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Secondary sourcePainting1590s

Soldiers Chop Off Arawak Hands

Theodor de Bry · 1590s

A late 16th-century de Bry engraving of a massacre, often linked to the atrocities Las Casas described in his writings.

This engraving depicts the kind of atrocities against Indigenous people that Las Casas documented and denounced.

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Engraving of violent scene: soldiers with swords and spears attack naked people in a landscape. Some victims lie dead or wounded on the ground, one man's hand is being chopped on a block, and figures are bound or fleeing near a mountain and a palm-thatched hut.
Theodor de Bry, Soldiers Chop Off Arawak Hands, engraving, 1590s.

About this source

What it is

This engraving was made by Theodor de Bry in the 1590s. It illustrates a quotation describing Spanish soldiers mutilating and killing Indigenous people who refused to surrender gold, an event from the 1539 conquest of South America.

Why it matters

Though its popular title connects it to Columbus, the record clarifies the image actually depicts a later massacre during Spanish conquest, the kind of violence Las Casas documented and condemned in his writings such as the Destruction of the Indies. Images like this spread his descriptions of cruelty across Europe, shaping opinions about Spanish colonization.

Look closer

  • Why might this image's title be misleading about what it actually shows?
  • What does the engraver choose to depict, and why might such scenes have been popular in print?
  • How does this image relate to Las Casas's written testimony about similar events?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Bartolomé de las Casas on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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