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How Las Casas Portrays The Natives

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Las Casas portrays the indigenous people as a completely innocent and utterly defenseless race of humans in need of European care and proper Christian exposure rather than the eccentric, savage creatures illustrated in other European accounts in an attempt to convince the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to enact reforms regarding colonial treatment of American Indians. Throughout his account, Las Casas focuses on the inherent goodness of the natives, stating that of the many varieties of people in the world, “these people are the most guileless, the most devoid of wickedness and duplicity...holding no grudges, free from embroilments, neither excitable nor quarrelsome” (Las Casas). By describing the natives in this way, Las Casas endeavors

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