Books by Bartolomé de las Casas
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.
“The original journal was lost but las Casas, who went down in history as the defender of the Indians against the barbarous Spanish conquistadors, was very interested in the history of the New World and he was given access to Columbus’s original diary, his on-board journal of that first journey. For his own purposes he made a partial transcription, partial paraphrase and that is now all we have left. The diary is a day-by-day account of the journey, written twice a day, from the moment Columbus left Spain in 1492 to the moment he got back. It’s amazing not only because it is an account of that discovery of America but it’s amazing just how tiny a bit of America he actually discovered. He saw a few of the Bahamas, a bit of Cuba and a bit of Haiti and then went home.” Read more...
The best books on Rewriting America
Robert Goodwin, Historian
Interviews where books by Bartolomé de las Casas were recommended
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1
The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America
by Bartolomé de las Casas -
2
Shipwrecks and Commentaries
by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca -
3
A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)
by Bartolomé de las Casas -
4
Royal Commentaries of the Incas (1609)
by Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca -
5
Red Earth, White Lies
by Vine Deloria Jr
The best books on Rewriting America, recommended by Robert Goodwin
The best books on Rewriting America, recommended by Robert Goodwin
Expert in Spanish Colonial History describes Christopher Columbus as a character from science fiction. Huge political irony that the first exploration of North America was led by a black man
