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Exploring the Early Americas The Jay I. Kislak Collection
Rights for Indians (79)

Bartolomé de las Casas (1474–1566).
Brevíssima Relación de la destrucción de las Indias [Very brief account of the destruction of the Indians].
Seville: Sebastian Trugillo, 1552.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (79)

Rights for Indians 

Conquistador-turned-Dominican friar, Bartolomé de las Casas wrote this book to inform the Spanish Crown that officials and landowners in the New World were behaving cruelly toward their indigenous subjects and to plead for redress. His book had an enormous impact, prompting Emperor Charles V to recognize the humanity of indigenous peoples and to issue the New Laws of the Indies in 1542, ending the absolute power of individual Spaniards.