APPENDIX I. - THE BREVISSIMA RELACIONPROLOGUE OF THE BISHOP DON FRAY BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS OR CASAUSTO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY LORD, THE PRINCE OF THE SPANISH STATES.Don Philip our Lord.Most High, and Mighty Lord.1.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.2.2.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[pg 312]destroy it; and that not for one moment, as far as in him lies, can he tolerate it.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.[pg 313]7.7.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.8.8.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.9.9.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.10.10.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.[pg 314]BREVISSIMA RELACION OR SHORT REPORT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES1.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.2.2.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.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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[pg 315]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.6.6.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 Hispaniolahamacas.7.7.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.8.8.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.9.9.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[pg 316]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.10.10.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.11.11.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.12.12.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.13.13.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.14.14.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.15.15.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.16.16.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[pg 318]and treated them as animals,—but as even less than the dung in the streets.17.17.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 Hispaniola1.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.2.2.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[pg 319]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.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they[pg 320]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.8.8.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.9.9.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.9.10.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.10.11.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[pg 321]the Indians killed, the Christians should kill a hundred Indians.The Kingdoms that were in Hispaniola1.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 Maguá, 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.2.2.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.3.3.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[pg 322]and gave that half full; because the Indians had little or no ability to collect, or dig the gold from the mines.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.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[pg 323]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.8.8.In the country of this king, the old Admiral80who 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.9.9.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 Caonabò. 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.[pg 324]The said Caonabò perished, loaded with chains, and fetters.10.10.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.11.11.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.12.12.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.13.13.The governor81who 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 theterra firma. More than three hundred lords were assembled, whom he had summoned[pg 325]and reassured. He lured the principal ones by fraud, into a straw-house, and setting fire to it, he burnt them alive.14.14.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.15.15.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.16.16.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.17.17.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.18.18.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.19.19.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.20.20.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[pg 327]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.21.21.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.22.22.It is impossible to recount the burdens with which their owners loaded them, more than three and fourarobas82weight, making them walk a hundred and two hundred leagues. The same Christians had themselves carried by Indians inhamacas, 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.23.23.It must be noted, that the destruction of this island and of these lands was begun when the death of the most Serene Queen, Doña 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[pg 328]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.24.24.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 JamaicaIn 1509 the Spaniards passed over to the islands of San Juan and Jamaica,83which 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 Cuba1.In the year 1511 the Spaniards passed over to the[pg 329]island of Cuba,84which 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.2.2.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.3.3.“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 performAreytosbefore 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.”4.4.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[pg 330]this proposal, and they threw the gold into a great river in that place.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.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,[pg 331]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.8.8.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.9.9.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.10.10.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.11.11.In three or four months, I being present, more[pg 332]than seven thousand children died of hunger, their fathers and mothers having been taken to the mines. Other dreadful things did I see.12.12.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.
APPENDIX I. - THE BREVISSIMA RELACIONPROLOGUE OF THE BISHOP DON FRAY BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS OR CASAUSTO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY LORD, THE PRINCE OF THE SPANISH STATES.Don Philip our Lord.Most High, and Mighty Lord.1.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.2.2.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[pg 312]destroy it; and that not for one moment, as far as in him lies, can he tolerate it.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.[pg 313]7.7.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.8.8.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.9.9.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.10.10.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.[pg 314]BREVISSIMA RELACION OR SHORT REPORT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES1.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.2.2.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.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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[pg 315]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.6.6.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 Hispaniolahamacas.7.7.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.8.8.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.9.9.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[pg 316]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.10.10.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.11.11.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.12.12.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.13.13.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.14.14.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.15.15.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.16.16.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[pg 318]and treated them as animals,—but as even less than the dung in the streets.17.17.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 Hispaniola1.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.2.2.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[pg 319]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.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they[pg 320]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.8.8.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.9.9.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.9.10.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.10.11.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[pg 321]the Indians killed, the Christians should kill a hundred Indians.The Kingdoms that were in Hispaniola1.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 Maguá, 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.2.2.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.3.3.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[pg 322]and gave that half full; because the Indians had little or no ability to collect, or dig the gold from the mines.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.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[pg 323]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.8.8.In the country of this king, the old Admiral80who 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.9.9.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 Caonabò. 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.[pg 324]The said Caonabò perished, loaded with chains, and fetters.10.10.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.11.11.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.12.12.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.13.13.The governor81who 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 theterra firma. More than three hundred lords were assembled, whom he had summoned[pg 325]and reassured. He lured the principal ones by fraud, into a straw-house, and setting fire to it, he burnt them alive.14.14.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.15.15.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.16.16.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.17.17.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.18.18.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.19.19.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.20.20.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[pg 327]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.21.21.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.22.22.It is impossible to recount the burdens with which their owners loaded them, more than three and fourarobas82weight, making them walk a hundred and two hundred leagues. The same Christians had themselves carried by Indians inhamacas, 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.23.23.It must be noted, that the destruction of this island and of these lands was begun when the death of the most Serene Queen, Doña 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[pg 328]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.24.24.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 JamaicaIn 1509 the Spaniards passed over to the islands of San Juan and Jamaica,83which 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 Cuba1.In the year 1511 the Spaniards passed over to the[pg 329]island of Cuba,84which 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.2.2.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.3.3.“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 performAreytosbefore 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.”4.4.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[pg 330]this proposal, and they threw the gold into a great river in that place.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.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,[pg 331]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.8.8.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.9.9.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.10.10.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.11.11.In three or four months, I being present, more[pg 332]than seven thousand children died of hunger, their fathers and mothers having been taken to the mines. Other dreadful things did I see.12.12.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.
