Bartolome de las Casas Day

Some celebrate Columbus Day, and some celebrate Indigenous People’s Day, but I mark the second Monday in October as Bartolome de las Casas Day. Christopher Columbus was a bold explorer, it is not to be denied, and he could not have foreseen the effect which Old World diseases would have on the native population of the Americas, but he left an ugly record of enslaving, mutilating, and slaughtering the people of the islands he discovered. This is not only a matter of applying today’s standards to a man five centuries dead; his brutal conduct, although not unique to himself, drew condemnation from other Spaniards of his time.

One of these was Bartolome de las Casas, who gave up his own position as an encomendero (one to whom land and serfs were entrusted) to speak out for the natives in the light of his Christian faith and a universal conception of human dignity. I believe that he is more to be honored than Columbus.