The Province and Kingdom of GuatemalaWhen he reached this kingdom, he began with a great massacre. Nevertheless the principal lord, accompanied by many other lords of Ultatlan, the chief town of all the kingdom went forth with trumpets, tambourines and great festivity to receive him with litters; they served him with all that they possessed, and especially by giving him ample food and everything else they could.2.The Spaniards lodged outside the town that night because it seemed to them to be strong, and that they might run some risk inside it. The following day, the captain called the principal lord and many others, and when they came like tame lambs, he seized them and demanded so many loads of gold. They replied that they had none, because that country does not produce it. Guiltless of other fault and without trial or sentence, he immediately ordered them to be burned alive.[pg 353]3.When the rulers throughout all those provinces saw that the Spaniards had burnt that one and all those chief lords, only because they gave them no gold, they all fled from their towns and hid in the mountains; they commanded all their people to go to the Spaniards and serve them as their lords, but that they should not, however, reveal to them their hiding place.4.All the inhabitants came to offer themselves to his men and to serve them as their lords. This compassionate captain replied that he would not receive them; on the contrary, he would kill them all, if they did not disclose the whereabouts of their chiefs. The Indians answered that they knew nothing about them but that the Spaniards should make use of them, of their wives and children whom they would find in their houses, where they could kill them or do with them what they wished. And this the Indians declared and offered many times.5.Stupefying to relate, the Spaniards went to the houses where they found the poor people working in safety at their occupations with their wives and children, and there they wounded them with their lances and cut them to pieces. They also went to a quiet, large and important town, where the people were ignorant of what had happened to the others and were safe in their innocence; within barely two hours they destroyed it, putting women, children, and the aged to the sword, and killing all who did not save themselves by flight.6.Seeing that with such humility, submission, patience and suffering they could not break nor soften hearts so inhuman and brutal, and that they were thus cut to pieces contrary to every show or shadow of right, and that they must inevitably perish, the Indians determined to summon all their people together and to die fighting, avenging themselves as best they could on such cruel and infernal enemies; they well knew, however,[pg 354]that being not only unarmed but also naked and on foot, they could not prevail against such fierce people, mounted and so well armed, but must in the end be destroyed.7.They constructed some pits in the middle of the streets, covered over with broken boughs of trees and grass, completely concealing them: they were filled with sharp stakes hardened by fire which would be driven into the horses's bellies if they fell into the pits. Once, or twice, did some horses fall in but not often, because the Spaniards knew how to avoid them. In revenge, the Spaniards made a law, that all Indians of whatsoever rank and age whom they captured alive, they would throw into the pits. And so they threw in pregnant and confined women, children, old men and as many as they could capture who were left stuck on the stakes, until the pits were filled: It excited great compassion to see them, particularly the women with their children.8.They killed all the others with lances and knives; they threw them to savage dogs, that tore them to pieces and ate them; and when they came across some lord, they accorded him the honour of burning in live flames. This butchery lasted about seven years from 1524 to 1531. From this may be judged what numbers of people they destroyed.9.Among the numberless horrible operations that this unhappy and accursed tyrant performed in this kingdom, together with his brothers, (for his captains and the others who helped him, were not less unhappy and senseless than he) was one very notorious one. He went to the province of Cuzcatan, in which, or not far distant, there is the town of San Salvador, which is a most delightful place extending all along the coast of the South Sea from forty to fifty leagues: and the town of Cuzcatan, which was the capital of the province, gave[pg 355]him the kindest of welcomes, sending him more than twenty or thirty Indians loaded with fowls and other provisions.10.When he arrived, and had received the gift, he commanded that each Spaniard should take from that multitude of people, as many Indians as he pleased for his service during their stay there, whose duty should be to bring them everything they needed. Each Spaniard took a hundred, or fifty or as many as he reckoned would be sufficient for his service, and those innocent lambs bore with the distribution, and served with all their strength, and almost adored them.11.In the meantime this captain asked the lords to bring him much gold, because it was principally to that end that they came. The Indians replied that they were happy to give all the gold they had, and they collected a very great quantity of the hatchets they use, which are made of gilded copper and look like gold, though there is little on them. The captain ordered that they should be tested and because he saw they were of copper, he said to the Spaniards:“to the devil with such a country! let us leave it since there is no gold and let each one put the Indians who serve him, in chains, and I will order that they be branded as his slaves.”This was done, and they marked as slaves with the King's brand, all they could bind. And I saw the son of the prince of that town thus branded.12.When those Indians who escaped and the others throughout the land beheld such great iniquity, they began to collect and to arm themselves. The Spaniards did the greatest slaughter and massacre among them, after which they returned to Guatemala where they built a town; and it is that one which has now been by righteous decree of divine justice, destroyed by three deluges[pg 356]together: the one of water, the other of earth and the third of stones much bigger than ten, and twenty oxen.13.Having thus killed all the lords and the men who could have made war, they put all the others into the aforesaid infernal slavery; they demanded slaves as tribute, so the Indians gave their sons and daughters as they have no other slaves, all of whom they loaded into ships and sent to be sold in Peru. By other massacres and murders, besides the above, they have destroyed and devastated a kingdom more than a hundred leagues square, one of the happiest in the way of fertility and population in the world. This same tyrant wrote that it was more populous than the kingdom of Mexico; and he told the truth.14.He and his brothers, together with the others, have killed more than four or five million people in fifteen or sixteen years, from the year 1524 till 1540, and they continue to kill and destroy those who are still left; and so they will kill the remainder.15.It was his custom when he went to make war on some town or province, to take with him as many of the Indians as he could, to fight against the others; and as he led ten or twenty thousand and gave them nothing to eat, he allowed them to eat the Indians they captured. And so a solemn butchery of human flesh took place in his army where, in his presence, children were killed and roasted; and they would kill a man only to eat his hands and feet, which were esteemed the best bits. And all the people of the other countries, hearing of these villainies, were so terror stricken they knew not where to hide themselves.16.They killed numberless people with the labour of building boats. From the South Sea to the North, a distance of a hundred and thirty leagues, they led[pg 357]the Indians loaded with anchors weighing seventy and eighty pounds each—some of which wore into their shoulders and loins. They also carried much artillery in this way on the shoulders of those poor naked creatures; and I saw many of them loaded with artillery, suffering along the roads.17.They deprived the husbands of their wives and daughters, and gave them to the sailors and soldiers, to keep them contented and bring them on board the ships. They crowded Indians into the ships, where they all perished of hunger and thirst. And in truth, were I to recount his cruelties one by one, I could make a big book that would astonish the world.18.He built two fleets, each composed of many ships, with which he burnt, as though with fire from heaven, all those countries. Of how many did he make orphans! Of how many did he take away the children! How many did he deprive of their wives! how many wives did he leave without husbands! Of what adulteries, rapes and violence was he the cause! how many did he deprive of liberty! what anguish and calamity were suffered by many people because of him! what tears did he cause to be shed! what sighs! what groans! what solitude in this life and of how many has he caused the eternal damnation in the next! not only of the Indians—who were numberless—but of the unhappy Christians, of whose company he made himself worthy, with such outrages, most grave sins and execrable abominations. And I pray God, that he may have had compassion on him and be appeased with the bad death to which he at last brought him.93[pg 358]New Spain and Panuco and Xalisco1.After the great cruelties and massacres, that have been described (besides those not mentioned) had been committed in the provinces of New Spain and that of Panuco another senseless and cruel tyrant94arrived in Panuco in the year 1525. By committing great cruelty and putting many in irons, and enslaving great numbers of freemen in the ways above told, and sending shiploads of them to the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, where they could best he sold, he finished devastating all that province. Eighty Indians, reasonable beings, were given in exchange for a horse.2.2.From Panuco, he was sent to govern the city of Mexico and all New Spain as President, with other great tyrants as Auditors: and the great evils, many sins and the amount of cruelty, robbery, and abomination he and they together committed, are beyond belief. They thus reduced all that country to such extreme ruin, that in two years they would have brought New Spain to the condition of the island of Hispaniola, had God not prevented them by the resistance of the Franciscan friars and afterwards, by the appointment of a Royal Audiencia composed of good men, friendly to all virtue.3.3.One of this man's companions forced eight thousand Indians to work, without any payment or food, at building a wall around his great garden; they dropped dead from hunger but he showed no concern whatever.4.4.When this president, of whom I said he finished devastating Panuco, learned that the said good royal Audiencia was coming, he found an excuse to go inland to discover some place where he might tyrannise; he forced fifteen, or twenty thousand men of the province of Mexico to carry the baggage of his expedition, of whom[pg 359]not two hundred returned, all the rest having perished under his tyranny.5.5.He arrived in the province of Mechuacan, which is forty leagues distant from Mexico and similar to it, both in prosperity, and in the number of its people. The king and ruler came out to receive him with a procession of numberless people, rendering a thousand services and making him presents; he at once took the said king prisoner because he was reputed to have great riches of gold and silver: to force him to surrender his many treasures, the tyrant began to put him to the following tortures.6.6.Having put his feet in stocks, with his body stretched and his hands tied to pieces of wood, they placed a pan of fire near his feet, and a boy with a sprinkler soaked in oil, sprinkled them every now and then to burn the skin well. On the one side there stood a cruel man with a loaded arbalist aimed at his heart: on the other stood another holding a terrible and fierce dog which, had he let it, would have torn the king to pieces in a moment; and thus they tortured him to make him disclose the treasures; until a Franciscan monk, being informed of it, delivered him from their hands, though he died at last of his tortures. They tortured and killed many lords and princes of the provinces in like fashion, to make them give up their gold and silver.7.7.At this time a certain tyrant, going as inspector rather of the purses and the property of the Indians than of their souls and bodies, found that some Indians had hidden their idols, as the Spaniards had never taught them about another better God. He took the lords prisoner till they gave him the idols, thinking they would be of gold or silver, and because they were not, he punished them cruelly and unjustly.8.8.And not to be defrauded of this purpose, which[pg 360]was to rob, he compelled the said lords to buy back the idols from him: they bought them with such gold and silver as they could find, to adore them as their God like they were accustomed. These are the works these wretched Spaniards perform, and the example that they give, and the honour they procure for God in the Indies.9.9.This great tyrant passed from the province of Mechuacan into that of Xalisco, which was as full of people as a hive is of bees, most populous and most prosperous, because it is one of the most fertile and marvellous in the Indies. There was a certain town whose houses extended nearly seven leagues. On his arrival there, the lords and people came joyfully forth, bearing gifts, as all the Indians are in the habit of doing when they go to receive any one.10.10.He began to commit the usual cruelties and wickedness as all there are in the habit of doing, and much more besides, to obtain the object they hold as God, which is gold.11.11.He burnt the towns, captured the lords, tortured them—made slaves of everybody he captured and led numbers away in chains. Women just confined were loaded down with the baggage they carried for the wicked Christians and, not being able to carry their infants for fatigue and the weakness of hunger, they threw them by the roadside where numbers perished.12.12.One wicked Christian having seized a maid by force, to sin with her, the mother sprang to tear her away from him, but he seized a dagger, or sword, and cut off the mother's hand; and because the maid would not consent, he stabbed her and killed her.13.13.Among many other free people he unjustly caused to be marked as slaves, were four thousand five hundred men, women, and nursing children of a year old; others also of two, three, four and five years old, although[pg 361]they went forth peacefully to meet him; there were numberless others that were not counted.14.14.When the countless iniquitous and infernal wars and massacres were terminated, he laid all that country under the usual, pestilential and tyrannical servitude to which all the tyrant Christians of the Indies are in the habit of reducing these peoples. In which he consented that his own majordomos and all the others, should use cruelty and unheard of tortures to extract gold and tribute from the Indians.15.15.One majordomo of his killed many peaceable Indians, by hanging, burning them alive, throwing them to fierce dogs, and cutting off their feet and hands and tearing out their tongues and hearts, for no other reason than to frighten them into submission and into giving him gold and tribute, as soon as they recognised him as the same celebrated tyrant. He also gave them many cruel beatings, cudgellings, blows and other kinds of cruelty every day and every hour.16.16.It is told of him that he destroyed and burnt eight hundred towns in that kingdom of Xalisco: he goaded the Indians to rebellion out of sheer desperation, and after they saw such numbers perish so cruelly, they killed some Spaniards, in which they were perfectly justified, and then retreated to the mountains.17.17.Afterwards, the injustice and oppression of other recent tyrants who passed that way to destroy other provinces—which they calleddiscoveringthem,—drove many Indians to unite and to fortify themselves among certain cliffs: against them the Spaniards have again perpetrated such cruelty, killing numberless people, that they have almost finished depopulating and destroying all that large country.18.18.These wretched, blind men whom God has permitted to yield to reprobate appetite, do not perceive[pg 362]the Indians' cause, or rather the many causes sanctioned by every justice, and by the laws of nature, of God and of man, to cut them to pieces, whenever they have the strength and weapons, and to drive them from their countries: nor do they perceive the iniquity and great injustice of their own pretensions, which are condemned by all laws, not to mention the many outrages, tyrannies and grave and inexpiable sins they have committed against the Indians, by repeatedly making war on them: seeing nothing of this, they think and say and write, that the victories they obtain over the innocent Indians by destroying them, are all conceded to them by their God, because their iniquitous wars are just. Almost as though they rejoiced, and glorified, and rendered thanks to God for their tyranny: like those tyrant bandits did of whom the prophet Zacharias says in chapter elevenPasce pecora occisionis, quæ qui occidebant non dolebant, sed dicebant: Benedictus Deus, quia divites facti sumus.The Kingdom of Yucatan1.In the year 1526, by lying and deceiving and by making offers to the King, as all the other tyrants have done till now to obtain offices and positions, so as to rob, another unhappy man95was elected governor of the kingdom of Yucatan.2.2.This kingdom possessed a dense population, because the country is very healthy and abounding much more than Mexico in provisions and fruit: and honey was particularly abundant, more so than in any other part of the Indies thus far discovered.2.3.The said kingdom has a circumference of about three hundred leagues. Its people were famous among[pg 363]all those of the Indies for prudence and cleanliness, and for having fewer vices and sins than any other; and they were very willing and worthy of being brought to the knowledge of God. A great town might have been built there by the Spaniards where they might have lived as in a terrestrial paradise had they been worthy; but, on account of their great avarice, stupidity and