Destruction of the Indies

Barolome De Las Casas, An Account, much abreviated of the Destruction of the Indies

Now that is what I call a title! I have never read a book that has desensitized me to brutal murder until I read this account by Las Casas. Don’t judge me for that comment but if you have read this book you know what I mean. One part will talk about the killing of pregnant women, another part the drowning of babies and then another will talk of the burning of 13 people alive in details that will send goose bumps across your body and chills down your spine. When you get to a part however that tells of the act of cutting off Indian’s hands you think, well I guess that’s not that bad. These accounts by Las Casas are very telling of what his goal was. Las Casas wanted the Spanish government to do something about these brutalities so he did whatever he could to get their attention.

In one of the footnotes on page 17 it even shows Las Casas exaggerated the amount of weight the Indian slaves had to carry. There is no way of crediting Las Casas’ accuracy when it comes to number of people killed. Las Casas throws out huge numbers and talks of how lands were completely swept from all previous life. We know however that Las Casas was not physically at all these murder sites, some he just heard through word of mouth. Yet despite the whisper down the lane effects Las Casas throws out extremely specific and rather gigantic numbers to tell of the massacres. Now it is proven fact that there were vicious murders to crazy large proportions but Las Casas is trying to get sympathy from Spain. Las Casas wants the brutality of the so called “Christians” to come to an end. Does Las Casas gets what he wants? Well he certainly got the attention of the people because his accounts are still being read to this day.

It completely boggles my mind that these murderers were performed by “Christians.” The fact they thought they could perform these actions and think they are doing a service to man-kind is barbaric. The Christians who performed these murders despite their beliefs are not going to a place called heaven, and if they do I agree with the one Indian who refused to accept God because he did not want to spend eternity surrounded by evil and I'd rather go to hell.

The one thing about these accounts is there are two very wide ranges on the spectrum. Las Casas says the Indians were pure, innocent, humble creatures while Sepulveda says they were barbarians and inhuman.  From these accounts that were both trying to achieve something one must believe that there was a gray area. The Indians did have barbaric rituals and while some were inviting to the Christians something tells me they all weren’t. These accounts are very hard to read because it’s an opinion of one man on actual events. From the way Las Casas describes the Indians it seems as if they speak fluent Spanish and he always knows what they’re talking about and this is obviously not the case. I am very intrigued to learn more on this topic and I’m very glad it was one of our readings for Mosaics because this is the second book already this semester where from just reading it I feel like a much more knowledgeable person.