar, and thereafter was a tireless advocate of the native peoples of the Americas, writing a scathing account of the Spanish in the New World in his A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. The issues he raised have only become more prominent since his time.

Quora:              https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/ 

Discord:           https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD

Links:              https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter:     http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

Text post:        https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/the-destruction-of-the-indies-according

Video:              https://youtu.be/fL5X36dY53s  

Podcast:          https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/RfdDEorRsOb

[bocadosdefilosofia]

«Pero este alarde de ortodoxia aristotélica es un recurso retórico y no una verdadera declaración de fidelidad. De hecho, Las Casas y Sepúlveda no hablan la misma lengua. Uno todavía vive en el cosmos, cuando para el otro en el universo ha dejado de haber elementos ontológicamente diferenciados. La naturaleza, según el apologista de la conquista, se fundamenta en el principio de desigualdad y reconoce rangos, grados, niveles jerárquicos y órdenes distintos. La misma ley, para el defensor de los indios, rige un espacio unificado y una realidad homogénea. En otras palabras, lo que parece inaceptable en la manera de ver y de pensar el mundo que es ya la de Las Casas es el concepto mismo de esclavo natural: la naturaleza es lo que une a los hombres, no lo que los separa. Shylock puede empezar a asomarse: en ningún lugar de la tierra existen seres humanos de los que se tenga derecho a afirmar que no son hombres o que requieren, por su misma naturaleza o en su propio interés, ser puestos bajo tutela.»

Alain Finkielkraut: La humanidad perdida. Editorial Anagrama, pág. 24. Barcelona, 1998

TGO

@bocadosdefilosofia

[quotelr]

God is the one who always remembers those whom history has forgotten.

Bartolomé de las Casas

[pennstateuniversitypress]

Unlocked Book of the Month: Territories of History

Each month we’re highlighting a book available through PSU Press Unlocked, an open access initiative featuring scholarly digital books and journals in the humanities and social sciences.

About our July pick:

Sarah H. Beckjord’s Territories of History explores the vigorous but largely unacknowledged spirit of reflection, debate, and experimentation present in foundational Spanish American writing. In historical works by writers such as Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Bartolomé de Las Casas, and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Beckjord argues, the authors were not only informed by the spirit of inquiry present in the humanist tradition but also drew heavily from their encounters with New World peoples. More specifically, their attempts to distinguish superstition and magic from science and religion in the New World significantly influenced the aforementioned chroniclers, who increasingly directed their insights away from the description of native peoples and toward a reflection on the nature of truth, rhetoric, and fiction in writing history. Due to a convergence of often contradictory information from a variety of sources—eyewitness accounts, historiography, imaginative literature, as well as broader philosophical and theological influences—categorizing historical texts from this period poses no easy task, but Beckjord sifts through the information in an effective, logical manner. At the heart of Beckjord’s study, though, is a fundamental philosophical problem: the slippery nature of truth—especially when dictated by stories. Territories of History engages both a body of emerging scholarship on early modern epistemology and empiricism and recent developments in narrative theory to illuminate the importance of these colonial authors’ critical insights. In highlighting the parallels between the sixteenth-century debates and poststructuralist approaches to the study of history, Beckjord uncovers an important legacy of the Hispanic intellectual tradition and updates the study of colonial historiography in view of recent discussions of narrative theory.

Read more and access the book here: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-03278-8.html

See the full list of Unlocked titles here: https://www.psupress.org/unlocked/unlocked_gallery.html

[fotograrte]

Palacio de San Telmo (Sevilla): Fachada Norte (y 2)

Vamos a continuar con el examen de los sevillanos ilustres que podemos encontrar en esta fachada, examen que empezamos ayer, después de haber examinado anteriormente la puerta principal. Continue reading Palacio de San Telmo (Sevilla): Fachada Norte (y 2)

[natequarter]

the funniest thing about sixteenth century men's writings (particularly pamphlets/accounts) is that they wrote with all the passion and conviction of some tumblr blogger defending their favourite character from a kids' cartoon. you would not believe the levels of hyperbole those men reached

[max1461]

My undergrad modern history class introduced me to a lot of really fascinating primary sources, many of which individually changed my perspective on the world in big ways. I don't remember all the sources we read, but the three that I've thought about most often since then (and which I really recommend people read) are:

In Defense of the Indians by Bartolomé de las Casas

Galeote Pereira's report on Ming China

The diary of Antera Duke

[fatehbaz]

[D]omesticated attack dogs [...] hunted those who defied the profitable Caribbean sugar regimes and North America’s later Cotton Kingdom, [...] enforced plantation regimens [...], and closed off fugitive landscapes with acute adaptability to the varied [...] terrains of sugar, cotton, coffee or tobacco plantations that they patrolled. [...] [I]n the Age of Revolutions the Cuban bloodhound spread across imperial boundaries to protect white power and suppress black ambitions in Haiti and Jamaica. [...] [Then] dog violence in the Caribbean spurred planters in the American South to import and breed slave dogs [...].

