The Province and Kingdom of Guatemala

When he reached this kingdom, he began with a great massacre. Nevertheless the principal lord, accompanied by many other lords of Ultatlan, the chief town of all the kingdom went forth with trumpets, tambourines and great festivity to receive him with litters; they served him with all that they possessed, and especially by giving him ample food and everything else they could. 2. The Spaniards lodged outside the town that night because it seemed to them to be strong, and that they might run some risk inside it. The following day, the captain called the principal lord and many others, and when they came like tame lambs, he seized them and demanded so many loads of gold. They replied that they had none, because that country does not produce it. Guiltless of other fault and without trial or sentence, he immediately ordered them to be burned alive. 3. When the rulers throughout all those provinces saw that the Spaniards had burnt that one and all those chief lords, only because they gave them no gold, they all fled from their towns and hid in the mountains; they commanded all their people to go to the Spaniards and serve them as their lords, but that they should not, however, reveal to them their hiding place. 4. All the inhabitants came to offer themselves to his men and to serve them as their lords. This compassionate captain replied that he would not receive them; on the contrary, he would kill them all, if they did not disclose the whereabouts of their chiefs. The Indians answered that they knew nothing about them but that the Spaniards should make use of them, of their wives and children whom they would find in their houses, where they could kill them or do with them what they wished. And this the Indians declared and offered many times. 5. Stupefying to relate, the Spaniards went to the houses where they found the poor people working in safety at their occupations with their wives and children, and there they wounded them with their lances and cut them to pieces. They also went to a quiet, large and important town, where the people were ignorant of what had happened to the others and were safe in their innocence; within barely two hours they destroyed it, putting women, children, and the aged to the sword, and killing all who did not save themselves by flight. 6. Seeing that with such humility, submission, patience and suffering they could not break nor soften hearts so inhuman and brutal, and that they were thus cut to pieces contrary to every show or shadow of right, and that they must inevitably perish, the Indians determined to summon all their people together and to die fighting, avenging themselves as best they could on such cruel and infernal enemies; they well knew, however, that being not only unarmed but also naked and on foot, they could not prevail against such fierce people, mounted and so well armed, but must in the end be destroyed. 7. They constructed some pits in the middle of the streets, covered over with broken boughs of trees and grass, completely concealing them: they were filled with sharp stakes hardened by fire which would be driven into the horses's bellies if they fell into the pits. Once, or twice, did some horses fall in but not often, because the Spaniards knew how to avoid them. In revenge, the Spaniards made a law, that all Indians of whatsoever rank and age whom they captured alive, they would throw into the pits. And so they threw in pregnant and confined women, children, old men and as many as they could capture who were left stuck on the stakes, until the pits were filled: It excited great compassion to see them, particularly the women with their children. 8. They killed all the others with lances and knives; they threw them to savage dogs, that tore them to pieces and ate them; and when they came across some lord, they accorded him the honour of burning in live flames. This butchery lasted about seven years from 1524 to 1531. From this may be judged what numbers of people they destroyed. 9. Among the numberless horrible operations that this unhappy and accursed tyrant performed in this kingdom, together with his brothers, (for his captains and the others who helped him, were not less unhappy and senseless than he) was one very notorious one. He went to the province of Cuzcatan, in which, or not far distant, there is the town of San Salvador, which is a most delightful place extending all along the coast of the South Sea from forty to fifty leagues: and the town of Cuzcatan, which was the capital of the province, gave him the kindest of welcomes, sending him more than twenty or thirty Indians loaded with fowls and other provisions. 10. When he arrived, and had received the gift, he commanded that each Spaniard should take from that multitude of people, as many Indians as he pleased for his service during their stay there, whose duty should be to bring them everything they needed. Each Spaniard took a hundred, or fifty or as many as he reckoned would be sufficient for his service, and those innocent lambs bore with the distribution, and served with all their strength, and almost adored them. 11. In the meantime this captain asked the lords to bring him much gold, because it was principally to that end that they came. The Indians replied that they were happy to give all the gold they had, and they collected a very great quantity of the hatchets they use, which are made of gilded copper and look like gold, though there is little on them. The captain ordered that they should be tested and because he saw they were of copper, he said to the Spaniards: "to the devil with such a country! let us leave it since there is no gold and let each one put the Indians who serve him, in chains, and I will order that they be branded as his slaves." This was done, and they marked as slaves with the King's brand, all they could bind. And I saw the son of the prince of that town thus branded. 12. When those Indians who escaped and the others throughout the land beheld such great iniquity, they began to collect and to arm themselves. The Spaniards did the greatest slaughter and massacre among them, after which they returned to Guatemala where they built a town; and it is that one which has now been by righteous decree of divine justice, destroyed by three deluges together: the one of water, the other of earth and the third of stones much bigger than ten, and twenty oxen. 13. Having thus killed all the lords and the men who could have made war, they put all the others into the aforesaid infernal slavery; they demanded slaves as tribute, so the Indians gave their sons and daughters as they have no other slaves, all of whom they loaded into ships and sent to be sold in Peru. By other massacres and murders, besides the above, they have destroyed and devastated a kingdom more than a hundred leagues square, one of the happiest in the way of fertility and population in the world. This same tyrant wrote that it was more populous than the kingdom of Mexico; and he told the truth. 14. He and his brothers, together with the others, have killed more than four or five million people in fifteen or sixteen years, from the year 1524 till 1540, and they continue to kill and destroy those who are still left; and so they will kill the remainder. 15. It was his custom when he went to make war on some town or province, to take with him as many of the Indians as he could, to fight against the others; and as he led ten or twenty thousand and gave them nothing to eat, he allowed them to eat the Indians they captured. And so a solemn butchery of human flesh took place in his army where, in his presence, children were killed and roasted; and they would kill a man only to eat his hands and feet, which were esteemed the best bits. And all the people of the other countries, hearing of these villainies, were so terror stricken they knew not where to hide themselves. 16. They killed numberless people with the labour of building boats. From the South Sea to the North, a distance of a hundred and thirty leagues, they led the Indians loaded with anchors weighing seventy and eighty pounds each—some of which wore into their shoulders and loins. They also carried much artillery in this way on the shoulders of those poor naked creatures; and I saw many of them loaded with artillery, suffering along the roads. 17. They deprived the husbands of their wives and daughters, and gave them to the sailors and soldiers, to keep them contented and bring them on board the ships. They crowded Indians into the ships, where they all perished of hunger and thirst. And in truth, were I to recount his cruelties one by one, I could make a big book that would astonish the world. 18. He built two fleets, each composed of many ships, with which he burnt, as though with fire from heaven, all those countries. Of how many did he make orphans! Of how many did he take away the children! How many did he deprive of their wives! how many wives did he leave without husbands! Of what adulteries, rapes and violence was he the cause! how many did he deprive of liberty! what anguish and calamity were suffered by many people because of him! what tears did he cause to be shed! what sighs! what groans! what solitude in this life and of how many has he caused the eternal damnation in the next! not only of the Indians—who were numberless—but of the unhappy Christians, of whose company he made himself worthy, with such outrages, most grave sins and execrable abominations. And I pray God, that he may have had compassion on him and be appeased with the bad death to which he at last brought him. (93)



