An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies

by De Las Casas, Bartolome; Knight, Franklin W.; Hurley, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780872206250
• ISBN10: 0872206254
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Inc

Summary

Fifty years after the arrival of Columbus, at the height of Spain's conquest of the West Indies, Spanish bishop and colonist Bartolomé de las Casas dedicated his Brevísima Relación de la Destruición de las Indias to Philip II of Spain. An impassioned plea on behalf of the native peoples of the West Indies, the Brevísima Relación catalogues in horrific detail atrocities it attributes to the king's colonists in the New World. The result is a withering indictment of the conquerors that has cast a 500-year shadow over the subsequent history of that world and the European colonisation of it. Andrew Hurley's daring new translation dramatically foreshortens that 500 years by reversing the usual priority of a translation; rather than bring the Brevísima Relación to the reader, it brings the reader to the Brevísima Relación -- not as it is, but as it might have been, had it been originally written in English. The translator thus allows himself no words or devices unavailable in English by 1560, and in so doing reveals the prophetic voice, urgency and clarity of the work, qualities often obscured in modern translations. An Introduction by Franklin Knight, notes, a map, and a judicious set of Related Readings offer further aids to a fresh appreciation of this foundational historical and literary work of the New World and European engagement with it.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
The Indies in Las Casas' Time	viii
Introduction	xi
Spain in the Age of Bartolomé de las Casas	xxxiv
The Americas in the Age of Las Casas	xlii
Las Casas and the Utopian View of the Americas	xlvi
A Note on the Text and the Translation	li
Some Earlier English Translations of Bartolomé de las Casas'
Brevisima relación de la destruición de las Indias	lvii
An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies	1	(88)
Argument of the Present Epitome	1	(1)
Presentation	2	(2)
[An Introduction to the Relation]	4	(4)
On the Island Hispaniola	8	(4)
On the Kingdoms That Once Were to Be Found upon the Island of Hispaniola	12	(5)
On the Two Islands of San Juan and Jamaica	17	(1)
On the Island of Cuba	18	(3)
On Terra Firma	21	(4)
On the Province of Nicaragua	25	(3)
On New Spain, I	28	(2)
On New Spain, II	30	(8)
On the Province and Kingdom of Guatimala	38	(5)
Of New Spain and Pánuco and Jalisco	43	(4)
On the Kingdom of Yucalán	47	(7)
On the Province of Sang Marta	54	(3)
On the Province of Cartagena	57	(1)
On the Coast of Pearls and on Paria and the Island of Trinidad	57	(7)
Of the River Yuyapari	64	(1)
On the Kingdom of Venezuela	64	(5)
On the Province of Terra Firma in the Part Called Florida	69	(2)
On the Rio de la Plata, or the River of Plate	71	(1)
On the Great Kingdoms and Great Provinces of Perú	72	(6)
On the New Kingdom of Granada	78	(8)
Testament	86	(3)
The Laws of Burgos (1512-1513)	89	(4)
New Laws of the Indies	93	(10)
A Treatise on the Just Causes for War against the Indians	103	(4)
The True History of the Conquest of Mexico, by Captain Bernal Diaz del Castillo	107	(4)
From Hernán Cortés, Cartas de relación	111	(10)
Table of Weights and Measures Used in the Text	121	(2)
Glossary of Political and Military Terms Used in the Text	123	(4)
Index	127