Refer to the passage. "As we have said, all the towns of the region stood amid fertile lands of their own. Each of the settlers took up residence in the town allotted to him (or encommended to him as the legal phrase has it), put the inhabitants to work for him, stole their already scarce foodstuffs for himself and took over the lands owned and worked by the natives and on which they traditionally grew their own produce. The settler would treat the whole of the native population—dignitaries, old men, women and children—as members of his household and, as such, make them labour night and day in his own interests, without any rest whatever; even the small children, as soon as they could stand, were made to do as much as they could, and more. Thus have the settlers exterminated the few indigenous people who have survived, stripping them of their houses and all their possessions and leaving them nothing for themselves (and these abuses continue to this day). In this regard, their treatment of the locals here has been even worse than on Hispaniola.”

Bartolomé de Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, 1542

The views expressed in the passage are best seen as evidence of which of the following in the Spanish colonies?

The dominance of the social elite over less-powerful indigenous populations
A social hierarchy based on class, similar to that of the existing indigenous population
The division of gender-based social roles as established by the indigenous population
A blended culture based on interactions between indigenous populations and invading forces