[Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de]:

$175,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

VIRTUDES DEL INDIO...SENOR. POCOS MINISTROS HAN IDO A LA NUEVA-ESPAÑA, NI BUELTO DELLA MAS OBLIGADOS QUE YO AL AMPARO DE LOS INDIOS...[ascribed title and beginning of ... First edition of this exceedingly important work, quite rare in the market, by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, addressed to King Phillip IV, in which he highlights the cruel and unlawful treatment of Native Americans by Spanish colonists, and espouses the nobility and inherent morality of the native people, and the duty the Spanish Crown has to defend them. It places Palafox, the Bishop of Puebla de Los Angeles, behind only Las Casas as the most prominent defender of the rights of indigenous Americans in the Spanish empire. A contemporary manuscript provenance note demonstrates that this copy was given to the original owner by Palafox himself.Written in Madrid not long after he returned from Mexico, this pamphlet was published clandestinely, without title, author, or place or date of publication, and is signed in type "El Obispo de la Puebla de Los Angeles" on the final page. It was not until Palafox's collected works were published between 1659 and 1671 that this work was explicitly noted as his. Church notes that "Las Casas found a worthy successor, in his advocacy of the rights of the native Indians, in Palafox, Bishop of Puebla, the writer of the present work; which is a memorial to the king respecting the virtues of the Indians, and was probably printed for the use of the King and Council of the Indies, as i

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