Customer Reviews

The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account

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This book is a short version of The Conquest of New Spain. In the Brief account, de las Casas explains the violence and injustice in which the natives were being treated by the spanish conquistadores. De las Casas writes this account to show the king in Spain the way the army was trating the indians. It also shows the courage of the clergy to protect the rights of the oppressed. De las Casas became the first bishop of Chiapas, the same area in conflict today in southern Mexico where the Church keeps fighting for justice for the poor.

Bartolome was a priest in the new world and the book in an attempt to show the abuses that the Spaniards committed against the indians and the damages done in the name of Gad and the King. This book is a historiography, but well written and a quick read. It presents a new facet of the conquest and is a direct contrast to the writings of Cortes.

I work in conjunction with a whole bunch of doctorally trained professionals to help indigent Latino families in East Harlem. Not one of the Clinicians had the slightest idea who De Las Casas was, and yet every one of our clients not only knew of him, but evinced reverent respect for the achievements and writings of this Saintly man. So I went and bought my colleagues ten copies of this book to devastate them out of their complacent ignorance. This book reads like a novel (better!) and you kind of wish it was really fiction, because the truth says so much about the nature of false piety and excused sadism. The translator is to be commended on making this so riveting. What I suppose is so sad is that this is not the tyranny of one dictator, but the perversion of what is a beautiful ideology of love into one of hate, superiority and destruction. Yet and all, the courage of this man, and a very few others, gives hope for the human race. Definitely a great work!

This book is a must read for anyone studying early colonial history, especially that of the Spanish colonies. While biased by the political and theological positions of the author, it remains an important first hand account of the period.

Oh My God, this book, first published in 1552, is simply heartbreaking, sadening!! Nobody can read this book without crying. I have not heard anything that comes even close in its grotesque, except perhaps Hitler's slaughter of Jewish people. The evil, brutal cruelity perpetuated on West Inidans by Spanish explorers is just undescrible. Imagine walking into a butcher shop that sells human flesh for dog food. Listen to a customer in that shop asking, 'Give me a quarter of that rascal there, until I can kill some more of my own.' The rascal is a native person, kill for dog food in his/her own country. Evil; the title "The Devastation of the Indies," does not even come close to conveying the horror of it all.

Author de Las Casas represents the enduring power of humanity; an individual effort against an entire country on behalf of an entire people. This book should be required reading everywhere in the world. Globalization is a flawed concept if these things go unreported. It is just unbelievable that people like me should discover this story by chance. Just sickening, deeply repugnamt is all I can say.

Amavilah, Author
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This excellent book is the bedrock description of Euro-Christian contact with the Americas that set the stage in the Age of Discovery. Although the conquer model goes through changes in Manifest Destiny, the basic script is still the same.

"The Devastation of the Indies" wrote by Bartolomé de Las Casas an important resources to have an idea about the disaster the Spanish made in the Caribbean, specially in the island that is share by Dominican Republic and Hiti, the Hispaniola.
Christopher Columbos, never had in mind the damage that, his paranoia concerning the form of the planet earth, would bring to the natives.
Today, Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, including the minor islands like and Jamaica, we don't have a present past in the people that lived in our islands.
Is a shame that many people celebrate more than 500 years of devastation, not only of noble people, also in resources like gold.
I invite to read, not only this brief account, to try to read the real book to understand how the slavery began, how different value races were erased from the face of the earth, and whats mean to explote people.

As a history teacher, this book is a great addition to understanding this whole concept of European discovery.

do not buy this book i was forced to read it for school it is soo boring. please take my advice do not waste your money , if you want to read a good book read A rasin in the sun, by lorainne hansberry it rules!