Den spiegel der Spaensche Tyranny gheschieht in West-Indien.

Waer in te sien is de onmenschelicke wreede feyten der Spangiaerden : met t’samen de beschrijvinge der selver Landen, Volckeren aert ende natuere … … [BOUND WITH] Tweede Deel van de Spieghel der Spaense Tyrannye, gheschiet in Nederlant. Waer in te sien is de onmenschelicke ende wreede handelinghen der Spaengiaerden … … Amsterdam : Jan Everts. Cloppenburg, 1620 [and 1628]. Two parts in one volume, small quarto (200 x 155 mm), contemporary full vellum with manuscript title to spine; front pastedown with early owner’s name in ink and cutting from old bookseller’s catalogue pasted in; first work with engraved title page (early annotation in ink ‘Kupfer nach David Vinckboons’), pp. 104, with 17 engraved text illustrations; second work with engraved title, pp. [6], 126, with 20 engraved text illustrations; text in Dutch; small tear to front free-endpaper, occasional spotting or small ink marks at margins, otherwise internally very good.

Two early seventeenth-century Dutch editions of important works condemning Spanish conduct in the New World and in Europe, by the Spanish Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566).

De las Casas sailed to Hispaniola on Columbus’ third voyage in 1502. In 1512 he became the first priest to be ordained in the New World. He spent four decades as a missionary in the Caribbean, during which time he campaigned against the mistreatment of the indigenous peoples by the Spanish conquerors.

‘In 1552-1553 Bartolomé de las Casas published in Seville nine treatises severely critical of the Spanish Conquest in America, including the famous Very Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Royal fear of a colonial feudalism, more dangerous to the Crown than the shattered power of Indian kings and states, helps to explain the remarkable tolerance which allowed publication of this exposé….’ (Benjamin Keen, The Black Legend revisited: assumptions and realities. Hispanic American Historical Review (1969) 49 (4): 703–719)

The first part is a translation of Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552). Besides its description of Spanish atrocities in Central and South America and the Caribbean, it also provides an account of the geography and peoples of the region.

The second work deals with the bloody persecutions by the Spanish in the Netherlands carried out by the notorious Duke of Alva on the orders of Philip II, who had sent him to the Spanish Netherlands in 1567 to destroy opposition to Spanish rule. It also covers the atrocities committed by the Spanish in France, in particular the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Protestants in 1572.

The illustrations in both works are unrelenting in their graphic depiction of violence and cruelty. Like several other Dutch editions of these works, they include copies of Theodor de Bry’s illustrations. The engravings in the first work are by David Vinckboons and Dirck Eversen Lons; those in the second have been attributed to Jacques de Gheyn II.