Bartoleme de Las Casas

Eye-witness and Author of

“Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies”
 (published 1552)

Worst Genocide and

Human Treatment in the
Spanish Caribbean Colonies

HIST 1311 – History of the United States to 1865

UT Arlington December 22nd, 2010, Kapil Vyas
 Bartoleme de Las Casas
• Began his career in America as a soldier and encomendero
• Sailed to the "Indies" with Nicolas de Ovando's fleet in 1502
• Europe,ordained a deacon in Rome
•  1512, first Catholic priest to be ordained in the new world
• Served as chaplain in the armies of Diego de Valesquez and
Panfilo de Narvaz 
 Background
• 500 years after Columbus, heated debate over European Colonization on
Native Americans
• In 1552, Bartolome voyages to new Spanish colonies in the
Caribbean island of Hispaniola
 Bartolome sees torture firsthand
• First and Most insistent voice raised: Spanish priest, Bartolome
• After 40 years of witnessing countless acts of brutality, he writes
book in Seville:“The Devastation Of The Indies: A Brief Account”
 Bartolome braves as a Writer
• The book exposes Spanish mistreatment and
immediately creates public outrage
• Bartolome voices atrocities inflicted on Native
 Eye-Witness Accounts of Bartolome
• Bartolome was shocked at the atrocities done by his countrymen
• Wrote books and numerous letters for fair treatment
• Becomes the first articulate defender of Human Rights
• Some atrocities include but not limited to:
– Cutting hands
– Burning alive
– Smashing babies on rocks
– Throwing people in pits
– Hanging and burning to Honor Christ
– Babies left to perish on roadsides due to excessive loads given to women
 The Atrocities – Cutting hands
• “With my own eyes I saw Spaniards cut off the nose,
hands and ears of Indians, male and female, without
provocation, merely because it pleased them to do
it”
 The Atrocities – Burnt alive
• “Likewise, I saw how they summoned the caciques and the
chief rulers to come, assuring them safety, and when they
peacefully came, they were taken captive and burned.”
 The Atrocities – Smash babies on rocks
• “[The Spaniards] took babies from their mothers' breasts,
grabbing them by the feet and smashing their heads against
rocks”
 The Atrocities – Thrown in Pits
• “They threw into those holes all the Indians they could capture of every
age and kind. ... Pregnant and confined women, children, old men [were]
left stuck on the stakes, until the pits were filled”
 Atrocities – To honor Christ
• “They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch
the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen
[natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Savior and the
twelve Apostles”
• “Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they
were burned alive.”
 The Atrocities – Babies left to perish
• “…Women who had just given birth were forced to carry
burdens for the Christians and thus could not carry infants
because of the hard work and weakness of hunger. Infinite
numbers of these were cast aside on the road and thus
perished.”
 Unrivaled Genocide
• “Yet into this sheepfold … there came some
Spaniards who behaved like ravening wild
beasts … starved for many days. ” – Las Casas
• Population went from 3 million to barely 200
 Why the Genocide?
• “Their reason for killing and destroying such an
infinite number of souls … is to acquire gold, and to
swell themselves with riches in a very brief time …”
• “I testify that I saw with my own eyes the Spanish
cutting off the hands, noses and ears of local
people, both men and women, simply for the fun of
it…”
• The native people were meek and patient, easy to
subject
 Consequences
• The new Spanish colonial laws known as the 
New Laws of 1542 were passed whose results
were:
– Abolished Native slavery
– Led to the Valladolid debate
• Also it led to the expansion of Black Legend
against Spain
• Theodore de Bry
depicted Bartolome’s descriptions in copper pla
te engravings
 Citation
• Bartolomé De Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies, (Original publication 1552)
Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore & London, 1992. (Primary Document)
• Bartolomé De Las Casas, History of the Indies, translated by Andrée M. Collard,
Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1971
• Bartolomé De Las Casas, In Defense of the Indians, , translated by Stafford Poole,
C.M., Northern Illinois University, 1974.
• John Grier Varner & Jeannette Johnson Verner, Dogs of the Conquest, University
of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK, 1983.
• "Isis in Central America." Resurrect Isis. Evemerist Pagan Magazine, 12/22/2010.
Web. 22 Dec 2010. <http://www.resurrectisis.org/IsisAmC2.htm >.
• "ESubjects World History: The Versus Habit."ESubjects World History: The Versus
Habit. ESubjects Origami for the Mind, 2006. Web. 23 Dec 2010. <
http://www.esubjects.com/curric/general/world_history/unit_one/pdf/FatherLas
Casas_TheDevastation.pdf
>.
 Image Citation
• http://www.resurrectisis.org/IsisAmC2_files/Fray%20Bartolome%20de%20L
as-Casas.jpg

• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Hispaniola_
Vinckeboons4.jpg/800px-Hispaniola_Vinckeboons4.jpg

• http://www.resurrectisis.org/IsisAmC2_files/image7z1.gif
• http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/105.2/images/benjamin_f2
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