Bartholome de Las Casas and ecumenical theology

I've done a bit of work in the past on Bartholome de las Casas, a Spanish Dominican who used theological and legal arguments to try and stop Spanish persecution of the indigenous Americans during the colonial period.

I think Las Casas is important for ecumenical theology for three reasons.

First, reading him and knowing about his historical context reminds us that Christians in history have regularly distorted the Gospel and "sacred doctrine" in order to justify exploitation or oppression. 

Second, he is the first instance of what we might call a "Global" Christianity.  More specifically, I think that the discovery of the Americas was an intellectual catastrophe for Western theology which led to a rethinking of grace and divine providence.  Brian Tierny argues, for instance, that the work at the Spanish school of Salamanca, responding theologically to this discovery, laid the groundwork for the modern notion of "human rights."  Many scholars are beginning to look at connections between the the European discovery of the Americas and the effect of the Protestant Reformation in Europe, which began at about the same time. 

Third, this is something of a controversial opinion, but I think that Las Casas shows how Christian theology can be used creatively to help those who are being oppressed.  To respond to Spanish theologians who argued that the American Indians were natural slaves, Las Casas mustered a number of theological and philosophical authorities, including some arguments from Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, to argue that the indigenous were fully human beings and thus had some degree of “derechos humanos,” or human rights.  Historically, Las Casas's arguments didn't have an enormous effect, but they may at least have stopped the Spanish Emperor from accepting a deal that would put the indigenous people in the Americas into a state of permanent slavery.