London: Printed by J. Darby for D. Brown [and others], 1699.
Price:
$6,000.00
About the item
2 engraved folding plates. [8], 248, 40pp. 8vo. Contemporary panelled calf, rebacked, red morocco lettering piece. Foxing. Provenance: T. Beale (armorial bookplate); Herbert Leon (bookplate). Sabin 11289; European Americana 699/33; Wing C797; Church 780; Field 881. Colin Steele, English Interpreters of the Iberian World (Oxford, 1975).
Item #377781
Las Casas, the first great historian and humanist of the New World, arrived in Cuba in 1502 and spent most of his time in the Caribbean and Mexico until his return to Spain in 1547. An early critic of Spanish policy, he nonetheless rose to be Bishop of Chiapas. After his return to Spain, he launched a series of attacks on Spanish Indian policy. His tracts, first published in 1551-52 denounce Spanish cruelty to Indians in the West Indies and Mexico.
This is the fourth edition of Las Casas to appear in English (the first was in 1583), but it is, in fact, a separate, new translation, and according to Colin Steele, "an improvement over previous translations." Church notes that it translates six of the nine tracts. As with earlier English versions, it was issued during a period of war with Spain and served a function as anti-Spanish propaganda. Unlike previous issues, it contains, at the end, the essay, "The Art of Travelling to Advantage," which instructs would-be travellers on how to observe and report their travels.
There is some bibliographical confusion regarding the two folding plates which comprise 22 illustrations after De Bry that graphically illustrate the atrocities committed by the Spanish against the Indians. In some copies, binders have separated one or both folding plates along their centerfold and bound in as three or four plates rather than two folding plates as issued (and as in the present example).