grave sins they were not; just as they have not been worthy to possess the many other countries that God has disclosed to them, in the Indies.4.4.This tyrant, with three hundred men whom he brought with him, began by making cruel war on those good and innocent people, who kept within their houses without offending any one; and they killed and destroyed countless people.5.5.The country produces no gold, and if it had he would have used up the people by working them in the mines; to coin gold therefore out of the bodies and souls of those for whom Jesus Christ died, he made slaves indifferently of all whom he did not kill; many ships were attracted thither by the news that slaves were to be had, all of which he sent back loaded with human beings whom he sold for wine, oil, vinegar, pork, clothing, horses and whatever else he and his men thought they needed.6.6.He selected the most beautiful maid from fifty or a hundred, and gave her to him who chose her, in exchange for an aroba of wine, or oil, or for a pig: and similarly a handsome boy, chosen from among two hundred or three hundred, for the same amount. One boy, who seemed to be the son of a prince was given in exchange for a cheese; and a hundred people for a horse.7.7.He continued with these operations from the year 1526 to 1533 which were seven years, ruining and depopulating those countries, and killing those people without pity, till news of the riches of Peru reached the place[pg 364]and the Spaniards left him, and that hell ceased for some days.8.8.Afterwards, however, his ministers returned to commit more great evils, robbery, wickedness, and great offence against God: and neither have they ceased at the present time. Thus have they almost entirely depopulated all those three hundred leagues that were, as has been said, so densely peopled.9.9.No one could believe, neither could the particular cases of cruelty that were done here, be related. I will only tell of two or three, that I remember.10.10.On one occasion these wretched Spaniards set out with fierce dogs to hunt Indians, both women and men, and an Indian woman who was too ill to escape, took a cord and, so that the dogs should not tear her to pieces as they tore the others, she tied her little son of one year to one foot, and then hanged herself on a beam; she was not quick enough before the dogs came up and tore the child limb from limb, although a friar baptised it before it expired.11.11.When the Spaniards were leaving the kingdom, one of them asked the son of a lord of a certain town or province to go with him; the child answered, that he did not wish to leave his country: the Spaniard replied,“come along with me, or I will cut off your ears”; as the boy said that he would not, the man seized a dagger and cut off one of his ears, and then the other; and on the boy still saying that he would not leave his country, he slit his nostrils, laughing as though he were only giving him a pinch.12.12.This lost soul lauded himself, and shamelessly boasted before a venerable monk that he tried his best to get many Indian women with child, because when they were pregnant he got a better price on selling them for slaves.13.13.In this kingdom, or possibly in a province of New Spain, a Spaniard went hunting game, or rabbits, with his dogs; one day, not finding anything to hunt, it seemed to him that the dogs were hungry, so he seized a little child from its mother and cut off its arms and legs with a dagger, giving each dog its portion and when they had eaten these pieces he threw that little body on the ground for all of them together.14.14.Consider only the inhumanity of the Spaniards in these parts and how God has let them fall into reprobate appetite; consider of what account they hold these people who are created in God's image and redeemed by His blood. But we shall see worse things below.15.15.Leaving the infinite and unheard of cruelties perpetrated by those who call themselves Christians, in this kingdom where there is no justice worth speaking of, I will conclude with this only: that when all the infernal tyrants had left, eager for and blinded by the riches of Peru, Fray Jacomo proceeded, with four monks of his Order of St. Francis, to that kingdom, to pacify it, and to preach and bring to Jesus Christ the remnant of people left from the infernal harvesting and the tyrannical massacres committed by the Spaniards during seven years; and I think that these monks went there in the year thirty-four.16.16.They sent ahead certain Indians from the province of Mexico as messengers, to inquire whether the natives were satisfied that the said monks should enter their country, to bring them news of the one only God, who is God and true Lord of all the world.17.17.They [the Indians] assembled many times and consulted about the thing, having first made many inquiries as to what sort of men these were, who called themselvesfathersandbrothers, and as to what they laid claim; and in what they were different from the[pg 366]Christians from whom they had suffered so many offences and such injustice.18.18.They resolved at last to receive them, on the condition that they came alone with no Spaniards. The monks promised this because the Viceroy of New Spain had granted them this privilege and had given orders that no more Spaniards except the monks were to be allowed to enter the country, nor should the Indians suffer any harm from the Christians.19.19.The friars, as is their custom, preached to those people the gospel of Christ, and the holy intentions of the king of Spain towards them. With such love and pleasure did they receive the doctrine and example of the monks, and so greatly did they rejoice over the news of the kings of Castile, of whom in all the past seven years the Spaniards had never given them information nor that there was any king other than he, who tyrannised and destroyed here, that after the monks had preached there forty days, the lords of the country brought and consigned to them all their idols that they might burn them.20.20.And afterwards they gave them their own children, whom they love more than the light of their eyes, that they might train them. And they built them churches, monasteries and houses: and friars, were invited to other provinces, to preach and bring the natives to the knowledge of God and of him whom they called the great king of Castile.21.21.And, persuaded by the monks, the Indians did a thing never done again up to the present day; and all that some of those Tyrants pretend about those kingdoms being destroyed by the friars, is falsehood and lies.22.22.Twelve or fifteen lords, each ruling many vassals and large territories, assembled their people and, after taking their votes and consent, subjected themselves[pg 367]of their own will to the dominion of the kings of Castile, receiving the Emperor, as King of Spain, for their supreme and universal sovereign; and they made some sinas, like signatures, which I have in my possession, together with the attestations of the said friars.23.23.Just when this growth of faith inspired the friars with great joy and hope of drawing to Jesus Christ the still numerous people of that kingdom who survived the murders and unjust wars, eighteen Spanish tyrants on horse entered a certain part of the country with twelve others on foot, which makes thirty, and they brought with them many loads of idols taken from the Indians in other provinces.24.24.And the captain of the said thirty summoned a lord of the country where he had entered, and told him that he must take those loads of idols and distribute them throughout his country, trading each idol for an Indian man or woman, to make them slaves; he threatened to make war on the chief if he refused.25.25.Forced by fear, the said lord distributed the idols throughout all this territory and commanded all his vassals that they should accept and adore them, and give him Indian men and women as slaves for the Spaniards. In alarm, the Indians who had two children gave one of them, and those who had three gave two; and in this way they concluded that sacrilegious commerce and the lord, or prince satisfied the Spaniards.26.26.One of these impious and infernal bandits, called Juan Garcia, when ill and near death, had under his bed two loads of idols and he commanded an Indian woman who served him, to be very careful not to exchange those idols for fowls, but each one for a slave because they were very valuable. And finally with this testament and occupied with this thought the unhappy man died. And who doubts that he is buried in hell?27.27.Consider therefore of what profit are the religion and the examples of Christianity of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; what honour they procure for God; how they work that he may be known and adored by those people; what care they take that His holy faith be sown, grow and expand in those souls. And judge whether this be a less sin than Jeroboam'squi peccare fecit Israelby making two golden calves, for the people to adore. Or whether it equals that of Judas or causes more scandal.28.28.These then are the deeds of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; in their desire for gold they have numberless times sold, and do sell, and have forsworn Jesus Christ.29.29.When the Indians saw that the promise the monks made them that the Spaniards should not enter those provinces did not come true, and that the same Spaniards brought their idols from other countries to sell, after they had given all their own gods to the monks to be burned, so that they might adore the one true God, they became tumultuous and the whole country was enraged with the friars, to whom they said:30.30.Why have you lied and deceived us saying that Christians could not enter this country? And why have you burnt our gods when your Christians bring gods from other provinces to sell to us? Were perhaps our gods not better than those of other nations?31.31.The friars having nothing to reply, calmed them as best they could. They sought out the thirty Spaniards, telling them the harm they had done and beseeching them to depart, but they would not go; on the contrary they gave the Indians to understand, that it was the friars themselves who had made them come there,—which was the height of all malice.32.32.At last the Indians determined to kill the friars;[pg 369]being warned by some Indian, the latter escaped one night. And when the friars had left, and the Indians perceived their innocence and virtue and the malice of the Spaniards, they sent messengers a distance of fifty leagues after them, praying them to return, and asking their pardon for the anxiety they had caused them.33.33.The friars, being servants of God and zealous for those souls, gave them credence, and returned to the country where they were received like angels, the Indians rendering them a thousand services; and they stayed there four or five months longer.34.34.As that country was so distant from New Spain, the Viceroy's efforts to expel those Christians from it were fruitless, and they persisted in remaining there although he had them proclaimed traitors; and because they never ceased their outrages and habitual oppression of the Indians, it seemed to the monks that, sooner or later the natives would become disgusted with such perverse works, and that perhaps the evil consequences would fall on them, especially as the evil deeds of the Spaniards constantly disturbed the Indians and prevented them from preaching to them in tranquillity. They therefore determined to abandon the kingdom.35.35.Thus the country was left without the light and help of doctrine; and those souls were abandoned to the obscurity of ignorance and misery, in which they formerly were. The Indians were deprived, till better times should come, of assistance and the diffusion of the knowledge of God, which they had been already receiving with eagerness; it was just as though we were to deprive plants of water a few days after planting them: and this was brought about by the inexpiable fault and consummate malice of those Spaniards.[pg 370]The Province of Santa Maria1.The province of Santa Marta was a country where the Indians had a great deal of gold because both it and the places round about have rich mines which were diligently worked. And for this reason, from the year 1498 till the present 1542, numberless Spanish tyrants have continually gone there with ships to ravage and kill those people and to steal their gold. They afterwards returned in the ships with which they made numerous expeditions, murdering and massacring, with notorious cruelty; this commonly occurred along the seacoast and a few leagues inland, till the year 1523.2.2.In the year 1523 some Spanish tyrants went to take up their abode here. And because the country, as has been said, was rich, divers captains succeeded one another, each crueller than the other, so that it seemed as though each had made a vow to practise more exorbitant evils and cruelty than the other, in verification of the rule we have given above.3.3.In the year 1529 there arrived a great tyrant accompanied by many men, devoid of any fear of God or any mercy on mankind; so great were the massacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he surpassed all his predecessors. During the space of six, or seven years that he lived, he and his men stole much treasure.964.4.He died without sacraments after also avoiding the commission of investigation met on his account; and afterwards, other murderous and thieving tyrants succeeded, who continued to destroy those people who[pg 371]had survived the treatment and cruel swords of their predecessors.5.5.They marched far inland, ruining and exterminating large and numerous provinces; killing, and making slaves of their people in the ways above told of the others, putting lords and their vassals to grievous tortures to force them to disclose the gold and the town where it was to be had: as has been said they surpassed, both in number and quality, the operations of all their predecessors so that from the said year 1529, till to-day, they have devastated in those parts more than four hundred leagues of country, which was as densely peopled as the other.6.6.I truthfully declare that if I had to relate singly the evil, the massacres, the destruction, injustice, violence, slaughter, and the great sins the Spaniards have committed in this Kingdom of Santa Marta, against God, against the King, and against those innocent nations, I would compose a very long history; I shall relate all this however in due time, if God gives me life.7.7.Here I wish only to quote some few of the words that the lord bishop of that province now writes to the King: and the date of his letter is the 20th of May, 1541, in which among other words he says thus:8.8.“I assert, oh Sacred Cæsar, that the way to remedy the ills of this country is for Your Majesty to now take it out of the hands of step-fathers and to give it a husband, who will treat it justly, and as it deserves; and this as soon as possible because otherwise I am certain that the way these tyrants who now have the government, crush and harass it, will very soon destroy it,”etc.9.9.And further on he says:“therefore Your Majesty will clearly discern that those who govern in these parts, deserve to be destroyed, to relieve the republics. And if this is not done, their infirmities are, in my opinion,[pg 372]without remedy. And Your Majesty will know in like manner that in these parts there are no Christians but demons; neither are there servants of God nor of the King, but traitors to His law, and to the King.”10.10.“Because in truth, the greatest obstacle I find to winning the Indians from war to peace, and from peace to the knowledge of our Holy Faith, is the harsh and cruel treatment that the peaceable ones receive from the Christians.”11.11.“They have on this account become so fierce and enraged, that nothing is more hated or abhorred by them, than the name of Christians, whom in all this country they call in their languageYares, which means demons; and without doubt they are right, because the deeds they do here are not those of Christians nor of reasonable men, but of devils.”12.12.“From which it arises, that the Indians, seeing these perverse operations are general, and that both the commanders and the subordinates are so devoid of mercy, think that such is the law of the Christians, of which their God and their King are the authors. And to try to persuade them to the contrary is like trying to dry up the sea, and only makes them laugh and jeer at Jesus Christ and His law.”13.13.“And the Indian warriors, seeing the treatment shown the peaceable people, count it better to die once, than many times in the power of the Spaniards; I know this most invincible Caesar from experience”etc.14.14.And in a chapter further on he says:“Your Majesty has more servants in these parts than is supposed; because there is not a soldier among those here who, while he is assassinating, or robbing, or destroying, or killing, or burning Your Majesty's vassals to force their gold from them, does not make bold to claim that he is serving Your Majesty. It would therefore be well, Most[pg 373]Christian Cæsar, that Your Majesty should make known by rigorously punishing some of them, that such services as are contrary to the service of God, are not accepted.”15.15.All the above are formal words of the said Bishop of Santa Marta, and from them it will be clearly seen what is done to-day in these unfortunate countries, and to these innocent people.16.16.By "Indian warriors" he means those who live in the mountains and have been able to escape from massacres perpetrated by the unhappy Spaniards. And he terms“peaceable”those Indians whom the Spaniards, after having killed numberless people, condemn to the aforesaid tyrannical and horrible slavery, in which they then finish destroying and killing them, as appears from the quoted words of the bishop: and in truth very little indeed does he express, of what they suffer.17.17.When the Spaniards make them labour, carrying loads over the mountains, they kick and beat them, and knock out their teeth with the handles of their swords, to force them to get up when they fall, fainting from weakness, and to go on without taking breath; and the Indians commonly exclaim;“go to, how wicked you are: I am worn out so kill me here, for I would rather die now and here.”And they say this with many sighs and gasps, showing great anguish and grief.18.18.Oh! who could express the hundredth part of the affliction and calamity that these innocent people suffer from the unhappy Spaniards! May God make it known to those who can, and ought to remedy it.
