this bright river

“Las Casas” by Patrick Somerville

Two men sit in a booth at a bar.

They’re talking.

One’s a little older than the other.

The older one says: “Have you ever heard of a man named Bartolomé de Las Casas?”

The other says: “I don’t think so.”

“Dominican monk named Bartolomé de Las Casas, writing in the sixteenth century, Bartolomé de Las Casas. Okay. No. He was Spanish. He came over to see the New World. And he was totally and immediately fucking horrified by what he saw the soldiers and the conquistadors doing and so he just went right to the notebook and tried to record as many of the atrocities as he could? Just knee-jerk This is what I can do. Someone needs to remember this. Someone needs to see it and remember it and bear witness. READ MORE >

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February 14th, 2012 / 12:44 pm