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    A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
    A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
    A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
    Ebook274 pages5 hours

    A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

    By Bartolome de las Casas

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    Written in 1542 and first published in 1552, “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” by Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican friar, is a moving and shocking account of the atrocities and mistreatment suffered by the indigenous people of South America under Spanish colonial rule. Bartolome de Las Casas, believed to have been born in 1484, immigrated to the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean from Spain in 1502 with his father and was ordained as a priest in 1510. His work with the Church gave him a startling glimpse into the cruelty and inhumanity that the native peoples were subjected to by the powerful Spaniards. Bartolome de Las Casas was determined to advocate for these oppressed people and traveled back and forth between Spain and the New World several times to bring the plight of the indigenous peoples to the attention of the King. Bartolome de Las Casas documented the ravages of the disease and greed the Spanish brought with them across the sea. “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” is an important and remarkable work, as well as the earliest documentation of a concerted effort to advocate for better and more humane treatment of the native people of the New World.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateSep 1, 2019
    ISBN9781420963205
    A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
    Author

    Bartolome de las Casas

    Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566), was a sixteenth-century Dominican priest, writer, and first resident Bishop of Chiapas. As a settler in the New World, he witnessed, and was driven to oppose, the torture and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists and pushed for rights of Indigenous people.

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    Reviews for A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

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    • 5/5
      Agony to read, but an amazing example of 15th century rhetoric.
    • 5/5
      If only even a quarter of this book is true, then the human race is truly to be pitied. I'm sure that most of it is indeed factual, and that is the sad part. Some people think that the New World just came into existence magically and that no one was living here prior. This book sheds some light as to what really happened and just how inhumane some people can be.
    • 2/5
      A must read only because it's a classic and an important historical document. de las Casas intended to write a legal and moral argument, 16th century style, detailing the murder and mayhem perpetrated by the Spanish Conquistadors in the Antilles (Caribbean islands, coastal Mexico, Central and South America)from Columbus's landfall in 1492 until the middle of the next century. But I knew that already. I didn't need to read this book to find that out. De las Casas's prose style is repetitive and numbingly dull(the following quote is something of an exception) while at the same time what he documents is still shocking, 500 years after the fact ("the Spaniards have a number of wild and ferocious dogs which they have trained especially to kill the people and tear them to bits . . . . they run a kind of human abattoir or flesh market, where a dog-owner can casually ask, not for a quarter of pork or mutton, but for 'a quarter of one of those likely lads over there for my dog'"). His account moves from one "peaceful" and "innocent" indigenous group to another (the inhabitants of Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Florida,etc.)describing their encounters with the Europeans who arrived ostensibly to bring them "civilization" and Christianity. de las Casas wanted to draw the Prince of Spain's attention to the brigands and butchers operating in the name of Spain and the Church, hoping that "if he only knew," the Spanish Crown would put a stop to the genocide. Not much success there, I'm afraid. The inhabitants of the islands were particularly unlucky. Nowhere to hide when the real estate is circumscribed by water on all sides . . . the particularly dire fate of the Arawak. I was reading this book while following the recent World Cup. Irrational as it sounds, A Short Account . . . didn't make me feel like cheering for Spain.
    • 4/5
      An interesting account of the Spanish invasion and conquest of a great deal of Latin America beginning with Hispaniola and including Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. The text is mainly a litany of slaughter by various "tyrants", mainly rogue conquistadors, and their sheer avarice and "unchristian" behavior. The author became a Dominican monk after witnessing some of the incidents he describes, though the book is not heavy on religious rhetoric considering the time and place. Unfortunately he mentions very few of the Spaniards by name, although I am certain the names were known to contemporaries, and he gives very few details, but it is still strongly effective. The text I read was a translation into English from the late 1600s, so much of the spelling was creative; the edition itself was from Project Gutenberg, and unfortunately it had many mis-spellings because of poor proof-reading. A quick read, if a bit repetitive; recommended for those with an interest in early Latin American history.
    • 4/5
      On the list of humanity's infliction of cruelty upon itself, the Spanish conquest ranks not far behind the Holocaust. The Aztecs and Incans are most frequently cited, but many other peoples were vanquished as well by gold-mongering conquistadors who didn't give a moment's thought to the inhumanity they were perpetrating on these "savages". It's only thanks to the regret of missionaries who lost conversion opportunities to these opportunists that we have this eyewitness account. The author frequently says he cannot bring himself to catalog in full the atrocities, only listing a few highlighted examples. He does not identify the Spaniards he charges by name, whether by choice or perhaps these were removed from the public account. It is a difficult, uncomfortable litany, and even the postscript adds little in the way of restitution, indicating that although the Spanish king responded to this account by enacting new measures, these were largely disregarded as they could not well be enforced. For posterity's sake I'm glad to have read this. For a more personal illumination of one part of the story, I'd recommend Gary Jenning's historical novel "Aztec" which was my personal impetus for reading this non-fiction work.
    • 4/5
      Casas wrote this partly out of a very human concern for the lives of others, and partly from his own convictions and his sense of faith - he was convinced that God would punish the Kingdom of Spain for its sins unless something was done.

      A retelling of wars, atrocities, tortures, exterminations, enslavement, and so forth in the 16th century in Cuba, Hispaniola, Mexico, Colombia. With contemporary illustrations! The main motives seem to be covered by greed for gold, deception with religion, or just cruelty.

      This is also an early modern instance of atrocity being used as political propaganda, with Protestant nations such as England circulating this document as proof of Catholic depravity and corruption, and later historians attempting to white-wash (pardon the hideous pun) Spain's history, especially under the Franco regime. I recall another edition of the book being republished just in time for the Spanish-American War.

      Although the majority of the Native American depopulation was likely carried out by disease, and some events appear to be exaggerated, this does not detract too much from de las Casas' frightening message. He saw terrible things happening and wanted to do something about it. It is this reason, and his being a lone voice in the wilderness, are why he endures.

    Book preview

    A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies - Bartolome de las Casas

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