Bartolome De Las Casas Destruction Of The Indies Summary

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Bartolome De Las Casas in the excerpt, A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, criticizes the tortures inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the West Indies. De Las Casas supports his claim by arguing that the native peoples of the New World are equally holy as Europeans; Native Americans are kind people waiting to be converted. The author’s purpose is to advocate for the indigenous peoples in order to convince the people of Spain that the Native Americans are kind, not savages, contradicatory to what Sepulveda wrote. The author writes in a knowledgable and a matter-of-fact tone for the educated Catholic people of Spain, whose only knowledge of the Native Americans are from Sepulveda’s book filled with fallacies.

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