Another Face of EmpireThe Spanish cleric Bartolom de Las Casas is a key figure in the history of Spains conquest of the Americas. Las Casas condemned the torture and murder of natives by the conquistadores in reports to the Spanish royal court and in tracts such as A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552). For his unrelenting denunciation of the colonialists atrocities, Las Casas has been revered as a noble protector of the Indians and as a pioneering anti