Bartolomé de las Casas y los usos del pasado: memoria, identidad y nación

Résumé

Bartolomé de Las casas considered responsible for a historic scandal unparalled be- come an icon and a symbol, and vindicated admired by ones, rejected and demonized by others, is one of the most controversial and polemic of the History of Spain. throughout the apologies of expulsed Jesuits in Italy and a long inquisitorial censure, I intend to offer a new perspective, that address its instrumentalization, approach that places the defender of the Indians as unex- pected protagonist of fundamental historical processes of modernity. Its deformation and reivin- dication are basic elements of the construction of two historical and opposed memories; it of- fers support to the national identity in Spain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.