Bartolomé de las Casas

Dominican friar (1484-1566), former encomendero turned defender of the Indians, whose campaigning shaped the New Laws of 1542 and who faced Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in the Valladolid debate of 1550-51 — the first great public controversy over the rights of colonized peoples. His polemical statistics are unreliable; his moral argument and influence on law are documented.