New Spain and Panuco and Xalisco

After the great cruelties and massacres, that have been described (besides those not mentioned) had been committed in the provinces of New Spain and that of Panuco another senseless and cruel tyrant(94) arrived in Panuco in the year 1525. By committing great cruelty and putting many in irons, and enslaving great numbers of freemen in the ways above told, and sending shiploads of them to the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, where they could best he sold, he finished devastating all that province. Eighty Indians, reasonable beings, were given in exchange for a horse. 2. From Panuco, he was sent to govern the city of Mexico and all New Spain as President, with other great tyrants as Auditors: and the great evils, many sins and the amount of cruelty, robbery, and abomination he and they together committed, are beyond belief. They thus reduced all that country to such extreme ruin, that in two years they would have brought New Spain to the condition of the island of Hispaniola, had God not prevented them by the resistance of the Franciscan friars and afterwards, by the appointment of a Royal Audiencia composed of good men, friendly to all virtue. 3. One of this man's companions forced eight thousand Indians to work, without any payment or food, at building a wall around his great garden; they dropped dead from hunger but he showed no concern whatever. 4. When this president, of whom I said he finished devastating Panuco, learned that the said good royal Audiencia was coming, he found an excuse to go inland to discover some place where he might tyrannise; he forced fifteen, or twenty thousand men of the province of Mexico to carry the baggage of his expedition, of whom not two hundred returned, all the rest having perished under his tyranny. 5. He arrived in the province of Mechuacan, which is forty leagues distant from Mexico and similar to it, both in prosperity, and in the number of its people. The king and ruler came out to receive him with a procession of numberless people, rendering a thousand services and making him presents; he at once took the said king prisoner because he was reputed to have great riches of gold and silver: to force him to surrender his many treasures, the tyrant began to put him to the following tortures. 6. Having put his feet in stocks, with his body stretched and his hands tied to pieces of wood, they placed a pan of fire near his feet, and a boy with a sprinkler soaked in oil, sprinkled them every now and then to burn the skin well. On the one side there stood a cruel man with a loaded arbalist aimed at his heart: on the other stood another holding a terrible and fierce dog which, had he let it, would have torn the king to pieces in a moment; and thus they tortured him to make him disclose the treasures; until a Franciscan monk, being informed of it, delivered him from their hands, though he died at last of his tortures. They tortured and killed many lords and princes of the provinces in like fashion, to make them give up their gold and silver. 7. At this time a certain tyrant, going as inspector rather of the purses and the property of the Indians than of their souls and bodies, found that some Indians had hidden their idols, as the Spaniards had never taught them about another better God. He took the lords prisoner till they gave him the idols, thinking they would be of gold or silver, and because they were not, he punished them cruelly and unjustly. 8. And not to be defrauded of this purpose, which was to rob, he compelled the said lords to buy back the idols from him: they bought them with such gold and silver as they could find, to adore them as their God like they were accustomed. These are the works these wretched Spaniards perform, and the example that they give, and the honour they procure for God in the Indies. 9. This great tyrant passed from the province of Mechuacan into that of Xalisco, which was as full of people as a hive is of bees, most populous and most prosperous, because it is one of the most fertile and marvellous in the Indies. There was a certain town whose houses extended nearly seven leagues. On his arrival there, the lords and people came joyfully forth, bearing gifts, as all the Indians are in the habit of doing when they go to receive any one. 10. He began to commit the usual cruelties and wickedness as all there are in the habit of doing, and much more besides, to obtain the object they hold as God, which is gold. 11. He burnt the towns, captured the lords, tortured them—made slaves of everybody he captured and led numbers away in chains. Women just confined were loaded down with the baggage they carried for the wicked Christians and, not being able to carry their infants for fatigue and the weakness of hunger, they threw them by the roadside where numbers perished. 12. One wicked Christian having seized a maid by force, to sin with her, the mother sprang to tear her away from him, but he seized a dagger, or sword, and cut off the mother's hand; and because the maid would not consent, he stabbed her and killed her. 13. Among many other free people he unjustly caused to be marked as slaves, were four thousand five hundred men, women, and nursing children of a year old; others also of two, three, four and five years old, although they went forth peacefully to meet him; there were numberless others that were not counted. 14. When the countless iniquitous and infernal wars and massacres were terminated, he laid all that country under the usual, pestilential and tyrannical servitude to which all the tyrant Christians of the Indies are in the habit of reducing these peoples. In which he consented that his own majordomos and all the others, should use cruelty and unheard of tortures to extract gold and tribute from the Indians. 15. One majordomo of his killed many peaceable Indians, by hanging, burning them alive, throwing them to fierce dogs, and cutting off their feet and hands and tearing out their tongues and hearts, for no other reason than to frighten them into submission and into giving him gold and tribute, as soon as they recognised him as the same celebrated tyrant. He also gave them many cruel beatings, cudgellings, blows and other kinds of cruelty every day and every hour. 16. It is told of him that he destroyed and burnt eight hundred towns in that kingdom of Xalisco: he goaded the Indians to rebellion out of sheer desperation, and after they saw such numbers perish so cruelly, they killed some Spaniards, in which they were perfectly justified, and then retreated to the mountains. 17. Afterwards, the injustice and oppression of other recent tyrants who passed that way to destroy other provinces—which they called discovering them,—drove many Indians to unite and to fortify themselves among certain cliffs: against them the Spaniards have again perpetrated such cruelty, killing numberless people, that they have almost finished depopulating and destroying all that large country. 18. These wretched, blind men whom God has permitted to yield to reprobate appetite, do not perceive the Indians' cause, or rather the many causes sanctioned by every justice, and by the laws of nature, of God and of man, to cut them to pieces, whenever they have the strength and weapons, and to drive them from their countries: nor do they perceive the iniquity and great injustice of their own pretensions, which are condemned by all laws, not to mention the many outrages, tyrannies and grave and inexpiable sins they have committed against the Indians, by repeatedly making war on them: seeing nothing of this, they think and say and write, that the victories they obtain over the innocent Indians by destroying them, are all conceded to them by their God, because their iniquitous wars are just. Almost as though they rejoiced, and glorified, and rendered thanks to God for their tyranny: like those tyrant bandits did of whom the prophet Zacharias says in chapter eleven Pasce pecora occisionis, quae qui occidebant non dolebant, sed dicebant: Benedictus Deus, quia divites facti sumus.



