"The injuries and loss which have befallen the Crown of Castile and Leon will be visited likewise on all Spain, because the tyranny wrought by their devastations, massacres, and slaughters is so monstrous, that the blind may see it, the deaf hear it, and the dumb recount it, while after our brief existence, the wise shall judge and condemn it. I invoke all the hierarchies and choirs of angels, all the saints of the Celestial Court, all the inhabitants of the globe and especially those who may live after me, to witness that I free my conscience of all that has been done; and that I have fully exposed all these woes to his Majesty; and that if he abandons the government of the Indies to the tyranny of the Spaniards, they will all be lost and depopulated—as we see Hispaniola, and other islands and three thousand leagues of the continent destitute of inhabitants. For these reasons, God will punish Spain and all her people with inevitable severity. So may it be!"(72)

Language worthy of a saint and a statesman, in which there breathed the spirit of prophecy, for the system of government, once initiated by the Spanish officials, was persisted in till the end, while one by one the great possessions of Spain in the New World were torn from the mother country. In no land where freedom of speech was a recognised right, could an orator have used plainer language, and it shows both the Spanish civil and ecclesiastical authorities of that age in a somewhat unfamiliar light that Las Casas not only escaped perilous censures but even won a moral victory over his talented opponent. What would have become of the champion of such unpopular doctrines, attacking as he did the material interests of thousands of the greatest men in the land, had there been daily newspapers in those times, it is not difficult to imagine. Examples of the defenders of forlorn causes are not wanting in our own day, and the fate of those who lead an unpopular crusade is the pillory of the press, which spares no less than did the fires of the mediaeval stake.

The discovery and conquest of the American dominions brought ruin to Spain as a nation; beyond the tribute of glory which those early achievements yielded to the Spanish name, the results were disastrous to her power. During centuries, much of the best blood of her prolific people was drained by the Americas, so that the population of the peninsula to-day is little more numerous than in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, whereas her territory and natural resources might maintain triple their number.



CHAPTER XXI. - SAN GREGORIO DE VALLADOLID. LAST LABOURS. THE DEATH OF LAS CASAS

Although the forensic encounter with Sepulveda was the most dramatic incident in the latter years of the life of Las Casas after his return to Spain, its conclusion was not followed either by his disappearance or by any diminution of his activity as Protector of the Indians. His habitual residence from that time on became the College of San Gregorio at Valladolid, where he had the companionship of his devoted friend Ladrada and the support of an important community of his Order. Fray Rodrigo, who also acted as confessor to his old friend, would seem to have been something of a wag, as it is related of him that when the Bishop had become somewhat deaf, the confessor might be heard admonishing his penitent: "Don't you see, Bishop, that you will finish up in hell because of your want of zeal in defending the Indians whom God has placed in your charge?"(73)

The royal India Council likewise sat in Valladolid, and this fact may possibly have influenced the indefatigable Bishop's choice of that city for his residence. He had made repeated efforts to obtain from the Council some positive proclamation or declaration, affirming the freedom of the Indians as a natural and inalienable right, and at this time, he succeeded in moving that somewhat lethargic body to express a desire for more explicit information on this subject, before reaching a decision. In response to an order from the Council, Las Casas wrote his treatise entitled, The Liberty of the Enslaved Indians (De la libertad de los Indios que han sido reducidos a la esclavitud) which, for greater convenience, he divided into three parts. The first part treated of the nullity of the title on which such slavery was based; the second dealt with the duties of the Spanish sovereign towards the Indians, and the third was devoted to the obligations of the bishops of the American dioceses.

In none of his writings are the opinions of Las Casas on questions of the rights of man and the functions of government more lucidly set forth, and while many of the arguments on which he rested his propositions, and which were consonant with the prevalent spirit of his times, would not secure universal assent in our day, there is not one of the essential principles of his thesis, that has not since been recognised as inherently and indisputably just.

His treatise opened as follows:

"I propose in this article to demonstrate three propositions; first, that all the Indians who have been enslaved since the discovery of the New World, have been reduced to this sad condition without right or justice; second that the majority of Spaniards who hold Indian slaves do so in bad faith; and third, that this imputation is also applicable to such Spaniards as have not acquired their slaves by right of repartimiento but have obtained them from other Indians."

He combated the almost universally accepted theory that justifiable conquest conferred the right of enslaving the conquered, and he maintained that the most that might be exacted from a conquered people, even from those who had actively resisted, was recognition of the government established by the victorious party; taxes were justifiable and must be paid, and prisoners of war might be held until the close of hostilities, while extra burdens might be laid upon the country during the period of military occupation. Not one of these principles was at that time acted upon by any Christian power engaged in war with uncivilised nations, yet every one of them is now placed beyond dispute by the universally accepted principles of international law.

Wars unjustly undertaken, according to Las Casas, could confer no rights, because right is not founded upon injustice, and he defined war as unjust when undertaken without the sanction of legitimate authority, or even when ordered by legitimate authority, but without sufficient motive or provocation. This touched the question of the Indians very closely, for most of the Spanish invasions of the different islands and the countries of the mainland were begun without any authority from, or even the knowledge of the Spanish government. No Spanish sovereign ever authorised the invasion or conquest of any of the countries, on which their distant and self-styled representatives embarked, for motives of personal aggrandisement or in a pure spirit of adventure. Both Velasquez in Cuba and Cortes in Mexico were destitute of any royal authority for their undertakings, and only the splendour of their successes sufficed to condone their license, when they were able to confront the King with a profitable fait accompli. The royal instructions to all governors and representatives of the Spanish Crown were, on the contrary, filled with injunctions to treat the Indians humanely, to provide for their conversion and instruction by pacific means, and on no account to employ force save for self-defence.

Las Casas arraigned the conduct of all the colonial governors and officials, mercilessly attacking and exposing the various deceits and subterfuges, by means of which they evaded or overstepped their instructions, provoking the Indians by their inhuman cruelties to acts of resistance, in order to enslave them as rebels against the royal authority. He illustrated his accusations with numerous incidents of which he had himself been a witness.

His denunciations of the judges described them as corrupt and venal, ready to wink at the scandalous abuses and the violations of the Spanish laws, which were daily perpetrated under their very eyes, consenting the while to fill their own pockets with a share of the illicit profits.

Describing the horrors and ravages of the slave-trade, he declared that the provinces of Guatemala and Nicaragua had been depopulated, while in the provinces of Jalisco, Yucatan, and Panuco, similar outrages had been perpetrated, adding that the Germans in Venezuela were even more adroit than the Spaniards in the nefarious art of raiding Indian villages to carry off the inhabitants into slavery. "Your Majesty will see that I do not exaggerate when I affirm that more than four million men have been reduced to slavery, all of which has been accomplished in defiance of your Majesty's royal instructions."

Throughout this treatise, Las Casas supports his contentions on citations from Scripture, and in the second article, dealing with the obligations of the King towards his Indian subjects, he defines in very plain language the sanctions on which the royal claims to obedience rest: "The law of God imposes on the king the obligation to administer his kingdoms in such wise that small and great, poor and rich, the weak and the powerful, shall all be treated with equal justice";—such is his Statement of the King's duty and he supports it with quotations from Deuteronomy, Leviticus, the prophet Isaias, and St. Jerome, concluding with these words: "In fact, history furnishes examples of God chastising the nations and kingdoms which have refused justice to the poor and the orphan. Who shall venture to say that such may not be the fate of Spain, if the King denies the poor Indians their just dues and fails to give them the liberty, to which they have an incontestable right?"

Nor does he limit the King's responsibility to his personal acts in cases which may come directly to his knowledge; he is obliged also to see that his subjects observe one another's rights and live according to the laws of civil order and public morality. The object for which society and rulers exist is to insure the common weal of all, and no sovereign can secure this, who does not base his government on the principles of virtue and justice. The Spanish king is therefore not only obliged to secure the liberty of the Indians because justice exacts this of him, but also because he is bound to prevent his Spanish subjects from acts of usurpation of the rights of others. Christian kings have greater duties than those which weigh upon heathen or heretical rulers, for they are bound to protect religion, favour its ministers, and spread the faith for the sanctification of the whole world. By securing liberty to the Indians, their conversion would be assured and, all causes of enmity and hatred against Spaniards being removed, the natives would eagerly welcome the missionaries and receive their teaching.

The third article of his argument, dealing with the conduct of bishops in America, rehearses their apostolic duties towards their flocks and concludes by defining it as an episcopal obligation to represent the sufferings and wrongs of their defenceless people to the King and the India Council, and to insist on Justice being done them.

It is a noteworthy fact that such writings and speeches seem to have given no offence to the Spanish monarch, at that time the most absolute sovereign in Christendom, and that, not only before the members of the India Council, but in the estimation of the impartial men of his times, Las Casas succeeded in disproving the charge of disputing the rights of the Spanish Crown to sovereignty in the Indies, which his enemies had maliciously sought to fasten upon him.

