"Into this sheepfold, into this land of meek outcasts there came some Spaniards who immediately behaved like ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions that had been starved for many days. And Spaniards have behaved in no other way during the past forty years, down to the present time, for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before."

Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, written 1542, presented to Philip II of Spain. Las Casas was a Spanish priest and former encomendero who became the leading advocate for indigenous rights.