Saturday, June 29, 2013

Jesuits in the New World



Marie Arana (“Preparing for the Pope,”column, June 20) suggests that the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish domains because they fought for the rights of native populations. This is a rosy interpretation of history. 

While some Jesuit missions provided indigenous populations a degree of protection, the main reason for the crown’s decision was the growth of the Jesuit order as a state within the state [emphasis added].

While Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican priest and the most influential critic of the Spanish treatment of indigenous populations in America, played an influential role in the Spanish crown’s adoption of laws that would protect these populations, he and the Jesuits did not challenge Spain’s right to impose its colonial domination over those populations, using war and forcible relocation if necessary, but instead furthered it on theological grounds.

They also agreed on the value of slave labor to supplement indigenous labor in mines and plantations. In fact, the Jesuits owned a considerable number of African slaves.

PABLO PICCATO
New York, June 25, 2013
The writer is a professor of history at Columbia University.

1 comment:

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