A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Bartolomé de Las Casas says in his conclusion that he finished the work at Valencia on 8 December 1542, at the urging of persons at court, and he added notes in 1546 before it was printed in 1552. He writes as one who had been in the Indies and had seen much of what he describes.

It is an eyewitness’s indictment, written to move the emperor to act, and it must be read as one. It does not name the captains it accuses (the names in square brackets in the translation are the translator’s), it counts the dead in millions, figures that cannot be checked, and it describes the peoples of the Indies as everywhere gentle and without malice. The translator notes that it was quickly put into most of the languages of Europe. It is cited here for what Las Casas reported to the Crown and for his statement that the abuses went on after the laws of 1542.