A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies — Excerpts (1542)¶

Author: Bartolomé de las Casas Type: Primary Source · Eyewitness Account · Moral Argument Source: Public domain — Project Gutenberg (Penguin translation recommended) Era/Period: Era 2 — Middle Ages and Early Modern Period WH Standards: WH.6_12.4 · WH.6_12.5 ELA Standards: 9-10.R.9 · 9-10.IR.4 · 9-10.W.4

What This Text Is About¶

Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566), Spanish friar and early human rights advocate, whose accounts of colonial atrocity are this text.

Bartolomé de las Casas was a Spanish priest who participated in the early conquest of the Caribbean and Cuba, witnessed what the Spanish were doing to indigenous populations, renounced his own encomienda (slave-labor grant), became a Dominican friar, and spent the rest of his life arguing that the conquest was a moral atrocity and a sin against God. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542) is his direct report to the Spanish Crown — written to persuade King Charles V to reform colonial policy — describing what he witnessed: the systematic massacre, enslavement, and destruction of indigenous peoples across the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America.

Why this text is uniquely valuable: Las Casas was a Spaniard, a Christian priest, and an initial participant in the conquest. His denunciation comes from inside the system, using the system's own values (Christian morality, Spanish honor, the soul's salvation) to condemn it. This is the Luther argument applied to colonial violence: attacking an institution using the institution's own moral premises. It is also the direct predecessor of the Kipling/Johnson debate — centuries before that debate happened.

Note on Las Casas' limits: His denunciation of indigenous slavery is genuine and historically significant. He initially proposed importing enslaved Africans as a solution — a position he later repudiated but which is historically documented. Students must engage with this complexity, not sanitize it.

Read It¶

Selections from the 1689 English translation of Las Casas' 1542 account. The archaic spelling and sentence structure are part of the primary source. Full text at Project Gutenberg.

Content note: This text contains graphic descriptions of colonial violence. Las Casas wrote these passages deliberately to shock the Spanish king into action — the extremity of the language was a rhetorical strategy, not sensationalism.

Introduction — The People and the Scale of Destruction¶

America was discovered and found out Ann. Dom. 1492, and the Year insuing inhabited by the Spaniards, and afterward a multitude of them travelled thither from Spain for the space of Nine and Forty Years. Their first attempt was on the Spanish Island, which indeed is a most fertile soil... And such a multitude of People inhabits these Countries, that it seems as if the Omnipotent God has Assembled and Convocated the major part of Mankind in this part of the World.

Now this infinite multitude of Men are by the Creation of God innocently simple, altogether void of and averse to all manner of Craft, Subtlety and Malice, and most Obedient and Loyal Subjects to their Native Sovereigns; and behave themselves very patiently, submissively and quietly towards the Spaniards... so that finally they live without the least thirst after revenge, laying aside all litigiousness, Commotion and hatred.

The Spaniards first assaulted the innocent Sheep, so qualified by the Almighty, as is premention'd, like most cruel Tygers, Wolves and Lions hunger-starv'd, studying nothing, for the space of Forty Years, after their first landing, but the Massacre of these Wretches... that of Three Millions of Persons, which lived in Hispaniola itself, there is at present but the inconsiderable remnant of scarce Three Hundred. Nay the Isle of Cuba... lies now uncultivated, like a Desert, and intomb'd in its own Ruins.

As to the firm land, we are certainly satisfied, and assur'd, that the Spaniards by their barbarous and execrable Actions have absolutely depopulated Ten Kingdoms, of greater extent than all Spain... above Twelve Millions (computing Men, Women, and Children) have undeservedly perished; nor do I conceive that I should deviate from the Truth by saying that above Fifty Millions in all paid their last Debt to Nature.

Now the ultimate end and scope that incited the Spaniards to endeavor the Extirpation and Desolation of this People, was Gold only; that thereby growing opulent in a short time, they might arrive at once at such Degrees and Dignities, as were no wayes consistent with their Persons.

Whom they so despicably contemned, that they treated them (I speak of things which I was an Eye Witness of, without the least fallacy) not as Beasts, which I cordially wished they would, but as the most abject dung and filth of the Earth; and so sollicitous they were of their Life and Soul, that the above-mentioned number of People died without understanding the true Faith or Sacraments. And this also is as really true... that the Spaniards never received any injury from the Indians, but that they rather reverenced them as Persons descended from Heaven, until that they were compelled to take up Arms, provoked thereunto by repeated Injuries, violent Torments, and injust Butcheries.

