A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

In 1542, a Spanish Dominican friar named Bartolome de las Casas wrote an account of the abuses enacted against the indigenous population of the New World by Spanish explorers. Fearing both for the souls of his own countrymen, and for the souls of the native peoples whom they had so brutally subjugated, de las Casas sent the document to Prince Philip II of Spain. “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” was responsible for a new set of laws abolishing native slavery in the Spanish colonies.