Charles V. had already conceded much to the venerable Bishop's unceasing and energetic representations. A royal decree had abolished slavery, reduced very considerably the number of encomiendas, and had restricted the authority of the holders of these concessions over their Indians; the labours of the natives held in encomienda had been greatly lightened and their rights had been placed on a sure basis, strict instructions having been given to the civil authorities to correct abuses of power and to protect the weak. Wise laws and humane instructions had, however, at no time been wanting but the benevolent intentions of the Emperor were never adequately fulfilled by the Spanish colonial officials. Nevertheless, much had been accomplished and the condition of the Indians—those of them who survived—was very different in 1550, from that which prevailed when Las Casas took up their cause in 1510. Spaniards and Indians were equal before the common law of the land, the papal bull had defined, once for all, the moral status of the latter as responsible beings, and it was henceforth heresy to sustain the contrary. The supports on which those who had contended in favour of tightening the hold of the Spanish colonists on the natives had, one by one, been knocked from under them and the way was open for the more complete and practical application of the royal provisions for the protection of the oppressed peoples.

Prince Philip, to whom the Emperor had granted the sovereignty of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia and who was already styled Philip II., left Spain on July 12, 1554, to celebrate his marriage with the English Queen, Mary Tudor. He took in his suite several renowned theologians, amongst whom was Carranza de Miranda, at that time his confessor and later raised to the primatial See of Toledo. The relations between Las Casas and this important ecclesiastic had been most cordial and the latter had given the weight of his approval on more than one occasion to the Bishop in his furious controversies; notably during his contest with Sepulveda and by defending his Confesionario. Carranza, in his quality of confessor, exercised a great influence over the mind of Philip II.



Philip II.

From a photograph of the original portrait by Pantoja in the Prado Museum. (by permission of J. Laurent & Co., Madrid)

At this time a movement was set on foot by the Spanish colonists in America to obtain from the Crown the establishment of the encomienda system in perpetuity. The movement was opportune, for Spanish finances were at a low ebb and the King, being hard pressed for ready money, might be tempted to yield his consent to this simple means tor raising the considerable sum the petitioners would gladly pay. This important question seemed likely to be submitted to Philip during his stay in England, where an agent of the colonists in Peru, Don Antonio Ribera, was ready to open negotiations. Las Casas, who was sleepless where the interests of his proteges were concerned, perceived how vitally their welfare was threatened by this nefarious scheme and vividly realised that Philip must be prevented, at all costs, from giving his decision during his absence from Spain.

It would seem from his letter to Carranza, begging him to use his influence with the King to defer judgment until his return, that the latter had applied to him for an opinion on the subject. The correspondence between the two extended over the several years of the King's absence, but of the letters of Las Casas to Carranza, only the first one, written in 1555, has been preserved. Its language is no less vigorous than that which the Protector was accustomed to use when roused to the duties of his position.

After reviewing the history of the colonists' relations with the Indians and recalling the solemn pledge given by Charles V. that his Indian subjects should never be enslaved, he vehemently threatens the King and his ministers with the eternal pains of hell if they break that royal engagement. In enumerating the obstacles opposed by the Spaniards to the conversion of the Indians, he writes:

"The third difficulty opposed to the conversion of the Indians is, that the system of oppression and cruelty followed in dealing with them, makes them curse the name of God and our holy religion: as the friars in Chiapa write me, nothing short of a miracle can make the Indians believe in Jesus Christ, when they see the execrable and manifest contradiction that exists between His gentle and beneficent doctrines and the conduct of the Christians, their enemies. What a scandal is it for them to see the faith preached by fifteen or twenty monks who are poor, despised, miserably clad, and reduced to begging their bread, while the crowd of so-called Christians living in opulence, arrayed in silks, mounted on their horses, inspires respect, submission, and fear everywhere, and acts in defiance of the law of God and the teachings of His ministers!"

The Bishop expresses the hope that Carranza will read any passage of his letter, or indeed the entire composition to the King, if he judges it wise. An analogous letter on the same subject, written shortly afterwards by Las Casas and Fray Domingo de Santo Tomas jointly, was addressed to Philip II. Victory crowned the Bishop's efforts, for the royal decision, given after King Philip's return to Spain, was adverse to making the encomiendas hereditary or perpetual.

Although he had chosen San Gregorio as his residence, Las Casas must have been frequently and for lengthy periods absent from Valladolid. A royal order dated from Toledo on the fourteenth of December, 1562, and signed by Philip II. directs that the Bishop of Chiapa, on account of his services to the late Emperor and of those he continues to render to the King, shall always be provided with lodgings suitable to his rank, in Toledo or wherever else in the Spanish realm the court may happen to reside. The attendance of Las Casas at court would seem, from this document, to have been frequent.

In 1563, the annual life pension of 200,000 maravedis granted him by Charles V. in 1555, was increased by Philip II. to the sum of 350,000 maravedis.

In the early months of 1564 Las Casas was in Madrid, lodged in the Convent of Our Lady of Atocha just outside the city walls. It was on the seventeenth of March of that year that he there formally delivered a sealed document, which he declared to be his signed will, in the presence of a notary, Gaspar Testa, and seven other witnesses.(74)

At the age of ninety he wrote his treatise in defence of the Peruvians, the last of his known compositions, and which was written, as is stated in its text, in 1564.(75) The style and arguments of this work are identical with those that characterised all his writings. The last negotiation in behalf of American interests that Las Casas undertook and saw to a successful finish, was to obtain the restoration of the Audiencia of the Confines, to Gracias a Dios, whence it had been recently transferred to Panama, thus leaving the whole of the former province with no superior tribunal for the administration of justice. This business called him from Valladolid to Madrid in the spring of 1566.

The life of the great Bishop was nearing its end. He had long outlived all his early contemporaries, he had enjoyed the confidence and respect of three of the most remarkable sovereigns, Ferdinand of Aragon, Charles V. and Philip II., all of whom had received his fearless admonitions, not only with docility, but had responded with cordial admiration. Cardinal Ximenez, Pope Adrian VI., the powerful Flemish favourites, the discoverers and conquerors from Columbus to Cortes and Pizarro, were all long since dead, and he had seen numbers of his most powerful enemies in disgrace and in their graves. The Spain on which he closed his aged eyes was a different country from that on which he had first, opened them; the colonial development in America, the Reformation in Germany, the rise of England—all these and a hundred events of minor but far-reaching importance, had changed the face of the world.

The illness which proved fatal to Las Casas overtook him in the convent of the Atocha in Madrid, and in the latter days of July, 1566, he died.(76) Only a few days before he breathed his last he wrote the following sentences, which were probably the last his prolific pen ever traced. They portray the character and aspirations of this great man more fully, perhaps, than any other of his multitudinous compositions.

"For the goodness and mercy of God chose to elect me as His minister, despite my want of merit, to strive and labour for the infinite peoples, the possessors and owners of those kingdoms of the countries we call the Indies, against the burdens, evils, and injuries such as were never seen or heard of, which we Spaniards brought upon them, contrary to all right and justice; and to restore them to their pristine liberty, of which they were unjustly despoiled; and to save them from the violent death which they still suffer, just as for the same cause, thousands of leagues of country have been depopulated, many in my own presence. I have laboured at the Court of the Castilian sovereigns, coming and going between the Indies and Spain many times during the fifty years since 1514, animated only by God and by compassion at beholding the destruction of such multitudes of rational, humble, most kind, and most simple men, all well adapted to accept our Holy Catholic Faith and moral doctrine, and to live honestly. God is witness that I have advanced no other reason. Hence I state my positive belief, for I believe the Holy Roman Church, which is the rule and measure of our faith, must and does hold that the Spaniards' conduct towards those peoples, their robberies, murders, usurpations of the territories of the rightful kings and nobles and other infinite properties, which they accomplished with such accursed cruelties—has been contrary to the most strictly immaculate law of Jesus Christ and contrary to natural right. It has brought great infamy on the name of Jesus Christ and of the Christian religion, entirely hindering the spread of the faith and irreparably injuring the souls and bodies of those innocent peoples. I believe that because of these impious and ignominious acts, perpetrated unjustly, tyrannously, and barbarously upon them, God will visit His wrath and ire upon Spain for her share, great or small, in the blood-stained riches, obtained by theft and usurpation, accompanied by such slaughter and annihilation of those peoples, unless she does much penance."

This last profession of the faith he had kept unfalteringly for more than half a century, was his own supreme vindication and a warning to his countrymen.

A great concourse of people assembled for the obsequies of the venerable Bishop, which were celebrated by the Superior of the Monastery, Fray Domingo de la Para, and his mortal remains, clothed in modest episcopal vestments, with a wooden crozier in his hand, were laid to rest in the Capilla Mayor of the church of Atocha. (77)

The remains of great men are frequently denied a permanent resting place anywhere, and the frequent translations of their bodies not uncommonly end in their final whereabouts becoming a matter of dispute. Records are lost, graves are disturbed, witnesses are untrustworthy, and it finally becomes impossible to ascertain the last resting place of some great personage, whose whereabouts during almost every hour of his life were a matter of public interest and notoriety. Thus it has happened with the remains of this illustrious Spaniard and holy Bishop. According to a statement made by Juan Antolines de Burgos in his manuscript history of the city of Valladolid, (78) the bones of Las Casas were afterwards removed from the Atocha and buried in San Gregorio. The college buildings were in part alienated, thus necessitating another removal of the body, which was then buried in the cloister where the remains of the monks commonly found sepulture. In 1670, Fray Gabriel de Cepedo dedicated a work entitled Historia de la milagrosa y Venerable Virgin de Atocha to Charles II., in which he contradicts the statement of Juan Antolines by affirming that Las Casas rested at that time in the church of Atocha. He does this as one referring to a commonly known and undisputed fact and his published statement has never been contradicted. The old church of Atocha no longer exists, having been demolished to make way for a new edifice, still in process of construction.

