SOURCE: An introduction to A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de Las Casas, edited and translated by Nigel Griffin, Penguin Books, 1992, pp. xiii-xli.

In the following excerpt, Pagden details the historical importance of Las Casas 's life and works.

The Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies was the first and the most bitter protest against the excesses of European colonization in the Americas, and its author, Bartolomé de Las Casas, 'Defender and Apostle to the Indians', the most controversial figure in the long and troubled history of Spain's American empire. In the four hundred years since his death he has been given many roles to play: the voice of a European Christian conscience raised against the casual slaughter of thousands of 'barbarians' in a remote, barely imaginable quarter of the globe; the creator of the 'Black Legend', a distorted Protestant-inspired record...