The Province and Kingdom of GuatemalaWhen he reached this kingdom, he began with a great massacre. Nevertheless the principal lord, accompanied by many other lords of Ultatlan, the chief town of all the kingdom went forth with trumpets, tambourines and great festivity to receive him with litters; they served him with all that they possessed, and especially by giving him ample food and everything else they could.2.The Spaniards lodged outside the town that night because it seemed to them to be strong, and that they might run some risk inside it. The following day, the captain called the principal lord and many others, and when they came like tame lambs, he seized them and demanded so many loads of gold. They replied that they had none, because that country does not produce it. Guiltless of other fault and without trial or sentence, he immediately ordered them to be burned alive.[pg 353]3.When the rulers throughout all those provinces saw that the Spaniards had burnt that one and all those chief lords, only because they gave them no gold, they all fled from their towns and hid in the mountains; they commanded all their people to go to the Spaniards and serve them as their lords, but that they should not, however, reveal to them their hiding place.4.All the inhabitants came to offer themselves to his men and to serve them as their lords. This compassionate captain replied that he would not receive them; on the contrary, he would kill them all, if they did not disclose the whereabouts of their chiefs. The Indians answered that they knew nothing about them but that the Spaniards should make use of them, of their wives and children whom they would find in their houses, where they could kill them or do with them what they wished. And this the Indians declared and offered many times.5.Stupefying to relate, the Spaniards went to the houses where they found the poor people working in safety at their occupations with their wives and children, and there they wounded them with their lances and cut them to pieces. They also went to a quiet, large and important town, where the people were ignorant of what had happened to the others and were safe in their innocence; within barely two hours they destroyed it, putting women, children, and the aged to the sword, and killing all who did not save themselves by flight.6.Seeing that with such humility, submission, patience and suffering they could not break nor soften hearts so inhuman and brutal, and that they were thus cut to pieces contrary to every show or shadow of right, and that they must inevitably perish, the Indians determined to summon all their people together and to die fighting, avenging themselves as best they could on such cruel and infernal enemies; they well knew, however,[pg 354]that being not only unarmed but also naked and on foot, they could not prevail against such fierce people, mounted and so well armed, but must in the end be destroyed.7.They constructed some pits in the middle of the streets, covered over with broken boughs of trees and grass, completely concealing them: they were filled with sharp stakes hardened by fire which would be driven into the horses's bellies if they fell into the pits. Once, or twice, did some horses fall in but not often, because the Spaniards knew how to avoid them. In revenge, the Spaniards made a law, that all Indians of whatsoever rank and age whom they captured alive, they would throw into the pits. And so they threw in pregnant and confined women, children, old men and as many as they could capture who were left stuck on the stakes, until the pits were filled: It excited great compassion to see them, particularly the women with their children.8.They killed all the others with lances and knives; they threw them to savage dogs, that tore them to pieces and ate them; and when they came across some lord, they accorded him the honour of burning in live flames. This butchery lasted about seven years from 1524 to 1531. From this may be judged what numbers of people they destroyed.9.Among the numberless horrible operations that this unhappy and accursed tyrant performed in this kingdom, together with his brothers, (for his captains and the others who helped him, were not less unhappy and senseless than he) was one very notorious one. He went to the province of Cuzcatan, in which, or not far distant, there is the town of San Salvador, which is a most delightful place extending all along the coast of the South Sea from forty to fifty leagues: and the town of Cuzcatan, which was the capital of the province, gave[pg 355]him the kindest of welcomes, sending him more than twenty or thirty Indians loaded with fowls and other provisions.10.When he arrived, and had received the gift, he commanded that each Spaniard should take from that multitude of people, as many Indians as he pleased for his service during their stay there, whose duty should be to bring them everything they needed. Each Spaniard took a hundred, or fifty or as many as he reckoned would be sufficient for his service, and those innocent lambs bore with the distribution, and served with all their strength, and almost adored them.11.In the meantime this captain asked the lords to bring him much gold, because it was principally to that end that they came. The Indians replied that they were happy to give all the gold they had, and they collected a very great quantity of the hatchets they use, which are made of gilded copper and look like gold, though there is little on them. The captain ordered that they should be tested and because he saw they were of copper, he said to the Spaniards:“to the devil with such a country! let us leave it since there is no gold and let each one put the Indians who serve him, in chains, and I will order that they be branded as his slaves.”This was done, and they marked as slaves with the King's brand, all they could bind. And I saw the son of the prince of that town thus branded.12.When those Indians who escaped and the others throughout the land beheld such great iniquity, they began to collect and to arm themselves. The Spaniards did the greatest slaughter and massacre among them, after which they returned to Guatemala where they built a town; and it is that one which has now been by righteous decree of divine justice, destroyed by three deluges[pg 356]together: the one of water, the other of earth and the third of stones much bigger than ten, and twenty oxen.13.Having thus killed all the lords and the men who could have made war, they put all the others into the aforesaid infernal slavery; they demanded slaves as tribute, so the Indians gave their sons and daughters as they have no other slaves, all of whom they loaded into ships and sent to be sold in Peru. By other massacres and murders, besides the above, they have destroyed and devastated a kingdom more than a hundred leagues square, one of the happiest in the way of fertility and population in the world. This same tyrant wrote that it was more populous than the kingdom of Mexico; and he told the truth.14.He and his brothers, together with the others, have killed more than four or five million people in fifteen or sixteen years, from the year 1524 till 1540, and they continue to kill and destroy those who are still left; and so they will kill the remainder.15.It was his custom when he went to make war on some town or province, to take with him as many of the Indians as he could, to fight against the others; and as he led ten or twenty thousand and gave them nothing to eat, he allowed them to eat the Indians they captured. And so a solemn butchery of human flesh took place in his army where, in his presence, children were killed and roasted; and they would kill a man only to eat his hands and feet, which were esteemed the best bits. And all the people of the other countries, hearing of these villainies, were so terror stricken they knew not where to hide themselves.16.They killed numberless people with the labour of building boats. From the South Sea to the North, a distance of a hundred and thirty leagues, they led[pg 357]the Indians loaded with anchors weighing seventy and eighty pounds each—some of which wore into their shoulders and loins. They also carried much artillery in this way on the shoulders of those poor naked creatures; and I saw many of them loaded with artillery, suffering along the roads.17.They deprived the husbands of their wives and daughters, and gave them to the sailors and soldiers, to keep them contented and bring them on board the ships. They crowded Indians into the ships, where they all perished of hunger and thirst. And in truth, were I to recount his cruelties one by one, I could make a big book that would astonish the world.18.He built two fleets, each composed of many ships, with which he burnt, as though with fire from heaven, all those countries. Of how many did he make orphans! Of how many did he take away the children! How many did he deprive of their wives! how many wives did he leave without husbands! Of what adulteries, rapes and violence was he the cause! how many did he deprive of liberty! what anguish and calamity were suffered by many people because of him! what tears did he cause to be shed! what sighs! what groans! what solitude in this life and of how many has he caused the eternal damnation in the next! not only of the Indians—who were numberless—but of the unhappy Christians, of whose company he made himself worthy, with such outrages, most grave sins and execrable abominations. And I pray God, that he may have had compassion on him and be appeased with the bad death to which he at last brought him.93[pg 358]New Spain and Panuco and Xalisco1.After the great cruelties and massacres, that have been described (besides those not mentioned) had been committed in the provinces of New Spain and that of Panuco another senseless and cruel tyrant94arrived in Panuco in the year 1525. By committing great cruelty and putting many in irons, and enslaving great numbers of freemen in the ways above told, and sending shiploads of them to the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, where they could best he sold, he finished devastating all that province. Eighty Indians, reasonable beings, were given in exchange for a horse.2.2.From Panuco, he was sent to govern the city of Mexico and all New Spain as President, with other great tyrants as Auditors: and the great evils, many sins and the amount of cruelty, robbery, and abomination he and they together committed, are beyond belief. They thus reduced all that country to such extreme ruin, that in two years they would have brought New Spain to the condition of the island of Hispaniola, had God not prevented them by the resistance of the Franciscan friars and afterwards, by the appointment of a Royal Audiencia composed of good men, friendly to all virtue.3.3.One of this man's companions forced eight thousand Indians to work, without any payment or food, at building a wall around his great garden; they dropped dead from hunger but he showed no concern whatever.4.4.When this president, of whom I said he finished devastating Panuco, learned that the said good royal Audiencia was coming, he found an excuse to go inland to discover some place where he might tyrannise; he forced fifteen, or twenty thousand men of the province of Mexico to carry the baggage of his expedition, of whom[pg 359]not two hundred returned, all the rest having perished under his tyranny.5.5.He arrived in the province of Mechuacan, which is forty leagues distant from Mexico and similar to it, both in prosperity, and in the number of its people. The king and ruler came out to receive him with a procession of numberless people, rendering a thousand services and making him presents; he at once took the said king prisoner because he was reputed to have great riches of gold and silver: to force him to surrender his many treasures, the tyrant began to put him to the following tortures.6.6.Having put his feet in stocks, with his body stretched and his hands tied to pieces of wood, they placed a pan of fire near his feet, and a boy with a sprinkler soaked in oil, sprinkled them every now and then to burn the skin well. On the one side there stood a cruel man with a loaded arbalist aimed at his heart: on the other stood another holding a terrible and fierce dog which, had he let it, would have torn the king to pieces in a moment; and thus they tortured him to make him disclose the treasures; until a Franciscan monk, being informed of it, delivered him from their hands, though he died at last of his tortures. They tortured and killed many lords and princes of the provinces in like fashion, to make them give up their gold and silver.7.7.At this time a certain tyrant, going as inspector rather of the purses and the property of the Indians than of their souls and bodies, found that some Indians had hidden their idols, as the Spaniards had never taught them about another better God. He took the lords prisoner till they gave him the idols, thinking they would be of gold or silver, and because they were not, he punished them cruelly and unjustly.8.8.And not to be defrauded of this purpose, which[pg 360]was to rob, he compelled the said lords to buy back the idols from him: they bought them with such gold and silver as they could find, to adore them as their God like they were accustomed. These are the works these wretched Spaniards perform, and the example that they give, and the honour they procure for God in the Indies.9.9.This great tyrant passed from the province of Mechuacan into that of Xalisco, which was as full of people as a hive is of bees, most populous and most prosperous, because it is one of the most fertile and marvellous in the Indies. There was a certain town whose houses extended nearly seven leagues. On his arrival there, the lords and people came joyfully forth, bearing gifts, as all the Indians are in the habit of doing when they go to receive any one.10.10.He began to commit the usual cruelties and wickedness as all there are in the habit of doing, and much more besides, to obtain the object they hold as God, which is gold.11.11.He burnt the towns, captured the lords, tortured them—made slaves of everybody he captured and led numbers away in chains. Women just confined were loaded down with the baggage they carried for the wicked Christians and, not being able to carry their infants for fatigue and the weakness of hunger, they threw them by the roadside where numbers perished.12.12.One wicked Christian having seized a maid by force, to sin with her, the mother sprang to tear her away from him, but he seized a dagger, or sword, and cut off the mother's hand; and because the maid would not consent, he stabbed her and killed her.13.13.Among many other free people he unjustly caused to be marked as slaves, were four thousand five hundred men, women, and nursing children of a year old; others also of two, three, four and five years old, although[pg 361]they went forth peacefully to meet him; there were numberless others that were not counted.14.14.When the countless iniquitous and infernal wars and massacres were terminated, he laid all that country under the usual, pestilential and tyrannical servitude to which all the tyrant Christians of the Indies are in the habit of reducing these peoples. In which he consented that his own majordomos and all the others, should use cruelty and unheard of tortures to extract gold and tribute from the Indians.15.15.One majordomo of his killed many peaceable Indians, by hanging, burning them alive, throwing them to fierce dogs, and cutting off their feet and hands and tearing out their tongues and hearts, for no other reason than to frighten them into submission and into giving him gold and tribute, as soon as they recognised him as the same celebrated tyrant. He also gave them many cruel beatings, cudgellings, blows and other kinds of cruelty every day and every hour.16.16.It is told of him that he destroyed and burnt eight hundred towns in that kingdom of Xalisco: he goaded the Indians to rebellion out of sheer desperation, and after they saw such numbers perish so cruelly, they killed some Spaniards, in which they were perfectly justified, and then retreated to the mountains.17.17.Afterwards, the injustice and oppression of other recent tyrants who passed that way to destroy other provinces—which they calleddiscoveringthem,—drove many Indians to unite and to fortify themselves among certain cliffs: against them the Spaniards have again perpetrated such cruelty, killing numberless people, that they have almost finished depopulating and destroying all that large country.18.18.These wretched, blind men whom God has permitted to yield to reprobate appetite, do not perceive[pg 362]the Indians' cause, or rather the many causes sanctioned by every justice, and by the laws of nature, of God and of man, to cut them to pieces, whenever they have the strength and weapons, and to drive them from their countries: nor do they perceive the iniquity and great injustice of their own pretensions, which are condemned by all laws, not to mention the many outrages, tyrannies and grave and inexpiable sins they have committed against the Indians, by repeatedly making war on them: seeing nothing of this, they think and say and write, that the victories they obtain over the innocent Indians by destroying them, are all conceded to them by their God, because their iniquitous wars are just. Almost as though they rejoiced, and glorified, and rendered thanks to God for their tyranny: like those tyrant bandits did of whom the prophet Zacharias says in chapter elevenPasce pecora occisionis, quæ qui occidebant non dolebant, sed dicebant: Benedictus Deus, quia divites facti sumus.The Kingdom of Yucatan1.In the year 1526, by lying and deceiving and by making offers to the King, as all the other tyrants have done till now to obtain offices and positions, so as to rob, another unhappy man95was elected governor of the kingdom of Yucatan.2.2.This kingdom possessed a dense population, because the country is very healthy and abounding much more than Mexico in provisions and fruit: and honey was particularly abundant, more so than in any other part of the Indies thus far discovered.2.3.The said kingdom has a circumference of about three hundred leagues. Its people were famous among[pg 363]all those of the Indies for prudence and cleanliness, and for having fewer vices and sins than any other; and they were very willing and worthy of being brought to the knowledge of God. A great town might have been built there by the Spaniards where they might have lived as in a terrestrial paradise had they been worthy; but, on account of their great avarice, stupidity and