Date: 24 Sep 91 15:22 PDT
From: gtrujillo@igc.org
Subject: DEVASTATION OF THE INDIES (de las Casas)
Message-ID: <1563600004@igc.org>

/* Written 11:58 pm  Sep 23, 1991 by ecosystems in cdp:web.native */

Regarding "Columbus 500" in 1992, one of the most important
source documents on the Spanish conquest of the Americas is
apparently out of print:

- By: Fray Bartolome de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa, 1474-1566:
- In English: The Devastation of the Indies -- A Brief Account
  (translated from "Tratados I" (c) 1965, Fondo de Cultura
  Economica, Mexico).
- In Spanish: Brevissima relacion de la destruccion de las Indias.

I have a copy of this book published by the Seabury Press in NYC,
which went out of business 9 years ago. More recently, it has
been available in Spanish from "Porrua" (a publishing company(?)
in Mexico City).

It would seem most important, if not urgent, for this short book
to be published cheaply and distributed widely over the next
year. I would like to know if it is available anywhere in
English, and if not, are there any plans to publish it? Is there
some way I can assist in seeing it published again?

Thanks!
Ron Swenson, EcoSystems, Inc.
econet:ecosystems
voice:408-425-8523 fax:408-425-8533
matter xfer: Box 7080, Santa Cruz CA 95061 USA

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From: Blythe Systems <nytransfer@igc.org>
Date: 08 Dec 91 21:36 PST
Subject: Re: de las Casas book (_Devastation_of_
Message-ID: <1563600097@igc.org>

Via The NY Transfer News Service 718-448-2358, 718-448-2683

Re: LAS CASAS

I was very interested in the article urging dissemination of Las
Casas's _Destruction of the Indies_ as a counterweight to official
commemoration of Columbus's arrival in the Americas. It is indeed
one of the earliest human rights documents, and one of the most
successful: the Spanish Crown took Las Casas's warning -- that the
Spaniards were exterminating the 'Indians' -- to heart and made
the Indians wards of the Crown. They also took his advice on
solving their need for labour in the Americas by importing African
slaves.

So, then, this book is also one of the earliest works advocating
the enslavement of Africans to satisfy the labour needs of
Europeans in the Americas. It stands at the head of those
histories and literary works which praise and defend the 'noble
Indian' while insisting that the 'base African' do the work. I do
not think that the writers of the article to which I refer believe
this, but I would urge them to rethink their advocacy of a work
which bears at least part of the responsibility for the
institution of trans-Atlantic slavery.


Fragano Ledgister

--All the News that Doesn't Fit
--From the Caribbean Newsfeed on The NY Transfer 718-448-2358