I found it interesting to read Bartolome de las Casas right after Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca because we’re starting to get a better impression of the various currents of thought on the role of Spain in the New World that were circulating amongst learned people of the time. As we found out, Cabeza de Vaca was an opportunist and a chameleon, he was able to become integrated in indigenous society when his survival depended on it, but also to step back into his European role of colonizer and evangelizer. His position on the treatment of indigenous people is ambiguous; he speaks disapprovingly of the destructive Spaniards, but he seems to be talking from the position of a would-be governor more than a humanitarian, that is, he disapproves of their ineffective governing strategy more than the poor treatment of the indigenous people. For de las Casas, on the other hand, it is clear that the suffering of the indigenous people at the hands of his countrymen pains him deeply.
In this indictment of the cruel and lawless behavior of the Spaniards, de las Casas frequently makes strong accusations such as “abominables y crueles hombres bestiales” (30). Such accusations are of course justified given the list of sadistic practices that he witnessed, but few people would have said them so boldly. de las Casas shows the absurdity of an imperial venture that is allegedly made to bring God and good governance to the people of the New World and ends up slaughtering them. He points out the hypocrisy of “los que se llaman cristianos ” who commit such crimes in God’s name (49). However, de las Casas never goes so far as to say that the Spanish should never have come to the New World or that they have no place there. Quite the opposite, de las Casas considered the indigenous people “muy capaces y dociles para toda buena doctrina, aptisimos para recibir nuestra santa fe catolica” (15). According to de las Casas the indigenous people deserve humane treatment, but the idea that they have a right to autonomy or cultural sovereignty is clearly far from his mind.