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Spanish landowners often used dogs to execute indigenous labourers simply for disobedience. [...] Bartolomé de las Casas [...] documented attacks against Taino populations, telling of Spaniards who ‘hunted them with their hounds [...]. These dogs shed much human blood’. Many later abolitionists made comparisons with these brutal [Spanish] precedents to criticize canine violence against slaves on these same Caribbean islands. [...] Spanish officials in Santo Domingo were licensing packs of dogs to comb the forests for [...] fugitives [...]. Dogs in Panama, for instance, tracked, attacked, captured and publicly executed maroons. [...] In the 1650s [...] [o]ne [English] observer noted, ‘There is nothing in [Barbados] so useful as … Liam Hounds, to find out these Thieves’. The term ‘liam’ likely came from the French limier, meaning ‘bloodhound’. [...] In 1659 English planters in Jamaica ‘procured some blood-hounds, and hunted these blacks like wild-beasts’ [...]. By the mid eighteenth century, French planters in Martinique were also relying upon dogs to hunt fugitive slaves. [...] In French Saint-Domingue [Haiti] dogs were used against the maroon Macandal [...] and he was burned alive in 1758. [...]

Although slave hounds existed throughout the Caribbean, it was common knowledge that Cuba bred and trained the best attack dogs, and when insurrections began to challenge plantocratic interests across the Americas, two rival empires, Britain and France, begged Spain to sell these notorious Cuban bloodhounds to suppress black ambitions and protect shared white power. [...] [I]n the 1790s and early 1800s [...] [i]n the Age of Revolutions a new canine breed gained widespread popularity in suppressing black populations across the Caribbean and eventually North America. Slave hounds were usually descended from more typical mastiffs or bloodhounds [...].

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Spanish and Cuban slave hunters not only bred the Cuban bloodhound, but were midwives to an era of international anti-black co-ordination as the breed’s reputation spread rapidly among enslavers during the seven decades between the beginning of the Haitian Revolution in 1791 and the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865. [...]

Despite the legends of Spanish cruelty, British officials bought Cuban bloodhounds when unrest erupted in Jamaica in 1795 after learning that Spanish officials in Cuba had recently sent dogs to hunt runaways and the indigenous Miskitos in Central America. [...] The island’s governor, Balcarres, later wrote that ‘Soon after the maroon rebellion broke out’ he had sent representatives ‘to Cuba in order to procure a number of large dogs of the bloodhound breed which are used to hunt down runaway negroes’ [...]. In 1803, during the final independence struggle of the Haitian Revolution, Cuban breeders again sold hundreds of hounds to the French to aid their fight against the black revolutionaries. [...] In 1819 Henri Christophe, a later leader of Haiti, told Tsar Alexander that hounds were a hallmark of French cruelty. [...]

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The most extensively documented deployment of slave hounds [...] occurred in the antebellum American South and built upon Caribbean foundations. [...] The use of dogs increased during that decade [1830s], especially with the Second Seminole War in Florida (1835–42). The first recorded sale of Cuban dogs into the United States came with this conflict, when the US military apparently purchased three such dogs for $151.72 each [...]. [F]ierce bloodhounds reputed to be from Cuba appeared in the Mississippi valley as early as 1841 [...].

The importation of these dogs changed the business of slave catching in the region, as their deployment and reputation grew rapidly throughout the 1840s and, as in Cuba, specialized dog handlers became professionalized. Newspapers advertised slave hunters who claimed to possess the ‘Finest dogs for catching negroes’ [...]. [S]lave hunting intensified [from the 1840s until the Civil War] [...]. Indeed, tactics in the American South closely mirrored those of their Cuban predecessors as local slave catchers became suppliers of biopower indispensable to slavery’s profitability. [...] [P]rice [...] was left largely to the discretion of slave hunters, who, ‘Charging by the day and mile [...] could earn what was for them a sizeable amount - ten to fifty dollars [...]'. William Craft added that the ‘business’ of slave catching was ‘openly carried on, assisted by advertisements’. [...] The Louisiana slave owner [B.B.] portrayed his own pursuits as if he were hunting wild game [...]. The relationship between trackers and slaves became intricately systematized [...]. The short-lived republic of Texas (1836–46) even enacted specific compensation and laws for slave trackers, provisions that persisted after annexation by the United States.