The Kingdom of Yucatan

In the year 1526, by lying and deceiving and by making offers to the King, as all the other tyrants have done till now to obtain offices and positions, so as to rob, another unhappy man(95) was elected governor of the kingdom of Yucatan. 2. This kingdom possessed a dense population, because the country is very healthy and abounding much more than Mexico in provisions and fruit: and honey was particularly abundant, more so than in any other part of the Indies thus far discovered. 2. The said kingdom has a circumference of about three hundred leagues. Its people were famous among all those of the Indies for prudence and cleanliness, and for having fewer vices and sins than any other; and they were very willing and worthy of being brought to the knowledge of God. A great town might have been built there by the Spaniards where they might have lived as in a terrestrial paradise had they been worthy; but, on account of their great avarice, stupidity and grave sins they were not; just as they have not been worthy to possess the many other countries that God has disclosed to them, in the Indies. 4. This tyrant, with three hundred men whom he brought with him, began by making cruel war on those good and innocent people, who kept within their houses without offending any one; and they killed and destroyed countless people. 5. The country produces no gold, and if it had he would have used up the people by working them in the mines; to coin gold therefore out of the bodies and souls of those for whom Jesus Christ died, he made slaves indifferently of all whom he did not kill; many ships were attracted thither by the news that slaves were to be had, all of which he sent back loaded with human beings whom he sold for wine, oil, vinegar, pork, clothing, horses and whatever else he and his men thought they needed. 6. He selected the most beautiful maid from fifty or a hundred, and gave her to him who chose her, in exchange for an aroba of wine, or oil, or for a pig: and similarly a handsome boy, chosen from among two hundred or three hundred, for the same amount. One boy, who seemed to be the son of a prince was given in exchange for a cheese; and a hundred people for a horse. 7. He continued with these operations from the year 1526 to 1533 which were seven years, ruining and depopulating those countries, and killing those people without pity, till news of the riches of Peru reached the place and the Spaniards left him, and that hell ceased for some days. 8. Afterwards, however, his ministers returned to commit more great evils, robbery, wickedness, and great offence against God: and neither have they ceased at the present time. Thus have they almost entirely depopulated all those three hundred leagues that were, as has been said, so densely peopled. 9. No one could believe, neither could the particular cases of cruelty that were done here, be related. I will only tell of two or three, that I remember. 10. On one occasion these wretched Spaniards set out with fierce dogs to hunt Indians, both women and men, and an Indian woman who was too ill to escape, took a cord and, so that the dogs should not tear her to pieces as they tore the others, she tied her little son of one year to one foot, and then hanged herself on a beam; she was not quick enough before the dogs came up and tore the child limb from limb, although a friar baptised it before it expired. 11. When the Spaniards were leaving the kingdom, one of them asked the son of a lord of a certain town or province to go with him; the child answered, that he did not wish to leave his country: the Spaniard replied, "come along with me, or I will cut off your ears"; as the boy said that he would not, the man seized a dagger and cut off one of his ears, and then the other; and on the boy still saying that he would not leave his country, he slit his nostrils, laughing as though he were only giving him a pinch. 12. This lost soul lauded himself, and shamelessly boasted before a venerable monk that he tried his best to get many Indian women with child, because when they were pregnant he got a better price on selling them for slaves. 13. In this kingdom, or possibly in a province of New Spain, a Spaniard went hunting game, or rabbits, with his dogs; one day, not finding anything to hunt, it seemed to him that the dogs were hungry, so he seized a little child from its mother and cut off its arms and legs with a dagger, giving each dog its portion and when they had eaten these pieces he threw that little body on the ground for all of them together. 14. Consider only the inhumanity of the Spaniards in these parts and how God has let them fall into reprobate appetite; consider of what account they hold these people who are created in God's image and redeemed by His blood. But we shall see worse things below. 15. Leaving the infinite and unheard of cruelties perpetrated by those who call themselves Christians, in this kingdom where there is no justice worth speaking of, I will conclude with this only: that when all the infernal tyrants had left, eager for and blinded by the riches of Peru, Fray Jacomo proceeded, with four monks of his Order of St. Francis, to that kingdom, to pacify it, and to preach and bring to Jesus Christ the remnant of people left from the infernal harvesting and the tyrannical massacres committed by the Spaniards during seven years; and I think that these monks went there in the year thirty-four. 16. They sent ahead certain Indians from the province of Mexico as messengers, to inquire whether the natives were satisfied that the said monks should enter their country, to bring them news of the one only God, who is God and true Lord of all the world. 17. They [the Indians] assembled many times and consulted about the thing, having first made many inquiries as to what sort of men these were, who called themselves fathers and brothers, and as to what they laid claim; and in what they were different from the Christians from whom they had suffered so many offences and such injustice. 18. They resolved at last to receive them, on the condition that they came alone with no Spaniards. The monks promised this because the Viceroy of New Spain had granted them this privilege and had given orders that no more Spaniards except the monks were to be allowed to enter the country, nor should the Indians suffer any harm from the Christians. 19. The friars, as is their custom, preached to those people the gospel of Christ, and the holy intentions of the king of Spain towards them. With such love and pleasure did they receive the doctrine and example of the monks, and so greatly did they rejoice over the news of the kings of Castile, of whom in all the past seven years the Spaniards had never given them information nor that there was any king other than he, who tyrannised and destroyed here, that after the monks had preached there forty days, the lords of the country brought and consigned to them all their idols that they might burn them. 20. And afterwards they gave them their own children, whom they love more than the light of their eyes, that they might train them. And they built them churches, monasteries and houses: and friars, were invited to other provinces, to preach and bring the natives to the knowledge of God and of him whom they called the great king of Castile. 21. And, persuaded by the monks, the Indians did a thing never done again up to the present day; and all that some of those Tyrants pretend about those kingdoms being destroyed by the friars, is falsehood and lies. 22. Twelve or fifteen lords, each ruling many vassals and large territories, assembled their people and, after taking their votes and consent, subjected themselves of their own will to the dominion of the kings of Castile, receiving the Emperor, as King of Spain, for their supreme and universal sovereign; and they made some sinas, like signatures, which I have in my possession, together with the attestations of the said friars. 23. Just when this growth of faith inspired the friars with great joy and hope of drawing to Jesus Christ the still numerous people of that kingdom who survived the murders and unjust wars, eighteen Spanish tyrants on horse entered a certain part of the country with twelve others on foot, which makes thirty, and they brought with them many loads of idols taken from the Indians in other provinces. 24. And the captain of the said thirty summoned a lord of the country where he had entered, and told him that he must take those loads of idols and distribute them throughout his country, trading each idol for an Indian man or woman, to make them slaves; he threatened to make war on the chief if he refused. 25. Forced by fear, the said lord distributed the idols throughout all this territory and commanded all his vassals that they should accept and adore them, and give him Indian men and women as slaves for the Spaniards. In alarm, the Indians who had two children gave one of them, and those who had three gave two; and in this way they concluded that sacrilegious commerce and the lord, or prince satisfied the Spaniards. 26. One of these impious and infernal bandits, called Juan Garcia, when ill and near death, had under his bed two loads of idols and he commanded an Indian woman who served him, to be very careful not to exchange those idols for fowls, but each one for a slave because they were very valuable. And finally with this testament and occupied with this thought the unhappy man died. And who doubts that he is buried in hell? 27. Consider therefore of what profit are the religion and the examples of Christianity of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; what honour they procure for God; how they work that he may be known and adored by those people; what care they take that His holy faith be sown, grow and expand in those souls. And judge whether this be a less sin than Jeroboam's qui peccare fecit Israel by making two golden calves, for the people to adore. Or whether it equals that of Judas or causes more scandal. 28. These then are the deeds of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; in their desire for gold they have numberless times sold, and do sell, and have forsworn Jesus Christ. 29. When the Indians saw that the promise the monks made them that the Spaniards should not enter those provinces did not come true, and that the same Spaniards brought their idols from other countries to sell, after they had given all their own gods to the monks to be burned, so that they might adore the one true God, they became tumultuous and the whole country was enraged with the friars, to whom they said: 30. Why have you lied and deceived us saying that Christians could not enter this country? And why have you burnt our gods when your Christians bring gods from other provinces to sell to us? Were perhaps our gods not better than those of other nations? 31. The friars having nothing to reply, calmed them as best they could. They sought out the thirty Spaniards, telling them the harm they had done and beseeching them to depart, but they would not go; on the contrary they gave the Indians to understand, that it was the friars themselves who had made them come there,—which was the height of all malice. 32. At last the Indians determined to kill the friars; being warned by some Indian, the latter escaped one night. And when the friars had left, and the Indians perceived their innocence and virtue and the malice of the Spaniards, they sent messengers a distance of fifty leagues after them, praying them to return, and asking their pardon for the anxiety they had caused them. 33. The friars, being servants of God and zealous for those souls, gave them credence, and returned to the country where they were received like angels, the Indians rendering them a thousand services; and they stayed there four or five months longer. 34. As that country was so distant from New Spain, the Viceroy's efforts to expel those Christians from it were fruitless, and they persisted in remaining there although he had them proclaimed traitors; and because they never ceased their outrages and habitual oppression of the Indians, it seemed to the monks that, sooner or later the natives would become disgusted with such perverse works, and that perhaps the evil consequences would fall on them, especially as the evil deeds of the Spaniards constantly disturbed the Indians and prevented them from preaching to them in tranquillity. They therefore determined to abandon the kingdom. 35. Thus the country was left without the light and help of doctrine; and those souls were abandoned to the obscurity of ignorance and misery, in which they formerly were. The Indians were deprived, till better times should come, of assistance and the diffusion of the knowledge of God, which they had been already receiving with eagerness; it was just as though we were to deprive plants of water a few days after planting them: and this was brought about by the inexpiable fault and consummate malice of those Spaniards.