grave sins they were not; just as they have not been worthy to possess the many other countries that God has disclosed to them, in the Indies.4.4.This tyrant, with three hundred men whom he brought with him, began by making cruel war on those good and innocent people, who kept within their houses without offending any one; and they killed and destroyed countless people.5.5.The country produces no gold, and if it had he would have used up the people by working them in the mines; to coin gold therefore out of the bodies and souls of those for whom Jesus Christ died, he made slaves indifferently of all whom he did not kill; many ships were attracted thither by the news that slaves were to be had, all of which he sent back loaded with human beings whom he sold for wine, oil, vinegar, pork, clothing, horses and whatever else he and his men thought they needed.6.6.He selected the most beautiful maid from fifty or a hundred, and gave her to him who chose her, in exchange for an aroba of wine, or oil, or for a pig: and similarly a handsome boy, chosen from among two hundred or three hundred, for the same amount. One boy, who seemed to be the son of a prince was given in exchange for a cheese; and a hundred people for a horse.7.7.He continued with these operations from the year 1526 to 1533 which were seven years, ruining and depopulating those countries, and killing those people without pity, till news of the riches of Peru reached the place[pg 364]and the Spaniards left him, and that hell ceased for some days.8.8.Afterwards, however, his ministers returned to commit more great evils, robbery, wickedness, and great offence against God: and neither have they ceased at the present time. Thus have they almost entirely depopulated all those three hundred leagues that were, as has been said, so densely peopled.9.9.No one could believe, neither could the particular cases of cruelty that were done here, be related. I will only tell of two or three, that I remember.10.10.On one occasion these wretched Spaniards set out with fierce dogs to hunt Indians, both women and men, and an Indian woman who was too ill to escape, took a cord and, so that the dogs should not tear her to pieces as they tore the others, she tied her little son of one year to one foot, and then hanged herself on a beam; she was not quick enough before the dogs came up and tore the child limb from limb, although a friar baptised it before it expired.11.11.When the Spaniards were leaving the kingdom, one of them asked the son of a lord of a certain town or province to go with him; the child answered, that he did not wish to leave his country: the Spaniard replied,“come along with me, or I will cut off your ears”; as the boy said that he would not, the man seized a dagger and cut off one of his ears, and then the other; and on the boy still saying that he would not leave his country, he slit his nostrils, laughing as though he were only giving him a pinch.12.12.This lost soul lauded himself, and shamelessly boasted before a venerable monk that he tried his best to get many Indian women with child, because when they were pregnant he got a better price on selling them for slaves.13.13.In this kingdom, or possibly in a province of New Spain, a Spaniard went hunting game, or rabbits, with his dogs; one day, not finding anything to hunt, it seemed to him that the dogs were hungry, so he seized a little child from its mother and cut off its arms and legs with a dagger, giving each dog its portion and when they had eaten these pieces he threw that little body on the ground for all of them together.14.14.Consider only the inhumanity of the Spaniards in these parts and how God has let them fall into reprobate appetite; consider of what account they hold these people who are created in God's image and redeemed by His blood. But we shall see worse things below.15.15.Leaving the infinite and unheard of cruelties perpetrated by those who call themselves Christians, in this kingdom where there is no justice worth speaking of, I will conclude with this only: that when all the infernal tyrants had left, eager for and blinded by the riches of Peru, Fray Jacomo proceeded, with four monks of his Order of St. Francis, to that kingdom, to pacify it, and to preach and bring to Jesus Christ the remnant of people left from the infernal harvesting and the tyrannical massacres committed by the Spaniards during seven years; and I think that these monks went there in the year thirty-four.16.16.They sent ahead certain Indians from the province of Mexico as messengers, to inquire whether the natives were satisfied that the said monks should enter their country, to bring them news of the one only God, who is God and true Lord of all the world.17.17.They [the Indians] assembled many times and consulted about the thing, having first made many inquiries as to what sort of men these were, who called themselvesfathersandbrothers, and as to what they laid claim; and in what they were different from the[pg 366]Christians from whom they had suffered so many offences and such injustice.18.18.They resolved at last to receive them, on the condition that they came alone with no Spaniards. The monks promised this because the Viceroy of New Spain had granted them this privilege and had given orders that no more Spaniards except the monks were to be allowed to enter the country, nor should the Indians suffer any harm from the Christians.19.19.The friars, as is their custom, preached to those people the gospel of Christ, and the holy intentions of the king of Spain towards them. With such love and pleasure did they receive the doctrine and example of the monks, and so greatly did they rejoice over the news of the kings of Castile, of whom in all the past seven years the Spaniards had never given them information nor that there was any king other than he, who tyrannised and destroyed here, that after the monks had preached there forty days, the lords of the country brought and consigned to them all their idols that they might burn them.20.20.And afterwards they gave them their own children, whom they love more than the light of their eyes, that they might train them. And they built them churches, monasteries and houses: and friars, were invited to other provinces, to preach and bring the natives to the knowledge of God and of him whom they called the great king of Castile.21.21.And, persuaded by the monks, the Indians did a thing never done again up to the present day; and all that some of those Tyrants pretend about those kingdoms being destroyed by the friars, is falsehood and lies.22.22.Twelve or fifteen lords, each ruling many vassals and large territories, assembled their people and, after taking their votes and consent, subjected themselves[pg 367]of their own will to the dominion of the kings of Castile, receiving the Emperor, as King of Spain, for their supreme and universal sovereign; and they made some sinas, like signatures, which I have in my possession, together with the attestations of the said friars.23.23.Just when this growth of faith inspired the friars with great joy and hope of drawing to Jesus Christ the still numerous people of that kingdom who survived the murders and unjust wars, eighteen Spanish tyrants on horse entered a certain part of the country with twelve others on foot, which makes thirty, and they brought with them many loads of idols taken from the Indians in other provinces.24.24.And the captain of the said thirty summoned a lord of the country where he had entered, and told him that he must take those loads of idols and distribute them throughout his country, trading each idol for an Indian man or woman, to make them slaves; he threatened to make war on the chief if he refused.25.25.Forced by fear, the said lord distributed the idols throughout all this territory and commanded all his vassals that they should accept and adore them, and give him Indian men and women as slaves for the Spaniards. In alarm, the Indians who had two children gave one of them, and those who had three gave two; and in this way they concluded that sacrilegious commerce and the lord, or prince satisfied the Spaniards.26.26.One of these impious and infernal bandits, called Juan Garcia, when ill and near death, had under his bed two loads of idols and he commanded an Indian woman who served him, to be very careful not to exchange those idols for fowls, but each one for a slave because they were very valuable. And finally with this testament and occupied with this thought the unhappy man died. And who doubts that he is buried in hell?27.27.Consider therefore of what profit are the religion and the examples of Christianity of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; what honour they procure for God; how they work that he may be known and adored by those people; what care they take that His holy faith be sown, grow and expand in those souls. And judge whether this be a less sin than Jeroboam'squi peccare fecit Israelby making two golden calves, for the people to adore. Or whether it equals that of Judas or causes more scandal.28.28.These then are the deeds of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; in their desire for gold they have numberless times sold, and do sell, and have forsworn Jesus Christ.29.29.When the Indians saw that the promise the monks made them that the Spaniards should not enter those provinces did not come true, and that the same Spaniards brought their idols from other countries to sell, after they had given all their own gods to the monks to be burned, so that they might adore the one true God, they became tumultuous and the whole country was enraged with the friars, to whom they said:30.30.Why have you lied and deceived us saying that Christians could not enter this country? And why have you burnt our gods when your Christians bring gods from other provinces to sell to us? Were perhaps our gods not better than those of other nations?31.31.The friars having nothing to reply, calmed them as best they could. They sought out the thirty Spaniards, telling them the harm they had done and beseeching them to depart, but they would not go; on the contrary they gave the Indians to understand, that it was the friars themselves who had made them come there,—which was the height of all malice.32.32.At last the Indians determined to kill the friars;[pg 369]being warned by some Indian, the latter escaped one night. And when the friars had left, and the Indians perceived their innocence and virtue and the malice of the Spaniards, they sent messengers a distance of fifty leagues after them, praying them to return, and asking their pardon for the anxiety they had caused them.33.33.The friars, being servants of God and zealous for those souls, gave them credence, and returned to the country where they were received like angels, the Indians rendering them a thousand services; and they stayed there four or five months longer.34.34.As that country was so distant from New Spain, the Viceroy's efforts to expel those Christians from it were fruitless, and they persisted in remaining there although he had them proclaimed traitors; and because they never ceased their outrages and habitual oppression of the Indians, it seemed to the monks that, sooner or later the natives would become disgusted with such perverse works, and that perhaps the evil consequences would fall on them, especially as the evil deeds of the Spaniards constantly disturbed the Indians and prevented them from preaching to them in tranquillity. They therefore determined to abandon the kingdom.35.35.Thus the country was left without the light and help of doctrine; and those souls were abandoned to the obscurity of ignorance and misery, in which they formerly were. The Indians were deprived, till better times should come, of assistance and the diffusion of the knowledge of God, which they had been already receiving with eagerness; it was just as though we were to deprive plants of water a few days after planting them: and this was brought about by the inexpiable fault and consummate malice of those Spaniards.[pg 370]The Province of Santa Maria1.The province of Santa Marta was a country where the Indians had a great deal of gold because both it and the places round about have rich mines which were diligently worked. And for this reason, from the year 1498 till the present 1542, numberless Spanish tyrants have continually gone there with ships to ravage and kill those people and to steal their gold. They afterwards returned in the ships with which they made numerous expeditions, murdering and massacring, with notorious cruelty; this commonly occurred along the seacoast and a few leagues inland, till the year 1523.2.2.In the year 1523 some Spanish tyrants went to take up their abode here. And because the country, as has been said, was rich, divers captains succeeded one another, each crueller than the other, so that it seemed as though each had made a vow to practise more exorbitant evils and cruelty than the other, in verification of the rule we have given above.3.3.In the year 1529 there arrived a great tyrant accompanied by many men, devoid of any fear of God or any mercy on mankind; so great were the massacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he surpassed all his predecessors. During the space of six, or seven years that he lived, he and his men stole much treasure.964.4.He died without sacraments after also avoiding the commission of investigation met on his account; and afterwards, other murderous and thieving tyrants succeeded, who continued to destroy those people who[pg 371]had survived the treatment and cruel swords of their predecessors.5.5.They marched far inland, ruining and exterminating large and numerous provinces; killing, and making slaves of their people in the ways above told of the others, putting lords and their vassals to grievous tortures to force them to disclose the gold and the town where it was to be had: as has been said they surpassed, both in number and quality, the operations of all their predecessors so that from the said year 1529, till to-day, they have devastated in those parts more than four hundred leagues of country, which was as densely peopled as the other.6.6.I truthfully declare that if I had to relate singly the evil, the massacres, the destruction, injustice, violence, slaughter, and the great sins the Spaniards have committed in this Kingdom of Santa Marta, against God, against the King, and against those innocent nations, I would compose a very long history; I shall relate all this however in due time, if God gives me life.7.7.Here I wish only to quote some few of the words that the lord bishop of that province now writes to the King: and the date of his letter is the 20th of May, 1541, in which among other words he says thus:8.8.“I assert, oh Sacred Cæsar, that the way to remedy the ills of this country is for Your Majesty to now take it out of the hands of step-fathers and to give it a husband, who will treat it justly, and as it deserves; and this as soon as possible because otherwise I am certain that the way these tyrants who now have the government, crush and harass it, will very soon destroy it,”etc.9.9.And further on he says:“therefore Your Majesty will clearly discern that those who govern in these parts, deserve to be destroyed, to relieve the republics. And if this is not done, their infirmities are, in my opinion,[pg 372]without remedy. And Your Majesty will know in like manner that in these parts there are no Christians but demons; neither are there servants of God nor of the King, but traitors to His law, and to the King.”10.10.“Because in truth, the greatest obstacle I find to winning the Indians from war to peace, and from peace to the knowledge of our Holy Faith, is the harsh and cruel treatment that the peaceable ones receive from the Christians.”11.11.“They have on this account become so fierce and enraged, that nothing is more hated or abhorred by them, than the name of Christians, whom in all this country they call in their languageYares, which means demons; and without doubt they are right, because the deeds they do here are not those of Christians nor of reasonable men, but of devils.”12.12.“From which it arises, that the Indians, seeing these perverse operations are general, and that both the commanders and the subordinates are so devoid of mercy, think that such is the law of the Christians, of which their God and their King are the authors. And to try to persuade them to the contrary is like trying to dry up the sea, and only makes them laugh and jeer at Jesus Christ and His law.”13.13.“And the Indian warriors, seeing the treatment shown the peaceable people, count it better to die once, than many times in the power of the Spaniards; I know this most invincible Caesar from experience”etc.14.14.And in a chapter further on he says:“Your Majesty has more servants in these parts than is supposed; because there is not a soldier among those here who, while he is assassinating, or robbing, or destroying, or killing, or burning Your Majesty's vassals to force their gold from them, does not make bold to claim that he is serving Your Majesty. It would therefore be well, Most[pg 373]Christian Cæsar, that Your Majesty should make known by rigorously punishing some of them, that such services as are contrary to the service of God, are not accepted.”15.15.All the above are formal words of the said Bishop of Santa Marta, and from them it will be clearly seen what is done to-day in these unfortunate countries, and to these innocent people.16.16.By "Indian warriors" he means those who live in the mountains and have been able to escape from massacres perpetrated by the unhappy Spaniards. And he terms“peaceable”those Indians whom the Spaniards, after having killed numberless people, condemn to the aforesaid tyrannical and horrible slavery, in which they then finish destroying and killing them, as appears from the quoted words of the bishop: and in truth very little indeed does he express, of what they suffer.17.17.When the Spaniards make them labour, carrying loads over the mountains, they kick and beat them, and knock out their teeth with the handles of their swords, to force them to get up when they fall, fainting from weakness, and to go on without taking breath; and the Indians commonly exclaim;“go to, how wicked you are: I am worn out so kill me here, for I would rather die now and here.”And they say this with many sighs and gasps, showing great anguish and grief.18.18.Oh! who could express the hundredth part of the affliction and calamity that these innocent people suffer from the unhappy Spaniards! May God make it known to those who can, and ought to remedy it.
