Defending the Conquest

Kris Lane is Professor of History at the College of William and Mary.Timothy F. Johnson is a graduate student and teaching assistant in the Department of Spanish at the University of California, Davis.

• ContentsForewordPrefaceIntroduction to Bernardo de Vargas Machuca’s Defense and Discourse of the Western ConquestsKris LaneNote on the TranslationTimothy F. JohnsonDefense and Discourse of the Western ConquestsBernardo de Vargas MachucaTranslated by Timothy F. JohnsonBibliographyIndex

“While all the world has heard of Bartolomé de las Casas, the ‘Apostle of the Indians,’ few have heard of the crusty and garrulous Spanish captain Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, who, in a state of high indignation, set out to refute the Dominican’s depiction of the Spanish conquest of America as an unremitting chronicle of atrocities. But if we are to get a fair picture of the extraordinary events surrounding the conquest, it is important that the voices of those who took issue with Las Casas be heard. The editor and translator of Defending the Conquest have therefore performed a great service in making available to a modern readership this most politically incorrect of conquest histories. Like the gripping stories of Las Casas, those of Vargas Machuca may also have something of value to tell us.”—Sir John Elliott, Regius Professor Emeritus of Modern History, University of Oxford