The Province of Santa Maria

The province of Santa Marta was a country where the Indians had a great deal of gold because both it and the places round about have rich mines which were diligently worked. And for this reason, from the year 1498 till the present 1542, numberless Spanish tyrants have continually gone there with ships to ravage and kill those people and to steal their gold. They afterwards returned in the ships with which they made numerous expeditions, murdering and massacring, with notorious cruelty; this commonly occurred along the seacoast and a few leagues inland, till the year 1523. 2. In the year 1523 some Spanish tyrants went to take up their abode here. And because the country, as has been said, was rich, divers captains succeeded one another, each crueller than the other, so that it seemed as though each had made a vow to practise more exorbitant evils and cruelty than the other, in verification of the rule we have given above. 3. In the year 1529 there arrived a great tyrant accompanied by many men, devoid of any fear of God or any mercy on mankind; so great were the massacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he surpassed all his predecessors. During the space of six, or seven years that he lived, he and his men stole much treasure. (96) 4. He died without sacraments after also avoiding the commission of investigation met on his account; and afterwards, other murderous and thieving tyrants succeeded, who continued to destroy those people who had survived the treatment and cruel swords of their predecessors. 5. They marched far inland, ruining and exterminating large and numerous provinces; killing, and making slaves of their people in the ways above told of the others, putting lords and their vassals to grievous tortures to force them to disclose the gold and the town where it was to be had: as has been said they surpassed, both in number and quality, the operations of all their predecessors so that from the said year 1529, till to-day, they have devastated in those parts more than four hundred leagues of country, which was as densely peopled as the other. 6. I truthfully declare that if I had to relate singly the evil, the massacres, the destruction, injustice, violence, slaughter, and the great sins the Spaniards have committed in this Kingdom of Santa Marta, against God, against the King, and against those innocent nations, I would compose a very long history; I shall relate all this however in due time, if God gives me life. 7. Here I wish only to quote some few of the words that the lord bishop of that province now writes to the King: and the date of his letter is the 20th of May, 1541, in which among other words he says thus: 8. "I assert, oh Sacred Caesar, that the way to remedy the ills of this country is for Your Majesty to now take it out of the hands of step-fathers and to give it a husband, who will treat it justly, and as it deserves; and this as soon as possible because otherwise I am certain that the way these tyrants who now have the government, crush and harass it, will very soon destroy it," etc. 9. And further on he says: "therefore Your Majesty will clearly discern that those who govern in these parts, deserve to be destroyed, to relieve the republics. And if this is not done, their infirmities are, in my opinion, without remedy. And Your Majesty will know in like manner that in these parts there are no Christians but demons; neither are there servants of God nor of the King, but traitors to His law, and to the King." 10. "Because in truth, the greatest obstacle I find to winning the Indians from war to peace, and from peace to the knowledge of our Holy Faith, is the harsh and cruel treatment that the peaceable ones receive from the Christians." 11. "They have on this account become so fierce and enraged, that nothing is more hated or abhorred by them, than the name of Christians, whom in all this country they call in their language Yares, which means demons; and without doubt they are right, because the deeds they do here are not those of Christians nor of reasonable men, but of devils." 12. "From which it arises, that the Indians, seeing these perverse operations are general, and that both the commanders and the subordinates are so devoid of mercy, think that such is the law of the Christians, of which their God and their King are the authors. And to try to persuade them to the contrary is like trying to dry up the sea, and only makes them laugh and jeer at Jesus Christ and His law." 13. "And the Indian warriors, seeing the treatment shown the peaceable people, count it better to die once, than many times in the power of the Spaniards; I know this most invincible Caesar from experience" etc. 14. And in a chapter further on he says: "Your Majesty has more servants in these parts than is supposed; because there is not a soldier among those here who, while he is assassinating, or robbing, or destroying, or killing, or burning Your Majesty's vassals to force their gold from them, does not make bold to claim that he is serving Your Majesty. It would therefore be well, Most Christian Caesar, that Your Majesty should make known by rigorously punishing some of them, that such services as are contrary to the service of God, are not accepted." 15. All the above are formal words of the said Bishop of Santa Marta, and from them it will be clearly seen what is done to-day in these unfortunate countries, and to these innocent people. 16. By "Indian warriors" he means those who live in the mountains and have been able to escape from massacres perpetrated by the unhappy Spaniards. And he terms "peaceable" those Indians whom the Spaniards, after having killed numberless people, condemn to the aforesaid tyrannical and horrible slavery, in which they then finish destroying and killing them, as appears from the quoted words of the bishop: and in truth very little indeed does he express, of what they suffer. 17. When the Spaniards make them labour, carrying loads over the mountains, they kick and beat them, and knock out their teeth with the handles of their swords, to force them to get up when they fall, fainting from weakness, and to go on without taking breath; and the Indians commonly exclaim; "go to, how wicked you are: I am worn out so kill me here, for I would rather die now and here." And they say this with many sighs and gasps, showing great anguish and grief. 18. Oh! who could express the hundredth part of the affliction and calamity that these innocent people suffer from the unhappy Spaniards! May God make it known to those who can, and ought to remedy it.



The Province of Cartagena

This province of Cartagena lies westward and fifty leagues below that of Santa Marta, and bordering on that of Cenu as far as the Gulf of Uraba: it comprises about a hundred leagues of seacoast and a large territory inland towards the south. 2. These provinces have been as badly treated as those of Santa Marta, distressed, killed, depopulated and devastated, from the year 1498 or 99 until to-day, and in them many notorious cruelties, murders, and robberies have been committed by the Spaniards; but in order to finish this brief compendium quickly and to recount the wickedness done by them elsewhere, I will not describe the details.



