A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Format: Paperback Language: English ISBN: 0140445625 ISBN13: 9780140445626 Release Date: September 1999 Publisher: Penguin Group Length: 192 Pages Weight: 0.35 lbs. Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.8" Age Range: 18 years and up Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher Bartolom de Las Casas was the first and fiercest critic of Spanish colonialism in the New World. An early traveller to the Americas who sailed on one of Columbus's voyages, Las Casas was so horrified by the wholesale massacre he witnessed that he dedicated his life to protecting the Indian community. He wrote A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1542, a shocking catalogue of mass slaughter, torture and slavery, which showed that the evangelizing vision of Columbus had descended under later conquistadors into genocide. Dedicated to Philip II to alert the Castilian Crown to these atrocities and demand that the Indians be entitled to the basic rights of humankind, this passionate work of doc