Christopher Columbus returned to Spain from his historic first voyage in early 1493 and headed for Seville where he arrived on Palm Sunday, March 31, 1493. In his entourage marched eight or ten Taino Indians captured in the Caribbean. Dressed in their native feathers and fishbone and gold ornaments, they drew curious stares from the gawking onlookers, as much impressed by the parrots as the strange “Indians.” Young Bartolomé de las Casas, born in Seville and then about nine years old, may have witnessed the procession into the city. Did the boy feel a compassion for these awkward savages who seemed so out of place in Seville?

The procession could hardly have been missed. The news of the Admiral’s return from his voyage, less than two weeks earlier, spread rapidly through the many kingdoms of medieval Spain − Castile, Léon, Aragon, Valencia − united by the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile in 1469. Modern Spain was just emerging under their powerful dual monarchy, but a Spaniard from hundreds of years earlier would have recognized his land and its people easily. Change came about slowly in the medieval world. But the first voyage of Columbus detonated an explosion of knowledge that transformed the world. And young Las Casas was there.