RELATION DES VOYAGES ET DES DE'COUVERTES QUE LES ESPAGNOLS ONE FAIT DANS LES INDES OCCIDENTALES. [bound with:] L'ART DE VOYAGER UTILEMENT.

The first work is an interesting combination of Sieur de Montauban's account of his buccaneering voyages against the slave ships off Guinea, and Las Casas' stirring tracts against the brutal treatment of the West Indies natives. Sieur de Montauban was a member of the group of French pirates who took the name "Freres de la Cotes." His hatred for the Spanish and English impelled him to terrorize their slave ships off the West African coast. He became famous for freeing African slaves and for his demonstrated respect for their humanity. Las Casas, the first great historian and humanist of the New World, arrived in Cuba in 1502 and spent most of his time in the Caribbean and Mexico until his return to Spain in 1547. An early critic of Spanish policy, he nonetheless rose to be Bishop of Chiapas. After his return to Spain he launched a series of attacks on Spanish Indian policy. His tracts, first published in 1551-52 and printed in the present volume in an English translation, denounce Spanish cruelty to natives of the West Indies and Mexico. This is a translation of four of the nine Las Casas tracts, softened in some of the cruel parts "which might have given pain to delicate persons" (Sabin). Bound with Las Casas' work is L'Art de Voyager Utilement, a short, rare, and anonymously authored piece extolling the virtues of "le Voyager." Its author discusses what it takes to join their ranks: courage and rugged strength to endure the inevitable hardship and deprivation that accompanies life on the high seas and in unknown parts of the world. A curious collection of works in a single handsome volume. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 698/33, 698/148. SABIN 11274. PALAU 46965n. MEDINA BHA 1085n. JCB (4):359. NICHOLSON C127. HANKE 560. STREIT I:735. 12mo. 20th-century green morocco by Brugalla, spine with raised bands, a.e.g., gilt inner dentelles. Spine sunned. Minor scattered foxing. Near fine.…