Description
Book SynopsisFive 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 firstand most insistentvoices raised in that debate was that of a Spanish priest, Bartolomé de Las Casas, acquintance of Cortes and Pizarro and shipmate of Velasquez on the voyage to conquer Cuba. In 1552, after forty years of witnessingand opposingcountless 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 genocid, 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 memoery of Our Redeemer and his twelve apostles. He describes butcher shops that sold human flesh for dog food (Give me a quart
Trade ReviewBartolome de Las Casas's critical account of the impact that the Spaniards had on the new continent has long been recognized as one of the major sources for the study on the interaction between whites and American Indians during the sixteenth century. The present translation of The Devastation of the Indies is based on the 1965 edition and appeared for the first time in 1974. The reprint is now accompanied by a penetrating introduction by Bill M. Donovan... All this makes the introduction to a provocative and stimulating essay, preparing the reader for the actual text by Las Casas. -- Albrecht Classen Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association [Does] justice to the heartfelt message of Bartolome de las Casas. British Bulletin of Publications
Table of ContentsIntroduction
The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account
Note On The Translation Of The Brevissima Relación
Notes
