Spanish Persecution in the West Indies, 16th Century
According to de las Casa there was a group of native Indians who had given a great deal of gold to the Spanish. Afterwards, the conquistadors shut them up in three big houses, crowding in as many as they could, then set fire to the houses, burning alive all that were in them. In 1552, the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas published the BrevÃsima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies), an account of atrocities committed by landowners and officials during the colonization of New Spain, particularly in Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Las Casas, who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, described Columbus's treatment of the natives in his History of the Indies. His description of Spanish savagery was used by writers of Spain's rivals as a convenient basis for attacks on Spain which would later be referred to as The Black Legend. Las Casas was one of the first advocates for the indigenous people. He spent 50 years of his life fighting slavery and the colonial abuse of indigenous peoples, by trying to convince the Spanish court to adopt a more humane policy of colonization. Engravings appeared in Narratio regionum Indicarum per Hispanos quosdam deuastatarum verissima by Theodore de Bry in 1598.
Size: 4125px × 3327px
Location:
Photo credit: © Science History Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: &, 16th, abuse, age, amerindians, atrocities, atrocity, barbaric, bartolomé, black, bry, bw, casas, century, conquest, cruel, cruelty, de, discovery, expedition, exploration, historic, historical, history, indians, indies, indigenous, infamous, inhumane, inhumanity, las, notorious, people, persecute, persecuted, persecuting, persecution, punish, punishing, punishment, sixteenth, spaniards, spanish, taino, theodor, theodore, theodorus, west, white
