In "Destruction of the Indies [An Excerpt]", Bartolome de Las Casas faces us with an utter disgust for the Spanish treatment of the Indians. According to him,"The Spanish....so inhumanely and barbaruosly butcher'd and harass'd (the Indians)....That of Three Millions of Persons,....there is at present but the inconsiderable remnant of scarce Three Hundred." The Spanish tormented and tortured the Indians so much that it became, according to Bartolome, almost a game for the Spanish. Agreeing with Bartolome on the inhumanity of the Spaniards, what the stories in this excerpt remind me of is in the new Rambo movie, the segment right after the soldiers took the missionaries' village, and they were throwing fragmentation grenades into the rice fields and betting on which man out of four would die first.

It both sickens me and amazes me as to how a human could become so prideful, or so hateful of another people that they would treat them worse than they do animals. Bartolome proposes this comparison when he says,"...that they treated them...not as Beasts, which I cordially wish they would, but as the most abject dung and filth of the Earth..." The Spaniards gladly would have saved a horse before an Indian just because a horse was more expensive. This apathy for human life shows not only a blatant disrespect for the Native people, but also a very early form of racism. Some may argue that since the Spanish had a very small amount of income, they had to use the Natives to increase that income. To compare this to today, (sorry Tre, I gotta use you man) If I were to tell Tre that, because he was black, and therefore "not as good" as me (not true, just an example), to go work and give me all the money since I had a low source of income, that would be racist. Now, if I beat him and almost killed him because he wouldn't work for me and he was black, that would be really racist. If I am considered racist for suppressing a single person because of his or her skin color, then why wouldn't the Spanish be considered racist for doing the same thing to an entire people who couldn't understand them?

Segment 17 of this excerpt really stood out to me above all others in this document. though. It is in this segment that he boldly calls the encomendores and other Spaniards in the Americas three things; murderers, tyrants, and provokers of war. Though he is very blunt in this segment, I agree completely with every word. The Spaniards were just a group of Tyrants and murderers that took advantage of the innocence and and humility of the Indians and provoked war with them for no probable cause. Though others may see a cause or a reason, I do not. The Indians were a peaceful people that could have easily risen up to equal or above the European standard of living.