The Province and Kingdom of GuatemalaWhen he reached this kingdom, he began with a great massacre. Nevertheless the principal lord, accompanied by many other lords of Ultatlan, the chief town of all the kingdom went forth with trumpets, tambourines and great festivity to receive him with litters; they served him with all that they possessed, and especially by giving him ample food and everything else they could.2.The Spaniards lodged outside the town that night because it seemed to them to be strong, and that they might run some risk inside it. The following day, the captain called the principal lord and many others, and when they came like tame lambs, he seized them and demanded so many loads of gold. They replied that they had none, because that country does not produce it. Guiltless of other fault and without trial or sentence, he immediately ordered them to be burned alive.[pg 353]3.When the rulers throughout all those provinces saw that the Spaniards had burnt that one and all those chief lords, only because they gave them no gold, they all fled from their towns and hid in the mountains; they commanded all their people to go to the Spaniards and serve them as their lords, but that they should not, however, reveal to them their hiding place.4.All the inhabitants came to offer themselves to his men and to serve them as their lords. This compassionate captain replied that he would not receive them; on the contrary, he would kill them all, if they did not disclose the whereabouts of their chiefs. The Indians answered that they knew nothing about them but that the Spaniards should make use of them, of their wives and children whom they would find in their houses, where they could kill them or do with them what they wished. And this the Indians declared and offered many times.5.Stupefying to relate, the Spaniards went to the houses where they found the poor people working in safety at their occupations with their wives and children, and there they wounded them with their lances and cut them to pieces. They also went to a quiet, large and important town, where the people were ignorant of what had happened to the others and were safe in their innocence; within barely two hours they destroyed it, putting women, children, and the aged to the sword, and killing all who did not save themselves by flight.6.Seeing that with such humility, submission, patience and suffering they could not break nor soften hearts so inhuman and brutal, and that they were thus cut to pieces contrary to every show or shadow of right, and that they must inevitably perish, the Indians determined to summon all their people together and to die fighting, avenging themselves as best they could on such cruel and infernal enemies; they well knew, however,[pg 354]that being not only unarmed but also naked and on foot, they could not prevail against such fierce people, mounted and so well armed, but must in the end be destroyed.7.They constructed some pits in the middle of the streets, covered over with broken boughs of trees and grass, completely concealing them: they were filled with sharp stakes hardened by fire which would be driven into the horses's bellies if they fell into the pits. Once, or twice, did some horses fall in but not often, because the Spaniards knew how to avoid them. In revenge, the Spaniards made a law, that all Indians of whatsoever rank and age whom they captured alive, they would throw into the pits. And so they threw in pregnant and confined women, children, old men and as many as they could capture who were left stuck on the stakes, until the pits were filled: It excited great compassion to see them, particularly the women with their children.8.They killed all the others with lances and knives; they threw them to savage dogs, that tore them to pieces and ate them; and when they came across some lord, they accorded him the honour of burning in live flames. This butchery lasted about seven years from 1524 to 1531. From this may be judged what numbers of people they destroyed.9.Among the numberless horrible operations that this unhappy and accursed tyrant performed in this kingdom, together with his brothers, (for his captains and the others who helped him, were not less unhappy and senseless than he) was one very notorious one. He went to the province of Cuzcatan, in which, or not far distant, there is the town of San Salvador, which is a most delightful place extending all along the coast of the South Sea from forty to fifty leagues: and the town of Cuzcatan, which was the capital of the province, gave[pg 355]him the kindest of welcomes, sending him more than twenty or thirty Indians loaded with fowls and other provisions.10.When he arrived, and had received the gift, he commanded that each Spaniard should take from that multitude of people, as many Indians as he pleased for his service during their stay there, whose duty should be to bring them everything they needed. Each Spaniard took a hundred, or fifty or as many as he reckoned would be sufficient for his service, and those innocent lambs bore with the distribution, and served with all their strength, and almost adored them.11.In the meantime this captain asked the lords to bring him much gold, because it was principally to that end that they came. The Indians replied that they were happy to give all the gold they had, and they collected a very great quantity of the hatchets they use, which are made of gilded copper and look like gold, though there is little on them. The captain ordered that they should be tested and because he saw they were of copper, he said to the Spaniards:“to the devil with such a country! let us leave it since there is no gold and let each one put the Indians who serve him, in chains, and I will order that they be branded as his slaves.”This was done, and they marked as slaves with the King's brand, all they could bind. And I saw the son of the prince of that town thus branded.12.When those Indians who escaped and the others throughout the land beheld such great iniquity, they began to collect and to arm themselves. The Spaniards did the greatest slaughter and massacre among them, after which they returned to Guatemala where they built a town; and it is that one which has now been by righteous decree of divine justice, destroyed by three deluges[pg 356]together: the one of water, the other of earth and the third of stones much bigger than ten, and twenty oxen.13.Having thus killed all the lords and the men who could have made war, they put all the others into the aforesaid infernal slavery; they demanded slaves as tribute, so the Indians gave their sons and daughters as they have no other slaves, all of whom they loaded into ships and sent to be sold in Peru. By other massacres and murders, besides the above, they have destroyed and devastated a kingdom more than a hundred leagues square, one of the happiest in the way of fertility and population in the world. This same tyrant wrote that it was more populous than the kingdom of Mexico; and he told the truth.14.He and his brothers, together with the others, have killed more than four or five million people in fifteen or sixteen years, from the year 1524 till 1540, and they continue to kill and destroy those who are still left; and so they will kill the remainder.15.It was his custom when he went to make war on some town or province, to take with him as many of the Indians as he could, to fight against the others; and as he led ten or twenty thousand and gave them nothing to eat, he allowed them to eat the Indians they captured. And so a solemn butchery of human flesh took place in his army where, in his presence, children were killed and roasted; and they would kill a man only to eat his hands and feet, which were esteemed the best bits. And all the people of the other countries, hearing of these villainies, were so terror stricken they knew not where to hide themselves.16.They killed numberless people with the labour of building boats. From the South Sea to the North, a distance of a hundred and thirty leagues, they led[pg 357]the Indians loaded with anchors weighing seventy and eighty pounds each—some of which wore into their shoulders and loins. They also carried much artillery in this way on the shoulders of those poor naked creatures; and I saw many of them loaded with artillery, suffering along the roads.17.They deprived the husbands of their wives and daughters, and gave them to the sailors and soldiers, to keep them contented and bring them on board the ships. They crowded Indians into the ships, where they all perished of hunger and thirst. And in truth, were I to recount his cruelties one by one, I could make a big book that would astonish the world.18.He built two fleets, each composed of many ships, with which he burnt, as though with fire from heaven, all those countries. Of how many did he make orphans! Of how many did he take away the children! How many did he deprive of their wives! how many wives did he leave without husbands! Of what adulteries, rapes and violence was he the cause! how many did he deprive of liberty! what anguish and calamity were suffered by many people because of him! what tears did he cause to be shed! what sighs! what groans! what solitude in this life and of how many has he caused the eternal damnation in the next! not only of the Indians—who were numberless—but of the unhappy Christians, of whose company he made himself worthy, with such outrages, most grave sins and execrable abominations. And I pray God, that he may have had compassion on him and be appeased with the bad death to which he at last brought him.93[pg 358]New Spain and Panuco and Xalisco1.After the great cruelties and massacres, that have been described (besides those not mentioned) had been committed in the provinces of New Spain and that of Panuco another senseless and cruel tyrant94arrived in Panuco in the year 1525. By committing great cruelty and putting many in irons, and enslaving great numbers of freemen in the ways above told, and sending shiploads of them to the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, where they could best he sold, he finished devastating all that province. Eighty Indians, reasonable beings, were given in exchange for a horse.2.2.From Panuco, he was sent to govern the city of Mexico and all New Spain as President, with other great tyrants as Auditors: and the great evils, many sins and the amount of cruelty, robbery, and abomination he and they together committed, are beyond belief. They thus reduced all that country to such extreme ruin, that in two years they would have brought New Spain to the condition of the island of Hispaniola, had God not prevented them by the resistance of the Franciscan friars and afterwards, by the appointment of a Royal Audiencia composed of good men, friendly to all virtue.3.3.One of this man's companions forced eight thousand Indians to work, without any payment or food, at building a wall around his great garden; they dropped dead from hunger but he showed no concern whatever.4.4.When this president, of whom I said he finished devastating Panuco, learned that the said good royal Audiencia was coming, he found an excuse to go inland to discover some place where he might tyrannise; he forced fifteen, or twenty thousand men of the province of Mexico to carry the baggage of his expedition, of whom[pg 359]not two hundred returned, all the rest having perished under his tyranny.5.5.He arrived in the province of Mechuacan, which is forty leagues distant from Mexico and similar to it, both in prosperity, and in the number of its people. The king and ruler came out to receive him with a procession of numberless people, rendering a thousand services and making him presents; he at once took the said king prisoner because he was reputed to have great riches of gold and silver: to force him to surrender his many treasures, the tyrant began to put him to the following tortures.6.6.Having put his feet in stocks, with his body stretched and his hands tied to pieces of wood, they placed a pan of fire near his feet, and a boy with a sprinkler soaked in oil, sprinkled them every now and then to burn the skin well. On the one side there stood a cruel man with a loaded arbalist aimed at his heart: on the other stood another holding a terrible and fierce dog which, had he let it, would have torn the king to pieces in a moment; and thus they tortured him to make him disclose the treasures; until a Franciscan monk, being informed of it, delivered him from their hands, though he died at last of his tortures. They tortured and killed many lords and princes of the provinces in like fashion, to make them give up their gold and silver.7.7.At this time a certain tyrant, going as inspector rather of the purses and the property of the Indians than of their souls and bodies, found that some Indians had hidden their idols, as the Spaniards had never taught them about another better God. He took the lords prisoner till they gave him the idols, thinking they would be of gold or silver, and because they were not, he punished them cruelly and unjustly.8.8.And not to be defrauded of this purpose, which[pg 360]was to rob, he compelled the said lords to buy back the idols from him: they bought them with such gold and silver as they could find, to adore them as their God like they were accustomed. These are the works these wretched Spaniards perform, and the example that they give, and the honour they procure for God in the Indies.9.9.This great tyrant passed from the province of Mechuacan into that of Xalisco, which was as full of people as a hive is of bees, most populous and most prosperous, because it is one of the most fertile and marvellous in the Indies. There was a certain town whose houses extended nearly seven leagues. On his arrival there, the lords and people came joyfully forth, bearing gifts, as all the Indians are in the habit of doing when they go to receive any one.10.10.He began to commit the usual cruelties and wickedness as all there are in the habit of doing, and much more besides, to obtain the object they hold as God, which is gold.11.11.He burnt the towns, captured the lords, tortured them—made slaves of everybody he captured and led numbers away in chains. Women just confined were loaded down with the baggage they carried for the wicked Christians and, not being able to carry their infants for fatigue and the weakness of hunger, they threw them by the roadside where numbers perished.12.12.One wicked Christian having seized a maid by force, to sin with her, the mother sprang to tear her away from him, but he seized a dagger, or sword, and cut off the mother's hand; and because the maid would not consent, he stabbed her and killed her.13.13.Among many other free people he unjustly caused to be marked as slaves, were four thousand five hundred men, women, and nursing children of a year old; others also of two, three, four and five years old, although[pg 361]they went forth peacefully to meet him; there were numberless others that were not counted.14.14.When the countless iniquitous and infernal wars and massacres were terminated, he laid all that country under the usual, pestilential and tyrannical servitude to which all the tyrant Christians of the Indies are in the habit of reducing these peoples. In which he consented that his own majordomos and all the others, should use cruelty and unheard of tortures to extract gold and tribute from the Indians.15.15.One majordomo of his killed many peaceable Indians, by hanging, burning them alive, throwing them to fierce dogs, and cutting off their feet and hands and tearing out their tongues and hearts, for no other reason than to frighten them into submission and into giving him gold and tribute, as soon as they recognised him as the same celebrated tyrant. He also gave them many cruel beatings, cudgellings, blows and other kinds of cruelty every day and every hour.16.16.It is told of him that he destroyed and burnt eight hundred towns in that kingdom of Xalisco: he goaded the Indians to rebellion out of sheer desperation, and after they saw such numbers perish so cruelly, they killed some Spaniards, in which they were perfectly justified, and then retreated to the mountains.17.17.Afterwards, the injustice and oppression of other recent tyrants who passed that way to destroy other provinces—which they calleddiscoveringthem,—drove many Indians to unite and to fortify themselves among certain cliffs: against them the Spaniards have again perpetrated such cruelty, killing numberless people, that they have almost finished depopulating and destroying all that large country.18.18.These wretched, blind men whom God has permitted to yield to reprobate appetite, do not perceive[pg 362]the Indians' cause, or rather the many causes sanctioned by every justice, and by the laws of nature, of God and of man, to cut them to pieces, whenever they have the strength and weapons, and to drive them from their countries: nor do they perceive the iniquity and great injustice of their own pretensions, which are condemned by all laws, not to mention the many outrages, tyrannies and grave and inexpiable sins they have committed against the Indians, by repeatedly making war on them: seeing nothing of this, they think and say and write, that the victories they obtain over the innocent Indians by destroying them, are all conceded to them by their God, because their iniquitous wars are just. Almost as though they rejoiced, and glorified, and rendered thanks to God for their tyranny: like those tyrant bandits did of whom the prophet Zacharias says in chapter elevenPasce pecora occisionis, quæ qui occidebant non dolebant, sed dicebant: Benedictus Deus, quia divites facti sumus.The Kingdom of Yucatan1.In the year 1526, by lying and deceiving and by making offers to the King, as all the other tyrants have done till now to obtain offices and positions, so as to rob, another unhappy man95was elected governor of the kingdom of Yucatan.2.2.This kingdom possessed a dense population, because the country is very healthy and abounding much more than Mexico in provisions and fruit: and honey was particularly abundant, more so than in any other part of the Indies thus far discovered.2.3.The said kingdom has a circumference of about three hundred leagues. Its people were famous among[pg 363]all those of the Indies for prudence and cleanliness, and for having fewer vices and sins than any other; and they were very willing and worthy of being brought to the knowledge of God. A great town might have been built there by the Spaniards where they might have lived as in a terrestrial paradise had they been worthy; but, on account of their great avarice, stupidity and