Bartolome De Las Casas

An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies: And Related Texts Bartolome De Las Casas

Fifty years after the arrival of Columbus, at the height of Spain's conquest of the West Indies, Spanish bishop and colonist Bartolome de Las Casas dedicated his Brevisima Relacion de la Destruicion de las Indias to Philip II of Spain. An impassioned plea on behalf of the native peoples of the West Indies, the Brevisima Relacion catalogues in horrific detail atrocities it attributes to the kings colonists in the New World. The result is a withering indictment of the conquerors that has cast a 500-year shadow over the subsequent history of that world and the European colonization of it.