Bartolome de Las Casas’ a Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America are both important literary memoirs published during the 1540s by Spanish authors. While both are memoirs of the respective writers’ experiences traveling to the New World, they are vastly different in terms of what is described. Las Casas’ narrative recounts in detail the horrendous actions inflicted by the Spanish people on the native inhabitants of North America, whereas de Vaca’s, while still a book full of hardships, tragedy, and bloodshed, paints a slightly brighter picture with respect to the relations between the Spaniards and the various tribes they encountered. Herein the question lies: which narrative of the New World was more memorable?

We will determine this by first examining what makes each work memorable, starting with de Vaca’s Adventures. Published in 1543, this book is written from the first-person perspective of the highest-ranking soldier of the four who miraculously survived a perilous ten-year expedition throughout North America, during which the number of men dwindled from 300 due to illness, famine, inclement weather, or perhaps attacks from less-friendly tribes, as an official report to Spain’s king. de Vaca’s ultimate goal was to make peace with the Indians and to convert them to Christianity. In doing so, he had plenty of peaceful interactions with various tribes, practices of which he recounted in detail. However, there were, as mentioned previously, some tribes who did not take as well to the presence of the Spaniards and thus chose to attack them instead. de Vaca consistently credited the mercy of God for sparing him throughout the many dire situations that he and the Spaniards faced. Overall, this narrative is a captivating eyewitness account of a long, treacherous journey through America, and I would consider it to be memorable due to its remarkably detailed recollections, as well as the many extraordinary tales of unlikely survival.

We move now to Las Casas’ Brief Account, published in 1541. Like Adventures, this book was also written to the king of Spain, in an effort to inform him of the heinous actions committed by his people toward the natives of the New World. The narrative describes in gruesome detail the many horrifying tragedies inflicted by the Spaniards toward the Indians–whom Las Casas constantly assured were innocent, going so far as to call them nearly sinless, contrary to the theology of his Catholic faith–purely due to their constant pursuit and desire of more power and more money. He did not originally object to the Indian slave trade, but would soon change his stance slightly, believing that slavery was only acceptable if it could be justified by war. For this reason, he was under the belief that enslaving Africans rather than Indians was allowable. Las Casas described many horrendous murders of innocent Indians committed by the Spaniards. The book frequently made use of hyperbole, claiming millions had died, when in fact there was no possible way he or anyone could have verified those numbers. The theme of exaggerations continued through the duration of the narrative; though, the stories contained therein were just as horrifying nonetheless. Las Casas’ book was later used after his death as a key anti-Spain work by protestant countries who were at war with the Spaniards to prove how wicked they were. The book is memorable, of course, because of its accounts of the terrible treatment of the indigenous people; one may argue that it is even more so due to the impossible exaggerations found throughout.

With the information outlined above, it is evident that both narratives were memorable for their own reasons. However, by my own personal assessment, I interestingly found de Vaca’s to be more memorable. The primary reason is that Las Casas’ exaggerated claims resulted in a story that, while obviously tragic and horrendous, felt lacking in validity at the same time. It leaves the reader with many unanswered questions; an incomplete story, one might say. In addition to these factors, I felt that de Vaca’s fascinating storytelling and clever use of rhetoric distinguishes his book from Brief Account, as well as some other historical memoirs. All things considered, while both literary works were significant in their own ways, de Vaca’s narrative stood out more so to me than that of Las Casas.🔹