grave sins they were not; just as they have not been worthy to possess the many other countries that God has disclosed to them, in the Indies.4.4.This tyrant, with three hundred men whom he brought with him, began by making cruel war on those good and innocent people, who kept within their houses without offending any one; and they killed and destroyed countless people.5.5.The country produces no gold, and if it had he would have used up the people by working them in the mines; to coin gold therefore out of the bodies and souls of those for whom Jesus Christ died, he made slaves indifferently of all whom he did not kill; many ships were attracted thither by the news that slaves were to be had, all of which he sent back loaded with human beings whom he sold for wine, oil, vinegar, pork, clothing, horses and whatever else he and his men thought they needed.6.6.He selected the most beautiful maid from fifty or a hundred, and gave her to him who chose her, in exchange for an aroba of wine, or oil, or for a pig: and similarly a handsome boy, chosen from among two hundred or three hundred, for the same amount. One boy, who seemed to be the son of a prince was given in exchange for a cheese; and a hundred people for a horse.7.7.He continued with these operations from the year 1526 to 1533 which were seven years, ruining and depopulating those countries, and killing those people without pity, till news of the riches of Peru reached the place[pg 364]and the Spaniards left him, and that hell ceased for some days.8.8.Afterwards, however, his ministers returned to commit more great evils, robbery, wickedness, and great offence against God: and neither have they ceased at the present time. Thus have they almost entirely depopulated all those three hundred leagues that were, as has been said, so densely peopled.9.9.No one could believe, neither could the particular cases of cruelty that were done here, be related. I will only tell of two or three, that I remember.10.10.On one occasion these wretched Spaniards set out with fierce dogs to hunt Indians, both women and men, and an Indian woman who was too ill to escape, took a cord and, so that the dogs should not tear her to pieces as they tore the others, she tied her little son of one year to one foot, and then hanged herself on a beam; she was not quick enough before the dogs came up and tore the child limb from limb, although a friar baptised it before it expired.11.11.When the Spaniards were leaving the kingdom, one of them asked the son of a lord of a certain town or province to go with him; the child answered, that he did not wish to leave his country: the Spaniard replied,“come along with me, or I will cut off your ears”; as the boy said that he would not, the man seized a dagger and cut off one of his ears, and then the other; and on the boy still saying that he would not leave his country, he slit his nostrils, laughing as though he were only giving him a pinch.12.12.This lost soul lauded himself, and shamelessly boasted before a venerable monk that he tried his best to get many Indian women with child, because when they were pregnant he got a better price on selling them for slaves.13.13.In this kingdom, or possibly in a province of New Spain, a Spaniard went hunting game, or rabbits, with his dogs; one day, not finding anything to hunt, it seemed to him that the dogs were hungry, so he seized a little child from its mother and cut off its arms and legs with a dagger, giving each dog its portion and when they had eaten these pieces he threw that little body on the ground for all of them together.14.14.Consider only the inhumanity of the Spaniards in these parts and how God has let them fall into reprobate appetite; consider of what account they hold these people who are created in God's image and redeemed by His blood. But we shall see worse things below.15.15.Leaving the infinite and unheard of cruelties perpetrated by those who call themselves Christians, in this kingdom where there is no justice worth speaking of, I will conclude with this only: that when all the infernal tyrants had left, eager for and blinded by the riches of Peru, Fray Jacomo proceeded, with four monks of his Order of St. Francis, to that kingdom, to pacify it, and to preach and bring to Jesus Christ the remnant of people left from the infernal harvesting and the tyrannical massacres committed by the Spaniards during seven years; and I think that these monks went there in the year thirty-four.16.16.They sent ahead certain Indians from the province of Mexico as messengers, to inquire whether the natives were satisfied that the said monks should enter their country, to bring them news of the one only God, who is God and true Lord of all the world.17.17.They [the Indians] assembled many times and consulted about the thing, having first made many inquiries as to what sort of men these were, who called themselvesfathersandbrothers, and as to what they laid claim; and in what they were different from the[pg 366]Christians from whom they had suffered so many offences and such injustice.18.18.They resolved at last to receive them, on the condition that they came alone with no Spaniards. The monks promised this because the Viceroy of New Spain had granted them this privilege and had given orders that no more Spaniards except the monks were to be allowed to enter the country, nor should the Indians suffer any harm from the Christians.19.19.The friars, as is their custom, preached to those people the gospel of Christ, and the holy intentions of the king of Spain towards them. With such love and pleasure did they receive the doctrine and example of the monks, and so greatly did they rejoice over the news of the kings of Castile, of whom in all the past seven years the Spaniards had never given them information nor that there was any king other than he, who tyrannised and destroyed here, that after the monks had preached there forty days, the lords of the country brought and consigned to them all their idols that they might burn them.20.20.And afterwards they gave them their own children, whom they love more than the light of their eyes, that they might train them. And they built them churches, monasteries and houses: and friars, were invited to other provinces, to preach and bring the natives to the knowledge of God and of him whom they called the great king of Castile.21.21.And, persuaded by the monks, the Indians did a thing never done again up to the present day; and all that some of those Tyrants pretend about those kingdoms being destroyed by the friars, is falsehood and lies.22.22.Twelve or fifteen lords, each ruling many vassals and large territories, assembled their people and, after taking their votes and consent, subjected themselves[pg 367]of their own will to the dominion of the kings of Castile, receiving the Emperor, as King of Spain, for their supreme and universal sovereign; and they made some sinas, like signatures, which I have in my possession, together with the attestations of the said friars.23.23.Just when this growth of faith inspired the friars with great joy and hope of drawing to Jesus Christ the still numerous people of that kingdom who survived the murders and unjust wars, eighteen Spanish tyrants on horse entered a certain part of the country with twelve others on foot, which makes thirty, and they brought with them many loads of idols taken from the Indians in other provinces.24.24.And the captain of the said thirty summoned a lord of the country where he had entered, and told him that he must take those loads of idols and distribute them throughout his country, trading each idol for an Indian man or woman, to make them slaves; he threatened to make war on the chief if he refused.25.25.Forced by fear, the said lord distributed the idols throughout all this territory and commanded all his vassals that they should accept and adore them, and give him Indian men and women as slaves for the Spaniards. In alarm, the Indians who had two children gave one of them, and those who had three gave two; and in this way they concluded that sacrilegious commerce and the lord, or prince satisfied the Spaniards.26.26.One of these impious and infernal bandits, called Juan Garcia, when ill and near death, had under his bed two loads of idols and he commanded an Indian woman who served him, to be very careful not to exchange those idols for fowls, but each one for a slave because they were very valuable. And finally with this testament and occupied with this thought the unhappy man died. And who doubts that he is buried in hell?27.27.Consider therefore of what profit are the religion and the examples of Christianity of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; what honour they procure for God; how they work that he may be known and adored by those people; what care they take that His holy faith be sown, grow and expand in those souls. And judge whether this be a less sin than Jeroboam'squi peccare fecit Israelby making two golden calves, for the people to adore. Or whether it equals that of Judas or causes more scandal.28.28.These then are the deeds of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; in their desire for gold they have numberless times sold, and do sell, and have forsworn Jesus Christ.29.29.When the Indians saw that the promise the monks made them that the Spaniards should not enter those provinces did not come true, and that the same Spaniards brought their idols from other countries to sell, after they had given all their own gods to the monks to be burned, so that they might adore the one true God, they became tumultuous and the whole country was enraged with the friars, to whom they said:30.30.Why have you lied and deceived us saying that Christians could not enter this country? And why have you burnt our gods when your Christians bring gods from other provinces to sell to us? Were perhaps our gods not better than those of other nations?31.31.The friars having nothing to reply, calmed them as best they could. They sought out the thirty Spaniards, telling them the harm they had done and beseeching them to depart, but they would not go; on the contrary they gave the Indians to understand, that it was the friars themselves who had made them come there,—which was the height of all malice.32.32.At last the Indians determined to kill the friars;[pg 369]being warned by some Indian, the latter escaped one night. And when the friars had left, and the Indians perceived their innocence and virtue and the malice of the Spaniards, they sent messengers a distance of fifty leagues after them, praying them to return, and asking their pardon for the anxiety they had caused them.33.33.The friars, being servants of God and zealous for those souls, gave them credence, and returned to the country where they were received like angels, the Indians rendering them a thousand services; and they stayed there four or five months longer.34.34.As that country was so distant from New Spain, the Viceroy's efforts to expel those Christians from it were fruitless, and they persisted in remaining there although he had them proclaimed traitors; and because they never ceased their outrages and habitual oppression of the Indians, it seemed to the monks that, sooner or later the natives would become disgusted with such perverse works, and that perhaps the evil consequences would fall on them, especially as the evil deeds of the Spaniards constantly disturbed the Indians and prevented them from preaching to them in tranquillity. They therefore determined to abandon the kingdom.35.35.Thus the country was left without the light and help of doctrine; and those souls were abandoned to the obscurity of ignorance and misery, in which they formerly were. The Indians were deprived, till better times should come, of assistance and the diffusion of the knowledge of God, which they had been already receiving with eagerness; it was just as though we were to deprive plants of water a few days after planting them: and this was brought about by the inexpiable fault and consummate malice of those Spaniards.[pg 370]The Province of Santa Maria1.The province of Santa Marta was a country where the Indians had a great deal of gold because both it and the places round about have rich mines which were diligently worked. And for this reason, from the year 1498 till the present 1542, numberless Spanish tyrants have continually gone there with ships to ravage and kill those people and to steal their gold. They afterwards returned in the ships with which they made numerous expeditions, murdering and massacring, with notorious cruelty; this commonly occurred along the seacoast and a few leagues inland, till the year 1523.2.2.In the year 1523 some Spanish tyrants went to take up their abode here. And because the country, as has been said, was rich, divers captains succeeded one another, each crueller than the other, so that it seemed as though each had made a vow to practise more exorbitant evils and cruelty than the other, in verification of the rule we have given above.3.3.In the year 1529 there arrived a great tyrant accompanied by many men, devoid of any fear of God or any mercy on mankind; so great were the massacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he surpassed all his predecessors. During the space of six, or seven years that he lived, he and his men stole much treasure.964.4.He died without sacraments after also avoiding the commission of investigation met on his account; and afterwards, other murderous and thieving tyrants succeeded, who continued to destroy those people who[pg 371]had survived the treatment and cruel swords of their predecessors.5.5.They marched far inland, ruining and exterminating large and numerous provinces; killing, and making slaves of their people in the ways above told of the others, putting lords and their vassals to grievous tortures to force them to disclose the gold and the town where it was to be had: as has been said they surpassed, both in number and quality, the operations of all their predecessors so that from the said year 1529, till to-day, they have devastated in those parts more than four hundred leagues of country, which was as densely peopled as the other.6.6.I truthfully declare that if I had to relate singly the evil, the massacres, the destruction, injustice, violence, slaughter, and the great sins the Spaniards have committed in this Kingdom of Santa Marta, against God, against the King, and against those innocent nations, I would compose a very long history; I shall relate all this however in due time, if God gives me life.7.7.Here I wish only to quote some few of the words that the lord bishop of that province now writes to the King: and the date of his letter is the 20th of May, 1541, in which among other words he says thus:8.8.“I assert, oh Sacred Cæsar, that the way to remedy the ills of this country is for Your Majesty to now take it out of the hands of step-fathers and to give it a husband, who will treat it justly, and as it deserves; and this as soon as possible because otherwise I am certain that the way these tyrants who now have the government, crush and harass it, will very soon destroy it,”etc.9.9.And further on he says:“therefore Your Majesty will clearly discern that those who govern in these parts, deserve to be destroyed, to relieve the republics. And if this is not done, their infirmities are, in my opinion,[pg 372]without remedy. And Your Majesty will know in like manner that in these parts there are no Christians but demons; neither are there servants of God nor of the King, but traitors to His law, and to the King.”10.10.“Because in truth, the greatest obstacle I find to winning the Indians from war to peace, and from peace to the knowledge of our Holy Faith, is the harsh and cruel treatment that the peaceable ones receive from the Christians.”11.11.“They have on this account become so fierce and enraged, that nothing is more hated or abhorred by them, than the name of Christians, whom in all this country they call in their languageYares, which means demons; and without doubt they are right, because the deeds they do here are not those of Christians nor of reasonable men, but of devils.”12.12.“From which it arises, that the Indians, seeing these perverse operations are general, and that both the commanders and the subordinates are so devoid of mercy, think that such is the law of the Christians, of which their God and their King are the authors. And to try to persuade them to the contrary is like trying to dry up the sea, and only makes them laugh and jeer at Jesus Christ and His law.”13.13.“And the Indian warriors, seeing the treatment shown the peaceable people, count it better to die once, than many times in the power of the Spaniards; I know this most invincible Caesar from experience”etc.14.14.And in a chapter further on he says:“Your Majesty has more servants in these parts than is supposed; because there is not a soldier among those here who, while he is assassinating, or robbing, or destroying, or killing, or burning Your Majesty's vassals to force their gold from them, does not make bold to claim that he is serving Your Majesty. It would therefore be well, Most[pg 373]Christian Cæsar, that Your Majesty should make known by rigorously punishing some of them, that such services as are contrary to the service of God, are not accepted.”15.15.All the above are formal words of the said Bishop of Santa Marta, and from them it will be clearly seen what is done to-day in these unfortunate countries, and to these innocent people.16.16.By "Indian warriors" he means those who live in the mountains and have been able to escape from massacres perpetrated by the unhappy Spaniards. And he terms“peaceable”those Indians whom the Spaniards, after having killed numberless people, condemn to the aforesaid tyrannical and horrible slavery, in which they then finish destroying and killing them, as appears from the quoted words of the bishop: and in truth very little indeed does he express, of what they suffer.17.17.When the Spaniards make them labour, carrying loads over the mountains, they kick and beat them, and knock out their teeth with the handles of their swords, to force them to get up when they fall, fainting from weakness, and to go on without taking breath; and the Indians commonly exclaim;“go to, how wicked you are: I am worn out so kill me here, for I would rather die now and here.”And they say this with many sighs and gasps, showing great anguish and grief.18.18.Oh! who could express the hundredth part of the affliction and calamity that these innocent people suffer from the unhappy Spaniards! May God make it known to those who can, and ought to remedy it.
