2. Bartolomé de las Casas on Spanish Treatment of the Indians, from History of the Indies (1528)

Source: Bartolomé de las Casas, “History of the Indies (1528),” excerpt from History of the Indies, trans. and ed. Andrée M. Collard (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 82, 112–15. Copyright © 1971 by Andrée M. Collard, renewed 1999 by Joyce J. Contrucci. Reprinted by permission of Joyce J. Contrucci.

Known as the “Apostle of the Indians,” Bartolomé de las Casas, a Catholic priest, was the most eloquent critic of Spanish mistreatment of the Americas’ Native population. Las Casas took part in the exploitation of Indian labor on Hispaniola and Cuba. But in 1514, he freed his Native slaves and began to preach against the injustices of Spanish rule. In his History of the Indies, Las Casas denounced Spain for causing the deaths of millions of innocent people. The excerpt that follows details events on Hispaniola, the Caribbean island first conquered and settled by Spain. Las Casas called for the Indians to enjoy the rights of other subjects of Spain.

Largely because of Las Casas’s efforts, in 1542, Spain promulgated the New Laws, ordering that Native peoples no longer be enslaved. But Spain’s European rivals seized upon Las Casas’s criticisms to justify their own ambitions. His writings became the basis for the Black Legend, the image of Spain as a uniquely cruel empire. Other nations would claim that their imperial ventures were inspired by the desire to rescue Natives from Spanish rule.

IN THAT YEAR of 1500, . . . the King determined to send a new governor to Hispaniola, which at the time was the only seat of government in the Indies. The new governor was fray Nicolás de Ovando, Knight of Alcántara, and at that time comendador of Lares.

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At first, the Indians were forced to stay six months away at work; later, the time was extended to eight months and this was called a shift, at the end of which they brought all the gold for minting. The King’s part was subtracted and the rest went to individuals, but for years no one kept a single peso because they owed it all to merchants and other creditors, so that the anguish and torments endured by the Indians in mining that infernal gold were consumed entirely by God and no one prospered. During the minting period, the Indians were allowed to go home, a few days’ journey on foot. One can imagine their state when they arrived after eight months, and those who found their wives there must have cried, lamenting their condition together. How could they even rest, since they had to provide for the needs of their family when their land had gone to weeds? Of those who had worked in the mines, a bare 10 per cent survived to start the journey home. Many Spaniards had no scruples about making them work on Sundays and holidays, if not in the mines then on minor tasks such as building and repairing houses, carrying firewood, etc. They fed them cassava bread, which is adequate nutrition only when supplemented with meat, fish, or other more substantial food. The minero killed a pig once a week but he kept more than half for himself and had the leftover apportioned and cooked daily for thirty or forty Indians, which came to a bite of meat the size of a walnut per individual, and they dipped the cassava in this as well as in the broth.

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The comendador arranged to have wages paid as follows, which I swear is the truth: in exchange for his life of services, an Indian received 3 maravedís every two days, less one-half a maravedí in order not to exceed the yearly half gold peso, that is, 225 maravedís, paid them once a year as pin money or cacona, as Indians call it, which means bonus or reward. This sum bought a comb, a small mirror, and a string of green or blue glass beads, and many did without that consolation for they were paid much less and had no way of mitigating their misery, although in truth, they offered their labor up for nothing, caring only to fill their stomachs to appease their raging hunger and find ways to escape from their desperate lives. For this loss of body and soul, then, they received less than 3 maravedís for two days; many years later their wages were increased to 1 gold peso by the order of King Hernando, and this was no less an affront, as I will show later.

I believe the above clearly demonstrates that the Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and were put in the harshest, fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the fields. But our Spaniards gave no such opportunity to Indians and truly considered them perpetual slaves, since the Indians had not the free will to dispose of their persons but instead were disposed of according to Spanish greed and cruelty, not as men in captivity but as beasts tied to a rope to prevent free movement. When they were allowed to go home, they often found it deserted and had no other recourse than to go out into the woods to find food and to die. When they fell ill, which was very frequently because they are a delicate people unaccustomed to such work, the Spaniards did not believe them and pitilessly called them lazy dogs, and kicked and beat them; and when illness was apparent they sent them home as useless, giving them some cassava for the twenty- to eighty-league journey. They would go then, falling into the first stream and dying there in desperation; others would hold on longer but very few ever made it home. I sometimes came upon dead bodies on my way, and upon others who were gasping and moaning in their death agony, repeating “Hungry, hungry.” And this was the freedom, the good treatment, and the Christianity that Indians received.

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About eight years passed under the comendador’s rule and this disorder had time to grow; no one gave it a thought and the multitude of people who originally lived on this island . . . was consumed at such a rate that in those eight years 90 per cent had perished. From here this sweeping plague went to San Juan, Jamaica, Cuba, and the continent, spreading destruction over the whole hemisphere.

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Questions

1. What do you think Las Casas hoped to accomplish by writing so critically about Spanish treatment of the Indians?
2. Why, after describing illness and starvation among the Indians, does Las Casas write, “This was the freedom, the good treatment, and the Christianity that Indians received”?