A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, credited to Bartolomé de las Casas, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of A Brief Account oof the Destruction of the Indies, by Bartolomé de las Casas. Read by Arnie Horton. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Spanish: Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias) is an account written by the Spanish Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas in 1542 (published in 1552) about the mistreatment of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in colonial times and sent to then Prince Philip II of Spain. One of the stated purposes for writing the account is his fear of Spain coming under divine punishment and his concern for the souls of the Native Peoples. The account is one of the first attempts by a Spanish writer of the colonial era to depict examples of unfair treatment that indigenous people endured in the early stages of the Spanish conquest of the Greater Antilles, particularly the island of Hispaniola. Las Casas's point of view can be described as being heavily against some of the Spanish methods of colonization, which, as he describes, have inflicted a great loss on the indigenous occupants of the islands. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies
• Author credits: Bartolomé de las Casas
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 21
• Listed recording duration: 4:02:56

Catalogue topics

• non-fiction
• history
• genocide
• natives
• Americas
• Indians
• conquest
• atrocities

Track guide

1. 00 - The Argument of this Narrative by way of Preface to the Reader — 5:24
2. 01 - The Cruelties of the Spaniards Committed in America — 11:53
3. 02 - Of the Island Hispaniola — 6:29
4. 03 - Of the Kingdoms contained in Hispaniola — 19:14
5. 04 - Of the Isles of St. John and Jamaica — 1:34
6. 05 - Of the Isle of Cuba — 9:26
7. 06 - Of the Continent — 11:38
8. 07 - Of the Province of Nicaraqua — 8:25
9. 08 - Of New Spain — 5:02
10. 09 - Of New Spain in Particular — 18:09
11. 10 - Of the Kingdom and Province of Guatimala — 12:13
12. 11 - A Farther Discourse of New Spain: And some Account of Panuco and Xalisco — 8:34
13. 12 - Of the Kingdom of Jucatan — 17:56
14. 13 - Of the Province of St. Martha & Of the Province of Carthagena — 10:34
15. 14 - Of the Pearl-Coast, Paria, and Trinity-Isle — 18:08
16. 15 - Of the River Yuya Pari — 1:18
17. 16 - Of the Kingdom of Venecuela — 11:44
18. 17 - Of the Provinces of Florida — 6:17
19. 18 - Of the Plate-River, that is, the Silver-River — 4:42
20. 19 - Of the Vast Kingdoms and Spatious Provinces of Perusia — 17:51
21. 20 - Of the New Kingdom of Granada — 36:31

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.