Brief guide to manuscripts collections| William L. Clements Library The University of Michigan Bartolome de las Casas Manuscripts |
Bartolome de Las Casas, educated at the University of Salamanca, sailed for Hispaniola in 1502. Although trained in law, he became a Dominican priest, devoting himself to alleviating the sufferings of the Indians. He carried on his missionary work throughout the Spanish Indies. In 1542 he was made bishop of Chiapas, and in 1549 he returned to Spain.
'Tyrannies et Cruautez des Espagnols PerpetrŽes es Indes Occidentales Quon dit le Nouveau Monde: Brievement Descrites en Lettre Castillane par L'Evesque Don Frere Bartelemy De Las Casas...fidelement traduites par Jackques De Miggrode: à Paris par Guillaume Julien...MDLXXXII,' 203 pp., 17 water color illustrations.
Prologue and chapters 1-11 of Las Casas' Historia de las Yndias, 192 pp., an early nineteenth-century copy.
In 1552 Las Casas published a short treatise, Brevissima Relacion de la Destruycion de las Indias, indicting the Spanish conquerors for their cruelties to the Indians. Originally printed in Madrid, it was immediately translated into several languages. The first of nine tracts on this subject, the work was seen by Europeans as a horrible example of Spanish colonial policy and Catholicism at work. It is believed the Clements manuscript was prepared for an illustrated Paris edition which was never printed; the water colors were used by DeBry for his 1598 Latin edition.
Las Casas wrote two chronicles, 'Historia General de las Indias' and 'Historia Apologetica de las Indias,' which were designed to form a single work. He asked his executors not to publish them until forty years after his death. They were not printed, in fact, until 1875-1876 at Madrid, when they appeared under the title Historia de las Yndias. The original manuscripts are in the Biblioteca de la Academia de la Historia, Madrid. The Clements copy was made from the 'Historia General' and corresponds to the prologue and first 11 chapters of the printed work.
Purchased, 1937
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