Bartolome De Las Casas
By Valentino Yang
What were Bartolome De Las Casas' thoughts of how the Indians were treated in the New World?
Finding: Bartolome thought that the Indians were being mistreated and wrote many influential works to try and help them
How he contributed
- Bartolome wrote A short account of the destruction of the Indies which described how the Spaniard mistreated the Indians and turned them into slaves.
- Bartolome later became a great influence throughout Europe by translating his work in other languages.
- He personally went to the Spanish Parliament to try and convince the King Charles I to accept his project of founding the “towns of free Indians”, but obtained no results.
- His masterpiece Historia de las Indias was published after his death and explained all the thing that happened in the Indies
- Source: Encyclopedia Britannica: Bartolomé de Las Casas
- http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/330804/Bartolome-de-Las-Casas
Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies
- When Bartolome first saw Indians he felt they were a peaceful and innocent civilization
- Bartolome explains that the Spaniard's only goal was to obtain gold
- Many of the towns that the Spanish had colonized were deserted
- Source: Swarthmore: Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies
- http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/02-las.html