The will of Las Casas was opened on July 31, 1566, at the instance of Fray Juan Bautiste, Procurator of the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid, he being the executor. It was found that Las Casas had left all his manuscripts to the college.(79) He requested the rector to have his vast correspondence, consisting of letters and reports sent to him by friars, missionaries, and others throughout all America and covering a period of many years, chronologically arranged and collected in the form of a book, as these documents would illustrate and confirm the truth of all he had alleged against the Spaniards and in favour of the Indians. "Let them be placed," he wrote, "in the college library ad perpetuam rei memoriam, for should God decree the destruction of Spain, it may be seen that it is because of our destruction of the Indies, and His justice may be made apparent."



APPENDIX I. - THE BREVISSIMA RELACION



PROLOGUE OF THE BISHOP DON FRAY BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS OR CASAUS

TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY LORD, THE PRINCE OF THE SPANISH STATES.

Don Philip our Lord. Most High, and Mighty Lord.

As divine Providence has ordained that in his world, for its government, and for the common utility of the human race, Kingdoms and Countries should be constituted in which are Kings almost fathers and pastors, (as Homer calls them) they being consequently the most noble, and most generous members of the Republics, there neither is nor can be reasonable doubt as to the rectitude of their royal hearts. If any defect, wrong, and evil is suffered, there can be no other cause than that the Kings are ignorant of it; for if such were manifested to them, they would extirpate them with supreme industry and watchful diligence. 2. It is seemingly this that the divine Scriptures mean in the Proverbs of Solomon, qui sedet in solio iudicii, dissipat omne malum intuitu suo: because it is thus assumed from the innate and peculiar virtue of the King namely, that the knowledge alone of evil in his Kingdom is absolutely sufficient that he should destroy it; and that not for one moment, as far as in him lies, can he tolerate it. 3. As I have fifty, or more, years of experience in those countries, I have therefore been considering the evils, I have seen committed, the injuries, losses, and misfortunes, such as it would not have been thought could be done by man; such kingdoms, so many, and so large, or to speak better, that most vast and new world of the Indies, conceded and confided by God and his Church to the Kings of Castile, that they should rule and govern it; that they should convert it, and should prosper it temporally, and spiritually. 4. When some of their particular actions are made known to Your Highness, it will not be possible to forbear supplicating His Majesty with importunate insistence, that he should not concede nor permit that which the tyrants have invented, pursued, and put into execution, calling it Conquests; which if permitted, will be repeated; because these acts in themselves, done against those pacific, humble, and mild Indian people, who offend none, are iniquitous, tyrannous, condemned and cursed by every natural, divine, and human law. 5. So as not to keep criminal silence concerning the ruin of numberless souls and bodies that these persons cause, I have decided to print some, though very few, of the innumerable instances I have collected in the past and can relate with truth, in order that Your Highness may read them with greater facility. 6. Although the Archbishop of Toledo, Your Highness' Preceptor, when Bishop of Cartagena, asked me for them and presented them to Your Highness, nevertheless, because of the long journeys by sea and land Your Highness has made, and of the continual royal occupations, it may be that Your Highness either has not read them or has already forgotten them. 7. The daring and unreasonable cupidity of those who count it as nothing to unjustly shed such an immense quantity of human blood, and to deprive those enormous countries of their natural inhabitants and possessors, by slaying millions of people and stealing incomparable treasures, increase every day; and they insist by various means and under various feigned pretexts, that the said Conquests are permitted, without violation of the natural and divine law, and, in consequence, without most grievous mortal sin, worthy of terrible and eternal punishment. I therefore esteemed it right to furnish Your Highness with this very brief summary of a very long history that could and ought to be composed, of the massacres and devastation that have taken place. 8. I supplicate Your Highness to receive and read it with the clemency, and royal benignity he usually shows to his creatures, and servants, who desire to serve solely for the public good and for the prosperity of the State. 9. Having seen and understood the monstrous injustice done to these innocent people in destroying and outraging them, without cause or just motive, but out of avarice alone, and the ambition of those who design such villainous operations, may Your Highness be pleased to supplicate and efficaciously persuade His Majesty to forbid such harmful and detestable practices to those who seek license for them: may he silence this infernal demand for ever, with so much terror, that from this time forward there shall be no one so audacious as to dare but to name it. 10. This—Most High Lord—is most fitting and necessary to do, that God may prosper, preserve and render blessed, both temporally and spiritually, all the State of the royal crown of Castile. Amen.



BREVISSIMA RELACION OR SHORT REPORT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES

The Indies were discovered in the year fourteen hundred and ninety-two. The year following, Spanish Christians went to inhabit them, so that it is since forty-nine years that numbers of Spaniards have gone there: and the first land, that they invaded to inhabit was the large and most delightful Isle of Hispaniola which has a circumference of six hundred leagues. 2. There are numberless other islands, and very large ones, all around on every side, that were all—and we have seen it—as inhabited and full of their native Indian peoples as any country in the world. 3. Of the continent, the nearest part of which is more than two hundred and fifty leagues distant from this Island, more than ten thousand leagues of maritime coast have been discovered, and more is discovered every day; all that has been discovered up to the year forty-nine is full of people, like a hive of bees, so that it seems as though God had placed all, or the greater part of the entire human race in these countries. 4. God has created all these numberless people to be quite the simplest, without malice or duplicity, most obedient, most faithful to their natural Lords, and to the Christians, whom they serve; the most humble, most patient, most peaceful, and calm, without strife nor tumults; not wrangling, nor querulous, as free from uproar, hate and desire of revenge, as any in the world. 5. They are likewise the most delicate people, weak and of feeble constitution, and less than any other can they bear fatigue, and they very easily die of whatsoever infirmity; so much so, that not even the sons of our Princes and of nobles, brought up in royal and gentle life, are more delicate than they; although there are among them such as are of the peasant class. They are also a very poor people, who of worldly goods possess little, nor wish to possess: and they are therefore neither proud, nor ambitious, nor avaricious. 6. Their food is so poor, that it would seem that of the Holy Fathers in the desert was not scantier nor less pleasing. Their way of dressing is usually to go naked, covering the private parts; and at most they cover themselves with a cotton cover, which would be about equal to one and a half or two ells square of cloth. Their beds are of matting, and they mostly sleep in certain things like hanging nets, called in the language of Hispaniola hamacas. 7. They are likewise of a clean, unspoiled, and vivacious intellect, very capable, and receptive to every good doctrine; most prompt to accept our Holy Catholic Faith, to be endowed with virtuous customs; and they have as little difficulty with such things as any people created by God in the world. 8. Once they have begun to learn of matters pertaining to faith, they are so importunate to know them, and in frequenting the sacraments and divine service of the Church, that to tell the truth, the clergy have need to be endowed of God with the gift of pre-eminent patience to bear with them: and finally, I have heard many lay Spaniards frequently say many years ago, (unable to deny the goodness of those they saw) certainly these people were the most blessed of the earth, had they only knowledge of God. 9. Among these gentle sheep, gifted by their Maker with the above qualities, the Spaniards entered as soon as they knew them, like wolves, tigers, and lions which had been starving for many days, and since forty years they have done nothing else; nor do they otherwise at the present day, than outrage, slay, afflict, torment, and destroy them with strange and new, and divers kinds of cruelty, never before seen, nor heard of, nor read of, of which some few will be told below: to such extremes has this gone that, whereas there were more than three million souls, whom we saw in Hispaniola, there are to-day, not two hundred of the native population left. 10. The island of Cuba is almost as long as the distance from Valladolid to Rome; it is now almost entirely deserted. The islands of San Juan [Porto Rico], and Jamaica, very large and happy and pleasing islands, are both desolate. The Lucaya Isles lie near Hispaniola and Cuba to the north and number more than sixty, including those that are called the Giants, and other large and small Islands; the poorest of these, which is more fertile, and pleasing than the King's garden in Seville, is the healthiest country in the world, and contained more than five hundred thousand souls, but to-day there remains not even a single creature. All were killed in transporting them, to Hispaniola, because it was seen that the native population there was disappearing. 11. A ship went three years later to look for the people that had been left after the gathering in, because a good Christian was moved by compassion to convert and win those that were found to Christ; only eleven persons, whom I saw, were found. 12. More than thirty other islands, about the Isle of San Juan, are destroyed and depopulated, for the same reason. All these islands cover more than two thousand leagues of land, entirely depopulated and deserted. 13. We are assured that our Spaniards, with their cruelty and execrable works, have depopulated and made desolate the great continent, and that more than ten Kingdoms, larger than all Spain, counting Aragon and Portugal, and twice as much territory as from Seville to Jerusalem (which is more than two thousand leagues), although formerly full of people, are now deserted. 14. We give as a real and true reckoning, that in the said forty years, more than twelve million persons, men, and women, and children, have perished unjustly and through tyranny, by the infernal deeds and tyranny of the Christians; and I truly believe, nor think I am deceived, that it is more than fifteen. 15. Two ordinary and principal methods have the self-styled Christians, who have gone there, employed in extirpating these miserable nations and removing them from the face of the earth. The one, by unjust, cruel and tyrannous wars. The other, by slaying all those, who might aspire to, or sigh for, or think of liberty, or to escape from the torments that they suffer, such as all the native Lords, and adult men; for generally, they leave none alive in the wars, except the young men and the women, whom they oppress with the hardest, most horrible, and roughest servitude, to which either man or beast, can ever be put. To these two ways of infernal tyranny, all the many and divers other ways, which are numberless, of exterminating these people, are reduced, resolved, or sub-ordered according to kind. 16. The reason why the Christians have killed and destroyed such infinite numbers of souls, is solely because they have made gold their ultimate aim, seeking to load themselves with riches in the shortest time and to mount by high steps, disproportioned to their condition: namely by their insatiable avarice and ambition, the greatest, that could be on the earth. These lands, being so happy and so rich, and the people so humble, so patient, and so easily subjugated, they have had no more respect, nor consideration nor have they taken more account of them (I speak with truth of what I have seen during all the aforementioned time) than,—I will not say of animals, for would to God they had considered and treated them as animals,—but as even less than the dung in the streets. 17. In this way have they cared for their lives—and for their souls: and therefore, all the millions above mentioned have died without faith, and without sacraments. And it is a publicly known truth, admitted, and confessed by all, even by the tyrants and homicides themselves, that the Indians throughout the Indies never did any harm to the Christians: they even esteemed them as coming from heaven, until they and their neighbours had suffered the same many evils, thefts, deaths, violence and visitations at their hands.



