Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the young man attributed the interruption
of his studies in both medicine and law to
conservative officials. Pursuing a journalis-
tic career in Madrid Larra became well
known for a series of essays published in a
paper of which he was the editor,
El pobre-
cito hablador
(Poor little chatterer). He com-
bined a lively and acute description of
Spanish society with satirical wit. While lit-
erary success seemed within his grasp, he
was frustrated in his romantic relationships,
the probable cause of his suicide.
Larra, who traveled widely and brought
a sophisticated as well as critical perspec-
tive to his portrayal of his countryfolk's
foibles, seems never to have been at home
in his native land. Balanced between
romanticism and realism, feeling himself
something of an outcast yet disdaining vul-
gar applause, his sensitivity seemed almost
to guarantee the brevity of his career and
his life. Larra was the author of a novel,
El
doncel de don Enrique el Doliente
(The page of
Don Enrique the Sorrowful, 1834), and a
play,
Macías
(1834), as well as
No más
mostrador
(Goodbye to the shop counter,
1831), an adaptation of a play by the
French dramatist Scribe. It is, however, for
his essays under the pen name Fígaro and
various other pseudonyms in papers other
that his own that Larra is still remembered
and honored.
the Indians led to his ordination in 1512
(evidently the first in America) and to his
subsequent abandonment of his plantation
holdings because they involved the virtual
slavery of the Indians.
For nearly 30 years Father Las Casas
dedicated himself to the principle that the
native population was entitled to the rights
and security of all Spanish subjects. He
repeatedly argued against those who held
that the Amerindians were subhuman,
lacked souls, or were without any entitle-
ment to the dignity of human beings. His
advocacy earned him the hostility of most
landowners in the New World, who wished
to exploit the labor of the natives, but he
gained the sympathy of King C
HARLES
I on
his repeated visits to Spain and was desig-
nated “Protector of the Indians.” Royal
decrees in the 1520s (later confirmed and
extended) forbade mistreatment and
uncompensated labor but were repeatedly
ignored or evaded by plantation and mine
owners. As promoter of model indigenous
communities in G
UATEMALA
and as bishop
of Chiapas in M
EXICO
during the 1540s, Las
Casas strove to achieve a self-supporting,
self-governing status for native Americans.
Despite his persistent efforts and those of
some of other clergymen Las Casas was
never truly successful in eliminating the
distinction most Spaniards made between
themselves and those who they regarded as
conquered colonials. One unfortunate con-
sequence of his insistence than America's
Indians could not legally be enslaved was
the importation of slaves from Africa: Por-
tuguese traders purchased captives taken in
local warfare and sold them for use in the
Americas, where the Africans were not
considered to have any claims to human
rights. Las Casas would later bitterly regret
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
(1474-1566)
Spanish priest and humanitarian
Las Casas, after studying law and theology
at the University of Salamanca, traveled in
1502 to the New World, where family con-
nections and his own service to the Crown
earned him an
ENCOMIENDA
.
His increasing
interest in Spain's obligation to evangelize
Search WWH ::
Custom Search