Author

Bartolomé de las Casas

About Bartolomé de las Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566) was a Spanish colonist, priest and Dominican friar. After years as a settler and slaveholder in the Caribbean, he gave up his Indian labourers in 1514 and spent the rest of his long life defending the native peoples of the Americas before Spanish kings and councils. He served briefly as Bishop of Chiapas in Mexico.

On this site

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

1552 (written 1542); English translation of 1689 · Renaissance Early Modern · History

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias) is a passionate report by the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas on the cruelty of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. He wrote it in 1542 for the future King Philip II and the royal court, and he printed it at Seville in 1552.