Antonio de Montesinos

v. 1475-v. 1540 16th century

Anger at injustice, carried into prayer instead of being swallowed.

Who was Antonio de Montesinos?

A Dominican from Salamanca, he landed on Hispaniola in 1510 with the first community of his order in the Americas. On the fourth Sunday of Advent 1511, before the son of Christopher Columbus and every colonist on the island, he preached a sermon written and signed by the whole community, and refused to retract it the following Sunday. Recalled to Spain, he pleaded before King Ferdinand; the Laws of Burgos followed in 1512. He was eventually killed in Venezuela. Las Casas, who was in the congregation, took twenty years to understand what he had heard.

In their own words

I am the voice of Christ in the desert of this island.

Advent sermon of 1511, reported by Bartolomé de Las Casas, History of the Indies, book III, ch. 4 (translated from the Spanish by the Manna team)

By what right and by what justice do you hold these Indians in so cruel and horrible a servitude?

Advent sermon of 1511, reported by Bartolomé de Las Casas, History of the Indies, book III, ch. 4 (translated from the Spanish by the Manna team)

Are these not men? Have they not rational souls? Are you not bound to love them as yourselves?

Advent sermon of 1511, reported by Bartolomé de Las Casas, History of the Indies, book III, ch. 4 (translated from the Spanish by the Manna team)