This monument by sculptor Emilio García Ortiz is on the shores of the Guadalquivir, across the river from his birthplace, Triana. It was dedicated in 1984 on the occasion of the fifth centenary of his birth.
Bartolomé de Las Casas 1474–1566, a Spanish missionary and historian, was called the apostle of the Indies. In 1514 he began to work for the improvement of conditions among the indigenous population, especially for the abolition of their slavery and of the forced labor of the encomienda (a grant by the Spanish Crown to a colonist in America conferring the right to demand tribute and forced labor from the Indian inhabitants of an area.)
He devoted the rest of his life to that cause, going to Spain to urge the government to action and striving to break the power of Spanish landholders over native laborers. For a brief time (1544–47) he was bishop of Chiapas.
