A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

The work was written by Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish Dominican friar who criticized abuses against Indigenous peoples. He wrote it in 1542 and it was published in Spanish in 1552.

Las Casas describes killings, forced labor, displacement, and other forms of violence inflicted on Indigenous communities during Spanish colonization. His account focuses on abuses in the regions then called the Indies, including Spanish territories in the Caribbean and the Americas.

He wrote it to expose colonial violence and press Spanish authorities to reform the treatment of Indigenous peoples. The 1552 publication turned his firsthand advocacy and testimony into a widely circulated criticism of conquest.

No. In this historical title, “the Indies” refers to Spanish colonial territories in the Caribbean and the Americas, not the modern country of India. Las Casas was describing the effects of Spanish conquest on Indigenous peoples in the New World.