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All text above by: Tyler D. Parry and Charlton W. Yingling. "Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas". Past & Present, Volume 246, Issue 1, February 2020, pages 69-108. Published February 2020. At: doi dot org/10.1093/pastj/gtz020. February 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[sefaradweb]

In the Shadow of History: Jews and Conversos at the Dawn of Modernity

🇪🇸 José Faur argumenta que los conversos (judíos forzados a convertirse al cristianismo) fueron un factor clave en el colapso de la sociedad eclesiástica durante la Edad Media y en el ascenso del secularismo y la modernidad. A través de un análisis detallado, Faur explora cómo la conversión forzada de los judíos en la península Ibérica afectó tanto a la comunidad judía como al mundo cristiano, destacando la influencia de la tradición maimonídica y su impacto en el pensamiento secular. El libro también examina el movimiento anti-maimonídeo, la persecución de minorías y el auge del antisemitismo, que llevaron al declive de las instituciones judías y a la creciente alienación de los conversos. Además, se analiza cómo los conversos contribuyeron significativamente al desarrollo del pensamiento europeo y la literatura, a pesar de enfrentar oposición interna y externa. Finalmente, se discuten las alternativas al secularismo como el pluralismo religioso y cultural, y se reflexiona sobre la posición del "otro" en la tradición occidental, destacando figuras como Bartolomé de Las Casas y Antonio de Guevara que, siendo conversos, defendieron a los nativos americanos frente a las atrocidades españolas. Este enfoque revela las dinámicas de poder y prejuicios que han moldeado las relaciones entre judíos, cristianos y otros grupos a lo largo de la historia.

🇺🇸 José Faur argues that the conversos (Jews forced to convert to Christianity) were a key factor in the collapse of ecclesiastical society during the Middle Ages and the rise of secularism and modernity. Through detailed analysis, Faur explores how the forced conversion of Jews in the Iberian Peninsula impacted both the Jewish community and the Christian world, highlighting the influence of the Maimonidean tradition and its effect on secular thought. The book also examines the anti-Maimonidean movement, the persecution of minorities, and the rise of anti-Semitism, which led to the decline of Jewish institutions and the growing alienation of conversos. Additionally, it analyzes how conversos significantly contributed to the development of European thought and literature, despite facing internal and external opposition. Finally, Faur discusses alternatives to secularism such as religious and cultural pluralism and reflects on the position of the "other" in Western tradition, highlighting figures like Bartolomé de Las Casas and Antonio de Guevara who, being conversos, defended Native Americans against Spanish atrocities. This approach reveals the power dynamics and prejudices that have shaped the relationships between Jews, Christians, and other groups throughout history.

[angrykittybarbarian]

Okay, so I did some additional research because I couldn't remember the name of said priest.

It was Bartolomé de las Casas who was among the first to criticize the brutal colonization of the Americas by the conquistadores and also a very outspoken one.

To be clear, he started out as a colonizer and missionary himself but the longer he remained in the Americas and the more he watched his fellow conquistadores slaughter the indigenous peoples the more he came to realize how inhumane they were to the point of him actively opposing the colonization efforts and documenting the injustices done to the indigenous peoples in detail.

Some people need to take this man as an example that you can change your mind and acknowledging you did something wrong won't make you somehow lesser.

Marinate on that

[eternal-echoes]

“[Bartolomé de] Las Casas, whose doctrine appears to have been profoundly influenced by the professors of Salamanca, shared Vitoria's position on the rationality of the natives: If a sizable portion of the human race were without reason, we should be forced to speak of a defect in the order of creation. If so considerable a portion of mankind lacked the very faculty that distinguished man from the brutes and by which he could call upon and love God, God's intention to call all men to Himself would have failed. For the Christian, such a conclusion was simply unthinkable. This was Las Casas's reply to those who would argue that the natives constituted an example of what Aristotle had described as "slaves by nature"-there were far too many of them, and in any case they did not exhibit the level of debasement that Aristotle's conception appeared to call for. Ultimately, though, Las Casas was prepared to reject Aristotle on this point. He suggested that the natives "be attracted gently, in accordance with Christ's doctrine," and proposed that Aristotle's views on natural slavery be abandoned, since "we have in our favor Christ's mandate: love your neighbor as yourself...although he [Aristotle] was a great philosopher, study alone did not make him worthy of reaching God.”1”

- Thomas E. Woods Jr., Ph.D., “The Origins of International Law” How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

—

1. Eduardo Andújar, "Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda: Moral Theology versus Political Philosophy," in White, ed., Hispanic Philosophy, 76-78.