Of Hispaniola

In the island of Hispaniola—which was the first, as we have said, to be invaded by the Christians—the immense massacres and destruction of these people began. It was the first to be destroyed and made into a desert. The Christians began by taking the women and children, to use and to abuse them, and to eat of the substance of their toil and labour, instead of contenting themselves with what the Indians gave them spontaneously, according to the means of each. Such stores are always small; because they keep no more than they ordinarily need, which they acquire with little labour; but what is enough for three households, of ten persons each, for a month, a Christian eats and destroys in one day. From their using force, violence and other kinds of vexations, the Indians began to perceive that these men could not have come from heaven. 2. Some hid their provisions, others, their wives and children: others fled to the mountains to escape from people of such harsh and terrible intercourse. The Christians gave them blows in the face, beatings and cudgellings, even laying hands on the lords of the land. They reached such recklessness and effrontery, that a Christian captain violated the lawful wife of the chief king and lord of all the island. 3. After this deed, the Indians consulted to devise means of driving the Christians from their country. They took up their weapons, which are poor enough and little fitted for attack, being of little force and not even good for defence; For this reason, all their wars are little more than games with sticks, such as children play in our countries. 4. The Christians, with their horses and swords and lances, began to slaughter and practise strange cruelty among them. They penetrated into the country and spared neither children nor the aged, nor pregnant women, nor those in child labour, all of whom they ran through the body and lacerated, as though they were assaulting so many lambs herded in their sheepfold. 5. They made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow: or they opened up his bowels. They tore the babes from their mothers' breast by the feet, and dashed their heads against the rocks. Others they seized by the shoulders and threw into the rivers, laughing and joking, and when they fell into the water they exclaimed: "boil body of so and so!" They spitted the bodies of other babes, together with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords. 6. They made a gallows just high enough for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens, in honour and reverence of our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive. 7. They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they burned them. They cut off the hands of all they wished to take alive, made them carry them fastened on to them, and said: "Go and carry letters": that is; take the news to those who have fled to the mountains. 8. They generally killed the lords and nobles in the following way. They made wooden gridirons of stakes, bound them upon them, and made a slow fire beneath: thus the victims gave up the spirit by degrees, emitting cries of despair in their torture. 9. I once saw that they had four or five of the chief lords stretched on the gridirons to burn them, and I think also there were two or three pairs of gridirons, where they were burning others; and because they cried aloud and annoyed the captain or prevented him sleeping, he commanded that they should strangle them: the officer who was burning them was worse than a hangman and did not wish to suffocate them, but with his own hands he gagged them, so that they should not make themselves heard, and he stirred up the fire, until they roasted slowly, according to his pleasure. I know his name, and knew also his relations in Seville. I saw all the above things and numberless others. 9. And because all the people who could flee, hid among the mountains and climbed the crags to escape from men so deprived of humanity, so wicked, such wild beasts, exterminators and capital enemies of all the human race, the Spaniards taught and trained the fiercest boar-hounds to tear an Indian to pieces as soon as they saw him, so that they more willingly attacked and ate one, than if he had been a boar. These hounds made great havoc and slaughter. 10. And because sometimes, though rarely, the Indians killed a few Christians for just cause, they made a law among themselves, that for one Christian whom the Indians killed, the Christians should kill a hundred Indians.



The Kingdoms that were in Hispaniola

There were five very large and principal kingdoms in this island of Hispaniola, and five very mighty kings, whom all the other numberless lords obeyed, although some of the lords of certain separate provinces did not recognise any of them as superior. One kingdom was called Magua, with the last syllable accented, which means the kingdom of the plain.

This plain is one of the most notable and marvellous things in the world, for it stretches eighty leagues from the sea on the south to that on the north. Its width is five leagues, attaining to eight and ten, and it has very high mountains on both sides.