The Pearl Coast

Paria, and the Island of Trinidad

Great and notorious have been the destruction that the Spaniards have worked along the Coast of Paria, (97) extending for two hundred leagues as far as the Gulf of Venezuela, assassinating the inhabitants and capturing as many as they could alive, to sell them as slaves. 2. They frequently took them by violating their pledged word and friendship, the Spaniards failing to keep faith, while the Indians received them in their houses, like fathers receive their children, giving them all they possessed and serving them to the best of their ability. 3. Certainly it would not be easy to relate, or describe minutely the variety and number of the injustices, wrongs, oppressions, and injury practised upon the people of this coast by the Spaniards from the year 1510 up to the present day. I will relate but two or three instances from which the villany and number of the others, worthy of punishment by every torment and fire may be judged. 4. In the island of Trinidad which joins the continent at Paria, and is much larger and more prosperous than Sicily, there are as good and virtuous people as in all the Indies; an assassin going there in the year 1516, with sixty or seventy other habitual robbers, gave the Indians to understand that they had come to dwell and live in that island along with them. 5. The Indians received them as though they were children of their own flesh and blood, the lords and their subjects serving them with the greatest affection and joy, bringing them every day double the amount of food required; for it is the usual disposition and liberality of all the Indians of this new world to give the Spaniards in excess of all they need and as much as they themselves possess. 6. In accordance with the Spaniards' wish, they built one great house of timber, where all might live: they needed no more than one in order to carry out what they had in mind and afterwards accomplished. 7. When they were putting the straw over the timbers and had covered about the height of two paces so that those inside no longer saw those without, the Spaniards, under pretence of hurrying on the completion of the house, induced many people to go inside; meanwhile they divided, some surrounding the house outside, with their weapons ready for the Indians who should come out, and the others stationing themselves inside the house. The latter drew their swords and threatening the naked Indians with death if they moved, they began to bind them, while some who ran out seeking to escape were cut to pieces with swords. 8. Some who got out, wounded, and others sound, joined with one or two hundred natives who had not entered the house, and arming themselves with bows and arrows they retired to another house of the community's to defend themselves; while they defended the door however, the Spaniards set fire to the house, and burnt them alive; they then took the prey they had captured, amounting to perhaps a hundred and eighty or two hundred men, and carried them bound to their ship. Hoisting sail they departed for the island of San Juan, where they sold one half as slaves, and afterwards to Hispaniola, where they sold the remainder. 9. When I at the time reproved the captain in the same island of San Juan for such infamous treachery and malice, he replied "Go to, Senor, thus was I commanded, and instructions were given me by those who sent me, that if I could not capture them in war, I should take them under pretext of peace." 10. And in truth he told me that in all his life he had found neither father nor mother, if not in the island of Trinidad; such were the good services the Indians had rendered him. This he said to his greater shame and the aggravation of his sins. 11. Numberless times have they done these things on this continent, capturing people and making them slaves under promise of safe conduct. Let it be seen what sort of acts these are: and whether those Indians taken in such a way, are justly made slaves. 12. Another time the friars of our Order of St. Dominic determined to go and preach to those people and convert them, for they were without the hope or the light of doctrine by which to save their souls, as they still are to-day in the Indies; they sent a monk, who was a theological scholar of great virtue and sanctity, accompanied by a serving friar as his companion; his object was to see the country, become intimate with the people, and seek convenient sites to build monasteries. 13. When the monks arrived, the Indians received them as angels from heaven, and listened with great affection, attention, and joy to those words which they could make them understand more by signs than speech, as they did not know the language. 14. It happened that after the departure of the vessel that had brought the monks, another ship arrived there; the Spaniards on board of it practising their infernal custom, deceitfully enticed the lord of that land, named Don Alonso, on board without the monks perceiving it; either the friars or some other Spaniards, had given him this name, for the Indians like and desire Christian names and at once ask to have them, even before they know enough to be baptised. So they deceived the said Don Alonso, to make him come aboard their ship, with his wife and certain other persons, by telling him they would prepare a feast there for him. 15. At last seventeen persons went on board with the lord and his wife, confident that as the monks were in the country, out of respect for them, the Spaniards would not do anything wicked; because otherwise they would not have trusted them. Once the Indians were on the ship, the traitors set sail and were off to Hispaniola, where they sold them for slaves. 16. On seeing their lord and his wife carried off, all the Indians came to the friars intending to kill them. The friars were like to die for sorrow on beholding such great villany, and it may be believed they would have rather given their lives than that such injustice should have been done; especially as it impeded those souls from ever hearing or believing the word of God. 17. They called the Indians as best they could and told them that by the first ship that passed there, they would write to Hispaniola and bring about the restoration of their lord and of the others who were with him. For the greater confirmation of the damnation of those who were governing, God caused a ship to come at once to hand. The monks wrote to their brethren in Hispaniola lamenting and protesting repeatedly. The auditors never would do justice, because they themselves had divided a share of the Indians so barbarously and unjustly carried off by the tyrants. 18. The two monks who had promised the Indians that their lord, Don Alonso, together with the others, should return in four months' time, seeing that they did not come, neither in four, nor in eight months prepared for death, and to give their lives to those to whom they had consecrated them before they left. And so the Indians took vengeance upon them, killing them justly, although they were innocent: because it was believed that the monks had been the cause of that treachery, and because they saw that what had been faithfully promised them within four months was not fulfilled; and also because up to that time and up to the present day they neither knew, nor know, that there is a difference between the friars and the Spanish tyrants, bandits, and assassins of all that country. 19. The blessed friars suffered unjustly, and by that injustice there is no doubt that, according to our holy faith, they are true martyrs, and reign blissfully to-day with God in the heavens; for they were sent to that land under obedience, and their intention was to preach and spread the holy faith, to save all those souls and to suffer every kind of affliction and death that might be offered them for Jesus Christ crucified. 20. Another time, through the great tyranny and execrable works of the wicked Spaniards, the Indians killed two monks of St. Dominic and one of St. Francis, of which I myself am a witness, for I escaped the same death by divine miracle; so serious and horrible was the case I might have much to say that would amaze mankind, but on account of the length of the narration I will not relate it here nor until the time comes. The last day will disclose all more clearly, for God will then avenge such horrible and abominable outrages as are done in the Indies by those who bear the name of Christians. 21. Another time there was a town in the provinces called Capo della Codera, the lord of which was called Nigoroto; this is either a personal name or else one common to all the lords of that country. 22. He was so kind and his people so virtuous, that when the Spanish ships passed there the Spaniards found comforts, provisions, rest, and every consolation and refreshment, and many did he deliver from death, who, wasted with hunger, took refuge there from other provinces where they had assassinated, and practised evil and tyranny. He gave them food and sent them safe to the Pearl Island [Cubagua], where some Christians dwelt, whom he could have slain, without any one knowing it, and did not: all the Christians finally called Nigoroto's town the mansion and home of everybody. 23. An ill-starred tyrant deliberated within himself to attack this place, as the people felt so safe: so he went there with a ship and invited many people to come on board, as they were used to, trusting the Spaniards. When many men, women, and children were gathered in the ship, he set sail and came to the island of San Juan, where he sold them all as slaves. And I arrived just then at the said island and saw that tyrant and heard what he had done. 24. He left all that country ruined; and all those Spanish tyrants, who robbed and assassinated along those coasts took it ill, and detested so dreadful a deed because they lost the asylum and dwelling place they had had there as though in their own houses. 25. To abbreviate, I omit the narration of the tremendous wickedness and fearful deeds that have been committed, and are committed to-day in these countries. 26. They have taken more than two million ruined souls from that populous seacoast to the island of Hispaniola, and to that of San Juan, where they have likewise caused their death in the mines and other works, of which there were many, as has been said above. And it excites great compassion and sorrow to see all that most delightful coast deserted and depopulated. 27. It is certainly true, that never does a ship sail loaded with kidnapped and ruined Indians (as I have told) without the third part of those that embarked, being thrown dead into the sea, besides those that they kill in effecting their capture. 28. The reason of this is, that as they need many men to accomplish their aim of making more money from a greater number of slaves, they carry but little food and water, so as to save expense to the tyrants, who call themselves privateers; they have enough for only a few more people than the Spaniards who man the ships to make the raids; as these miserable Indians are in want and die of hunger and thirst, the remedy is to throw them in the sea. 29. And in truth, one of them told me, that from the Lucayan Islands, where very great havoc of this sort was made, to the Island of Hispaniola, which is more than sixty or seventy leagues, a ship is supposed to have gone without compass or nautical chart, finding its course by the trail of dead Indians who had been thrown out of ships and left in the sea. 30. When they are afterwards disembarked at the island where they are taken to be sold, it is enough to break the heart of whomsoever has some spark of compassion to see naked, starving children, old people, men, and women falling, faint from hunger. 31. They then divide them like so many lambs, the fathers separated from the children, and the wives from the husbands, making droves of ten or twenty persons and casting lots for them, so that each of the unhappy privateers who contributed to fit out a fleet of two or three vessels, and the tyrant villains who go to capture and prey upon the natives in their homes, receives his share. 32. And when the lot falls on a drove in which there is some old or ill person, the tyrant who gets it, says: "Why in the devil do you give this old man to me? That I shall bury him? Why should I take this ill one? To nurse him?" It may be seen how the Spaniards despise the Indians and whether they carry out the precept of divine love to one's neighbour, upon which rest the law and the prophets. 33. The tyranny exercised by the Spaniards upon the Indians in fishing pearls, is as cruel, and reprehensible a thing as there can be in the world. Upon the land there is no life so infernal and hopeless as to be compared to it, although that of digging gold in the mines is the hardest and worst. 34. They let them down into the sea three and four and five fathoms deep, from the morning till sunset. They are always swimming under water without respite, gathering the oysters, in which the pearls grow. 35. They come up to breathe bringing little nets full of them; there is a hangman Spaniard in a boat and if they linger resting, he beats them with his fists, and, taking them by the hair, throws them in the water to go on fishing. 36. Their food is fish and the fish that contain the pearls, and a little cazabi or maize bread, which are the kinds of native bread: the one gives very little sustenance and the other is very difficult to make, so with such food they are never sufficiently nourished. Instead of giving them beds at night, they put them in stocks on the ground, to prevent them from escaping. 37. Many times the Indians throw themselves into the sea while fishing or hunting pearls and never come up again, because dolphins and sharks, which are two kinds of very cruel sea animals that swallow a man whole, kill and eat them. 38. From this it may be seen, whether the Spaniards who thus seek profit from the pearls, observe the divine precepts of love to God and one's neighbour; out of avarice, they put their fellow creatures in danger of death to the body and also to the soul; because they die without faith and without sacraments. 39. They lead the Indians such a wretched life that they ruin and waste them in a few days; for it is impossible for men to live much under water without respiration, especially because the cold of the water penetrates their bodies and so they generally all die from haemorrhages, oppression of the chest caused by staying such long stretches of time without breathing; and from dysentery caused by the frigidity. 40. Their hair, which is by nature black, changes to an ashen colour like the skin of seals, and nitre comes out from their shoulders so that they resemble human monsters of some species. 41. With this insupportable toil, or rather, infernal trade, the Spaniards completed the destruction of all the Indians of the Lucayan Islands who were there when they set themselves to making these gains; each one was worth fifty and a hundred crowns, and they were sold publicly, although it had been prohibited by the magistrates themselves; it was even more unjust elsewhere for the Lucayans were great swimmers. They have caused the death of numberless others here, from other provinces, and other regions.



The Yuyapari River

On a river called the Yuyapari, which flows for more than two hundred leagues through the province of Paria, a wretched tyrant(98) sailed a great distance in the year 1539, accompanied by four hundred or more men; and he did very great slaughter, burning alive and putting to the sword numberless innocent and inoffensive people who were in their towns or houses, unsuspicious of danger; and he left immense tracts of country burnt, terrorized, and the inhabitants scattered. He finally died a bad death and his fleet was dispersed. Other tyrants succeeded him and continued this wickedness and tyranny: and to-day they go through those regions destroying, killing, and sending to hell those souls that were redeemed by the son of God with His own blood.