[gonzalo-obes]

IMAGENES Y DATOS INTERESANTES DEL 23 DE ENERO DE 2025

Día Mundial de la Libertad, Semana Europea de Prevención del Cáncer de Cuello Uterino, Año Internacional de la Ciencia y la Tecnología Cuánticas.

Santa Emerenciana, San Armando y Santa Mesalina.

Tal día como hoy en el año 1995

Gregorio Ordóñez, candidato por el Partido Popular a la alcaldía de San Sebastián (España), es asesinado por la banda terrorista ETA de un tiro en la cabeza.

1960

Jacques Picard y Don Walsh, emprenden un viaje emocionante, a bordo del batíscafo Trieste, en la fosa de las Marianas (Océano Pacífico, cerca de Guam) con destino al fondo del mar, para tratar de alcanzar la máxima profundidad nunca antes lograda por el ser humano. En las 5 horas que tardan en tocar fondo, descienden 11.033 metros en el abismo más profundo y oscuro del planeta Tierra, donde la presión es 1.086 veces superior a la de la superficie terrestre. (Hace 65 años)

1958

En Venezuela un movimiento cívico-militar derroca el gobierno de Marcos Pérez-Jiménez, que abandona el país en el avión presidencial con rumbo a la República Dominicana. Al saberse la noticia de la caída del régimen, la gente sale a las calles y saquea las viviendas de los adeptos al Presidente a la vez que atacan la sede de la Seguridad Nacional, en la que linchan a algunos funcionarios. Asimismo arrasan el edificio del periódico oficial "El Heraldo". Se forma una Junta de Gobierno Provisional para reemplazar al régimen derrocado. De este modo se inicia una nueva etapa en la historia de Venezuela iniciando la era democrática. (Hace 67 años)

1922

En Toronto (Canadá), el paciente Leonard Thompson se convierte en el primer ser humano en recibir una inyección de insulina como tratamiento para la diabetes que sufre. Medio año antes, los canadienses Frederick Banting y Charles Best, consiguieron extraer, de animales de laboratorio, la proteína del páncreas que causa los síntomas de la diabetes, la insulina. Experimentaron inyectando insulina en animales enfermos que volvieron a sanar. Estas pruebas confirmaron que la causa de la diabetes era la falta de insulina, responsable de metabolizar los azúcares. En 1923 la insulina será un producto relativamente fácil de adquirir, lo que sin duda salvará muchas vidas. En la década de 1980, la ingeniería genética obtendrá insulina humana, un gran avance. (Hace 103 años)

1896

En Würzburg, Alemania, Wilhelm Röntgen pronuncia una conferencia ante la Sociedad de Física y Medicina para la divulgar el descubrimiento de los rayos X. En el trascurso de la conferencia Röntgen hace una radiografía a la mano del anatomista Albert von Kölliker, siendo inmediatamente revelada y presentada a los asistentes generando gran asombro. La noticia de este sensacional descubrimiento es transmitida rápidamente a todo el mundo. (Hace 129 años)

1878

En Madrid (España), el rey Alfonso XII, de 20 años, se casa por amor con María de las Mercedes de Orleans, de 17 años, desoyendo los consejos que le dan su madre Isabel II y el jefe de gobierno Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, que hubieran preferido una boda política. Este matrimonio por amor será desgraciado y durará poco, pues tan sólo seis meses más tarde, la reina María de las Mercedes fallecerá a consecuencia de unas fiebres tifoideas. (Hace 147 años)

1826

En Perú, los esfuerzos del general venezolano Bartolomé Salom, que desde enero del año pasado sitía la plaza del El Callao, surten efecto y en el día de hoy la resistencia realista se desmorona, abandonando los últimos españoles el territorio que ha dominado casi tres siglos. (Hace 199 años)

1677

En España es nombrado primer ministro el hijo bastardo de Felipe IV, el príncipe Juan José de Austria, que después de haber avanzado con su ejército hacia Madrid y lograr la dimisión de Valenzuela, es visto con buenos ojos por la mayoría de la nación que se lo imagina como un posible salvador. (Hace 348 años)

[synthoria]

What I hold in my hand is a small Taíno figurine carved from volcanic lava. It was a gift from a dear friend who passed away suddenly last week. He brought it to me a few years ago from the Cape Canaveral area, saying that when he saw it, he immediately thought of me—that it was me. Whether he knew it or not, gifting such a figurine holds significant meaning within the unique cultural and spiritual traditions of the American South. It is a subtle tribute to the recipient’s ability to perceive hidden truths or a gesture of reverence toward their intuition.

