What is Bartolomé de Las Casas known for?

Bartolomé de Las Casas was an outspoken critic of the Spanish colonial government in the Americas. Las Casas was especially critical of the system of slavery in the West Indies. In 1515–16 he developed a plan for the reformation of the Indies with the help of religious reformer Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros. The plan ended in disaster, but Las Casas did not give up. Some 10 years later he commenced work on the Historia de las Indias (History of the Indies). Las Casas did not publish Historia in his lifetime, but he did publish a summary of Historia as a polemic. The polemic—the Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies)—was Las Casas’s most influential work. Shortly after its publication in 1542, King Charles I passed several “New Laws” benefiting Indian serfs.