The Kingdom of Venezuela

The Spaniards have always exercised diligent care to hide the truth from our lord the King about injuries and losses to God, to human souls, and to his State; and in the year 1526, he was deceived and perniciously persuaded into giving and conceding to some German merchants, the great kingdom of Venezuela which is much larger than all Spain; the entire management of the government and all jurisdiction were conceded under a certain agreement and compact, or condition that was made with them. (99) 2. These men invaded these countries with a force of three hundred or more and found the people the same gentle lambs, (and much more so), as they usually find them everywhere in the Indies before the Spaniards injure them. 3. More cruel beyond comparison than any of the other tyrants we have told of, was their invasion; and more irrational and furious were they than the cruellest tigers, or raging wolves and lions. Their liberty of action was the greater because they held all the jurisdiction of the country; with greater eagerness and blind greediness of avarice, and with ways and arts for stealing and accumulating gold and silver more exquisite than their predecessors, they abandoned all fear of God and the King and all shame of men, forgetting that they were mortal beings. 4. These devils incarnate have devastated, destroyed, and depopulated more than four hundred leagues of most delightful country containing large and marvellous provinces, valleys extending for forty leagues, pleasant regions, very large towns, most rich in gold. 5. They have killed and entirely cut to pieces divers large nations and destroyed many languages, so that not a person who speaks them remains, except a few, who have hidden in caverns and in the bowels of the earth to escape from the pestilential sword of the foreigners. 6 They have killed, destroyed, and sent to hell, (according to my belief), more than four or five millions of those innocent races by means of various strange and new kinds of cruel iniquity and impiety; nor do they, at the present day, cease sending them there. 7. I will relate no more than three or four instances of the endless injustice, outrages, and slaughter they have done, and are doing to-day; it may be imagined from these what they must have done to accomplish the great destruction and depopulation we have described. 8. They took the supreme lord of all the province, putting him to torture, for no other reason than to obtain his gold. He escaped and fled to the mountains, where he remained in hiding amongst the rocks, with his enraged and terrified people. The Spaniards attacked them in their search for him; they recaptured him and, after cruel slaughter, they sold at auction all whom they took alive. 9. Before they captured that ruler, they had been received in many, nay in all the provinces, wherever they went, with singing and dances and many gifts of large quantities of gold; the payment they made the Indians was to put them to the sword and cut them to pieces in order to terrorise the whole country. 10. Once, when the inhabitants had come out to meet him in the aforesaid way, the tyrant German captain put a great number of people into a large straw louse and cut them to pieces. As the house had some beams at the top and many climbed up to escape from the bloody hands and swords of those men or pitiless beasts, this infernal man caused fire to be set to the house; thus all who remained were burnt alive. This action caused the depopulation of a great number of towns as all the people fled to the mountains where they hoped to be safe. 11. They came to another large province on the borders of the province and kingdom of Santa Marta, where they found the Indians in their towns and houses, peaceably occupied with their affairs. They stayed with them a long time, eating their substance while the Indians served them as though it were their duty to give them life and succour; they bore with their continual oppressions and usual exactions, which are intolerable, for one parasite Spaniard eats as much in one day as would be sufficient for an Indian household of ten persons for a month. 12. During this time, the Indians spontaneously gave them great quantities of gold, besides the best of treatment. At last when the tyrants wished to depart, they determined to repay their hospitality in this following manner. 13. The German governor, who was a tyrant and, for what we know also a heretic—for he never attends mass neither does he let many others go, besides which, other signs mark him as a Lutheran,—ordered his men to capture all the Indians they could, with their wives and children, and to confine them in a large yard or wooden enclosure prepared for the purpose; he then announced that whoever wished to go out and be free, must ransom himself according to the will of the iniquitous governor, giving so much gold for himself, so much for his wife and for each of his children; and to force them the more, he commanded that nothing whatever should be given them to eat, until they brought him the gold he demanded as ransom. 14. Many who were able, sent to their houses for gold and redeemed themselves. They were set free, and returned to their occupations and to their houses to provide themselves with the necessaries of life. The tyrant sent certain villainous Spanish thieves to recapture these miserable Indians, who had once ransomed themselves; they brought them back to the enclosure and tortured them with hunger and thirst to make them ransom themselves again. 15. Many who were captured were ransomed two and three times. Others who could not, because they had given all the gold they possessed and had not enough left, he left languishing in the enclosure till they died of hunger. 16. By this deed, he left ruined, desolate, and depopulated, a most populous province most rich in gold, which has a valley of forty leagues, where he burnt a town that had a thousand houses. 17. This infernal tyrant determined to go inland, as he eagerly desired to discover the hell of Peru in those parts. To make this unhappy journey, he, and the others brought numberless Indians, chained to one another, carrying loads of sixty, and seventy pounds each. 18. If one tired, or fainted from hunger, fatigue, and weakness, they at once cut off his head at the collar of the chain so as not to stop to loosen the others in the line; and the head fell to one side and the body to the other, and they distributed his load among the other bearers. 19 To tell of the provinces he destroyed, the towns, and places he burnt (for all the houses are built of straw)—the people he killed, the cruelty he displayed in the several massacres during this journey, would make an incredible and terrifying story, but it would be true, nevertheless. 20. These journeys were afterwards undertaken by other tyrants who followed in the same Venezuela, and others from the province of Santa Marta, animated by the same holy intention of discovering this holy house of gold in Peru; and they found all the country for more than two hundred leagues, so much burnt, depopulated, and deserted, from formerly being most populous and prosperous, as has been said, that though they themselves were cruel tyrants, they marvelled and were horrified to behold the traces of such lamentable devastation. 21. Many witnesses have proved these things before the chancellor of the exchequer of the India Council and the proofs are in the possession of the same Council but they have never burnt alive any of these nefarious tyrants. 22. But what has been proven is as nothing compared to the massacres and great wickedness that have been committed, because all the officers of justice in the Indies are so mortally blind that they do not investigate the crimes, destruction, and slaughter that have been, and are to-day wrought by all the tyrants of the Indies, beyond declaring that as such and such a one has used cruelty towards the Indians, the King's revenue has lost so many thousand crowns; they are satisfied with little proof, and that of a very general and confused character. 23. And even this they do not verify, nor make it as clear as they should; for if they did their duty to God and the king, they would discover that the said German tyrants have robbed the king of more than three million crowns' worth of gold, because that province of Venezuela, with the others they have ruined, devastated, and depopulated for an extent of more than four hundred leagues, (as I have said) was the most prosperous, the richest in gold, and the most populous of the universe. 24. During the sixteen years those tyrants, enemies of God, devastated it, they have wasted and caused the loss of more than two millions of revenue that the king of Spain would have drawn from that kingdom. Nor is there hope of repairing this damage between now and the end of the world, unless God, through a miracle, should resuscitate so many million persons. 25. These are the temporal injuries to the king. It would be well to consider what, and how many are the injuries, the dishonour, blasphemies, and insults to God and His law, and with what will be requited so many numberless souls, burning in hell, because of the avarice and cruelty of these tyrant animals or Germans. (100) 26. To sum up this wickedness and ferocity, I will only say that from the day the Germans entered the country till the present time, that is in these sixteen years, the Indians they have transported in their ships amount to more than a million who were sold as slaves in Santa Marta, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and the island of San Juan. 27. And even now, in the year 1542, the traffic continues, for the royal Audiencia of Hispaniola dissembled—nay favoured this and all the other numberless acts of tyranny and destruction done along all that coast of the continent, which is more than four hundred leagues from Venezuela to Santa Marta, and is under their jurisdiction, though they could have prevented and corrected them. 28. There has been no other reason to make slaves of all these Indians except the perverse, blind, obstinate will of these most avaricious tyrants, and to satisfy their insatiable avarice for money; just as all the others have always done everywhere in the Indies, taking those lambs and sheep away from their houses, their wives, and their children in the said cruel and wicked ways, marking them with the king's brand to sell them as slaves.



The Provinces of that Part of the Continent which is Called Florida

These provinces(101) have been visited at divers times since the year 1510 or 1511 by three tyrants who imitated the deeds done by the others, and also by two of them in other parts of the Indies seeking to advance to a degree disproportioned to their merit, at the cost of the blood and destruction of their fellow creatures. 2. And all three died a bad death, and their families and properties established in human blood, perished, for I am witness of all three, whose very memory is already as extinct in the world as though they had never lived. 3. The infamy and horror of their names scandalised all the land because of some massacres they perpetrated: these were not many, however, for God killed them before they did more, for He had reserved till that hour the punishment for the wickedness that I know and saw they committed in other parts of the Indies. 4. The fourth tyrant went there recently, in the year 1538, with his plans made and with great preparations. Since three years nothing has been seen or heard of him. 5. We are sure, that as soon as he landed he committed cruel deeds and at once disappeared: and that, if he be alive, he and his men have destroyed numbers of people in these three years, if he encountered any on his march, for he is one of the notorious, and experienced ones who, together with his other companions, has done the most harm and wickedness, and has destroyed many provinces, and kingdoms. But we rather believe that God has given him the same end as the others. 6. Three or four years after the above things were written, three of the other tyrants returned from the land called Florida; they had accompanied the chief tyrant whom they left dead, and we learned from them what cruelty and unheard of wickedness, these inhuman men committed there against those innocent and harmless Indians, principally during the life of their commander and also after his unhappy death: therefore what I foretold above has not turned out wrong. 7. And so many things confirm the rule I laid down at the beginning: that the more they continue to discover, ruin, and destroy both peoples and countries, the more notorious are the cruelties and iniquities they commit against God and their fellow creatures. 8. It is already wearisome to us to relate so many, and such execrable, horrible, blood-thirsty operations, not by men, but by ferocious beasts, hence I will not stop to relate any but the following. 9. They found large towns full of people who were friendly, intelligent, politic, and orderly. They did great slaughter among them, according to their custom, in order to impregnate the hearts of those people with fear of them. 10. They tormented and killed them, loading them like animals. When one became tired, or fainted, they cut off his head at the neck, in order not to free those in front from the chain that bound them, and the body fell to one side and the head to the other, as we have told elsewhere above. 11. In one town where they went they were received with joy, and over-abundant food was given them, while more than six hundred Indians carried their loads, like beasts of burden, and cared for their horses; when the tyrants had left there, a captain who was a relative of the chief tyrant, turned back to rob the entire town whose people felt themselves safe; and with a lance, he killed the lord and king of the town, and did other cruel deeds. 12. Because the inhabitants of another large town seemed to them to be a little more on their guard, on account of the infamous and horrible deeds of which they had heard, they put to the sword large and small children and old people, subjects and lords, without sparing any one. 13. It is said that the chief tyrant had the faces of many Indians cut, so that they were shorn of nostrils and lips, down to the beard; and in particular of a group of two hundred whom he either summoned or who came voluntarily from a certain town. Thus he despatched these mutilated, suffering creatures dripping with blood to carry the news of the deeds and miracles done by those baptised Christians, preachers of the Holy Catholic faith. 14. It may be judged in what state those people must be, how they must love the Christians, and how they will believe that their God is good and just, and that the law and religion they profess and praise, is immaculate. 15. Most great and outlandish are the evils done here by those unhappy men, sons of perdition. And thus the wickedest of captains died miserably and without confession; and we doubt not that he is buried in hell, unless by chance, God out of His divine mercy has mysteriously succoured him despite his guiltiness for such execrable wickedness.



