The Devastation of the Indies, A Brief Account, by Bartolome de Las Casas

The Devastation of the Indies
A Brief Account
by Bartolome de Las Casas

SHORT SUMMARY:


Bartolome de Las Casas, in this article, talks about two opposite peoples: Indians and Spaniards in relation to their "life style" in general, making specific comparisons between the native inhabitants and the newcomers to the land which makes us think a deeper meaning of the question which people are more civilized or barbarian than others. He says that after the exploration of the Indies by Christians, most islands begin to be destroyed enormously as he implies in the headline: "The Devastation of the Indies". For example; he gives the example of the island which is called Hispaiola and its population, the number of its inhabitants before and after the discovery of the Indies. Because of the violent, bloody and cruel actions of Christians towards the native inhabitants, the population decreases and people- old women, children, babies- are killed in those wars or if they survive, they become slaves under the control of "noble" Christians according to their ranks in the society. Additionally, he mentions, in his writing, about the five kingdoms that once upon a time existed there, and how they been treated by Christian peoples and their kings.
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Bartoleme de Las Casas tells his own experiences with those native Indians and their relationship with Christians through his article named "The Devastation of Indies". The first thing that draws the attention, throughout his short account of what has really happened in Indies, is that he never becomes a "partial" narrator. He describes what he sees and witnesses there. Thus, we can say that he is a more reliable narrator compared to Montaigne's article, in that he "mirrors" the facts and the true virtues of Indians such as their being humble, patient, peaceable and helpful. Las Casas gives many specific details about native Indians: their being poor but clean, their intelligence but never being arrogant. He even praises the native inhabitants saying that: ".. the goodness of the Indians is undeniable and that if this "gifted" people could be brought to know the one true God they would be the most fortunate people in the world."


Just after describing how actually well virtues Indians have, he turns to Spaniards and makes a sharp distinction between the two  communities. Whereas Las Casas disscusses the "honourable and chaste" charactestics of Indians, he associates Spaniards with ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions. And the following sentence is more interesting which says: " Spaniards have behaved in no other way during the past forty years, down to the present time, for they are "still" acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing and destroying..."


In another passage, he clearly says that these Christians devastates this fertile land and exterminates the rational inhabitants. To make a radical comment and draw the reader's attention, he tells about how much these native people are innocent and blameless. He says: "They regarded the Spaniards as angels from Heaven. Only after the Spaniards has used violence against them, killing, robbing, torturing, did the Indians ever rise up against them." In another sentence, Las Casas talks about their being vulnerable against the Spaniards' cruel actions. He gives the example of people's taking precautions by saying: "... others concealed their wives, and children and still others fled to the mountains to avoid the terrible transactions of the Christians." The thing de Las Casas forgets to say in this sentence is to add "have to". Under these circumstances, those native Indians have to flee away, and leave their houses.


Near the middle of the article, Bartolome de Las Casas mentions about his own experience which he perceives with his own eyes. Just because these "barbarious" people make such loud screams while they are burned- which is so natural to scream loudly while being burned alive- and thus their screams disturb the captain's sleep, they are sentenced to be strangled. However; the executioner does not obey to this order and donates these people, and decides to put a stick over the victims' tongues. This may be interpreted as a relatively "pleasant" action compared to other previous tortures done  by Christians. At the end of that paragraph, de Las Casas says that "I saw all these things I have described, and countless others". De Las Casas makes the similar comments throughout his writing, from beginning to the end. He says again in relation with this: "There were countless people that I saw burned alive or cut to pieces or tortured in many ways of killing pain."


To underline another significant point, these native Indians are totally defenseless, and vulnerable to every single dangerous attack by the Spaniards. When Indians flee to mountains, these inhuman, cruel Spanish captains pursue them with fierce dogs to attack and tear them into several pieces. In addition to that, if  Indians kill only one Christian, they would kill a hundred Indians in return.  This is the misconception of our modern times that one individual feels himself superior to other, this one to that, that one to this; thus there occurs hierarchical relationships which can not be changed easily.


Near the end of this article, de Las Casas makes another interesting comment about Christians' another terrific action towards Indians. After taking the exiled king of India, Christians send him in a vessel to another place. But many Christians are drowned along with the king. The significant point is that there were very huge amount of gold in the shipwreck and the comment made by de Las Casas points out the real condition: "Such was God's vengeance for so many terrible injustices."


Bartolome de Las Casas gives another example of the real situation that is true in Indies. A king named Behechio and his sister Anacona make great services to Christians and they are beneficted from these deeply as they avoid innumerable dangers and remain alive. However, Christians come back to the island with a cavalry force behind. The native people were shut in a house and burned alive. Moreover, the helpful sister was hanged as a apecial "honor" in return.


We saw that Christians acted cruelly against Indians many many times without any reasonable cause. They tortured, killed, hanged, burnt alive these innocent people. How can Christians justify themselves of their inhuman actions towards Indians? How could they be the "teachers" who declares to teach moral and religious virtues to thesse people? How could they be caretakers of souls? Are Christians caretakers of  their own souls? Didn't those people kill countless people just because they are not caretakers of their souls? Bartolome de Las Casas answers all of my questions in his article and says: "Were I to describe all this and the buffetings and beatings and birchings endured by Indians at their labors, (at their own country) no amount of time and paper could encompass this task!" And de Las Casas ends his article with a direct criticism of those people who think themselves as the peak of all mountains over the world: ".. wherever they have landed, the Christians have always committed atrocities against Indians, and have added worse and more cruel acts." For sure, he implies that they have not stopped throughout the history, and they will not stop in the future either.




Hande ÇAKIR