2. More than thirty thousand rivers, and brooks water it among which there are twelve as large as the Ebro, the Duero, and the Guadalquivir. And all the rivers that flow from the western mountain, which number twenty or twenty-five thousand, are very rich in gold. On that mountain (or mountains) lies the province of Cibao, from which the mines of Cibao are named, whence comes that famous gold, superior in carat, which is held in great esteem here. 3. The king, and lord of this realm was called Guarionex. He had such great lords as his vassals, that one alone of them mustered sixteen thousand warriors to serve Guarionex; and I knew some of them. This king Guarionex was very obedient, virtuous and, by nature, peaceful and devoted to the king of Castile. And in certain years, every householder amongst his people gave by his orders, a bell full of gold; and afterwards, because they could not fill it, they cut it in two and gave that half full; because the Indians had little or no ability to collect, or dig the gold from the mines. 4. This prince offered to serve the King of Castile, by having as much land cultivated as would extend from Isabella, which was the first habitation of the Christians to the town of San Domingo, which is a good fifty leagues, in order that gold should not be asked of him; because he said, and with truth, that his vassals knew not how to collect it. I know he was able to do the cultivation he proposed to undertake, most gladly; and it would have rendered the King more than three million crowns yearly, and, owing to this cultivation, there would have been at the present time in this island fifty towns as large as Seville. 5. The payment they awarded to this great and good king and lord, was to dishonour him; a captain, a bad Christian violating his wife. Although he might have bided his time to assemble his people and revenge himself, he determined to depart alone, and to hide himself and die exiled from his kingdom and state, in a province called Ciguay, of which the ruler was his vassal. 6. When the Christians became aware that he was missing, he could not hide himself from them. They made war on that ruler who sheltered him, where, after great slaughter, they found and captured him. When he was taken, they put him on a ship in chains, to bring him to Castile in fetters. The ship was lost at sea, and many Christians were drowned with him, besides a great quantity of gold, including the great nugget, which was as big as a cake and weighed three thousand and six hundred crowns, because God was pleased to avenge such great injustice. 7. The second kingdom was called Marien, where now is the royal port at the end of the plain towards the north. It was larger than the kingdom of Portugal and was certainly much more prosperous, and worthy of being populated; and it has many, and high mountains, and very rich gold, and copper mines. Its king was named Guacanagari (with the last letter accented) under whom there were many and very great lords, many of whom I saw and knew. 8. In the country of this king, the old Admiral(80) who discovered the Indies, first went to stay. When he discovered the island he, and all the Christians who accompanied him, was received the first time by the said Guacanagari with great humanity and charity. He met with such a gentle and agreeable reception, and such help and guidance when the ship in which the Admiral sailed was lost there, that in his own country, and from his own father a better would not have been possible. This I know from the recital and words of the same Admiral. This king, flying from the massacres and cruelty of the Christians, died a wanderer in the mountains, ruined and deprived of his state. All the other lords, his subjects, died under tyranny and servitude, as will be told below. 9. The third kingdom and dominion was Maguana, a country equally marvellous, most healthy and most fertile; where now the best sugar of the island is made. Its king was called Caonabo. In strength, and dignity, in gravity, and pomp he surpassed all the others. They captured this king with great cunning and malice, he being safe in his own house. They put him on a ship to take him to Castile and, as there were six ships in the port ready to leave, God, who wished to show that this, together with the other things, was a great iniquity and injustice, sent a tempest that night that sank all the vessels, drowning all the Christians on board of them. The said Caonabo perished, loaded with chains, and fetters. 10. This lord had three or four very brave brothers as powerful and valiant as himself. They, seeing the unjust imprisonment of their brother and lord, and witnessing the destruction and slaughter the Christians perpetrated in the other kingdoms, (particularly after they knew that the king their brother was dead) armed themselves to attack the Christians and avenge themselves. The Christians went against them with some horsemen. Horses are the most deadly arm possible among the Indians. They worked such havoc and slaughter, that they desolated, and depopulated half the kingdom. 11. The fourth kingdom is that which is called Xaragua. This was as the marrow, or the Court of all this island. It surpassed all the other kingdoms in the politeness of its more ornate speech as well as in more cultured good breeding, and in the multitude and generosity of the nobles. For there were lords and nobles in great numbers. In their costumes and beauty, the people were superior to all others. 12. The king and lord of it was called Behechio and he had a sister called Anacaona. Both rendered great services to the King of Castile, and immense kindnesses to the Christians, delivering them from many mortal dangers: and when the King Behechio died, Anacaona was left mistress of the kingdom. 13. The governor(81) who ruled this island arrived there once, with sixty horsemen and more than three hundred foot. The horsemen alone were sufficient to ruin the whole island and the terra firma. More than three hundred lords were assembled, whom he had summoned and reassured. He lured the principal ones by fraud, into a straw-house, and setting fire to it, he burnt them alive. 14. All the others, together with numberless people, were put to the sword, and lance. And to do honour to the Lady Anacaona, they hanged her. It happened that some Christians, either out of compassion or avarice, took some children to save them, placing them behind them on their horses, and another Spaniard approached from behind and ran his lance through them. Another, if a child was on the ground, cut off its legs with his sword. Some, who could flee from this inhuman cruelty, crossed to a little island lying eight leagues distant in the sea; and the said governor condemned all such to be slaves, because they had fled from the carnage. 15. The fifth kingdom was called Higuey: and an old queen called Higuanama ruled it, whom they hanged. And I saw numberless people being burnt alive, torn, and tortured in divers, and new ways, while all whom they took alive were enslaved. 16. And because so many particulars happened in this slaughter and destruction of people, that they could not be contained in a lengthy description—for in truth I believe that however many I told, I could not express the thousandth part of the whole—I will simply conclude the above mentioned wars by saying and affirming, before God and my conscience, that the Indians gave no more cause, nor were more to blame for all this injustice done unto them, and for the other said wickedness I could tell, but omit, than a monastery of good and well ordered monks would have given that they should be robbed and killed, and that those who escaped death, should be placed in perpetual captivity and servitude, as slaves. 17. And furthermore, I attest, that in all the space of time during which the multitudes of the population of this island were being killed and destroyed, as far as I can believe or conjecture, they did not commit a single mortal sin against the Christians that merited punishment by man. And of those which are reserved to God alone, such as the desire of vengeance, hatred and rancour, that these people might harbour against such mortal enemies as were the Christians, I believe very few of the Indians committed any such. They were little more impetuous and harsh, judging from the great experience I have of them, than children or youths of ten or twelve years. 18. I have certain and infallible knowledge, that the Indians always made most just war on the Christians while the Christians never had a single just one with the Indians; on the contrary, they were all diabolical and most unjust, and much worse than can be said of any tyrant in the world; and I affirm the same of what they have done throughout the Indies. 19. When the wars were finished, and with them the murder, they divided among them all the men, (youths, women, and children being usually spared) giving to one, thirty, to another forty, and to another a hundred and two hundred, according to the favour each enjoyed with the chief tyrant, whom they called governor. Having thus distributed them, they assigned them to each Christian, under the pretence that the latter should train them in the catholic faith; thus to men who are generally all idiots, and very cruel, avaricious and vicious, they gave the care of souls. 20. The care and thought these Spaniards took, was to send the men to the mines to dig gold, which is an intolerable labour; and they put the women into dwellings, which are huts, to dig and cultivate the land; a strong and robust man's work. They gave food neither to the one, nor the other, except grass, and things that have no substance. The milk dried up in the breasts of nursing women and thus, within a short time, all the infants died. 21. And as the husbands were separated and never saw their wives, generation diminished among them; the men died of fatigue and hunger in the mines and others perished in dwellings or huts, for the same reason. It was in this way that such multitudes of people were destroyed in this island, as indeed all those in the world might be destroyed by like means. 22. It is impossible to recount the burdens with which their owners loaded them, more than three and four arobas(82) weight, making them walk a hundred and two hundred leagues. The same Christians had themselves carried by Indians in hamacas, which are like nets; for they always used them as beasts of burden. They had wounds on their shoulders and backs, like animals, all wither-wrung. To tell likewise of the whip-lashings, the beatings, the cuffs, the blows, the curses, and a thousand other kinds of torments to which their masters treated them, while, in truth, they were working hard, would take much time and much paper; and would be something to amaze mankind. 23. It must be noted, that the destruction of this island and of these lands was begun when the death of the most Serene Queen, Dona Isabella was known here, which was in the year 1504. For up to that time, only some provinces in the island had been ruined by unjust wars, but not entirely: and these were nearly all kept hidden from the Queen. Because the Queen, who is in blessed glory, used great solicitude and marvellous zeal for the health and prosperity of these people, as we ourselves, who have seen the examples of it with our eyes and touched them with our hands, well know. 24. Another rule to be noted is this; that in all parts of the Indies where the Christians have gone and have passed, they ever did the same murder among the Indians, and used tyranny and abominable oppression against these innocent people; and they added many more and greater and newer ways of torment. They became ever crueller, because God let them precipitate themselves the more swiftly into reprobate judgments and sentiments.



The Two Islands of San Juan and Jamaica

In 1509 the Spaniards passed over to the islands of San Juan and Jamaica, (83) which were so many gardens and hives of bees, with the same object and design they had accomplished in Hispaniola, where they committed the great outrages and iniquities narrated above. They even added to them more notorious ones, and the greatest cruelty; slaying, burning, roasting, and, throwing the Indians to fierce dogs. They oppressed, tormented, and afflicted all those unhappy innocents in the mines, and with other labours, until they were consumed and destroyed, because there were in the said isles more than a million souls, and to-day there are not two hundred in each. All have perished without faith and without sacraments.



The Island of Cuba

In the year 1511 the Spaniards passed over to the island of Cuba, (84) which as I said, is as long as from Valladolid to Rome, and where there were great and populous provinces. They began and ended in the above manner, only with incomparably greater cruelty. Here many notable things occurred. 2. A very high prince and lord, named Hatuey, who had fled with many of his people from Hispaniola to Cuba, to escape the calamity and inhuman operations of the Christians, having received news from some Indians that the Christians were crossing over, assembled many or all of his people, and addressed them thus. 3. "You already know that it is said the Christians are coming here; and you have experience of how they have treated the lords so and so and those people of Hayti (which is Hispaniola); they come to do the same here. Do you know perhaps why they do it?" The people answered no; except that they were by nature cruel and wicked. "They do it," said he, "not alone for this, but because they have a God whom they greatly adore and love; and to make us adore Him they strive to subjugate us and take our lives." He had near him a basket full of gold and jewels and he said. "Behold here is the God of the Christians, let us perform Areytos before Him, if you will (these are dances in concert and singly); and perhaps we shall please Him, and He will command that they do us no harm." 4. All exclaimed; it is well! it is well! They danced before it, till they were all tired, after which the lord Hatuey said; "Note well that in any event if we preserve the gold, they will finally have to kill us, to take it from us: let us throw it into this river." They all agreed to this proposal, and they threw the gold into a great river in that place. 5. This prince and lord continued retreating before the Christians when they arrived at the island of Cuba, because he knew them, but when he encountered them he defended himself; and at last they took him. And merely because he fled from such iniquitous and cruel people, and defended himself against those who wished to kill and oppress him, with all his people and offspring until death, they burnt him alive. 6. When he was tied to the stake, a Franciscan monk, a holy man, who was there, spoke as much as he could to him, in the little time that the executioner granted them, about God and some of the teachings of our faith, of which he had never before heard; he told him that if he would believe what was told him, he would go to heaven where there was glory and eternal rest; and if not, that he would go to hell, to suffer perpetual torments and punishment. After thinking a little, Hatuey asked the monk whether the Christians went to heaven; the monk answered that those who were good went there. The prince at once said, without any more thought, that he did not wish to go there, but rather to hell so as not to be where Spaniards were, nor to see such cruel people. This is the renown and honour, that God and our faith have acquired by means of the Christians who have gone to the Indies. 7. On one occasion they came out ten leagues from a great settlement to meet us, bringing provisions and gifts, and when we met them, they gave us a great quantity of fish and bread and other victuals, with everything they could supply. All of a sudden the devil entered into the bodies of the Christians, and in my presence they put to the sword, without any motive or cause whatsoever, more than three thousand persons, men, women, and children, who were seated before us. Here I beheld such great cruelty as living man has never seen nor thought to see. 8. Once I sent messengers to all the lords of the province of Havana, assuring them that if they would not absent themselves but come to receive us, no harm should be done them; all the country was terrorized because of the past slaughter, and I did this by the captain's advice. When we arrived in the province, twenty-one princes and lords came to receive us; and at once the captain violated the safe conduct I had given them and took them prisoners. The following day he wished to burn them alive, saying it was better so because those lords would some time or other do us harm. I had the greatest difficulty to deliver them from the flames but finally I saved them. 9. After all the Indians of this island were reduced to servitude and misfortune like those of Hispaniola, and when they saw they were all perishing inevitably, some began to flee to the mountains; others to hang themselves in despair; husbands and wives hanged themselves, together with their children, and through the cruelty of one very tyrannical Spaniard whom I knew, more than two hundred Indians hanged themselves. In this way numberless people perished. 10. There was an officer of the King in this island, to whose share three hundred Indians fell; and by the end of three months he had, through labour in the mines, caused the death of two hundred and seventy; so that he had only thirty left, which was the tenth part. The authorities afterwards gave him as many again, and again he killed them: and they continued to give, and he to kill, until he came to die, and the devil carried away his soul. 11. In three or four months, I being present, more than seven thousand children died of hunger, their fathers and mothers having been taken to the mines. Other dreadful things did I see. 12. Afterwards the Spaniards resolved to go and hunt the Indians who were in the mountains, where they perpetrated marvellous massacres. Thus they ruined and depopulated all this island which we beheld not long ago; and it excites pity, and great anguish to see it deserted, and reduced to a solitude.