APPENDIX I. - THE BREVISSIMA RELACIONPROLOGUE OF THE BISHOP DON FRAY BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS OR CASAUSTO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY LORD, THE PRINCE OF THE SPANISH STATES.Don Philip our Lord.Most High, and Mighty Lord.1.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.2.2.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[pg 312]destroy it; and that not for one moment, as far as in him lies, can he tolerate it.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.[pg 313]7.7.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.8.8.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.9.9.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.10.10.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.[pg 314]BREVISSIMA RELACION OR SHORT REPORT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES1.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.2.2.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.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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[pg 315]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.6.6.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 Hispaniolahamacas.7.7.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.8.8.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.9.9.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[pg 316]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.10.10.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.11.11.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.12.12.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.13.13.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.14.14.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.15.15.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.16.16.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[pg 318]and treated them as animals,—but as even less than the dung in the streets.17.17.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 Hispaniola1.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.2.2.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[pg 319]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.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they[pg 320]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.8.8.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.9.9.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.9.10.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.10.11.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[pg 321]the Indians killed, the Christians should kill a hundred Indians.The Kingdoms that were in Hispaniola1.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 Maguá, 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.2.2.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.3.3.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[pg 322]and gave that half full; because the Indians had little or no ability to collect, or dig the gold from the mines.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.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[pg 323]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.8.8.In the country of this king, the old Admiral80who 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.9.9.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 Caonabò. 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.[pg 324]The said Caonabò perished, loaded with chains, and fetters.10.10.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.11.11.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.12.12.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.13.13.The governor81who 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 theterra firma. More than three hundred lords were assembled, whom he had summoned[pg 325]and reassured. He lured the principal ones by fraud, into a straw-house, and setting fire to it, he burnt them alive.14.14.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.15.15.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.16.16.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.17.17.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.18.18.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.19.19.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.20.20.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[pg 327]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.21.21.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.22.22.It is impossible to recount the burdens with which their owners loaded them, more than three and fourarobas82weight, making them walk a hundred and two hundred leagues. The same Christians had themselves carried by Indians inhamacas, 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.23.23.It must be noted, that the destruction of this island and of these lands was begun when the death of the most Serene Queen, Doña 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[pg 328]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.24.24.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 JamaicaIn 1509 the Spaniards passed over to the islands of San Juan and Jamaica,83which 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 Cuba1.In the year 1511 the Spaniards passed over to the[pg 329]island of Cuba,84which 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.2.2.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.3.3.“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 performAreytosbefore 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.”4.4.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[pg 330]this proposal, and they threw the gold into a great river in that place.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.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,[pg 331]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.8.8.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.9.9.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.10.10.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.11.11.In three or four months, I being present, more[pg 332]than seven thousand children died of hunger, their fathers and mothers having been taken to the mines. Other dreadful things did I see.12.12.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.
PROLOGUE OF THE BISHOP DON FRAY BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS OR CASAUSTO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY LORD, THE PRINCE OF THE SPANISH STATES.Don Philip our Lord.Most High, and Mighty Lord.1.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.2.2.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[pg 312]destroy it; and that not for one moment, as far as in him lies, can he tolerate it.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.[pg 313]7.7.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.8.8.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.9.9.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.10.10.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.
Don Philip our Lord.Most High, and Mighty Lord.
[pg 314]BREVISSIMA RELACION OR SHORT REPORT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES1.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.2.2.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.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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[pg 315]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.6.6.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 Hispaniolahamacas.7.7.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.8.8.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.9.9.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[pg 316]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.10.10.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.11.11.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.12.12.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.13.13.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.14.14.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.15.15.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.16.16.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[pg 318]and treated them as animals,—but as even less than the dung in the streets.17.17.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 Hispaniola1.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.2.2.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[pg 319]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.3.3.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.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they[pg 320]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.8.8.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.9.9.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.9.10.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.10.11.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[pg 321]the Indians killed, the Christians should kill a hundred Indians.
The Kingdoms that were in Hispaniola1.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 Maguá, 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.2.2.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.3.3.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[pg 322]and gave that half full; because the Indians had little or no ability to collect, or dig the gold from the mines.4.4.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.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.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[pg 323]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.8.8.In the country of this king, the old Admiral80who 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.9.9.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 Caonabò. 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.[pg 324]The said Caonabò perished, loaded with chains, and fetters.10.10.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.11.11.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.12.12.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.13.13.The governor81who 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 theterra firma. More than three hundred lords were assembled, whom he had summoned[pg 325]and reassured. He lured the principal ones by fraud, into a straw-house, and setting fire to it, he burnt them alive.14.14.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.15.15.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.16.16.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.17.17.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.18.18.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.19.19.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.20.20.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[pg 327]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.21.21.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.22.22.It is impossible to recount the burdens with which their owners loaded them, more than three and fourarobas82weight, making them walk a hundred and two hundred leagues. The same Christians had themselves carried by Indians inhamacas, 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.23.23.It must be noted, that the destruction of this island and of these lands was begun when the death of the most Serene Queen, Doña 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[pg 328]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.24.24.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.
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 Maguá, 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.
The Two Islands of San Juan and JamaicaIn 1509 the Spaniards passed over to the islands of San Juan and Jamaica,83which 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.
In 1509 the Spaniards passed over to the islands of San Juan and Jamaica,83which 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 Cuba1.In the year 1511 the Spaniards passed over to the[pg 329]island of Cuba,84which 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.2.2.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.3.3.“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 performAreytosbefore 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.”4.4.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[pg 330]this proposal, and they threw the gold into a great river in that place.5.5.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.6.6.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.7.7.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,[pg 331]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.8.8.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.9.9.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.10.10.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.11.11.In three or four months, I being present, more[pg 332]than seven thousand children died of hunger, their fathers and mothers having been taken to the mines. Other dreadful things did I see.12.12.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.