Bartolomé de las Casas (November 1484 – July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed Protector of the Indians. His extensive writings, the most famous being A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Historia de Las Indias, chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West Indies and focus particularly on the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples.
With my own eyes I saw Spaniards cut off the nose, hands and ears of Indians, male and female, without provocation, merely because it pleased them to do it. Likewise, I saw how they summoned the caciques and the chief rulers to come, assuring them safety, and when they peacefully came, they were taken captive and burned. The Spaniards took babies from their mothers‘ breasts, grabbing them by the feet and smashing their heads against rocks. They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen at a time in honor of Christ Our Savior and the twelve Apostles. Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive. When the Spaniards had collected a great deal of gold from the Indians, they shut them up in three big houses, crowding in as many as they could, then set fire to the houses, burning alive all that were in them, yet those Indians had given no cause nor made any resistance. They would cut an Indian‘s hands and leave them dangling by a shred of skin. They would test their swords and their manly strength on captured Indians and place bets on the slicing off of heads or cutting of bodies in half with one blow.
See also: Christopher Columbus