Rio della Plata

Three or four times since the year 1522 some captains have visited Rio della Plata, (102) where there are large kingdoms and provinces, and very friendly and intelligent people. 2. We know, in general, that they have committed many homicides and much injury. In particular, as it is so distant from the Indies, we have nothing signal to tell. 3. We have no doubt at all, however, but that they have and do carry on the same practices as in other places; because they are the same Spaniards, and some among them have visited other regions, and because they go to get wealth and power just like the others; it is impossible for this to come about, except by destruction, massacres, robbery, and the extermination of the Indians by the adoption of the perverse rule and system they have all alike followed. 4. After writing the above, we have learned, with ample proof, that they have destroyed and depopulated great provinces and kingdoms of that country, murdering, and cruelly treating those unfortunate people; they have thereby made themselves even more notorious than the others, because, being at a greater distance from Spain, they could do more as they pleased and consequently lived in greater disorder and with less justice. As for justice, however, there has never been any in all the Indies, as is seen from what has been related above. 5. Among infinite other cases, the three following have been read before the Council of the Indies. A tyrant governor commanded certain of his people, to go to some Indian town and, if food was not given them, to kill all the inhabitants. Thus authorised, they started and, because the Indians considered them their enemies and more out of fear and the desire to escape from them, than from a want of generosity, refused to supply them, the Spaniards put more than five thousand persons to the sword. 6. Another time a certain number of people presented themselves peaceably for their service, or perhaps they had been summoned by the Spaniards; and because they did not come quickly enough, or because, as is their habit and common usage, they wished to inspire them with fear and horrible fright, the Governor commanded that they should all be consigned into the hands of their Indian enemies. 7. They wept and cried, praying that the Spaniards would kill them, rather than deliver them to their enemies. (103) And as they would not leave the house where they were, they were cut to pieces there, weeping, and crying out: "We came peaceably to serve you and you kill us? May our blood, remain on these walls as testimony of our unjust death and of your cruelty!" This was, in truth, a notorious action, and worthy of consideration, but much more of being lamented.



The Vast Kingdoms and Great Provinces of Peru

In the year 1531 another great tyrant went with certain people to the kingdoms of Peru,(104) which he invaded by virtue of the same title, intentions, and principles as all the former ones, because he was one of the most experienced, and since a long time had taken part in all the cruelties and massacres that had been committed on the continent since the year 1510; he was devoid of faith and honour, and he did more cruelty and slaughter, destroying towns, killing and exterminating the people of them and causing such great mischief in these countries that, I am certain, it would be impossible for any one to recount and describe them till we shall see and know them clearly in the day of judgment. I could not, nor should I know how to describe the deformity, the character, and the circumstances of some incidents that I would relate, and which greatly aggravate their hideousness. 2. From his unhappy landing, he killed and destroyed some peoples and robbed them of a large quantity of gold. In an island near the same province called Pugna which is very populous and pleasing, they were received by the lord and people like angels from heaven and, after having eaten all their provisions in six months, the Indians again uncovered the store of corn they had laid up for themselves and their families in time of drought and barrenness, tearfully offering it for their consumption. The payment that was finally awarded the natives, was to put them to the sword, for they killed great numbers with lances, and those whom they captured alive, they made slaves; in consequence of this and the other great notorious cruelties done there, they left this island almost deserted. 3. From there the Spaniards went to the province of Tumbala, which is on the continent, where they killed and destroyed everything they could. And because all the people fled from their fearful and horrible operations, they declared they had revolted and were in rebellion against the king. 4. This tyrant employed the following artifice. He demanded still more from all who either offered or whom he asked to present him with gold, silver, and their other possessions, until he saw that they either had no more, or brought no more: he then declared that he received them as vassals of the king of Spain and embraced them; he caused two trumpets to be sounded, giving them to understand that for the future he would take nothing more from them, nor do them any harm; he esteemed it permissible to rob them or to take all they gave, out of fear inspired by the abominable reports they heard of him, before he received them under the shelter and protection of the king, as though after they were received under the royal protection he would no more oppress, rob, desolate, and destroy them. 5. A few days later came the universal king and emperor of those kingdoms, who was called Atabaliba with many naked people armed with ridiculous weapons and ignorant of how swords cut, and lances wound, and horses run; nor did they know the Spaniards, who would assault the very devils if they had gold, to rob them of it. He arrived at the place where they were, and said: "Where are these Spaniards? let them come forward, for I shall not stir from here till satisfaction is rendered me for my vassals whom they have killed, for the town they have desolated, and for the riches they have stolen from me." 6. The Spaniards attacked him—killing infinite numbers of his people; they took him prisoner from the litter in which he was carried and after they had captured him, they negotiated with him for his ransom: he promised to give four million crowns, and paid them fifteen, after which they promised to set him free. 7. They ended by keeping no faith nor truth, for they have never been kept by the Spaniards in their dealings with the Indians: they calumniated him, saying that by his orders the people were assembling, and he replied that not a leaf moved in all the country save by his will and that if the people were assembling, they might believe that he was the cause of it: as he was their prisoner, they might therefore kill him. 8. In spite of all this they condemned him to be burned alive, although later, some of them begged the captain, to have him strangled and to burn him afterwards. When he learned this he said: "Why do you wish to burn me? What have I done to you? Have you not promised to free me, after my ransom was paid? Have I not given you more than what I promised you? Send me, as thus you wish it, to your King of Spain." He said many other things showing condemnation and detestation of the great injustice of the Spaniards: and at last they burnt him. 9. Let the justice of these deeds be considered: the reason of this war: the imprisonment, death sentence, and execution of this monarch; and how conscientiously these tyrants hold the great treasures they steal in those kingdoms from such a great king and from numberless other lords and private people. 10. Of the countless notoriously wicked and cruel acts committed in the extirpation of these people by those who call themselves Christians, I will relate some few that a friar of St. Francis witnessed in the beginning; and he signed depositions with his name, sending some of the copies to those regions and others to the kingdoms of Castile: and I have one of the copies in my possession with his own signature, in which he makes the following statements. 11. "I, Fray Marcus de Nizza of the Order of St. Francis, commissary of the friars of the same Order in the provinces of Peru, who were among the first monks who entered the said provinces with the first Christians, speak to render truthful testimony of some of the things that I saw with my own eyes in that country; chiefly concerning the treatment of the Indians and the acquisition of property taken from the natives." 12. "First of all I am eye-witness, and from actual experience know, that these Indians of Peru are the most affable people that have been seen among the Indians, and were very well inclined and friendly towards the Christians." 13. "And I saw that they gave gold abundantly to the Spaniards, and silver and precious stones and all that was asked of them, and that they rendered them every good service; and the Indians never went forth in war fashion, but always peaceably, as long as no cruelty and ill-treatment provoked them; on the contrary, they received the Spaniards with all benevolence and honour in their towns, giving them provisions and as many male and female slaves for their service, as they asked." 14. "I am also witness, and I testify, that without the Indians giving them any cause or occasion, the Spaniards, as soon as they entered their country, and after the chief lord Atabaliba had paid them more than two millions of gold and had left all the country in their power, without resistance, immediately burnt the said Atabaliba, who was ruler of all the country: and after him, they burnt alive his captain-general Cochilimaca who had come peaceably to the governor, accompanied by other high personages." 15. "Within a few days after these executions they likewise burned Chamba another very high lord of the province of Quito, without him giving them any cause." 16. "Thus too they burnt unjustly Chapera lord of the Canaries." 17. "Likewise they burnt the feet of Luis who was one of the great lords in Quito, and tortured him in many other ways, to force him to reveal the hiding place of Atabaliba's gold, of which treasure it was known that he knew nothing whatever." 18. "They likewise burnt in Quito, Cozzopanga, who was governor of all the provinces of Quito and who had responded to the intimations of Sebastian de Benalcazza, the governor's captain, by coming peaceably; but because he did not give them as much gold as they asked, they burnt him, with many other lords and principal persons. As far as I could understand, it was the intention of the Spaniards that no lord should survive in all the country." 19. "The Spaniards assembled a large number of Indians, and shut up as many as could enter, in three large houses which they then set on fire and burnt them all, although they had never done the slightest thing against any Spaniard, nor given the least cause." 20. "It once happened, that when a priest called Ocana, pulled a child out of the fire in which it was burning, another Spaniard snatched it out of his hands and threw it back in the middle of the flames, where it became ashes together with the others; while the aforesaid Spaniard, who had thus thrown the Indian into the fire was returning to his dwelling the same day, he suddenly fell dead in the road; and it was my opinion, that they should not give him [Christian] burial." 21. "Moreover I affirm, that I myself saw the Spaniards cut off the hands, noses, and ears of the Indian men and women, for no purpose whatever but just because the fancy struck them; and in so many places and regions did this occur that it would be a long story to tell." 22. "I also saw the Spaniards setting dogs onto the Indians, to tear them to pieces; and thus I saw many of them torn to pieces." 23. "I likewise saw so many houses and towns burned that I could not tell the number, so great was their multitude." 24. "It is likewise true that they took nursing children by the arms and hurled them in the air as high as they could; and their other injustice and aimless cruelties terrified me, besides innumerable other things that I saw, and which it would take long to tell." 25. "I saw moreover that they called the Indian lords and chiefs, to come peaceably, promising them safety, but as soon as they arrived they burnt them. And in my presence they burnt two, one from Andon and the other in Tumbala, nor was I able for all I preached to them, to prevent them burning them." 26. "I call God and my own conscience to witness that, as far as I can understand, the Indians only revolted on account of this ill treatment which sufficiently justified their action as may be clearly seen by everybody." 27. "The Spaniards have never dealt honestly with them nor kept their word but, contrary to all reason and justice, they have tyrannically ruined them and all their country, doing such things against them, that they [the Indians] have resolved sooner to die, than suffer such deeds." 28. "I say moreover, that the Indians are right in affirming that there is more gold hidden, than has been discovered, for they have refused to disclose it because of the injustice and cruelty shown them by the Spaniards; nor will they disclose it as long as such treatment continues, but rather will they die like the others." 29. "God our Lord has been much offended by these deeds, and His Majesty very badly served and defrauded, for they have made him lose countries that could very well provide food for the whole of Castile, and in my opinion, it will be very difficult and expensive to recover them." 30. All these are the formal words of the said monk; and bear the signature also of the Bishop of Mexico, testifying that everything was affirmed by the said Father, Fray Marcus. 31. What this Father says he has seen, should be considered here: because this happened throughout fifty or a hundred leagues of country and during nine or ten years, at the beginning, when there were very few Spaniards: afterwards the sound of gold drew thither four or five thousand Spaniards, who spread through many large kingdoms and provinces, covering more than five hundred or seven hundred leagues, all of which they have destroyed by practising the same deeds and others still more ferocious and cruel. 32. Truly, from that time to the present day, a thousand times more people have been destroyed and dispersed than he was told of; being devoid of mercy and the fear of God and the King, the Spaniards have destroyed a very large part of the human race. 33. Within the space of ten years they have killed, up to the present day, more than four millions of persons; and they are still killing. 34. A short time since they pursued and killed a great queen, wife of Elingue, he who was left king of those kingdoms which the Christians had tyrannically seized and provoked to rise in the present rebellion. They captured the queen, his wife who, it is said, was pregnant and, contrary to all justice, they killed her, only to grieve her husband. 35. If the cruelties and different murders committed by the Christians, and their daily deeds in those kingdoms of Peru were to be told, they would doubtless be so horrible and so numerous that what we have recounted of the other countries would fade, and seem little, compared with their number and their gravity.



