Statue of Bartolomé de las Casas, San Cristóbal, Chiapas

What it is

This is a photograph of a white stone statue of a robed clerical figure with a cloak and one hand raised to the chest. It stands on a tall white pedestal with a blue-painted cornice and a plaque with a Latin inscription. The photo was taken in a plaza in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, on 19 April 2011 by Alejandro Linares García.

The statue honours Las Casas, a Spanish Dominican friar who served as bishop of Chiapas in the city that now bears his name in part. Because it was made centuries after he died in 1566, it reflects how later people chose to remember him.

Why it matters

Las Casas wrote about the abuses suffered by Indigenous peoples under Spanish colonial rule and worked to change the laws that allowed them. Monuments like this one show that his reputation has been shaped by later generations, who have praised him in very different ways over time.

Look closer

• What details of the statue, such as the robe, the raised hand, and the pedestal, seem chosen to make Las Casas look important?
• Who would have decided to put up a statue like this, and why might they have wanted to honour him in this city?
• What does a statue made centuries later leave out about what Las Casas himself wrote and did?