First person accounts of events can be powerful tools to learn history. In De Las Casas, Dave Ortega transcribes and illustrates selections from the writings of Dominican Friar, Bartolomé De Las Casas from his writings, “An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies.”
Literally from cover to cover, Dave’s zine is a constant list of terrible atrocities laid upon the indigenous people of the island of Hispanola by Christian Spaniards in the 1540’s. In graphic detail, Dave, through Friar De Las Casas lists beheadings after disembowelments, after rapes, after burning alive, after hangings and on and on. The indigenous kingdoms fight back, and their moments of defiance sting, but are no match for the crushing Spanish armies, so we are left with accounts of entire families hanging themselves to escape the horrible life the Christian invaders brought to the island.
By taking De Las Casas’ writings out of a book that is probably usually only found on a metal shelf, deep in a library, and transcribing it into a zine, Dave breathes new life into his words. It’s important for us to remember where our modern hemisphere came from, and keep in mind that the actions witnessed 470 years ago still have reverberations today.