ABSTRACT
Bartolomé de Las Casas’s account of the Spanish conquest, an excerpt of which follows as Document 1, was filled with tales of Indian innocence and Spanish cruelty. Aiming to protect native peoples from the depredations of the conquistadors, his writings depicted Indians as simple, militarily weak, and without guile. His revelations inspired King Charles V of Spain to issue a set of “New Laws” in 1542, reproduced here as Document 2, that banned the enslavement of Indians and attempted to blunt the power of large landowners who felt entitled to Indian labor. Colonists resisted this pronouncement so strenuously, however, that the New Laws became untenable in some places; resentment was directed not just at the laws themselves, but at the assertion of central authority. Meanwhile European competitors seized upon what came to be known as Las Casas’s “black legend” of violent exploitation to discredit New Spain and to justify their own colonizing ambitions.