The Mainland

In the year 1514 there passed over to the continent an unhappy Governor(85) who was the cruellest of tyrants, destitute of compassion or prudence, almost an instrument of divine fury. His intention was to settle large numbers of Spaniards in that country. And although several tyrants had visited the continent, and had robbed and scandalised many people, their stealing and ravaging had been confined to the sea-coast; but this man surpassed all the others who had gone before him, and those of all the Islands; and his villainous operations outdid all the past abominations. 2. Not only did he depopulate the sea-coast, but also countries and large kingdoms where he killed numberless people, sending them to hell. This man devastated many leagues of country extending above Deldarien to the kingdom and provinces of Nicaragua inclusive, which is more than five hundred leagues; it was the best, the happiest, and the most populous land in the world. There were very many great lords and numberless settlements, and very great wealth of gold: for until that time, never had there been so much seen above ground. For although Spain had been almost filled with gold from Hispaniola, and that of the finest, it had been dug by the labour of the Indians from the bowels of the earth, out of the aforesaid mines, where, as has been said, they perished. 3. This governor and his people invented new means of cruelty and of torturing the Indians, to force them to show, and give them gold. There was a captain of his who, in an incursion, ordered by him to rob and extirpate the people, killed more than forty thousand persons, putting them to the sword, burning them alive, throwing them to fierce dogs, and torturing them with various kind of tortures: these acts were witnessed by a Franciscan friar with his own eyes, for he went with the captain, and he was called Fray Francisco de San Roman. 4. The most pernicious blindness of those who have governed the Indies up to the present day, in providing for the conversion and salvation of these people, which (to tell the truth) they have always postponed, although with words they have represented and pretended otherwise, reached such depths that they have commanded notice to be given the Indians to accept the Holy faith and render obedience to the kings of Castile; otherwise war would be made on them with fire and blood, and they would be killed and made slaves etc. 5. As though the Son of God, who died for each of them, had commanded in his law, when he said Euntes, docete omnes gentes that intimation should be sent to peaceful and quiet infidels, in their own countries, that, if they did not receive it at once, without other teaching or doctrine, and that if they did not subject themselves to the dominion of a king, of whom they had never heard, nor seen, and particularly whose messengers are so cruel, so wicked, and such horrible tyrants, they should therefore, lose their rights, their lands and liberty, their wives and children, with all their lives; such a blunder is stupid and worthy of infamy, obloquy, and hell. 6. This wretched and unhappy governor, in giving instructions as to the said intimations, the better to justify them—they being of themselves unseemly, unreasonable and most unjust—commanded these thieves sent by him, to act as follows: when they had determined to invade and plunder some province, where they had heard that gold was to be found, they should go when the Indians were in their towns, and safe in their houses; these wretched Spanish assassins went by night and, halting at midnight half a league from the town, they published or read the said intimation among themselves saying: Princes and Indians of such a place in this continent, we make known unto you, that there is one God, one Pope, and one King of Castile, who is Lord of this country; come at once to render him obedience etc. otherwise know that we shall make war on you, kill you, and put you into slavery etc. And towards sunrise, the innocent natives being still asleep with their wives and children, they attacked the town, setting fire to the houses that were usually of straw, burning the children, the women and many others alive, before they awoke. They killed whom they would, and those whom they took alive, they afterwards killed with tortures, to force them to indicate other towns where there was gold, or more than was to be found there; and the others that survived, they put into chains as slaves. Then when the fire was extinguished or low they went to look for the gold that was in the houses. 7. In this way and with such operations, were this wretched man and all the bad Christians he took with him occupied during the year 1514, till the year 1521 or 1522, sending on these raids six or more servants, who collected for him a certain portion of all the gold and pearls and jewels the Spaniards stole, and of the slaves they captured, besides the share that belonged to him as Captain General. The officers of the king did the same, each sending as many boys or servants as he could. And also the first bishop of that kingdom sent his servants to obtain part of this profit. 9. As far as I can judge they stole, during that time in the said kingdom, more gold than a million crowns; and I believe I understate it; and it will not be found that, of all they stole, they sent the King more than three thousand crowns. And they destroyed more than eight hundred thousand souls. The other tyrant governors who succeeded them till the year 1533 killed, and allowed to be killed the survivors with the tyrannical servitude that followed the war. 10. Among the other numberless knaveries he committed and permitted during the time he governed, was this one; a prince, or lord, having of his own will, or more likely out of fear, given him nine thousand crowns, he was not satisfied with this sum so he took the said lord, bound him seated to a stake, with his feet distended and exposed to fire, to force him to give them a larger quantity of gold; and he [the chief] sent to his house and brought other three thousand crowns; they tortured him again, and as he gave no more gold, either because he had none or did not wish to give it, they kept him thus, till the marrow oozed out from the soles of his feet; and thus he died. Numberless times they killed and tortured lords in this way to get gold from them. 11. Another time a company of Spaniards, while going to assassinate, came to a mountain where a great number of people were sheltered and in hiding, to escape from the pestilential and horrible operations of the Christians; assaulting it unexpectedly they captured seventy or eighty young girls and women; and left many dead whom they had killed. 12. The next day many Indians assembled and pursued the Christians, driven by their anxiety for their wives and daughters to fight; and the Christians finding themselves at close quarters, and not wishing to disorder their company of horse, drove their swords into the bodies of the young girls and women, and of all the eighty they left not even one alive. The Indians writhing with grief cried out, and said: "O wretched men, cruel Christians, you kill Iras!" (the women in that country are called Iras). They meant that to kill women is a sign of abominable, cruel and bestial men. 13. Ten or fifteen leagues from Panama there was a great lord called Paris, who had great wealth of gold. The Christians went thither and he received them as though they were his brothers: he willingly presented the captain with fifty thousand castellanos. It seemed to the captain and to the Christians that one who spontaneously gave that quantity, must have a great treasure; which was the aim and recompense of their effort. They dissimulated, saying they wished to depart: towards sunrise they returned and attacked the unsuspecting town; and they set fire to it and burnt it. They killed and burnt many people, and stole other fifty or sixty thousand castellanos, and the prince, or lord fled to escape death or capture. 14. He quickly assembled all the people he could, and in two or three days came upon the Christians, who were carrying away his hundred and thirty or forty (86) thousand castellanos, and fell upon them manfully, killing fifty Christians, recapturing all the gold while the others escaped badly wounded. 15. Afterwards, many Christians turned on the said lord and destroyed him and many of his people; they killed the rest with the usual servitude, so that to-day there is neither sign nor any vestige whatsoever that there was ever a town or born man where formerly was thirty leagues of dominion well populated. The murders and destruction done by that miserable man and his company in that kingdom which he devastated, are without number.