Of the Island Hispaniola — Eyewitness Account¶

In this Isle, which, as we have said, the Spaniards first attempted, the bloody slaughter and destruction of Men first began: for they violently forced away Women and Children to make them Slaves... for the Spaniards did not only entertain them with Cuffs, Blows, and wicked Cudgelling, but laid violent hands also on the Governours of Cities; and this arriv'd at length to that height of Temerity and Impudence, that a certain Captain was so audacious as abuse the Consort of the most puissant King of the whole Isle. From which time they began to consider by what wayes and means they might expel the Spaniards out of their Countrey, and immediately took up Arms. But, good God, what Arms, do you imagin? Namely such, both Offensive and Defensive, as resemble Reeds wherewith Boys sport with one another, more than Manly Arms and Weapons.

Which the Spaniards no sooner perceived, but they, mounted on generous Steeds, well weapon'd with Lances and Swords, begin to exercise their bloody Butcheries and Strategems, and overrunning their Cities and Towns, spar'd no Age, or Sex, nay not so much as Women with Child, but ripping up their Bellies, tore them alive in pieces. They laid Wagers among themselves, who should with a Sword at one blow cut, or divide a Man in two; or which of them should decollate or behead a Man, with the greatest dexterity; nay farther, which should sheath his Sword in the Bowels of a Man with the quickest dispatch and expedition.

They snatcht young Babes from the Mothers Breasts, and then dasht out the brains of those innocents against the Rocks; others they cast into Rivers scoffing and jeering them, and call'd upon their Bodies when falling with derision, the true testimony of their Cruelty, to come to them, and inhumanely exposing others to their Merciless Swords, together with the Mothers that gave them Life.

They erected certain Gibbets, large, but low made, so that their feet almost reacht the ground, every one of which was so order'd as to bear Thirteen Persons in Honour and Reverence (as they said blasphemously) of our Redeemer and his Twelve Apostles, under which they made a Fire to burn them to Ashes whilst hanging on them: But those they intended to preserve alive, they dismiss'd, their Hands half cut, and still hanging by the Skin, to carry their Letters missive to those that fly from us and ly sculking on the Mountains.

I once saw Four or Five of their most Powerful Lords laid on these Gridirons, and thereon roasted, and not far off, Two or Three more over-spread with the same Commodity, Man's Flesh... I was an Eye-Witness of these and innumerable Number of other Cruelties.

...if at any time it hapned, (which was rarely) that the Indians irritated upon a just account destroy'd or took away the Life of any Spaniard, they promulgated and proclaim'd this Law among them, that One Hundred Indians should dye for every individual Spaniard that should be slain.

ELA Standards This Connects To¶

R.9 — The text is structured as a report to power: Las Casas is writing to the King with a specific persuasive goal (reform colonial policy). Students analyze his rhetorical choices — the detailed atrocity accounts as evidence, the appeals to Christian morality as the framework, the use of the King's self-interest (God will judge Spain for this) as leverage.
IR.4 — Las Casas is one of the most useful IR.4 texts in the library: he is biased (he wants to stop the violence), he is credible (he was there), and he is limited (his moral framework still operates within colonialism — he doesn't question Spanish sovereignty, only Spanish methods). Students practice distinguishing between a source's perspective, credibility, and completeness.
W.4 — The text models argument through documented testimony: Las Casas doesn't just assert that atrocities occurred — he describes specific incidents, names specific places, and provides specific numbers. Use as a W.4 model for how accumulated specific evidence makes a general claim credible.

WH.6_12.4 — Las Casas documents the specific mechanisms of the encomienda system — forced labor, massacre, the destruction of food supplies, the psychological effects of violence on entire communities — that define early colonial practice in the Americas. This is the closest thing to an insider primary source account of what the conquest looked like from the inside.
WH.6_12.5 — The text is a direct cause of the New Laws of 1542, which attempted to reform the encomienda system. The New Laws were largely undermined by Spanish colonists, but their passage demonstrates that this single text had measurable political consequences. Students trace: eyewitness account → petition to king → legislation → enforcement failure → what that failure reveals about the limits of legal reform.

