A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Las Casas introduces the history of Spanish colonization of the Americas as a “marvellous discovery,” an event so extraordinary “that the whole story remains quite incredible to anyone who has not experienced it at first hand” (3). With this extraordinariness, however, comes the depth of atrocity and “horrific excesses” (3) committed by the Spanish against the indigenous peoples. After taking in these atrocities and joining the Dominican order, Brother Bartolomé de Las Casas returned to Spain to give “our Lord, the Emperor” an “eye-witness account of these enormities” (3). After setting his account to writing, new talks of continued colonial efforts within the court urged Las Casas to present his account to the prince, “to implore him to do everything in his power to persuade His Majesty [the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V] to frustrate the plans of these men” (4). Therefore he had the account set to print.

Addressing his text to the “most high and most mighty Prince of Spain, our Lord the Prince Philip” (5), Las Casas states that as divine providence organized the world into peoples governed by kings, “there is no doubt […] that these kings entertain nothing save that which is morally unimpeachable” (5).