Bartolomé de las Casas — A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)

A Spanish priest’s eyewitness protest against the cruelty of the conquest of the Americas.

Bartolomé de las Casas came to the Caribbean as a colonist and slaveholder. After seeing the violence inflicted on Indigenous people, he gave up his estates, became a Dominican friar, and spent the rest of his life campaigning against their enslavement and murder.

His Brief Account, written for the future King Philip II of Spain, is a searing indictment of colonization carried out in the name of Christianity, written by a Christian who believed it betrayed the faith.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.