Of the New Kingdom of Granada

In the year 1539 many tyrants joined together and started from Venezuela, Santa Marta, and Cartagena for Peru: and others came back from the same Peru to explore those countries. Three hundred leagues inland behind Santa Marta and Cartagena, they found some very delightful and marvellous provinces, full of numberless people, as mild and kind as the others, and very rich in gold, and in those precious stones called emeralds. 2. To these provinces they gave the name of the new kingdom of Granada; because those tyrants who first came to these countries were natives of the kingdom of Granada in Spain. 3. As many iniquitous and cruel men among those who gathered from all parts, were notorious butchers and shedders of human blood who were very inured to, and experienced in the great sins that we have said were committed in many parts of the Indies, it follows that their fiendish operations, and the circumstances and qualities that blackened and aggravated them, were such that they have surpassed very many, or indeed all, that the others and they themselves have committed elsewhere in the Indies. 4. Of the multitude they have committed in these three years, and continue without ceasing to commit, I will briefly relate a few. As a man who was robbing and murdering in the said kingdom would not allow a governor to also rob and kill, the latter brought a suit against him, calling many witnesses to prove the slaughter, injustice, and massacres he had done, and is doing; this evidence was read, and is to be found in the Council of the Indies. 5. The witnesses in the said law-suit affirm that all the kingdom was quiet, and subject to the Spaniards; the Indians continually laboured to furnish them provisions, and to accumulate property for them; they brought them all the gold and precious emeralds they possessed or could obtain: the lords and inhabitants of the towns had been divided among the Spaniards, who lay claim to them as the means for obtaining their final object, which is gold. Having thus reduced everybody to the usual tyranny and slavery, the principal tyrant captain commanding them, captured the sovereign of all that country, without any cause or reason, and kept him for six or seven months, demanding gold and emeralds of him. 6. The said king, who was called Bogota, being overcome by fear said that he would give a house of the gold they demanded, hoping to free himself from the hands of his tormenters: he sent some Indians to bring him the treasure, and several times they brought a large quantity of gold and stones: because he did not give the house of gold, the Spaniards declared that he should be killed, because he did not fulfil his promise. 7. The tyrant said that he should be tried by process of law, so they prosecuted him, accusing the said king of the country. The tyrant gave sentence, condemning him to tortures, if he did not give the house of gold. 8. They tortured him with the cord: they threw burning fat on his belly; they put his feet in irons fastened to a stake, tied his neck to another, while two men held his hands; and in this position they put fire to his feet. 9. Every now and then, the tyrant entered and told him, that they would kill him by inches with tortures if he did not give the gold. And thus they did, and killed this lord with tortures. While they were tormenting him, God gave a sign of destestation of that cruelty, by causing all that town, where it was committed to be burnt. 10. The other Spaniards imitated their good captain and, since they only know how to rend these people, they did the same; torturing the lord of the town or towns, that had been confided to them, with divers and fierce tortures while those lords and their people felt themselves safe, and were giving them all the gold and emeralds they could: the Spaniards tortured them only to extort more gold and jewels. And in this way they burnt and cut to pieces all the lords of that country. 11. Terror-stricken by the excessive cruelty practised upon the Indians by one of those particular tyrants a great lord called Daytama fled, with many of his people from such inhumanity, and retreated to the mountains. This, if it did but avail, they conceive to be the remedy and refuge, and this is what the Spaniards call revolt and rebellion. 12. The principal tyrant captain hearing this, sent a force to that cruel man, whose ferocity and wickedness towards the peaceful and submissive Indians had driven them to the mountains; the latter went in pursuit of the natives, and because it sufficed not to hide in the bowels of the earth, they found a large number of people whom they killed, cutting to pieces more than five hundred men, women, and children, and sparing no one. 13. The witnesses also say that before his death, the same Prince Daytama had been to see that cruel man and had taken him four or five thousand crowns, but notwithstanding this, he committed the said slaughter. 14. Another time a great number of people having come to serve the Spaniards, and feeling themselves safe, serving with their humility and simplicity, the captain entered the town one night where the Indians were and commanded that all those Indians should be put to the sword while some of them were sleeping, and some supping and resting from the labours of the day. 15. He perpetrated this massacre because it seemed good to him to make himself feared by all the people of the country. 16. Another