Antonio de Montesinos

Who is Antonio de Montesinos?

Antonio de Montesinos was a Spanish Dominican friar who was a missionary on the island of Hispaniola. With the backing of his prior, Fray Pedro de Córdoba, and his Dominican community at Santo Dominigo, Montesinos preached against the enslavement and harsh treatment of the Indigenous peoples of the Island. Montesinos' preaching led to Bartolomé de las Casas' conversion and his entering the Dominican Order.

Montesinos became a Dominican friar at the convent of St. Stephen in Salamanca, where he may have studied. He was part of the first band of Dominican missionaries to go to Hispaniola island, in September 1510, under the leadership of Pedro de Córdoba.

On December 21, 1511, the fourth Sunday of Advent, Montesinos preached an impassioned sermon criticizing the practices of the Spanish colonial encomienda system, and decrying the abuse of the Taíno Indian people on Hispaniola. This was 19 years after Christopher Columbus had discovered the island and Spain started to colonize it.

Listing the injustices that the indigenous people were suffering at the hands of the Spanish colonists, Montesinos proclaimed that the Spanish on the island "are all in mortal sin and live and die in it, because of the cruelty and tyranny they practice among these innocent peoples." According to Bartolomé de las Casas, who was a witness, Montesinos asked those in attendance,