“Biography is the only true history” is credited to Thomas Carlyle while “all history is biography” is usually ascribed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Biography is not the only form of history, of course. Modern trends have almost displaced it as notoriously old fashioned, a curious relic from the past for antiquarians and popularizers.

Nonetheless, at the core of the human experience is, quite obviously, the human being. When all the interpretations and analyses are stripped away – as brilliant and penetrating as they often are – one is left looking at the lives of individuals. Most of those have passed through the eons leaving little impression on the world other than that remembered by God. On the other hand, a few have flashed across human history like comets. Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566) is one of those few. He not only left a distinguishing mark on the sixteenth century, but as you will read in the Epilog at the end of this book, also has continued to have an impact across the centuries.

There is nothing simple about Las Casas, known principally in the English-speaking world as the author of the Black Legend. This legend pillories the Spanish character for its allegedly unique combination of cruelty and insensitivity that characterized the conquest of the Americas.