Relevance of the book

The enduring relevance of Las Casas Devastation of Indies lies in its presentation of timeless and universal issues of human rights. The context in which this work appeared remains fundamentally important, for the author and his public reception clearly reflected the intellectual, moral climate of the 16th century of Europe. The Europeans were astonished by the discovery of the new world by Columbus and the early Spanish conquistadors. Their mind had to assimilate the sudden appearence of a new world profoundly different from that which Western intellectuals and religious traditions had created. Europeans were shocked to encounter people of whom the Bible and ancient texts mads no mention and whos physical appearence clearly differed from the of the Africans and Asians they had expected to find. The Spaniards when they first met Indians, were imbued with medieval warrior mentality. A dynamic martial spirit, medieval in its formation and aggressively religious and aristocratic in attitude, permeated Spanish culture. They were prepared to fight and conquer enemies under extremely difficult conditions seasoned by their struggle against Moorish occupation lasting from 711 to 1492. Las Casas reveals that millions of Indians were killed through enslavement and outright murder. Las Casa believed that native Indians should be peacefully converted to Christianity. As a Christian, he opposed the Chrstianity as it existed in the New World. He could not digest violence and killings against native people. He disapproved conversion by force and superficial mass conversions. He claimed that real baptism could take place only over time. For a modern reader, the book raises the profound question whether something intrinsically immoral in the West's ethos has underlain all Western / non-Western relaionsh from the earliest voyages of discovery. How should Westerners deal with historical tragedy - abstractly, in an intellectual setting, or concretely in their relationship with the other people.