A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies Book

This book is something of a controversy amongst us caribbean latinos: some see it as a living testament to the atrocities and cruelties our Spanish ancestors inflicted on the natives in the Spanish quest and greed for gold in the New World; others have viewed it as pure propaganda, biased accounts and outright lies. I haven't really taken a position on this, but I can say that this had to have been the most disturbing book I have read. Told from the account of a Spanish colonizer who went to Hispaniola to make his fortune, de las Casas soon took up the cause (even petitioning the King of Spain at the time) of the native Peoples of not only of the Native peoples on the island of Hispaniola, but of all of the Native peoples and their lands who were "conquered" and ruled by the Spanish crown. The use of 'human' abattoirs, mastiffs, killing for the sake of killing, all are listed in this book and was used as plea to the Spanish royal court to at least send out a decree to 'convert' the native peoples to christianity (much to no avail). In hindsight, a sad and disturbing account of man's inhumanity to man fueled by his lust for riches.