Fr. Antón Montesino (1511)

 

Tell me, by what right?

And by what justice do you hold

these Indians in such cruel and horrible servitude?

By what authority?

Have you waged such detestable

wars against these people who were

in their peaceful and peaceful lands,

where you have wreaked such endless wars,

with death

and devastation never before heard of?

How do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted?

Without giving them food or treating their illnesses

which, from the excessive work you give them,

they incur and die, and, more accurately,

you kill them by extracting and acquiring gold every day?

And what care do you have for those who indoctrinate them?

And that they know their God and Creator,

be baptized, hear Mass,

keep the holy days and Sundays?

Are these not men?

Do they not have rational souls?

Aren't you forced to love them?

like yourselves?

Don't you understand this?

Is this not felt?

How are you so deeply asleep?

sleep so lethargically?

*******

-Fr. Antón Montesino, O.P.

Isla de La Española

Cuarto domingo de Adviento

21 de diciembre de 1511

Fray Antón Montesino’s sermon, delivered in 1511 on the island of La Española, is one of the earliest recorded denunciations of colonial oppression and indigenous enslavement. His words hold significant relevance for Black Studies in several ways:

Critique of Colonial Exploitation

Montesino condemns the brutal treatment of Indigenous people under Spanish rule, questioning how colonizers justify their violence and enslavement. This critique extends to the transatlantic slave trade, which soon replaced Indigenous slavery with the mass importation of enslaved Africans. His words foreshadow later critiques of racial capitalism and forced labor systems that disproportionately affected Black people across the Americas.

Humanization and the Question of Rights

His rhetorical questions “Are these not men?” and “Do they not have rational souls?” challenge the dehumanization of the oppressed. In Black Studies, similar questions have been central to discussions about the construction of race, the denial of Black humanity, and the fight for civil rights. Montesino’s words anticipate later movements, from abolitionism to Black liberation theology.

Religious Justification for Justice

Montesino invokes Christian doctrine to argue for love and moral obligation toward the oppressed. This mirrors later movements in Black Studies, where religion played a key role in resistance such as in the abolitionist movement, liberation theology, and the Civil Rights Movement, where figures like Martin Luther King Jr. framed justice as a moral imperative.

Colonialism, Labor, and Extraction

His critique of extracting gold at the cost of human lives parallels later analyses in Black Studies of how colonial economies were built on the backs of enslaved Africans. The plantation economy, like the mining economy Montesino condemns, relied on forced labor and racialized oppression.

Psychological and Social Control

His question “How do you keep them so oppressed and exhausted?”acknowledges the systematic nature of control. Black Studies scholars examine how colonial and racist structures maintained oppression, from forced labor to cultural and religious suppression. Montesino’s critique connects to later analyses of how institutions (from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration) sustain racial injustice.

Awakening to Injustice

Montesino asks: “How are you so deeply asleep?” He calls for a moral awakening, much like later anti-racist movements urge societies to confront systemic oppression. His sermon can be seen as an early form of the conscientization that figures like Frantz Fanon and Paulo Freire discuss, where the oppressed and their allies become aware of injustice and work to dismantle it.

Though focused on Indigenous enslavement, Montesino’s sermon is deeply relevant to Black Studies and for the historic studies about Christopher Columbus.

It critiques racialize exploitation, calls for the recognition of shared humanity, and urges moral responsibility , themes that resonate across centuries of Black resistance and scholarship.

-ER

References:

Baralt, A. Guillermo (1982). Esclavos rebeldes.

Ramos-Perea, Roberto (2009). Literatura Puertorriqueña Negra del Siglo XIX Escrita Por Negros.

Williams, Chancellor (1987). The Destruction of Black Civilization.

Hanke, L. (1946). Free speech in sixteenth-century Spanish America. The Hispanic American Historical Review, 26(2), 135-149.

Hoffman, P. E. (1990). A new Andalucia and a way to the Orient: The American Southeast during the sixteenth century. Louisiana State University Press.

Pagden, A. (Ed.). (1992). A short account of the destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de Las Casas. Penguin Books.

 Seed, P. (1992). Taking possession and reading texts: Establishing the authority of overseas empires. The William and Mary Quarterly, 49(2), 183-209.

 Thomas, H. (2003). Rivers of gold: The rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan. Random House.

Warner, C. (1987). ‘All mankind is one’: The libertarian tradition in sixteenth-century Spain. The Journal of Libertarian Studies, 8(2), 293-309.