In 1542, the Spanish Dominican priest Bartolomé de Las Casas
published his Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, in
which he describes the horrors and atrocities of the conquest of
the Americas. Las Casas had arrived in Santo Domingo in 1502 and
witnessed the invasion and conquest of the New World. He
accompanied the conquistador Diego Velázquez, and in his Short
Account he describes the massacres of Velázquez in Cuba, of
Hernán Cortés in Mexico, and of Francisco Pizarro in Peru.
According to Las Casas, the conquistadors engaged not only in
wholesale slaughter of the predominantly peaceful indigenous
population but took pleasure in the most gruesome mutilations
and torture. He describes how the conquerors would kill and maim
the civilian population or burn them alive; how they would
kidnap and abduct entire groups into slavery and bondage; and
how they would drench the land in a sea of blood and misery.
Among the things that stand out in Las Casas’s descriptions is
that he does not use the term “con