The Province and Kingdom of GuatemalaWhen he reached this kingdom, he began with a great massacre. Nevertheless the principal lord, accompanied by many other lords of Ultatlan, the chief town of all the kingdom went forth with trumpets, tambourines and great festivity to receive him with litters; they served him with all that they possessed, and especially by giving him ample food and everything else they could.2.The Spaniards lodged outside the town that night because it seemed to them to be strong, and that they might run some risk inside it. The following day, the captain called the principal lord and many others, and when they came like tame lambs, he seized them and demanded so many loads of gold. They replied that they had none, because that country does not produce it. Guiltless of other fault and without trial or sentence, he immediately ordered them to be burned alive.[pg 353]3.When the rulers throughout all those provinces saw that the Spaniards had burnt that one and all those chief lords, only because they gave them no gold, they all fled from their towns and hid in the mountains; they commanded all their people to go to the Spaniards and serve them as their lords, but that they should not, however, reveal to them their hiding place.4.All the inhabitants came to offer themselves to his men and to serve them as their lords. This compassionate captain replied that he would not receive them; on the contrary, he would kill them all, if they did not disclose the whereabouts of their chiefs. The Indians answered that they knew nothing about them but that the Spaniards should make use of them, of their wives and children whom they would find in their houses, where they could kill them or do with them what they wished. And this the Indians declared and offered many times.5.Stupefying to relate, the Spaniards went to the houses where they found the poor people working in safety at their occupations with their wives and children, and there they wounded them with their lances and cut them to pieces. They also went to a quiet, large and important town, where the people were ignorant of what had happened to the others and were safe in their innocence; within barely two hours they destroyed it, putting women, children, and the aged to the sword, and killing all who did not save themselves by flight.6.Seeing that with such humility, submission, patience and suffering they could not break nor soften hearts so inhuman and brutal, and that they were thus cut to pieces contrary to every show or shadow of right, and that they must inevitably perish, the Indians determined to summon all their people together and to die fighting, avenging themselves as best they could on such cruel and infernal enemies; they well knew, however,[pg 354]that being not only unarmed but also naked and on foot, they could not prevail against such fierce people, mounted and so well armed, but must in the end be destroyed.7.They constructed some pits in the middle of the streets, covered over with broken boughs of trees and grass, completely concealing them: they were filled with sharp stakes hardened by fire which would be driven into the horses's bellies if they fell into the pits. Once, or twice, did some horses fall in but not often, because the Spaniards knew how to avoid them. In revenge, the Spaniards made a law, that all Indians of whatsoever rank and age whom they captured alive, they would throw into the pits. And so they threw in pregnant and confined women, children, old men and as many as they could capture who were left stuck on the stakes, until the pits were filled: It excited great compassion to see them, particularly the women with their children.8.They killed all the others with lances and knives; they threw them to savage dogs, that tore them to pieces and ate them; and when they came across some lord, they accorded him the honour of burning in live flames. This butchery lasted about seven years from 1524 to 1531. From this may be judged what numbers of people they destroyed.9.Among the numberless horrible operations that this unhappy and accursed tyrant performed in this kingdom, together with his brothers, (for his captains and the others who helped him, were not less unhappy and senseless than he) was one very notorious one. He went to the province of Cuzcatan, in which, or not far distant, there is the town of San Salvador, which is a most delightful place extending all along the coast of the South Sea from forty to fifty leagues: and the town of Cuzcatan, which was the capital of the province, gave[pg 355]him the kindest of welcomes, sending him more than twenty or thirty Indians loaded with fowls and other provisions.10.When he arrived, and had received the gift, he commanded that each Spaniard should take from that multitude of people, as many Indians as he pleased for his service during their stay there, whose duty should be to bring them everything they needed. Each Spaniard took a hundred, or fifty or as many as he reckoned would be sufficient for his service, and those innocent lambs bore with the distribution, and served with all their strength, and almost adored them.11.In the meantime this captain asked the lords to bring him much gold, because it was principally to that end that they came. The Indians replied that they were happy to give all the gold they had, and they collected a very great quantity of the hatchets they use, which are made of gilded copper and look like gold, though there is little on them. The captain ordered that they should be tested and because he saw they were of copper, he said to the Spaniards:“to the devil with such a country! let us leave it since there is no gold and let each one put the Indians who serve him, in chains, and I will order that they be branded as his slaves.”This was done, and they marked as slaves with the King's brand, all they could bind. And I saw the son of the prince of that town thus branded.12.When those Indians who escaped and the others throughout the land beheld such great iniquity, they began to collect and to arm themselves. The Spaniards did the greatest slaughter and massacre among them, after which they returned to Guatemala where they built a town; and it is that one which has now been by righteous decree of divine justice, destroyed by three deluges[pg 356]together: the one of water, the other of earth and the third of stones much bigger than ten, and twenty oxen.13.Having thus killed all the lords and the men who could have made war, they put all the others into the aforesaid infernal slavery; they demanded slaves as tribute, so the Indians gave their sons and daughters as they have no other slaves, all of whom they loaded into ships and sent to be sold in Peru. By other massacres and murders, besides the above, they have destroyed and devastated a kingdom more than a hundred leagues square, one of the happiest in the way of fertility and population in the world. This same tyrant wrote that it was more populous than the kingdom of Mexico; and he told the truth.14.He and his brothers, together with the others, have killed more than four or five million people in fifteen or sixteen years, from the year 1524 till 1540, and they continue to kill and destroy those who are still left; and so they will kill the remainder.15.It was his custom when he went to make war on some town or province, to take with him as many of the Indians as he could, to fight against the others; and as he led ten or twenty thousand and gave them nothing to eat, he allowed them to eat the Indians they captured. And so a solemn butchery of human flesh took place in his army where, in his presence, children were killed and roasted; and they would kill a man only to eat his hands and feet, which were esteemed the best bits. And all the people of the other countries, hearing of these villainies, were so terror stricken they knew not where to hide themselves.16.They killed numberless people with the labour of building boats. From the South Sea to the North, a distance of a hundred and thirty leagues, they led[pg 357]the Indians loaded with anchors weighing seventy and eighty pounds each—some of which wore into their shoulders and loins. They also carried much artillery in this way on the shoulders of those poor naked creatures; and I saw many of them loaded with artillery, suffering along the roads.17.They deprived the husbands of their wives and daughters, and gave them to the sailors and soldiers, to keep them contented and bring them on board the ships. They crowded Indians into the ships, where they all perished of hunger and thirst. And in truth, were I to recount his cruelties one by one, I could make a big book that would astonish the world.18.He built two fleets, each composed of many ships, with which he burnt, as though with fire from heaven, all those countries. Of how many did he make orphans! Of how many did he take away the children! How many did he deprive of their wives! how many wives did he leave without husbands! Of what adulteries, rapes and violence was he the cause! how many did he deprive of liberty! what anguish and calamity were suffered by many people because of him! what tears did he cause to be shed! what sighs! what groans! what solitude in this life and of how many has he caused the eternal damnation in the next! not only of the Indians—who were numberless—but of the unhappy Christians, of whose company he made himself worthy, with such outrages, most grave sins and execrable abominations. And I pray God, that he may have had compassion on him and be appeased with the bad death to which he at last brought him.93[pg 358]
New Spain and Panuco and Xalisco1.After the great cruelties and massacres, that have been described (besides those not mentioned) had been committed in the provinces of New Spain and that of Panuco another senseless and cruel tyrant94arrived in Panuco in the year 1525. By committing great cruelty and putting many in irons, and enslaving great numbers of freemen in the ways above told, and sending shiploads of them to the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, where they could best he sold, he finished devastating all that province. Eighty Indians, reasonable beings, were given in exchange for a horse.2.2.From Panuco, he was sent to govern the city of Mexico and all New Spain as President, with other great tyrants as Auditors: and the great evils, many sins and the amount of cruelty, robbery, and abomination he and they together committed, are beyond belief. They thus reduced all that country to such extreme ruin, that in two years they would have brought New Spain to the condition of the island of Hispaniola, had God not prevented them by the resistance of the Franciscan friars and afterwards, by the appointment of a Royal Audiencia composed of good men, friendly to all virtue.3.3.One of this man's companions forced eight thousand Indians to work, without any payment or food, at building a wall around his great garden; they dropped dead from hunger but he showed no concern whatever.4.4.When this president, of whom I said he finished devastating Panuco, learned that the said good royal Audiencia was coming, he found an excuse to go inland to discover some place where he might tyrannise; he forced fifteen, or twenty thousand men of the province of Mexico to carry the baggage of his expedition, of whom[pg 359]not two hundred returned, all the rest having perished under his tyranny.5.5.He arrived in the province of Mechuacan, which is forty leagues distant from Mexico and similar to it, both in prosperity, and in the number of its people. The king and ruler came out to receive him with a procession of numberless people, rendering a thousand services and making him presents; he at once took the said king prisoner because he was reputed to have great riches of gold and silver: to force him to surrender his many treasures, the tyrant began to put him to the following tortures.6.6.Having put his feet in stocks, with his body stretched and his hands tied to pieces of wood, they placed a pan of fire near his feet, and a boy with a sprinkler soaked in oil, sprinkled them every now and then to burn the skin well. On the one side there stood a cruel man with a loaded arbalist aimed at his heart: on the other stood another holding a terrible and fierce dog which, had he let it, would have torn the king to pieces in a moment; and thus they tortured him to make him disclose the treasures; until a Franciscan monk, being informed of it, delivered him from their hands, though he died at last of his tortures. They tortured and killed many lords and princes of the provinces in like fashion, to make them give up their gold and silver.7.7.At this time a certain tyrant, going as inspector rather of the purses and the property of the Indians than of their souls and bodies, found that some Indians had hidden their idols, as the Spaniards had never taught them about another better God. He took the lords prisoner till they gave him the idols, thinking they would be of gold or silver, and because they were not, he punished them cruelly and unjustly.8.8.And not to be defrauded of this purpose, which[pg 360]was to rob, he compelled the said lords to buy back the idols from him: they bought them with such gold and silver as they could find, to adore them as their God like they were accustomed. These are the works these wretched Spaniards perform, and the example that they give, and the honour they procure for God in the Indies.9.9.This great tyrant passed from the province of Mechuacan into that of Xalisco, which was as full of people as a hive is of bees, most populous and most prosperous, because it is one of the most fertile and marvellous in the Indies. There was a certain town whose houses extended nearly seven leagues. On his arrival there, the lords and people came joyfully forth, bearing gifts, as all the Indians are in the habit of doing when they go to receive any one.10.10.He began to commit the usual cruelties and wickedness as all there are in the habit of doing, and much more besides, to obtain the object they hold as God, which is gold.11.11.He burnt the towns, captured the lords, tortured them—made slaves of everybody he captured and led numbers away in chains. Women just confined were loaded down with the baggage they carried for the wicked Christians and, not being able to carry their infants for fatigue and the weakness of hunger, they threw them by the roadside where numbers perished.12.12.One wicked Christian having seized a maid by force, to sin with her, the mother sprang to tear her away from him, but he seized a dagger, or sword, and cut off the mother's hand; and because the maid would not consent, he stabbed her and killed her.13.13.Among many other free people he unjustly caused to be marked as slaves, were four thousand five hundred men, women, and nursing children of a year old; others also of two, three, four and five years old, although[pg 361]they went forth peacefully to meet him; there were numberless others that were not counted.14.14.When the countless iniquitous and infernal wars and massacres were terminated, he laid all that country under the usual, pestilential and tyrannical servitude to which all the tyrant Christians of the Indies are in the habit of reducing these peoples. In which he consented that his own majordomos and all the others, should use cruelty and unheard of tortures to extract gold and tribute from the Indians.15.15.One majordomo of his killed many peaceable Indians, by hanging, burning them alive, throwing them to fierce dogs, and cutting off their feet and hands and tearing out their tongues and hearts, for no other reason than to frighten them into submission and into giving him gold and tribute, as soon as they recognised him as the same celebrated tyrant. He also gave them many cruel beatings, cudgellings, blows and other kinds of cruelty every day and every hour.16.16.It is told of him that he destroyed and burnt eight hundred towns in that kingdom of Xalisco: he goaded the Indians to rebellion out of sheer desperation, and after they saw such numbers perish so cruelly, they killed some Spaniards, in which they were perfectly justified, and then retreated to the mountains.17.17.Afterwards, the injustice and oppression of other recent tyrants who passed that way to destroy other provinces—which they calleddiscoveringthem,—drove many Indians to unite and to fortify themselves among certain cliffs: against them the Spaniards have again perpetrated such cruelty, killing numberless people, that they have almost finished depopulating and destroying all that large country.18.18.These wretched, blind men whom God has permitted to yield to reprobate appetite, do not perceive[pg 362]the Indians' cause, or rather the many causes sanctioned by every justice, and by the laws of nature, of God and of man, to cut them to pieces, whenever they have the strength and weapons, and to drive them from their countries: nor do they perceive the iniquity and great injustice of their own pretensions, which are condemned by all laws, not to mention the many outrages, tyrannies and grave and inexpiable sins they have committed against the Indians, by repeatedly making war on them: seeing nothing of this, they think and say and write, that the victories they obtain over the innocent Indians by destroying them, are all conceded to them by their God, because their iniquitous wars are just. Almost as though they rejoiced, and glorified, and rendered thanks to God for their tyranny: like those tyrant bandits did of whom the prophet Zacharias says in chapter elevenPasce pecora occisionis, quæ qui occidebant non dolebant, sed dicebant: Benedictus Deus, quia divites facti sumus.
