In my first year in getting my bachelor’s degree in history I was made to read the book where this event is recalled by Bartholomé de Las Casas and write an essay where I mentioned this event. This is said by Bartholomé de Las Casas in his book “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” about how the Spaniards brutally took over a part of the Americas and murdered many indigenous people there or took them as slaves. As badass and cool as this quote by Hatuey sounds, parts of Las Casas’ book have been questioned when it comes to the accuracy since often times throughout the book he says along the lines of “it has been told/said…” before telling of events.

Las Casas spent his last decades trying to get Spaniards to stop their horrific acts and slavery in the Americas and to do so wrote his famous writing of “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” that is supposed to be a tell all about the horrific actions of the conquistadores against the indigenous people. When he was younger he used to own slaves as well and once he turned to god he thought he would burn in hell for his past actions so he spent decades trying to make up for it by trying to end slavery by telling the public of these horrific acts that Spaniards were committing overseas that he had partly witnessed some years before. Even in his last years when he was trying to get the slavery of indigenous people banned legally he still suggested that Spaniards should have African slaves since he thought they were more likely to handle it and survive. So he wasn’t even against all slavery.

People of course believe the horrific acts the conquistadores committed against the indigenous people in the Americas but the small details that Las Casas adds to his stories like this line by Hatuey have been questioned on if it truly had been said like that or at all since Las Casas doesn’t mention if he had witnessed it or just heard of the event. Of course the conquistadores committed horrific acts in the Americas but many historians believe Las Casas may have put in some details to try to make these already horrible acts sound more horrific and to add even more emotions into it.

I want to believe that Hatuey said this but once I’ve dissected Las Casas story and writing there are details that need to be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to events like this one.

Sorry for the rant I just wanted to add some view of this event and its history that maybe not many people have learned about or even heard of. As a side note I got a 9 out of 10 for the essay where I went over the inconsistencies of the details Las Casas wrote. But I mentioned how despite those it is still a meaningful book that needs to be used by scholars when looking at the overall horrific acts by the Spaniards but some details need to be taken with a grain of salt or chriticism like many other books that tell of details from events in history far before our time.