Agustín Dávila Padilla (1562–1604)
Historia de la fundacion y discurso de la provincia, de Santiago de Mexico, de la Orden de Predicadores por las vidas de sus varones insignes y casos notables de Nueua España
Second edition: En Brusselas: en casa de Iuan de Meerbeque, 1625
F162.b.6.1, p. 309

A true Dominican, Bartolomé de Las Casas acted by how he spoke and wrote. The impact of his letters and treatises is emphasised by the seventeenth-century Dominican historian Agustín Dávila Padilla OP: ‘Great was the admiration for the clarity and holy freedom with which this holy bishop expressed himself in his writings. He always said clearly what he understood was fitting for God’s service (‘Admiracion grande pone ver la claridad y libertad santa con que este bendito Obispo hablò en sus escriptos. Siempre dixo con claridad lo que entendio que convenia para el servicio de Dios.’)

Padilla introduced Las Casas’s works as follows: ‘His books were such that, the devil knowing the many battles they caused him, he did his best to bury them, so that no trace of them might be found anywhere in the world. However, lest the remaining few should go missing (for by some marvel a few can yet be found), let us not fail to note their contents’ (‘Libros eran los suyos, que conociendo el demonio la mucha Guerra que le hazian, ha procurado rehundirlos, para que no parezcan en el mundo: pero porque si faltaren los pocos que queda, pues ya por maravilla se hallan, no falte notitia de lo que contenian.’)