A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

The extensive modern Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of A Short Account comprises roughly 15% of the full text. It identifies Las Casas as “the most controversial figure in the long and troubled history of Spain’s American empire” (13), locating his work within the history of criticism of Spanish colonization. The Introduction also notes failed attempts in modern scholarship to attribute revolutionary American separatist ethics to Las Casas and his texts. Las Casas never objects to Spanish control of the New World, viewing Spanish conquest instead as “a trading and evangelizing mission” transformed by Spanish settlers into “genocidal colonization” (13.)

Las Casas’s firm belief that the Spanish Crown was the legitimate ruler of the Americas largely stemmed from Pope Alexander’s 1493 donation of all new, uncolonized lands discovered in the Atlantic to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. However, while Las Casas believed Spain had sovereignty over the New World, he also believed that the inhabitants of the Indies should be understood as subjects of the Crown, and as such should retain rights to property and some forms of self-government like Spanish citizens (and this was, in fact, the decree of Queen Isabella of Spain in 1501). Las Casas twice tried to create peaceful settlements in the Americas, both of which failed.