LAS CASAS Barthélémy La Découverte des Indes Occidentales, par les Espagnols. Ecrite par Dom Balthazar de Las-Casas, Evêque de Chiapa. Dédié à Monseigneur le Comte de Toulouse.

Sabin, 11273 ; Medina (BHA), 1085 ; Streit, I, 733 ; Palau, 46966 ; JCB (4), 344-345 ; Leclerc (1878), 337 ; Alden, 697/33.

First edition of the French translation. 

This work presents, in the version of Abbé Jean Baptiste Morvan de Bellegarde, six of the nine treatises published by Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474-1566) under the title Brevissima relación (Seville, 1553). Las Casas wrote this work to defend himself against the accusations levelled against him by the Spanish colonisers of the New World, who were hostile to his pro-Indian stance. The author took the opportunity to denounce a model of colonisation based on violence and plunder.

His memoir was so influential that it led to the abolition of the “encomiendas”, a system of land distribution which, under the guise of conversion and assistance to the Indians, legalised the most appalling form of slavery. It was in Las Casas’ work that the “good savage” first appeared, and it was through missionary apologetics that he was to influence Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the whole ideology of the 19th century. The frontispiece engraved by Giffart fils shows Hernán Cortés and Montezuma surrounded by Indians.

A pleasant copy.