Key Vocabulary¶

Term	Definition
Encomienda	The colonial labor system granting Spanish colonists the right to demand labor and tribute from indigenous people in an assigned territory
Indigenous	The original inhabitants of a region — in Las Casas' text, the peoples of the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America
New Laws of 1542	The Spanish legislation passed in direct response to Las Casas' campaign — limited (but did not end) indigenous slavery
Dominican friar	A member of the Order of Preachers — the religious order Las Casas joined after renouncing his encomienda
Black Legend	The historical debate about whether Las Casas exaggerated Spanish atrocities — students should know this debate and evaluate it

Key Passages¶

On Hispaniola:

The Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against [the native peoples]. They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house... They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike.

On the encomienda:

The common ways mainly employed by the Spaniards who call themselves Christian and who have gone there to extirpate those pitiful nations and wipe them off the earth is by unjustly waging cruel and bloody wars. Then, when they have slain all those who fought for their lives or to escape the tortures they would have to endure, that is to say, when they have slain all the native rulers and young men (since the Spaniards usually spare only the women and children, who are subjected to the hardest and bitterest servitude ever suffered by man or beast)...

On the moral argument:

Who has given permission and authority to those Spaniards to wage so terrible, unjust and cruel wars against people who are dwelling in peace in their own lands? That which I have described above has been committed so freely and with such impunity that the captains who ordered them have been well rewarded by the king, and they continue to do so even now.

Why these passages matter: The first passage is deliberately shocking — Las Casas understood that the King needed to feel the atrocity's scale. The second passage names the mechanism (encomienda as forced labor leading to massacre). The third passage is the legal and moral argument: by what authority? Students notice that Las Casas doesn't question Spanish presence — only Spanish methods and the granting of impunity.

Las Casas' Limits: The African Slavery Proposal¶

Students must engage honestly with this:

In 1516, before writing A Short Account, Las Casas proposed that African enslaved workers be imported to replace indigenous forced laborers in the colonies — arguing that Africans were more physically suited to the work. He later repudiated this position and argued against all slavery. But his initial proposal contributed to the ideological justification for the Atlantic Slave Trade.

This is not a reason to dismiss his condemnation of indigenous slavery — the condemnation is genuine and historically significant. It is a reason to understand: even the most principled critics of a system can be partially trapped within it. Use this as an IR.4 exercise: a source can be simultaneously credible, sincere, and limited.

Studio Ideas¶

"Speaking Truth to the Crown" — EQ: When does witnessing an atrocity create an obligation to report it? · Standard: WH.6_12.4 + R.9 · Demo Mode: Written Assessment (Las Casas risked his career and safety to report what he witnessed. Analyze his rhetorical strategy — how does he use the King's own stated values against the conquest's practices? Is his argument persuasive? Why or why not?)
"The Limits of Reform" — EQ: Can you fix a fundamentally wrong system with better rules? · Standard: WH.6_12.5 + W.4 · Demo Mode: Extended Writing (the New Laws of 1542 were passed because of Las Casas but largely ignored. Research what happened to the New Laws and why. Write an argument: When is legal reform sufficient to address systemic injustice, and when is it not?)
"Credibility, Perspective, and Completeness" — EQ: How do you use a source that is biased but credible? · Standard: IR.4 + WH.6_12.4 · Demo Mode: Verbal Conversation (Las Casas was there, he was honest, and he was limited. Compare his account to the SHEG Montezuma/Atahualpa documents in your class materials. What does each source see that the other doesn't? What do they together give you that neither gives you alone?)
"Inside the System, Against the System" — EQ: Is it more powerful to challenge injustice from inside an institution or outside it? · Standard: WH.6_12.2 + C.6 · Demo Mode: Socratic seminar (compare Las Casas (Spanish priest vs. Spanish colonial system), Luther (priest vs. the Church), and MLK (Baptist minister using Christian theology against white Christian moderates) — all three challenge their own institutions using those institutions' own values. What makes this strategy powerful? What are its limits? When does it fail?)

Why This Is Relevant Today?¶

Las Casas wrote his account of Spanish atrocities in the Americas as a deliberate act of witness — the same act Elie Wiesel performed in Night, the same act journalists perform when they document war crimes today. His argument was simple: these are people, they are being killed, and the people doing the killing know it. The debate that followed — do Indigenous people have natural rights? Does a colonial power's legal claim override local sovereignty? Can conquest be just? — is not resolved. The legacy of Spanish colonization shapes every country in Latin America, and debates about what is owed to descendants of colonized peoples are among the most contested political questions in the hemisphere today. Las Casas is also the first major example of a person using their access to power to document what power was doing — the model for human rights reporting, war crimes documentation, and investigative journalism. The atrocities he documented exist in the historical record because he wrote them down. The ones he didn't are harder to prove.