This volume is the first complete English translation and annotated study of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s important and provocative 1552 treatise commonly known as the Confesionario or Avisos y reglas. A text that generated controversy, like Las Casas’s more famous Brevísima relación, the Confesionario outlined a strikingly novel and arguably harsh use of confession for those administering the sacrament to conquistadores, encomenderos, slaveholders, settlers, and others who had harmed the indigenous people, thus using magisterial authority and jurisdictional power to promote restitution.
David Orique addresses how, from 1516 to 1547, Las Casas subscribed to and wrote about the theory and practice of the doctrine of restitution. He then presents the specific historical context of the development of the initial manuscript of the Confesionario in 1547 as Doce reglas (Twelve Rules), which later became the augmented Confesionario manuscript. Orique’s commentary on the 1552 Confesionario treatise highlights how Las Casas’s Argumento, and its approval by theologians, legitimates his work. Orique outlines the various guidelines proposed to confessors to identify, investigate, and seek restitution from offending Spaniards based on their possessions and circumstances. He also explores Las Casas’s use of the Thomistic tripartite scheme of divine, natural, and human law.
With insightful analysis and commentary accompanied by an eminently readable translation, To Heaven or to Hell will be especially useful to students and scholars of Latin American colonial history, early modern religion, and Catholic studies.
Table of Contents:
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Las Casas’s Road Map to Temporal Justice and Eternal Life
1. “I, Bartolomé de Las Casas or Causas . . .”:
An Encounter with Temporal Justice’s Rough Terrain
2. “I Absolve . . .”: A First Brush with the Eternal Flames of Hell
3. “I Guarantee . . .”: A Passage to Heaven or a Ticket to Hell
Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Confesionario: “I Mandate Justice . . .”; The Last Fork in the Road to Heaven or Hell
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
David Thomas Orique, O.P., is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Latin American and Latino/a Studies Program at Providence College.
Review :
“David Orique has done a great service by providing a very readable and useful translation of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s 1546 Confesionario.”
—Patrick J. O’Banion Catholic Historical Review
“Fr Orique has rendered a considerable service to students of sixteenth-century Spain with this edition.”
—Alastair Hamilton Heythrop Journal
“A welcome addition to the burgeoning field of Lascasian studies. Recent scholarship on Las Casas’s works has been characterized by expanding the canon to include lesser-known texts. The volume under review exemplifies this trend.”
—Raúl Marrero-Fente Renaissance Quarterly
“This is an important and long overdue work. David Orique’s study of how Bartolomé de las Casas used confession as a tool in his long struggle for justice for the indigenous people is compelling and faithful to the historical record. This is a major new source on one of the principal elements in the evolution of modern human rights, in which Las Casas was the central actor in the long sixteenth century.”
—Lawrence Clayton, author of Bartolomé de las Casas and the Conquest of the Americas
