Peter Espeut | Preaching against oppression

This coming Sunday is celebrated as the Fourth Sunday in the Advent Season. Five hundred and ten years ago on the Fourth Sunday of Advent 1511, a sermon was preached in Santo Domingo which affected the course of the history of the New World.

Members of the Roman Catholic Order of Preachers founded in 1216 by St Dominic Guzman (they are called Dominicans) first arrived in the New World in September 1510. Their mission in La Nueva Isabela (now named Santo Domingo after St Dominic) was to pastorally care for the Spanish colonists and to evangelise the native people, the Taínos.

Queen Isabella was quite clear that her newly discovered Amerindian subjects were free, and should not be enslaved; in the year 1500 she demanded that all the Taínos taken to Spain to be sold as slaves be freed, returned, repatriated, and compensated. And it was done! The survivors of the Taínos who Columbus had taken or sent to Spain in 1493, 1496, 1498, and 1499 were, in fact, repatriated in 1500 on the ships of outgoing Governor Bobadilla.

On September 16, 1501, Queen Isabella issued instructions to the new Governor Nicolás de Ovando that, like her other subjects in Spain, Taínos were liable to pay tribute, and if that meant that they needed to work in order to pay, then so be it. Thus “free” Amerindians became available for labour in the new Spanish colonies in America.

Very soon the Dominicans became aware of the abuses committed against the Taínos by their Catholic congregation. Both the private sector and government officials in Hispaniola – greedy for gold and wealth – ignored Isabella’s written instructions, and Taínos were enslaved, and forced to work under pain of cruel torture in the mines, farms and haciendas of the Spanish colonists under the encomienda system.

PUBLICLY DENOUNCE ATROCITIES

The Dominican community dedicated countless hours studying the problem, and decided to publicly denounce the atrocities. The statement was signed by each of the members of the community, and one of their number – Fray Antonio de Montesinos OP, a renowned preacher in Castile – was delegated to deliver it at the High Mass on the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 21, 1511), in front of the “best people” in the colony. Bartolomé de Las Casas – at the time a hacendado and encomendero – incorporated an extract in his Historia de Las Indias (Book 3 Chapter 4):

“ Sunday arrived and at the time for preaching, Fr Antonio de Montesinos got up in the pulpit and took as the theme for the sermon, which was written and signed by all the other brothers, ‘I am the voice crying in the wilderness’. I am the voice of Christ crying in the wilderness of this island … All of you are in mortal sin, and in it you live and will die for the cruelty with which you treat these innocent people’”.

Listing the injustices that the Taínos were suffering at the hands of the colonists, Fray Montesinos on behalf of all the Dominicans proclaimed that neither he nor any of the other Dominicans would allow these slaveholders to partake in the sacrament of confession. In other words: they would all die in their sin and go to hell! Strong words!

Bartolomé de Las Casas was among those denied confession for this reason.

According to Las Casas, Fray Montesinos asked those in attendance:

“Tell me by what right of justice do you hold these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dwelt quietly and peacefully on their own lands? … Why do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted, without giving them enough to eat or curing them of the sicknesses they incur from the excessive labour you give them, and they die, or rather you kill them, in order to extract and acquire gold every day? … Are these not men? Have they not rational souls? Are you not bound to love them as you love yourselves? This, do you not understand? This, do you not feel? … Be certain that in such a state as you are, you can no more be saved than the Moors or Turks who lack and do not want the Faith of Jesus Christ.”

DEMANDED APOLOGY

The sermon caused a tremendous commotion among the encomenderos, and they demanded an immediate apology. When Governor Diego Columbus visited their meagre hut to threaten them that if they did not retract their sermon, they could pack their things and go back to Spain, they were able to respond to him: “Truly, sir, that would not take us very long to do.”

King Ferdinand had a sensitive conscience, and he commissioned theologians and academics to examine the issue. Like the politicians of today, he was torn: should he do the right thing, or should he please the rapacious private sector and a corrupt public sector? On December 27, 1512 the King promulgated “The Laws of de Burgos” intended to “protect” the indigenous peoples, but these only confirmed the system of Encomienda already in use.

The sermon of Fray Montesinos OP has reverberated throughout last 510 years; Bartolomé de Las Casas had a conversion of heart and became a Dominican, and argued for the human rights of the Amerindian people of the Americas; he is considered an early advocate for universal human rights, and is also often cited as a predecessor of the liberation theology movement. His Dominican colleagues at the University of Salamanca in Spain – especially Fray Francisco de Vitoria OP – who supported his arguments, are considered to have made the most important contribution to the development of modern international law.

It is important to speak out against injustice, even when facing powerful opponents in the public and private sectors. You never know who may have a change of heart, and you don’t know what may come of your advocacy down the road.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com