The butterfly covering the figurine’s eyes symbolizes that the true nature of the world can only be understood through the vision of the soul—an act that requires immense trust, as few would willingly allow another to blindfold them without it. The finger raised to its lips represents the guardianship of spiritual secrets and divine mysteries. In Taíno mythology, secrets and mysteries were not confined to a single deity but were foundational to their entire spiritual system, influencing later traditions such as Santería in Cuba and Vodou in Haiti.

As a distinct ethnic group, the Taíno are officially considered extinct, and their religion is no longer practiced in its traditional form. However, their spiritual and cultural heritage survives in modern communities and revivalist movements, particularly in the Caribbean and its diasporas. The violence against Taíno women during Spanish colonization remains one of the most tragic and underdocumented aspects of this period. When Christopher Columbus and his crew arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, they initially described the indigenous people as friendly and hospitable. Yet historical accounts reveal that Taíno women were systematically subjected to sexual violence by Spanish explorers and colonizers. They were often kept as domestic slaves and many were forced into prostitution. Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish priest and advocate for human rights, documented the brutal mistreatment and sale of Taíno women, including girls as young as 9 or 10 years old. Meanwhile, their spiritual leaders, the behíques (shamans), were murdered or suppressed.

It feels profoundly enigmatic that this figurine has found its way to me. A few years ago, I was deeply engrossed in studying Carl Gustav Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious. Jung proposed that all of humanity shares a deeper layer of the unconscious mind, one composed of ancient patterns, symbols, and archetypes. Across human cultures, certain narratives emerge in strikingly similar forms, even when the societies creating them had no direct contact—neither in time nor space.

While Jung’s original theory was deeply metaphysical, modern science is increasingly capable of discussing these phenomena within measurable, empirical frameworks. That this symbol of hidden truths, resilience, and cultural memory should come into my possession feels like a quiet affirmation of the interconnectedness of all things—past and present, seen and unseen

[apenitentialprayer]

Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, by Felix Parra, 1875.

The saints are the true interpreters of Holy Scripture. The meaning of a given passage of the Bible becomes most intelligible in those human beings who have been totally transfixed by it and have lived it out. Interpretation of Scripture can never be a purely academic affair, and it cannot be relegated to the purely historical. Scripture is full of potential for the future, a potential that can only be opened up when someone "lives through" and "suffers through" the sacred text.

Pope Benedict XVI (Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, page 78). Bolded emphases added.

Bartolomé de las Casas was born in Seville, Spain, in 1484. At age eighteen, he came to the newly "discovered" lands, and five years later he was ordained as a priest in Rome. As an encomendero, he owned indigenous people who worked for him in the gold mines. Although he claims he treated them kindly and fed them, he acknowledged that he neglected teaching them the Christian faith. He was also a horrified eyewitness to a massacre of Cuban natives by invading Spaniards. [… But t]he text that was at the center of Bartolomé de las Casas' "conversion" is Sirach 34. In April 1514 he read this text in preparation to preach to the Spaniards who came to the new world to establish new villages. The passage immediately challenged his current privileges as an encomendero. By his own admission, he read these verses in light of the situation of the indigenous people working for him in the Indies and realized that he was living in darkness; he was blind to the fact that he had become a tyrant who treated people unfairly. Thus, Bartolomé de las Casas embraced the mission of "preaching against injustice in order to bring light to those dominated by the darkness of ignorance" [History of the Indies]. His audience comprised people unable to realize the injustice behind their actions against the indigenous people, "such was and still is their blindness." He then proceeded to preach sermons against the oppression of indigenous people and to highlight their deplorable condition. His words were later followed by his decision to give up his "right" to possess slaves. His fellow Spaniards were in shock: "Everyone was surprised, even astonished, to hear this, and some walked away remorseful while others thought they had been dreaming — the idea of sinning because one used Indians was as incredible as saying man could not use domestic animals." [… In 1543] he was named bishop of Chiapas. The authority attached to this position allowed him to engage in official debates with those defending the use of violence in the evangelization of indigenous people, such as Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1551). After a fruitful life defending indigenous people in Spain and in the new world with his pen and his preaching, de las Casas died in Madrid at age eighty-two.

