A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)

by Bartolomé de las Casas

Las Casas helped create the image of barbarous Spanish Catholics that persists even now. He was only right up to a point, really, but what I find interesting is that in the history of European America it is easy to forget the Indians, but until the West was won in the 19th century, the Indians were the single most important factor in America, most of the country was populated by them and yet they fade into the background of history like the landscape, as though they were bison or something. In fact, they were a variety of differently sophisticated and unsophisticated political units.