Easy Podcast - Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, el apóstol de los indios - Easy Español

Contrary to the brutality -never questioned- of other European nations against native inhabitants of the lands they colonized, Spain went through the excruciating dilema of how to treat the peoples they had conquered. Abuses were also committed by the Spaniards, of course, but from the early days of the conquest, many questioned the legality of these abuses and even of the conquest itself. Bartolomé de las Casas was a Spanish clergyman and scholar who famously chronicled the first decades of colonization in the New World. Appalled by the atrocities committed against native people and his own role in this exploitation, Bartolomé de las Casas became a staunch defender of indigenous people's rights and one of the leading voices in different social reform projects, laws and treaties. Click play to learn about friar Bartolomé de las Casas transformation from early colonial settler to fierce activist and advocate for indigenous rights, that earned him the title of 'Protector of the Indians':