Bartolomé de las Casas Tyrannies et Cruautez des Espagnols Perpetrees es Indes Occidentales...  1582
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Bartolomé de las Casas (c.1484-1566), was an early Spanish historian of the New World. La Casas' father, Pedro de las Casas, was a merchant and early Spanish settler in Espanola who traveled with Columbus on his second expedition. Las Casas was educated in law at the University of Salamanca and sailed for Hispaniola in 1502, possibly on a mining or military expedition. He returned to Spain in 1506 and became a Dominican priest in 1507. He then devoted himself to stopping Spanish brutality of the Indians in Mexico and the Caribbean. In 1542 he was made bishop of Chiapas, and in 1547 he returned to Spain, where he devoted his energies to criticizing Spanish brutality in the New World. From 1547-1566, las Casas worked as an attorney-at-large in the court of Charles V, where he fought for legal reforms to protect the indigenous peoples. He wrote a series of controversial books describing the atrocities, including the influential Brevissima Relacion de la Destruccion de las Indias, written in 1539, and later published throughout Europe.