The Destruction of the Indies

The Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome de las Casas is an account of how the countries of the Carribean were discovered by the Spanish conquistadors. At this time, the area was called the Indies, because when Christopher Columbus first landed there, he thought he had sailed the whole way around the world and was in Asia.


Columbus's path across the Atlantic

I found this book to be a little hard to read, not because it was written in a language that is difficult to understand or because there is breaks in the text as with The Epic of Gilgamesh, but because what the Spanish "Christians" did to the indigenous people encountered here was absolutely appalling. Their proclaimed mission was to spread their Catholic faith to the lost and godless Indie tribes, but instead they tortured and mass murdered great numbers of these people and put the rest into slavery. Las Casas was present in this area watching these terrible deeds being done and in order to try and put an end to it, he made it his mission to put into words what he and others had witnessed to send to the king of Spain.

Although disgusting and absolutely true, this particular account of the events that transpired in the Carribean all those years ago must be taken with a grain of salt. There are some shady circumstances  surrounding some of this work, like the fact of how exaggeration is used fairly often. Bartolome spends a few paragraphs describing how meek and frail and peaceful the indigenous people were, which we know today was describing the Aztecs. Although they did in no way deserve the ill treatment given to them, they weren't exactly an entirely helpless group of people either. We know from the account given by Cortes in the back matter of the same book that these people were advanced for their time and smart. They weren't so much delicate as just not used to the foreign diseases the Europeans were bringing over here, causing their immune systems to be unable to fight them. The exaggeration of how frail and peace-loving the Indies were is one example of the gross overexaggeration done by Las Casas in his attempt to stir pity and change for these people.

The Aztecs of the Indies

Another slightly suspicious occurance in this text is that the writer, Las Casas, was apparently a previous owner of encomienda, or slaves. In his young life, he was driven by "material wealth" and eventually became successful enough to be rewarded with a few Indians for his own personal servitude. It is interesting that after this background, Las Casas made a complete 180 degree turn and suddenly began to oppose the oppression and mistreatment of the Indians. According to the introduction, the reason for which he had this seemingly spontaneous change of heart is unknown, but it is mentioned that it quickly became his passion, and he threw himself wholeheartedly into the cause. The whole thing seems a little weird to me, and I feel like there must be some reason that he drastically changed his mind on the whole issue to the point of risking his own life.

Although I am in no way implying that what Las Casas did in promoting the fair treatment of the natives of the Indies was a bad thing, it is still a little cloudy as to what exactly went on over there. I believe it is very important for us as Americans to read things like this where the true story of our country's origins is revealed so we can appreciate where we came from. Despite its slight exaggeration and questionable motives, the basic message of the account is clear: a lot of people had to needlessly suffer in the founding of our homeland.