Destruction Of The Indies Summary

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies is one of the earliest written sources that serves as evidence of interaction between the Europeans and the New World during the Spanish conquest of the 15th century. Not only does the work provide evidence of a historical event but it also illustrates the growing connectivity of the world at this time period. While the expeditions from Spain to the New World were sent with the purpose of spreading Christianity and collecting gold, the Spanish broke the rules they had with the king by killing millions of native peoples and taking most of the gold for themselves.

Bartolome de Las Casas, a native Spaniard, traveled to the New World at the age of eighteen. After he witnessed the way the Spanish

were mistreating the natives of the New World, he became a priest and “dedicated himself to the protection and defense of the Indians” (Pagden xiii). He made it his responsibility to inform the King of Spain of these evils and injustices that the Spanish were imposing on the natives. He wrote A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies throughout his experience in the New World and intended on sending it to the king of Spain. Throughout his work, Bartolome describes how the Spanish treated the natives at each conquered land.
Bartolome begins his famous work forty nine years after the Spanish began to arrive in large groups to the New World. He makes it clear that the information that he relays, he saw himself take place. By using only events that he himself witnessed as evidence, Bartolome strengthens his credibility and ensures that the information can be trusted. He provides another point of view to the Spanish conquest than what was traditionally revealed.
Bartolome suggests that the Spanish in the New World were not following the beliefs and values of their religion, the religion that they were sent to promote. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins of Christianity and Bartolome directly states in his work that “the reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed” (Casas 13). Part of the Spaniards’ mission was to collect gold and send it to the king of Spain, however, Bartolome made it known that these Spaniards “set out to line their pockets with gold and to amass private fortunes as quickly as possible so that they can then assume a status” (Casas 13). By emphasizing that the Spanish were motivated by greed in the New World, Bartolome is able to strengthen his argument that the Spanish were not following their orders and that what they were doing to the natives was morally wrong.
Similarly, the way the Spanish treated the natives shows them, yet again, acting against the beliefs of their religion.

Not only were the Spanish motivated by greed, a deadly sin, but they also sinned by breaking one of the Ten Commandments, “thou shalt not kill”. If the natives showed any sign of resistance to the Spanish invaders, they were immediately put to death without hesitation. Bartolome witnessed the Spanish “murdering the native people, burning and roasting them alive, throwing them to wild dogs and then oppressing, tormenting and plaguing them with toil down the mines” (Casas 26). All of these acts were sins in the eyes of the church. Bartolome makes use of this evidence in his work not only to prove the innocence of the natives of the New World, but also to further explain to the king how inappropriate the Spaniards were acting. In addition, by repeatedly referring to the Spanish invaders of the New World as “Christians”, Bartolome demonstrates the irony and corrupt nature of the situation. Although the Spanish were there on a mission to endorse their religion, they were acting against their own

beliefs.
To further prove to the king the relentlessness of the Spanish in the new world, Bartolome works to exemplify the innocence of the native peoples. Bartolome uses the purity and innocence of the natives to demonstrate how wrong it was for the Spanish to treat them in the way they did. Bartolome states that
“God made all the peoples of this area…as open and as innocent as can be imagined…they are without malice or guile, and are utterly faithful and obedient both to their own native lords and to the Spaniards in whose service they now find themselves” (Casas 9).
He shows that although the Spanish came with the intention of taking over their land and resources, the natives of the New World still welcomed them.

When describing the conquest of Peru, Bartolome mentions that although the Spanish “had consumed everything there was to eat and all that remained were the supplies of maize the people had laid in to feed themselves” the natives of the land still offered the Spanish the food that they originally kept for themselves (Casas 108). These selfless people that Bartolome identifies were still murdered, enslaved and treated “in the most barbaric and cruel fashion” by the Spanish (Casas 108). By including this, Bartolome displays to the king of Spain that these people were pure and innocent and that the Spanish were wrong for oppressing

them.
Although Bartolome’s work succeeds in gaining the sympathy of its readers, it is lacking in evidence of what may have caused the deaths of so many natives. Throughout his work, Bartolome assumes that the Spanish murdered many of the natives solely to gain control over the land and that the natives were completely innocent. However, he does not take into account the possible reasons that the natives could have given the Spanish to respond violently.
Bartolome de Las Casas writes his A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies to demonstrate the brutality of the Spanish and defend the natives of the New World. In an effort to convince the king of Spain to respond to the conflicts in the New World, Bartolome uses Christian beliefs and the innocence of the natives to suggest the inappropriate, vicious behavior of the Spanish.