Bartolomé de Las Casas: In Defense of the Indians. Chapter 1.

“Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566) was an early Spanish historian and Dominican missionary who was the first to expose the oppression of indigenous peoples by Europeans in the Americas and to call for the abolition of slavery there. In 1550, he participated a debate with Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, a scholar serving the Spanish Crown, in which the latter argued that the Indians were less than human, and required Spanish masters to become civilized. Las Casas strongly asserted their humanity, and that forcefully subjugating them was unjustifiable. Although he did not completely succeed in changing Spanish views on colonization, his efforts did result in improvement of the legal status of the natives, and in an increased colonial focus on the ethics of colonialism.”
Text: www.amazon.com...