ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the need to listen anew to Las Casas’s voice in his famous and infamous Brevísima relación (Very Brief Account) and to articulate an alternative juridical perspective to the predominantly literary and rhetorical interpretations in Lascasian historiography of this text. This study argues that the Brevísima relación is a legal document belonging predominantly to genres of the civil and ecclesial juridical traditions. Contextual and textual methodology, exegetical analysis, lateral contextualization, and traditional genetic historiography substantiate this argument. The literature review reveals that Lascasian scholars only generally described his approach as that of a canon lawyer. Subsequent examination of the “Introductions” to nine recent editions of this treatise, as well as of primary and secondary sources, demonstrates that a juridical recasting of Las Casas’s approach is the exception rather than the rule. This chapter concludes by outlining the book’s three-part organization: first, the formation of Las Casas’s juridical voice and its articulation in four major contemporaneous debates; second, an explication of the specific context, character, and content of Las Casas’s juridical voice in the Brevísima relación; third, a summary statement of this study’s argument, and a discussion about possible future scholarship.
