THE DEVASTATION OF THE INDIES: A BRIEF ACOOUNT ( Bartolome De Las Casas )

Bartolome de Las Casas, Spanish priest and writer, is criticizing his own nation and his own culture objectively in his article "The Devastation of The Indies: A brief Account". The article is about first colonial movement to Indies. The region was firstly settled by the Spaniards and Bartolome De Las Casas was among the people witnessed that colonial movement. In this article, Las Casas is harshly criticizing the Spanish tyranny to The Indies. He states that there were more than 12 million people killed and tortured bye the Spanish tyranny. When they settled the area, their main concern was not to live there. They went there because they wanted to benefit from the prosperity of the continent and took this wealth to their nation. When They came, the Indies welcomed them. These Indies were ignorant, uneducated people. But at the same time, they were very clean in their person. They did not know the concepts such as hatred, desire for worldy things, revenge, etc. Spaniards were blinded by the desire of worldly materials and they attacked them like a hungry lion. The Population of The island of Hispaniola where they firstly settled fell to 200 from 3 million. This article reminds me Herbert Spencer's  Social Darwinism theory that he claims that rich and powerful nations oppress the weak ones. According to this theory, There are two types of races, one is the strongest and the other one is th weakest. And the Strongest one always exploits the weakest one, as it happens in the animal kingdom. In that story, The strongest one is Spaniards, the weakest one is Indies.  I want to end my writing with Aristotle's word.
   "Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all"