How did the actions of Bartolomé de las Casa lead to the start of America slavery in the Americas

Answer 1

Bartolomé de las Casas was a Spanish priest who lived and worked in Spanish colonies in North America. He lobbied the Pope to issue a ruling that native inhabitants of the Americas had souls, which meant that they could potentially be converted to Christianity, and under Spanish law at the time this meant that they could not be enslaved. Although it was difficult for Spain to enforce its laws on colonies an ocean away and the practice of enslaving native people persisted after the Pope's ruling, many colonists started importing trafficked people from Africa for forced labor to use instead. The demand for forced labor grew along with European colonies in the Americas, making Bartolomé de las Casas indirectly responsible for increasing the slave trade. However, slavery existed in some places in North America before Christopher Columbus arrived, and Columbus captured people to be sold in Spain as slaves, so Bartolomé de las Casas definitely is not responsible for starting the international Atlantic slave trade, and he is widely considered to be a social reformer who spent his life fighting slavery and human rights abuses, which was a great rarity among colonial Spaniards of this time period.