Opposed the enslavement and oppression of the Indians by Spanish colonists in the Americas Voyaged to Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic) to manage a newly acquired estate. He began to teach the inhabitants Christianity, and in 1512 he became a priest. In 1515 he returned to Spain and presented to King Charles I a plan for the reformation of the Indies. Las Casas was appointed “protector of the Indians.” In his zeal to aid the Indians, however, he advocated the use of black slaves from Africa—a decision he later much regretted. Las Casas returned to Hispaniola in 1521. Disillusioned with the likelihood of reform, he joined the Dominican order and began to write his great work, ‘The History of the Indies '. The last decades of his life were