Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566)
Narratio regionum Indicarum per Hispanos quosdam deuastatarum verissima / priùs quidem per Episcopum Bartholemæum Casaum, natione Hispanum Hispanicè conscripta; & anno 1551. Hispali, Hispanicè anno verò hoc 1598. Latinè excusa. Narratio regionvm Indicarvm per Hispanos qvosdam deuastatarum verissima
Francofurti: Sumptibus Theodori de Bry, & Ioannis Saurii typis, anno M.D.XCVIII. [1598]
Syn.7.59.8, p. 25

The account which Las Casas gave of Spanish atrocities in his Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies has long been challenged, both by defenders of Spanish rule in the sixteenth century and by much later historians. Las Casas has been charged principally with giving absurdly large numbers for the conquistadores’ victims. While in some places he gives specific and plausible numbers for a given event, elsewhere he claims that more than twelve million people and probably nearer fifteen million died over forty years as a result of the Spanish wars. Las Casas has also been accused of stylizing the violence of the Spanish soldiers, modelling their atrocities on classical antecedents. It is possible to acknowledge some truth in both charges, while still arguing for the essential veracity of Las Casas’s testimony.