Carlos Raúl Sosa Siliezar ("Scripture's Impact on Bartolomé de las Casas' Theology: Lessons for the Interpretation of Key Johannine Themes"). Bolded emphases added.

Ill-gotten goods offered in sacrifice are tainted. Presents from the lawless do not win God's favor. The Most High is not pleased with the gifts of the godless, nor for their many sacrifices does He forgive their sins. [As] One who slays a son in his father's presence — [so is] whoever offers sacrifice from the holdings of the poor. The bread of charity is life itself to the needy; whoever withholds it is a murderer. To take away a neighbor's living is to commit murder; to deny a laborer wages is to shed blood.

the Book of Sirach (34:21-27)

[apilgrimpassingby]

Actually enslaving people is wrong because it’s a fucked up thing to do, and for centuries Christian’s didn’t get the memo on that one so realizing it’s a fucked up and horrible thing to do doesn’t come from ‘Christian ethics’

Also your blog is a complete eyesore

Slavery is f*cked up? That would have been news to the Greco-Roman world, many African societies throughout history, the Chinese well into the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire and most other Muslim societies, India in many periods of its history, the Norse, many Native American peoples and quite a few people today.

Slavery is so abhorrent to us that we don't realise that the correct question isn't "why does a given society have slavery"? Having slavery is the default for societies. Rather, we should ask why we don't have it.

Christianity, in large part.

Gregory of Nyssa, 4th century bishop and theologian, was the first known person to propose the abolition of slavery. While the other Church Fathers saw that as a pipe dream due to how pervasive it was, they almost all thought that slavery was a symptom of a fallen world and would disappear in the New Creation (and it largely did in the Byzantine Empire, the heartland of eastern Christianity). Whereas to the Greeks and Romans it was just an inherent and indisputable fact of life.

Over in the West, the Norse slave trade was primarily opposed by Christian clergy, and mainly on the religious grounds that it was immoral to treat fellow Christians like this (keep in mind that in their ideal world, everyone would be Christian). When slavery was revived by the Spanish, it was consistently opposed by a Dominican friar, Bartolomé de las Casas, using arguments based on the image of God and the works of Thomas Aquinas. When the Spanish crown agreed to a debate on slavery between him and fellow clergyman Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Casas stuck to his arguments from the Christian tradition and Sepúlveda primarily argued from Aristotle.

With the transatlantic slave trade most people are familiar with, the opposition primarily came from Quakers and Evangelicals using arguments based on the image of God in all people. And they eventually succeeded, and Britain hence used its naval muscle to suppress slavery in the colonies and coerce the Ottomans into abolishing it; the sense this created of an Islamic institution being uprooted by foreign infidels led to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism (as such, it's hardly surprising that Islamic State have reinstituted it).

Whenever I have not provided a link, it came from one of the following three books, chiefly the first of them - Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland (the classicist, not the actor), A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages by Martyn Whittock and The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele.

I agree my blog could probably do with more of a visual component. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

[areyouacop-orwhat]

"No podemos hacer como si la violencia no existiera" - El texto se extrae de la bandera que pintamos para la marcha del "orgullo" de Buenos Aires 2021 y del fanzine "Capítulo XXX: Una serpiente que devora a otra"// SECUELAS.

La frase remite a la normalización de un estado de violencia, a la internalización y naturalización que hacemos de las opresiones que históricamente aceptamos haciendo que forme parte de nuestra propia cultura, y a una re-apropiación de la misma.

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Van a poder adquirir el bucito en la tienda virtual https://areyouacoporwhat.empretienda.com.ar/

Los detalles del bucito los van a encontrar en la tienda, se piden hasta el 6/julio y se empiezan a enviar el 10/julio :)

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Las fotos fueron sacadas en el Monumento a España, de la Costanera Sur, diferentes esculturas que fueron empalmadas para rendir homenaje a España. El monumento es tan siniestro y en su momento gozó de tal impunidad que en una de sus partes se puede ver a Sebastián Gaboto, Bartolomé de Las Casas junto a una aborigen desnuda de arrodilla a sus pies, Juan de Garay y Pedro de Mendoza: el arte como legitimador de estructuras de poder, de normalizar la invasión, conquista y la colonización, la doctrina institucional naturaliza la llegada de España a estos territorios haciéndonos creer que antes de eso no existía comunidad, comunidades y cultura anterior. Y siguen haciéndonos creer que es así anulando las voces y luchas de los pueblos originarios y de las disidencias.