Final answer:
The quote from Howard Zinn's book refers to Admiral Christopher Columbus and criticizes his actions towards Native Americans. Bartolomé de Las Casas, who witnessed the mistreatment first-hand, later denounced the brutal treatment of natives and advocated for reforms, inspiring the Black Legend.
Step-by-step explanation:
The quote from Howard Zinn's work refers to Admiral Christopher Columbus, who is often criticized for his treatment of indigenous peoples after his arrival in the Caribbean. The Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas became a vocal critic of the Spanish colonists' brutal treatment of the Native Americans, highlighting the mistreatment in his work, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Las Casas's efforts to advocate for better treatment of the natives eventually led to some reforms, such as the New Laws of 1542, but these were often opposed and not fully implemented by Spanish settlers.
Las Casas's evocative writing contributed to the creation of the so-called Black Legend, which portrayed the Spanish as exceptionally cruel colonizers. This depiction was used by Spain's imperial rivals to justify their own colonial actions as supposedly more humane despite their similar maltreatment of indigenous populations. De Las Casas's denunciations reveal the complex interactions between European colonizers and Native peoples in the early period of the Americas colonization.