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A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)

by Bartolomé de las Casas

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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1,1801316,599 (3.66)16
Bartolome de Las Casas was the first and fiercest critic of Spanish colonialism in the New World. An early traveller to the Americas who sailed on one of Columbus's voyages, Las Casas was so horrified by the wholesale massacre he witnessed that he dedicated his life to protecting the Indian community. He wrote A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1542, a shocking catalogue of mass slaughter, torture and slavery, which showed that the evangelizing vision of Columbus had descended under later conquistadors into genocide. Dedicated to Philip II to alert the Castilian Crown to these atrocities and demand that the Indians be entitled to the basic rights of humankind, this passionate work of documentary vividness outraged Europe and contributed to the idea of the Spanish 'Black Legend' that would last for centuries.… (more)
  1. 10
    Aztec by Gary Jennings (Cecrow)
    Cecrow: A fictional retelling of the fall of the Aztec empire to the Spanish, from an Aztec's perspective. Telling details suggest Las Casas was a valuable source.
  2. 00
    History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H. Prescott (Cecrow)
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» See also 16 mentions

English (9)  Catalan (3)  French (1)  All languages (13)
Showing 1-5 of 9 (next | show all)
Exagerado o no (cuestión sobre la cual siglos después se sigue discutiendo) es la crónica histórica contemporánea de mayor impacto, al menos que yo haya leído, en la revelación y denuncia de los abusos de los conquistadores españoles en América.

Si se aborda sin pedirle peras al olmo (como pretender el reconocimiento de la injusticia intrínseca de la conquista en sí) y si se hace una lectura crítica, es un valioso testimonio que revela abusos en el ejercicio de un poder hegemónico pero también las primeras voces de resistencia de una lucha que aún no ha terminado. ( )
  Marlobo | Dec 24, 2022 |
Agony to read, but an amazing example of 15th century rhetoric. ( )
  macleod73 | Sep 14, 2022 |
Heritage Studies Book 7

Conquistador-turned-friar Bartolome De Las Casas wrote this account detailing the atrocities that the Spanish were subjecting onto the indigenous peoples. He wrote this to shed light onto the horrors and not only to inform the public but hoped that Charles V, the king of Spain at the time, would enact laws preventing further destruction and chaos in the Caribbean and Latin America.

I have read books on Christopher Columbus and the colonization of the Americas and this book almost always is used as a primary source. One historian who’s book I read about the Columbus voyages brought up a good point when speaking of Las Casas’ work: since this was written in the hopes of persuading the Spanish Crown, exaggeration and embellishment is an unfortunate possibility. Any work that is 500 years old also suffers from mistranslation and the skewing of information.

However, I feel that doesn’t take away from the overall work. It is no secret that the Spanish did terrible things to the Amerindians. Disease was certainly a major factor in wiping out large swaths of the population, but the conquistadors didn’t stand by idly. Guns and steel were used without discrimination. Las Casas may have ballooned the figures of those killed, but the methods he describes may have certainly been used.

Overall, this is an important piece of literature concerning the bloody colonization of Latin America. The crashing of the “Old World” and “New World” was a destructive collision and a story of violent upheaval as evidenced in this gruesomely descriptive work. At the same time, because of this tumultuous meeting of two worlds we now have today a wonderful vibrant mix of cultures. ( )
  ProfessorEX | Apr 15, 2021 |
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. ( )
  Paulagraph | May 25, 2014 |
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. ( )
  belgrade18 | May 31, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 9 (next | show all)
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Bartolomé de las Casasprimary authorall editionscalculated
Griffin, NigelTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Griffin, NigelEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pagden, AnthonyIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Bartolome de Las Casas was the first and fiercest critic of Spanish colonialism in the New World. An early traveller to the Americas who sailed on one of Columbus's voyages, Las Casas was so horrified by the wholesale massacre he witnessed that he dedicated his life to protecting the Indian community. He wrote A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1542, a shocking catalogue of mass slaughter, torture and slavery, which showed that the evangelizing vision of Columbus had descended under later conquistadors into genocide. Dedicated to Philip II to alert the Castilian Crown to these atrocities and demand that the Indians be entitled to the basic rights of humankind, this passionate work of documentary vividness outraged Europe and contributed to the idea of the Spanish 'Black Legend' that would last for centuries.

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Five hundred years after Columbus's first voyage to the New World, the debate over the European impact on Native American civilization has grown more heated than ever. Among the first--and most insistent--voices raised in that debate was that of a Spanish priest, Bartolome de Las Casas, acquaintance of Cortes and Pizarro and shipmate of Velasquez on the voyage to conquer Cuba. In 1552, after forty years of witnessing--and opposing--countless acts of brutality in the new Spanish colonies, Las Casas returned to Seville, where he published a book that caused a storm of controversy that persists to the present day. The Devastation of the Indies is an eyewitness account of the first modern genocide, a story of greed, hypocrisy, and cruelties so grotesque as to rival the worst of our own century. Las Casas writes of men, women, and children burned alive "thirteen at a time in memory of Our Redeemer and his twelve apostles." He describes butcher shops that sold human flesh for dog food ("Give me a quarter of that rascal there, " one customer says, "until I can kill some more of my own"). Slave ship captains navigate "without need of compass or charts, " following instead the trail of floating corpses tossed overboard by the ship before them. Native kings are promised peace, then slaughtered. Whole families hang themselves in despair. Once-fertile islands are turned to desert, the wealth of nations plundered, millions killed outright, whole peoples annihilated. In an introduction, historian Bill M. Donovan provides a brief biography of Las Casas and reviews the controversy his work produced among Europeans, whose indignation--and denials--lasted centuries. But the book itself is short. "Were I t describe all this, " writes Las Casas of the four decades of suffering he witnessed, "no amount of time and paper could encompass this task."
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