Colonial Struggles and Early English Ventures

* **Bartolomé de las Casas:** A Spanish Dominican priest who advocated for the rights of Native

Americans. His writings (**A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies**)

detailed the atrocities of the *encomienda* system and contributed to the **Black Legend**. * **Black Legend:**

The concept that the Spanish were uniquely cruel and brutal in their colonization.

While other empires were also brutal, this propaganda was used by rival European powers

(especially England) to justify their own colonization efforts. * **Pueblo Revolt

(Pope's Rebellion) (1680):** **Although this happens later, it is the culmination of Spanish oppression.**

A successful uprising of Pueblo Indians in present-day New Mexico against Spanish colonizers.