A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome Las Casas

Author:Bartolome Las Casas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Spain & Portugal, Political Science, Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Imperialism, Literary Criticism, Ancient & Classical
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2004-03-25T05:07:46+00:00

The Province and Kingdom of Guatemala

As soon as he set foot in the kingdom of Guatemala, this tyrant proceeded to kill the inhabitants in large numbers. None the less, the chief of Utatlán, the largest city in the kingdom,77 came out to receive him with all due ceremony, having himself carried out of the city on a litter amid fanfares of trumpets and the beating of war-drums, staging lavish entertainments to mark his arrival, setting before the visitors a sumptuous banquet, and inviting them to make free with whatever they could provide. That night, the Spaniards camped outside the city, impressed as they were by the defences and afraid that they might be in danger if they risked spending the night within the walls. On the morrow, the Spanish captain summoned the chief and the leading citizens and when they came, all unsuspecting, he seized them and demanded a certain sum of gold. When they replied that they had none, there being no gold in Guatemala, he declared them guilty on that count alone and without any due process of law directed that they be burned alive. Once the lords of the other provinces of the kingdom learned that he had burned their chief and his nobles simply because they had refused him gold, they fled their towns and cities and took to the mountains, leaving instructions to their people that they should go and offer to serve the Spaniards but not disclose where it was that the lords had gone into hiding. When the local people duly approached the Spaniards, declaring themselves willing to recognize them as their masters and to serve them in whatever capacity they should choose, this most Christian of commanders replied that he was not prepared to have them enter his service but would kill every single one of them unless they revealed the whereabouts of their chiefs. Their response to this was that, as they knew nothing of where their chiefs had gone, the Spaniards would do better to take them into their service and that they would be at home, awaiting their pleasure. There, as they several times insisted, the Spaniards could kill them or do what they would with them, their women and their children. The extraordinary thing is that the Spaniards then did go to the towns and villages where they found these poor people, in the shelter of their own homes, living and working peacefully with their families and that, catching them unawares, they did then proceed to cut them to pieces one and all. One very large and important city, where the inhabitants were more than usually incautious and innocently believed themselves to be quite safe, was almost entirely destroyed by the Spanish within the space of two hours, and all the inhabitants who did not manage to flee were put to the sword: women, children and old men.

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