The Province of Nicaragua

In the year 1522 or 1523 this same tyrant invaded the most delightful province of Nicaragua to subjugate it; it was an unlucky hour when he entered it. Who could adequately set forth the happiness, healthfulness, agreeableness, prosperity, and the number of dwellings and concourse of the people that were there? it was truly a marvellous thing to see how full it was of towns, stretching for a length of nearly three or four leagues, thickly planted with the most marvellous fruit trees; which was the reason that there was such an immense population. 2. So much injury and assassination, so much cruelty, wickedness and injustice, was done to those people by that tyrant, together with the others, his companions, that human language would not suffice to relate it; for he was accompanied by all those who had helped to destroy all the other kingdom. The land being flat and open, the natives could not hide in the mountains, and their country was so delightful, that it was with difficulty and great grief that they brought themselves to abandon it; for this reason they suffered, and will suffer great persecutions, and they tolerated the tyranny and the slavery of the Christians to the extent of their endurance, and because they are naturally a very humble and pacific people. 3. He sent fifty mounted soldiers, and had the inhabitants of a whole province, larger than the country of Rusenon(87) killed with lances, without leaving man nor woman, old nor young alive. He did this for a very trifling reason; such as because they did not come as soon as he called them, or because they did not bring him enough loads of maize, (which is the grain of that country) or enough Indians to serve him or some other of his company: the land being flat, no one could escape from their horses and from their infernal wrath. 4. He sent some Spaniards to invade other provinces, which means to go and murder the Indians; and he let the assassins bring away as many Indians as they pleased from the peaceful settlements, to serve them; they put these Indians in chains so that they should not set down the loads weighing three arobas that they bound on their backs. And it happened sometimes out of the many times he did it, that out of four thousand Indians, not six individuals returned alive to their homes, because they were left dead by the way. 5. And when some became tired, or lame on account of the great weights, or fell ill through hunger, fatigue and weakness, they cut off their heads at the neck so as not to loosen them from their chains, and the head fell to one side, and the body to the other. It may be imagined how their companions would feel. When orders were given for similar expeditions, the Indians, knowing from experience that none who started ever returned, went weeping, and sighing, and saying: "Those are the roads, we trod to serve the Christians; and although we laboured hard, we finally returned after some time to our own homes and to our wives and children; but now we go without hope of ever returning, nor of seeing them again, or of having life any more." 6. Once, because it suited his inclination to make a new distribution of Indians, and also, they say, to take them from his enemies and give them to his friends, the Indians were unable to plant their crops; and as bread ran short, the Christians took from the Indians all the maize they had to maintain themselves and their children; in consequence more than twenty or thirty thousand souls died of hunger; and it happened, that a certain woman was driven by hunger to kill her own son for food. 7. As each of the towns was a very pleasing garden, as has been said, the Christians settled in them; each one in the place that fell to his share or, (as they say,) was committed to his charge; each one carried on his own cultivation, supporting himself with the meagre provisions of the Indians, thus robbing them of their private lands and inheritances, by which they maintained themselves. 8. In this wise the Spaniards kept within their own houses all the Indian lords, the aged, the women, and the lads, all of whom they compelled to serve them day and night, without rest. They employed even the children, as soon as they could stand, in excess of their powers. And in this way they have wasted, and to-day still waste those few that are left, not allowing them to have either a home or anything of their own. In this they even surpassed the similar injustice they perpetrated in Hispaniola. 9. They have exhausted and oppressed, and caused the premature death of many people in this Province, making them carry planks and timber to build vessels in the port, thirty leagues distant; also by sending them to seek for honey and wax in the mountains, where they are devoured by tigers; and they have loaded and do still load pregnant and confined women, like animals. 10. The most horrible pestilence that has principally destroyed this Province, was the license which that governor gave to the Spaniards, to ask slaves from the princes and lords of the towns. Every four or five months, or whenever one obtained the favour or license from the said governor, he asked the lord for fifty slaves threatening, if he did not give them, to burn him alive or to deliver him to fierce dogs. 11. As the Indians usually do not keep slaves and, at most a lord has two or three or four, the lords went through their towns and took, first all the orphans; next, of those who had two children they asked one, and of those who had three, two: and in this way the lord completed the number demanded by the tyrant, amidst great wailing and weeping in the town, for they seem, more than any other people, to love their children. 12. By such conduct from the year 1523 to 1533, they ruined all this kingdom. During six or seven years, five or six vessels carried on this traffic, taking all this multitude of Indians to sell them as slaves in Panama and Peru, where they all died. It has been verified and experienced a thousand times that, by taking the Indians away from their native country, they at once die more easily: because the Spaniards habitually give them little to eat and never relieve them from labour, for they are only sold by some and bought by others, to make them work. In this way they have carried off more than five hundred thousand souls from this province making slaves of people who were as free as I am. 13. In their infernal wars and the horrible captivity into which they put the Indians up to the present time, the Spaniards have killed more than another five or six hundred thousand persons, and they still continue. All these massacres have occurred in the space of fourteen years. At present they kill daily in the said province of Nicaragua, from four to five thousand persons, with servitude and continual oppression; it being, as was said, one of the most populous in the world.



New Spain

New Spain was discovered in the year 1517. (88) And the discoverers gave serious offence to the Indians in that discovery, and committed several homicides. In the year 1518 men calling themselves Christians went there to ravage and to kill; although they say that they go to populate. And from the said year 1518, till the present day (and we are in 1542) all the iniquity, all the injustice, all the violence and tyranny that the Christians have practised in the Indies have reached the limit and overflowed: because they have entirely lost all fear of God and the King, they have forgotten themselves as well. So many and such are the massacres and cruelty, the murder and destruction, the pillage and theft, the violence and tyranny throughout the numerous kingdoms of the great continent, that everything told by me till now is nothing compared to what was practised here. 2. Yet, even had we related everything, including what we have omitted, it would not be comparable, either in number or magnitude, to the acts which, from the said year 1518 till the present day of this year 1542 have been committed. In this day of the month of September the gravest and most abominable acts are done and committed; because the rule we have mentioned above verifies itself, that from the commencement onwards they have ever been increasing in greater wickedness and infernal works. 3. Consequently, from the invasion of New Spain which was on April 18th of the said year 1518 till the year 1530, which was twelve entire years, the murders and the massacres lasted. With bloody hands and cruel swords the Spaniards continually wrought in nearly four hundred and fifty leagues of country belonging to the City of Mexico and its surroundings, which numbers four or five great kingdoms, as large and much more delightful than Spain. 4. All these countries were more populous than Toledo, Seville, Valladolid, and Zaragoza, together with Barcelona; because these cities have not, nor did they ever have so many inhabitants when they were at their fullest, as God placed, and as are to be found in all the said leagues; to go around which, one must walk more than a thousand and eight hundred leagues. 5. In the said twelve years more than four million souls have been killed by the Spaniards with swords and lances, and by burning alive women and children, young and old in the said extent of 450 leagues, during the time what they call "conquests" lasted. In fact, they were violent invasions by cruel tyrants, condemned not only by the divine law, but by all human laws; they were much worse than those of the Turks to destroy the Christian Church. Besides all this, there are the deaths they have caused, and cause every day by the tyrannical servitude, the daily afflictions and oppressions above described. 6. Neither language, nor knowledge, nor human industry could suffice to relate in detail the dreadful operations of those public and mortal enemies of the human race, acting in concert in some places and singly in others, within the aforesaid circuit. In truth, respecting the circumstances and conditions that rendered certain deeds more grievous, no exercise of diligence and time and writing could hardly explain them sufficiently. However I will recount something of some of the countries, protesting on my oath, that I believe I am not telling the thousandth part.

Among other massacres there was one took place in a town of more than thirty thousand inhabitants called Cholula; all the lords of the land, and its surroundings, and above all the priests, with the high priest came out in procession to meet the Christians, with great submission and reverence, and conducted them in their midst to lodge in the town in the dwelling houses of the prince, or principal lords; the Spaniards determined on a massacre here or, as they say, a chastisement to sow terror and the fame of their valour throughout that country, because in all the lands the Spaniards have invaded, their aim has always been to make themselves feared of those meek lambs, by a cruel and signal slaughter. 2. To accomplish this, they first sent to summon all the lords and nobles of the town and of all its dependencies, together with the principal lord; and when they came, and began to speak to the captain of the Spaniards, they were promptly captured, without any one who could give the alarm, noticing it. 3. They had asked for five or six thousand Indians to carry their baggage, all of whom immediately came and were confined in the courtyards of the houses. To see these Indians when they prepared themselves to carry the loads of the Spaniards, was a thing to excite great compassion for they come naked, with only the private parts covered, and with some little nets on their shoulders containing their meagre food; they all sit down on their heels, like so many meek lambs. 4. Being all collected and assembled in the courtyard, with other people who were there, some armed Spaniards were stationed at the gates of the courtyard to guard them: thereupon all the others seized their swords and lances, and butchered all those lambs, not even one escaping. 5. Two or three days later, many Indians who had hidden, and saved themselves under the dead bodies (so many were they) came out alive covered with blood, and they went before the Spaniards, weeping and asking for mercy, that they should not kill them: no mercy nor any compassion was shown them; on the contrary, as they came out, the Spaniards cut them to pieces. 6. More than one hundred of the lords whom they had bound, the captain commanded to be burned, and impaled alive on stakes stuck in the ground. One lord however, perhaps the chief and king of that country, managed to free himself, and with twenty or thirty or forty other men, he escaped to the great temple, which was like a fortress and was called Quu, where they defended themselves during a great part of the day. 7. But the Spaniards, from whom nothing is safe, especially among these people destitute of weapons, set fire to the temple and burned them, they crying out: "wretched men! what have we done unto you? why do you kill us? go then! in Mexico you will find our universal lord Montezuma who will take vengeance upon you for us." It is said, that while those five, or six thousand men were being put to the sword in the courtyard, the captain of the Spaniards stood singing.

Mira Nero de Tarpeya A Roma como se ardia. Gritos dan ninos y viejos, Y el de nada se dolia.

