Notes on Translation by Herma Briffault

Las Casas's sentences are sometime terribly long, and since he uses practically no conjunctions except "and", one loses the thread before reaching the end, where sometime the verb is to be found. I have slightly broken up the sentences and have occassionally used "but", "although", etc. to make the meaning clearer. Las Casas's biggest "sin" aside from some exaggeration is his repetitiveness. Sometimes in the course of a long sentence he repeats what he said at the beginning; and also repeats on a later page what he had said earlier. I have eliminated most of the repetitions.

My aim, which I hope I have reached, was to preserve the 16th century feeling in the English prose, while still making it accessible to the modern reader. Occassionally to preserve Las Casas's style, I have kept his loose constructions, but have not done so consistently.