Winchester College Teaching Treasures - Bartolomé de las Casas

Winchester College is home to nationally significant collections of art, archaeology and rare books. A new series of three films (produced exclusively for Heritage Open Days 2021), each presented by a teacher at the school, introduces some of the most fascinating artefacts:
Bartolomé de las Casas was a sixteenth-century Spanish friar who observed first-hand the atrocities committed by the conquistadores in Central and South America. In this film, Jan Hepworth (Head of Spanish at Winchester) explores an illustrated edition of Las Casas’s Destruction of the Indies, published in 1598, and discusses the author’s status as a pioneer of Human Rights and an inspiration for the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-73).

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Las Cases is not the hero one imagines. Sepulveda, his opponent in the Valladolid Debate, was as much concerned by the wellbeing of the Indians as Las Cases. Sepulveda thought that putting an end to human sacrifices, cannibalism and (royal) incest justified the invasion of the Americas. I don't know many contemporary Westerners who wouldn't support military intervention against a regime that would do these abominations. We are all Sepulvedians !