The Kingdom of Yucatan1.In the year 1526, by lying and deceiving and by making offers to the King, as all the other tyrants have done till now to obtain offices and positions, so as to rob, another unhappy man95was elected governor of the kingdom of Yucatan.2.2.This kingdom possessed a dense population, because the country is very healthy and abounding much more than Mexico in provisions and fruit: and honey was particularly abundant, more so than in any other part of the Indies thus far discovered.2.3.The said kingdom has a circumference of about three hundred leagues. Its people were famous among[pg 363]all those of the Indies for prudence and cleanliness, and for having fewer vices and sins than any other; and they were very willing and worthy of being brought to the knowledge of God. A great town might have been built there by the Spaniards where they might have lived as in a terrestrial paradise had they been worthy; but, on account of their great avarice, stupidity and grave sins they were not; just as they have not been worthy to possess the many other countries that God has disclosed to them, in the Indies.4.4.This tyrant, with three hundred men whom he brought with him, began by making cruel war on those good and innocent people, who kept within their houses without offending any one; and they killed and destroyed countless people.5.5.The country produces no gold, and if it had he would have used up the people by working them in the mines; to coin gold therefore out of the bodies and souls of those for whom Jesus Christ died, he made slaves indifferently of all whom he did not kill; many ships were attracted thither by the news that slaves were to be had, all of which he sent back loaded with human beings whom he sold for wine, oil, vinegar, pork, clothing, horses and whatever else he and his men thought they needed.6.6.He selected the most beautiful maid from fifty or a hundred, and gave her to him who chose her, in exchange for an aroba of wine, or oil, or for a pig: and similarly a handsome boy, chosen from among two hundred or three hundred, for the same amount. One boy, who seemed to be the son of a prince was given in exchange for a cheese; and a hundred people for a horse.7.7.He continued with these operations from the year 1526 to 1533 which were seven years, ruining and depopulating those countries, and killing those people without pity, till news of the riches of Peru reached the place[pg 364]and the Spaniards left him, and that hell ceased for some days.8.8.Afterwards, however, his ministers returned to commit more great evils, robbery, wickedness, and great offence against God: and neither have they ceased at the present time. Thus have they almost entirely depopulated all those three hundred leagues that were, as has been said, so densely peopled.9.9.No one could believe, neither could the particular cases of cruelty that were done here, be related. I will only tell of two or three, that I remember.10.10.On one occasion these wretched Spaniards set out with fierce dogs to hunt Indians, both women and men, and an Indian woman who was too ill to escape, took a cord and, so that the dogs should not tear her to pieces as they tore the others, she tied her little son of one year to one foot, and then hanged herself on a beam; she was not quick enough before the dogs came up and tore the child limb from limb, although a friar baptised it before it expired.11.11.When the Spaniards were leaving the kingdom, one of them asked the son of a lord of a certain town or province to go with him; the child answered, that he did not wish to leave his country: the Spaniard replied,“come along with me, or I will cut off your ears”; as the boy said that he would not, the man seized a dagger and cut off one of his ears, and then the other; and on the boy still saying that he would not leave his country, he slit his nostrils, laughing as though he were only giving him a pinch.12.12.This lost soul lauded himself, and shamelessly boasted before a venerable monk that he tried his best to get many Indian women with child, because when they were pregnant he got a better price on selling them for slaves.13.13.In this kingdom, or possibly in a province of New Spain, a Spaniard went hunting game, or rabbits, with his dogs; one day, not finding anything to hunt, it seemed to him that the dogs were hungry, so he seized a little child from its mother and cut off its arms and legs with a dagger, giving each dog its portion and when they had eaten these pieces he threw that little body on the ground for all of them together.14.14.Consider only the inhumanity of the Spaniards in these parts and how God has let them fall into reprobate appetite; consider of what account they hold these people who are created in God's image and redeemed by His blood. But we shall see worse things below.15.15.Leaving the infinite and unheard of cruelties perpetrated by those who call themselves Christians, in this kingdom where there is no justice worth speaking of, I will conclude with this only: that when all the infernal tyrants had left, eager for and blinded by the riches of Peru, Fray Jacomo proceeded, with four monks of his Order of St. Francis, to that kingdom, to pacify it, and to preach and bring to Jesus Christ the remnant of people left from the infernal harvesting and the tyrannical massacres committed by the Spaniards during seven years; and I think that these monks went there in the year thirty-four.16.16.They sent ahead certain Indians from the province of Mexico as messengers, to inquire whether the natives were satisfied that the said monks should enter their country, to bring them news of the one only God, who is God and true Lord of all the world.17.17.They [the Indians] assembled many times and consulted about the thing, having first made many inquiries as to what sort of men these were, who called themselvesfathersandbrothers, and as to what they laid claim; and in what they were different from the[pg 366]Christians from whom they had suffered so many offences and such injustice.18.18.They resolved at last to receive them, on the condition that they came alone with no Spaniards. The monks promised this because the Viceroy of New Spain had granted them this privilege and had given orders that no more Spaniards except the monks were to be allowed to enter the country, nor should the Indians suffer any harm from the Christians.19.19.The friars, as is their custom, preached to those people the gospel of Christ, and the holy intentions of the king of Spain towards them. With such love and pleasure did they receive the doctrine and example of the monks, and so greatly did they rejoice over the news of the kings of Castile, of whom in all the past seven years the Spaniards had never given them information nor that there was any king other than he, who tyrannised and destroyed here, that after the monks had preached there forty days, the lords of the country brought and consigned to them all their idols that they might burn them.20.20.And afterwards they gave them their own children, whom they love more than the light of their eyes, that they might train them. And they built them churches, monasteries and houses: and friars, were invited to other provinces, to preach and bring the natives to the knowledge of God and of him whom they called the great king of Castile.21.21.And, persuaded by the monks, the Indians did a thing never done again up to the present day; and all that some of those Tyrants pretend about those kingdoms being destroyed by the friars, is falsehood and lies.22.22.Twelve or fifteen lords, each ruling many vassals and large territories, assembled their people and, after taking their votes and consent, subjected themselves[pg 367]of their own will to the dominion of the kings of Castile, receiving the Emperor, as King of Spain, for their supreme and universal sovereign; and they made some sinas, like signatures, which I have in my possession, together with the attestations of the said friars.23.23.Just when this growth of faith inspired the friars with great joy and hope of drawing to Jesus Christ the still numerous people of that kingdom who survived the murders and unjust wars, eighteen Spanish tyrants on horse entered a certain part of the country with twelve others on foot, which makes thirty, and they brought with them many loads of idols taken from the Indians in other provinces.24.24.And the captain of the said thirty summoned a lord of the country where he had entered, and told him that he must take those loads of idols and distribute them throughout his country, trading each idol for an Indian man or woman, to make them slaves; he threatened to make war on the chief if he refused.25.25.Forced by fear, the said lord distributed the idols throughout all this territory and commanded all his vassals that they should accept and adore them, and give him Indian men and women as slaves for the Spaniards. In alarm, the Indians who had two children gave one of them, and those who had three gave two; and in this way they concluded that sacrilegious commerce and the lord, or prince satisfied the Spaniards.26.26.One of these impious and infernal bandits, called Juan Garcia, when ill and near death, had under his bed two loads of idols and he commanded an Indian woman who served him, to be very careful not to exchange those idols for fowls, but each one for a slave because they were very valuable. And finally with this testament and occupied with this thought the unhappy man died. And who doubts that he is buried in hell?27.27.Consider therefore of what profit are the religion and the examples of Christianity of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; what honour they procure for God; how they work that he may be known and adored by those people; what care they take that His holy faith be sown, grow and expand in those souls. And judge whether this be a less sin than Jeroboam'squi peccare fecit Israelby making two golden calves, for the people to adore. Or whether it equals that of Judas or causes more scandal.28.28.These then are the deeds of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; in their desire for gold they have numberless times sold, and do sell, and have forsworn Jesus Christ.29.29.When the Indians saw that the promise the monks made them that the Spaniards should not enter those provinces did not come true, and that the same Spaniards brought their idols from other countries to sell, after they had given all their own gods to the monks to be burned, so that they might adore the one true God, they became tumultuous and the whole country was enraged with the friars, to whom they said:30.30.Why have you lied and deceived us saying that Christians could not enter this country? And why have you burnt our gods when your Christians bring gods from other provinces to sell to us? Were perhaps our gods not better than those of other nations?31.31.The friars having nothing to reply, calmed them as best they could. They sought out the thirty Spaniards, telling them the harm they had done and beseeching them to depart, but they would not go; on the contrary they gave the Indians to understand, that it was the friars themselves who had made them come there,—which was the height of all malice.32.32.At last the Indians determined to kill the friars;[pg 369]being warned by some Indian, the latter escaped one night. And when the friars had left, and the Indians perceived their innocence and virtue and the malice of the Spaniards, they sent messengers a distance of fifty leagues after them, praying them to return, and asking their pardon for the anxiety they had caused them.33.33.The friars, being servants of God and zealous for those souls, gave them credence, and returned to the country where they were received like angels, the Indians rendering them a thousand services; and they stayed there four or five months longer.34.34.As that country was so distant from New Spain, the Viceroy's efforts to expel those Christians from it were fruitless, and they persisted in remaining there although he had them proclaimed traitors; and because they never ceased their outrages and habitual oppression of the Indians, it seemed to the monks that, sooner or later the natives would become disgusted with such perverse works, and that perhaps the evil consequences would fall on them, especially as the evil deeds of the Spaniards constantly disturbed the Indians and prevented them from preaching to them in tranquillity. They therefore determined to abandon the kingdom.35.35.Thus the country was left without the light and help of doctrine; and those souls were abandoned to the obscurity of ignorance and misery, in which they formerly were. The Indians were deprived, till better times should come, of assistance and the diffusion of the knowledge of God, which they had been already receiving with eagerness; it was just as though we were to deprive plants of water a few days after planting them: and this was brought about by the inexpiable fault and consummate malice of those Spaniards.[pg 370]
The Province of Santa Maria1.The province of Santa Marta was a country where the Indians had a great deal of gold because both it and the places round about have rich mines which were diligently worked. And for this reason, from the year 1498 till the present 1542, numberless Spanish tyrants have continually gone there with ships to ravage and kill those people and to steal their gold. They afterwards returned in the ships with which they made numerous expeditions, murdering and massacring, with notorious cruelty; this commonly occurred along the seacoast and a few leagues inland, till the year 1523.2.2.In the year 1523 some Spanish tyrants went to take up their abode here. And because the country, as has been said, was rich, divers captains succeeded one another, each crueller than the other, so that it seemed as though each had made a vow to practise more exorbitant evils and cruelty than the other, in verification of the rule we have given above.3.3.In the year 1529 there arrived a great tyrant accompanied by many men, devoid of any fear of God or any mercy on mankind; so great were the massacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he surpassed all his predecessors. During the space of six, or seven years that he lived, he and his men stole much treasure.964.4.He died without sacraments after also avoiding the commission of investigation met on his account; and afterwards, other murderous and thieving tyrants succeeded, who continued to destroy those people who[pg 371]had survived the treatment and cruel swords of their predecessors.5.5.They marched far inland, ruining and exterminating large and numerous provinces; killing, and making slaves of their people in the ways above told of the others, putting lords and their vassals to grievous tortures to force them to disclose the gold and the town where it was to be had: as has been said they surpassed, both in number and quality, the operations of all their predecessors so that from the said year 1529, till to-day, they have devastated in those parts more than four hundred leagues of country, which was as densely peopled as the other.6.6.I truthfully declare that if I had to relate singly the evil, the massacres, the destruction, injustice, violence, slaughter, and the great sins the Spaniards have committed in this Kingdom of Santa Marta, against God, against the King, and against those innocent nations, I would compose a very long history; I shall relate all this however in due time, if God gives me life.7.7.Here I wish only to quote some few of the words that the lord bishop of that province now writes to the King: and the date of his letter is the 20th of May, 1541, in which among other words he says thus:8.8.“I assert, oh Sacred Cæsar, that the way to remedy the ills of this country is for Your Majesty to now take it out of the hands of step-fathers and to give it a husband, who will treat it justly, and as it deserves; and this as soon as possible because otherwise I am certain that the way these tyrants who now have the government, crush and harass it, will very soon destroy it,”etc.9.9.And further on he says:“therefore Your Majesty will clearly discern that those who govern in these parts, deserve to be destroyed, to relieve the republics. And if this is not done, their infirmities are, in my opinion,[pg 372]without remedy. And Your Majesty will know in like manner that in these parts there are no Christians but demons; neither are there servants of God nor of the King, but traitors to His law, and to the King.”10.10.“Because in truth, the greatest obstacle I find to winning the Indians from war to peace, and from peace to the knowledge of our Holy Faith, is the harsh and cruel treatment that the peaceable ones receive from the Christians.”11.11.“They have on this account become so fierce and enraged, that nothing is more hated or abhorred by them, than the name of Christians, whom in all this country they call in their languageYares, which means demons; and without doubt they are right, because the deeds they do here are not those of Christians nor of reasonable men, but of devils.”12.12.“From which it arises, that the Indians, seeing these perverse operations are general, and that both the commanders and the subordinates are so devoid of mercy, think that such is the law of the Christians, of which their God and their King are the authors. And to try to persuade them to the contrary is like trying to dry up the sea, and only makes them laugh and jeer at Jesus Christ and His law.”13.13.“And the Indian warriors, seeing the treatment shown the peaceable people, count it better to die once, than many times in the power of the Spaniards; I know this most invincible Caesar from experience”etc.14.14.And in a chapter further on he says:“Your Majesty has more servants in these parts than is supposed; because there is not a soldier among those here who, while he is assassinating, or robbing, or destroying, or killing, or burning Your Majesty's vassals to force their gold from them, does not make bold to claim that he is serving Your Majesty. It would therefore be well, Most[pg 373]Christian Cæsar, that Your Majesty should make known by rigorously punishing some of them, that such services as are contrary to the service of God, are not accepted.”15.15.All the above are formal words of the said Bishop of Santa Marta, and from them it will be clearly seen what is done to-day in these unfortunate countries, and to these innocent people.16.16.By "Indian warriors" he means those who live in the mountains and have been able to escape from massacres perpetrated by the unhappy Spaniards. And he terms“peaceable”those Indians whom the Spaniards, after having killed numberless people, condemn to the aforesaid tyrannical and horrible slavery, in which they then finish destroying and killing them, as appears from the quoted words of the bishop: and in truth very little indeed does he express, of what they suffer.17.17.When the Spaniards make them labour, carrying loads over the mountains, they kick and beat them, and knock out their teeth with the handles of their swords, to force them to get up when they fall, fainting from weakness, and to go on without taking breath; and the Indians commonly exclaim;“go to, how wicked you are: I am worn out so kill me here, for I would rather die now and here.”And they say this with many sighs and gasps, showing great anguish and grief.18.18.Oh! who could express the hundredth part of the affliction and calamity that these innocent people suffer from the unhappy Spaniards! May God make it known to those who can, and ought to remedy it.