(89) 8. They perpetrated another great slaughter in the town of Tepeaca, which was much larger and more populous than Cholula; they put numberless people to the sword with great and particular kinds of cruelty. 9. From Cholula they took their way towards Mexico; and the great king Montezuma sent them thousands of presents; and lords and people came to meet them with festivities while on their arrival at the paved road to Mexico, which is two leagues long, his own brother appeared, accompanied by many great lords bearing many presents of gold, silver and clothing. At the entrance of the city he himself descended from a golden litter, with all his great court to receive them and to accompany them to the palaces, where he had given orders they should be lodged; on that same day, according to what was told me by some of those present, they managed by some feint, while he suspected nothing, to take the great king Montezuma prisoner; and then they put him in fetters and placed a guard of eighty men over him. 10. But leaving all this, of which there would be many, and great things to say, I only wish to relate a notable thing that those tyrants did here. When the captain of the Spaniards went to capture a certain other captain, (90) who came to attack him, he left one of his captains with, I think, a hundred men or more, to keep guard over the king Montezuma; these Spaniards decided to do another extraordinary thing to increase the fear of them throughout the land, a practice, as I have said, to which they often resorted. 11. All the Indians, plebeians as well as nobles of Montezuma's capital and court, thought of nothing else but to give pleasure to their captive monarch. Among other festivals they celebrated for him, one was the performance in all the quarters and squares of the city of those customary dances, called by them mitotes, and in the islands, areytos. In these dances they wear all their richest ornaments, and as this is their principal enjoyment and festivity, all take part in it. The greatest nobles and knights and those of royal blood, according to their rank, performed their dances and ceremonies nearest the buildings where their sovereign was a prisoner. 12. More than 2000 sons of lords were assembled in the place nearest to the said palaces who were the flower and the best nobility of all Montezuma's empire. The captain [Alvarado] of the Spaniards went thither with a squadron of his men and he sent other squadrons to all the other parts of the city, where they were performing the said dances, pretending that they went to witness them; and he commanded that at a certain hour all should fall upon them. 13. And while the Indians were intent on their dances in all security he cried, Santiago! and fell upon them; with their drawn swords the Spaniards pierced those naked and delicate bodies, and shed that generous blood, so that not even one was left alive. The same was done by the others in the other squares. 14. This was a thing that filled all those kingdoms and people with amazement, anguish, lamentation bitterness and grief. And until the end of the world, or till they are entirely destroyed, they will not cease in their dances, to lament and sing—as we say here in romances,—that calamity and the destruction of all their hereditary nobility, in whom they had gloried for so many years back. 15. Upon witnessing such injustice and unheard of cruelty, inflicted upon so many innocent and inoffensive people, the Indians, who had tolerated with patience the equally unjust imprisonment of their supreme monarch, because he himself had commanded them to refrain from attacking or making war on the Christians, now took up arms throughout the city and attacked the Spaniards, many of whom were wounded and with difficulty found safety in flight. 16. Threatening the captive Montezuma with a dagger at his breast, they forced him to show himself on the battlements, and to command the Indians to cease besieging the house and calm themselves. His subjects had no mind to obey him any further, but on the contrary, they conferred about electing another sovereign and commander who would lead them in their battles. 17. As the captain [Cortes] who had gone to the port, was already returning victorious, and had announced his approach and was bringing with him many more Christians, the fighting ceased for three or four days, until he entered the city. When he had entered and numberless people were assembled, from all the country, the fighting became so general and lasted for so many days that the Spaniards, fearing they would all perish, decided to leave the city by night. 18. Learning their intention, the Indians killed a great number of Christians on the bridges of the lagoon, in what was a most just and holy war; for their cause was most just, as has been said, and will be approved by any reasonable and fair man. After the fighting in the city, the Christians were re-inforced and executed strange and marvellous slaughter among the Indians, killing numberless people and burning many alive including great lords. (91) 19. After the greatest and abominable tyranny practised by these men in the City of Mexico, and in the towns throughout the country for ten, fifteen and twenty leagues in those parts, during which numberless people were killed, this, their tyrannical pestilence passed onwards, spreading into, infecting and ruining the province of Panuco, where there was a marvellous multitude of people: equally marvellous were the massacres and slaughter that they performed there. 20. Afterwards they destroyed the province of Tututepeche in the same way; then the province of Spilcingo; then that of Colima; each of which is larger than the kingdoms of Leon and of Castile. To describe the massacres, slaughter, and cruelty which they practised in each, would doubtless be a most difficult thing, impossible to confirm and disagreeable to listen to. 21. Here it must be noted, that the pretext with which they invaded and began to destroy all those innocent beings and to depopulate those lands which, on account of their numberless populations should have caused such joy and contentment to true Christians, was, that they came to subject them to the King of Spain; otherwise, they must kill them and make slaves of them. And those, who did not promptly yield obedience to such an unreasonable and stupid commission, and refused to place themselves in the hands of such iniquitous, cruel and brutal men, they declared were rebels, who had risen against the service of His Majesty; and thus they wrote from here to our lord the King. 22. And the blindness of those who govern the Indians, did not understand nor attend to what is expressed in their laws, and is clearer than any of their first principles whatsoever, namely; that no one can be called rebel, if he be not first a subject. 23. Let Christians and those that have some knowledge of God, and of reason, and also of human laws, consider to what state can be reduced the hearts of whatsoever people who live in security in their own country ignorant of having obligations towards any one, and who have their own rightful rulers, upon being thus unexpectedly ordered to yield obedience to a foreign King whom they have never seen, nor heard of, otherwise be it known to you, that we must at once cut you to pieces; especially when they actually see the threat put into execution. 24. More dreadful is it that those who obey voluntarily, are put into onerous servitude; in which, under incredible labour and tortures that last longer than those of death by the sword, they and their wives and children and all their race perish. 25. And although these people, or any other in the world are moved by fear or the said threats to yield obedience and to recognise the dominion of a foreign King, our blinded people, unbalanced by ambitious and diabolical avarice, do not perceive that they thereby acquire not a single atom of right, these fears being truly such as discourage the firmest men. 26. To say that natural, human and divine right permits their acts because the intention justifies them is all wind: but their crime condemns them to infernal fire, as do also the offences and injuries done to the Kings of Castile, by destroying these their kingdoms and annihilating (as far as they possibly can) their rights over all the Indies. These, and none other, are the services the Spaniards have rendered, and do render to-day to the said sovereign kings in these countries. 27. By this just and approved title, did this tyrant captain send two other tyrant captains, much more cruel and ferocious and more destitute of compassion and mercy than himself, to the vast, most flourishing, most happy and densely populated kingdoms, namely to that of Guatemala, on the South Sea; and to that of Naco and Honduras or Guaymura, on the North Sea. They lie opposite one another, bordering, but separate, and each three hundred leagues distant from Mexico. He sent one expedition by land and the other with ships by sea, each provided with many horsemen and foot-soldiers. 28. I state the truth: Out of the evil done by both, and especially by him who went to the kingdom of Guatemala,—because the other soon died a bad death—I could collect and recount so much wickedness, so many massacres, so many deaths, so much extermination, so much and such frightful injustice, that they would strike terror to present and future ages: and I could fill a big book with them, for this man surpassed all the past and the present in the kind and multitude of abominations he committed; in the people he destroyed and in the countries he devastated, for they were infinite. 29. The one who commanded the expedition by sea, committed great robberies and scandal; destroying many people in the towns along the coast. Some natives came out to receive him with presents in the kingdom of Yucatan, which is on the road to the above mentioned kingdom of Naco and Guaymura, where he was going; when he arrived there, he sent captains and many people throughout that country, who robbed, killed and destroyed everything and everybody they found. 30. One especially of these captains who had mutinied with three hundred men, and had entered the country towards Guatemala, advanced destroying and burning every place he found, robbing and killing the people; he did this diligently for more than a hundred and twenty leagues, so that if others were sent in pursuit of him, they would find the country depopulated and in rebellion, and would be killed by the Indians in revenge for the damage and destruction he had done.

31. A few days later they [the Spaniards] killed the principal captain who had sent him and against whom he had mutinied. Afterwards there succeeded other most cruel tyrants who, with slaughter and dreadful cruelty, and with the capture of slaves and the selling them to the ships that brought their wine, clothing and other things, and with the usual tyrannical servitude from the year 1524 till 1535, ruined those provinces and that kingdom of Naco and Honduras, which truly seemed a paradise of delight, and was better peopled than the most populous land in the world. We have now gone through these countries on foot and have beheld such desolation and destruction as would wring the vitals of the hardest-hearted of men.

In these eleven years they have killed more than two million souls, and in more than a hundred leagues square, they have not left two thousand persons, whom they are now daily exterminating by the said servitude.

32. Let us again speak of the great tyrant captain, (92) who went to the kingdom of Guatemala, who, as has been said, surpassed all past and equalled all present tyrants. The provinces surrounding Mexico are, by the route he took (according to what he himself writes in a letter to his chief who sent him), four hundred leagues distant from the kingdom of Guatemala: he advanced killing, ravaging, burning, robbing and destroying all the country wherever he came, under the above mentioned pretext, namely, that the Indians should subject themselves to such inhuman, unjust, and cruel men, in the name of the unknown King of Spain, of whom they had never heard and whom they considered to be much more unjust and cruel than his representatives. He also gave them no time to deliberate but would fall upon them, killing and burning almost at the same instant that his envoy arrived.