Work · Latin American & Caribbean Philosophy
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
An indictment written for the Spanish crown: the conquest as a record of massacres, enslavement and plunder.
Introduction
Bartolomé de las Casas, a former colonist who had become a Dominican friar, wrote the account in 1542 for Emperor Charles V and had it printed in Seville in 1552, addressed to Prince Philip. Region by region – Hispaniola, Cuba, Mexico, Peru and others – it lists massacres, enslavement and forced labour; many historians consider its figures for the dead exaggerated, though the pattern of violence is well documented. It supported the New Laws of 1542, which restricted the encomienda system of forced labour, and its printing followed the Valladolid debate of 1550–51, in which Las Casas opposed Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. Translated into Dutch, French, English and German, it was used by Spain’s Protestant rivals and became a source of the “Black Legend”.
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- The First New Chronicle and Good Government1615 · Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala
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