LAS CASAS (Bartolomé de)

Lot 23
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Estimation :
5000 - 6000 EUR
LAS CASAS (Bartolomé de)
Tyrannies and cruelties of the Spaniards, perpetrated in the West Indies, which is called the New World. Antwerp, François de Ravelenghien, 1579. In-8 of (8) ff., 184 pp. olive calf, large right-hand cold-stamped lace, spine with repeated small cold-stamped iron, nerves underlined with gilt and cold-stamped fillets, black title-piece, cold-stamped twisted border inside, gilt edges (binding of the first half of the 19th century). First edition of the first French translation, of great rarity. It was established by the Flemish Protestant Jacques de Miggrode, according to the text of the original edition published in 1552 in Seville under the title of Brevissima relacion de la destruycion de las Indias. A famous and severe picture of the exactions committed by the Conquistadors: the "spearhead of the black legend of the Spanish conquest of America" (Duviols). Spanish historian, the Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas (1485-1566) was sent on a mission to Venezuela and Guatemala. In 1515, on his return from his American sojourn, he pleaded for a better treatment of the Indians. He obtained permission from Emperor Charles V to found cities of free Indians, but the experiment was a failure. Las Casas continued, however, returning several times to South America, and when he returned to settle permanently in Madrid in 1547, he continued to be active in the cause of the natives. "He never abandoned his Indian crusade and in 1550 organized a meeting of high civil and ecclesiastical authorities to consider the treatment of indigenous peoples in the Americas" (Raymond John Howgego). He denounced the "destruction of the Indies by the Esapgnols where so many millions of men [were] put to death [...] by all the means that barbarism itself could imagine & forge on the anvil of cruelty". A fine copy. Antique manuscript bookplate almost faded at the top of the title. Slight rubbing to the binding. (Rahir, Bibliothèque de l'amateur, p. 356.- Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800, pp. 609-610.- Chadenat, n° 6336: "Original edition, very rare." - Sabin, no. 11267.)
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