The Indignitas: How Spanish Priests Fought Empire's Abuses 1511

In 1511, on the island of Hispaniola, a Dominican friar named Antonio de Montesinos climbed into a wooden pulpit and delivered a sermon that shattered the conscience of Spain's colonial project. He asked the assembled colonists—encomenderos, officials, soldiers—by what right they held indigenous people in such cruel servitude. Were these not human beings, created in God's image? The sermon became known as the Indignitas, a cry of moral outrage that launched a decades-long struggle within the Spanish Church and Crown over the ethics of conquest. This episode follows Montesinos, his mentor Pedro de Córdoba, and the younger Bartolomé de las Casas, who witnessed that sermon and later became the most famous defender of Native Americans. We trace the political fallout in Seville and at the court of Ferdinand of Aragon, the evolution of the Laws of Burgos (1512), and the theological debates that forced Spain to ask whether empire could ever be just. #AntonioDeMontesinos #Indignitas #Hispaniola #Dominicans #BartoloméDeLasCasas #PedroDeCórdoba #LawsOfBurgos #Encomienda #ValladolidDebate #FerdinandOfAragon #SpanishEmpire #ColonialEthics #IndigenousRights #Sermon #1511 #History #FexingoHistory #Spain Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo