Post #4

Bartolome De Casas was one of the world’s first human rights activists.  It was interesting to learn that Casas himself was once a land and slave owner in the new world. However, upon witnessing the atrocities and murder of the Spanish he realized that slavery was wrong. It amazes me that during a time when slavery was so normal, he realized the wrong and returned to Spain and begged for it to end. Slavery was how many business tycoons of that time stayed profitable and which is the reason why most slave and landowners refused to turn away from it. Casas only downfall to his original motive was to convince the Spanish to use African slaves rather than the indigenous. While reading the article I learned that slavery was not based off of race in the beginning. Because most, to all slaves were prisoners of war and race did not necessarily matter. Bartolome De Casas is still to this day one of the most important and influential activists. He represented the indigenous culture, African culture, and any other slaves worked endlessly to end slavery. His change of mind was one of the first jump starts to end slavery which is extremely important through the next hundreds of years as the world continually fought against slavery and for what is right.