Casas, Bartolome de las

An Account of the First Voyages and Discoveries Made by the Spainards in America.  Containing the most Exact Relation hitherto publish'd of their unparallel'd Cruelties on the Indians, in the destruction of above Forty Million People.  London: Printed by J. Darby for D. Brown, J. Harris, Andrew Bell, 1699



8vo (7  3/4  x 4  1/2  in.; 197 x 115 mm).  2 full-sheet engraved plates, one with six compartments, the other with sixteen, depicting the cruelties of the Spanish (after de Bry); browned.  Contemporary calf; extremities rubbed, spine renewed with original backstrip laid down.  Half blue morocco slipcase and chemise.

Church 780; Friede and Keen, "Bartolome de Las Casas in History," American Historical Review, vol. 78, no. 5, p. 1482; Palau 56971; Sabin 11289; Wing C797

An important work by the first priest ordained in the New World.  Las Casas accompanied Columbus on his third voyage to America in 1498.  His ordination ceremony took place in San Domingo in 1510.  This work comprises six of his nine tracts, in which he argues against the mistreatment of and outright cruelty towards the Indians of Spanish America.  He devoted fifty years to abrogating the policy of enslaving them.  Friede and Keene have called him "the New World's first political activist."

There were three earlier English editions of Las Casas, but this translation, for all intents and purposes, is a separate, new work, much improved over the earlier ones.  It was issued with a variant title the same year.