destroyed the inhabitants thereof amounting to above 500000. souls partly killed and partly forced away to work in other places so that there going a ship to visit those parts and to glean the remainder of those distressed wretches there could be found no more then eleven men Other Islands there were near the Island of St. Iohn more then thirty in number which were totally made desert All which Islands though they amount to such a number containing in length of ground the space of above Two thousand miles lie now altogether solitary without any people or Inhabitant Now to come to the Continent we are confident and dare affirm upon our own knowledge that there were ten Kingdomes of as large an extent as the Kingdome of Spain joyning to it both Arragon and Portugal containing above a thousand miles every one of them in compass which the unhumane and abominable villanies of the Spaniards have made a wilderness of being now as it were stript of all their people and made bare of all their inhabitants though it were a place formerly possessed by vast and infinite numbers of men And we dare confidently aver that for those Forty years wherin the Spaniards exercised their abominable cruelties and detestable tyrannies in those parts that there have innocently perish'd above Twelve millions of souls women and children being numbred in this sad and fatall list moreover I do verily believe that I should speak within compass should I say that above Fifty millions were consumed in this Massacre As for those that came out of Spain boasting themselves to be Christians they took two several waies to extirpate this Nation from the face of the Earth the first whereof was a bloudy unjust and cruel war which they made upon them a second by cutting off all that so much as sought to recover their liberty as some of the stouter sort did intend And as for the Women and Children that were lest alive they laid so heavy and grievous a yoke of servitude upon them that the condition of beasts was much more tolerable Unto these two heads all the other several torments and inhumanities which they used to the ruine of these poor Nations may be reduced That which led the Spaniards to these unsanctified impieties was the desire of Gold to make themselves suddenly rich for the obtaining of dignities honours which were no way fit for them In a word their covetousness their ambition which could not be more in any people under heaven the riches of the Countrey and the patience of the people gave occasion to this their devillish barbarism For the Spaniards so contemned them I now speak what I have seen without the least untruth that they used them not like beasts for that would have been tolerable but looked upon them as if they had been but the dung and filth of the earth and so little they regarded the health of their souls that they suffered this great multitude to die without the least light of Religion neither is this lesse true then what I have said before and that which those tyrants and hangmen themselves dare not deny without speaking a notorious falshood that the Indians neevr gave them the least cause to offer them violence but received them as Angels sent from heaven till their excessive cruelties the torments and slaughters of their Country-men mov'd them to take Armes against the Spaniards Of Hispaniola They erected certain Gallowses that were broad but so low that the tormented creatures might touch the ground with their feet upon every one of which they would hang thirteen persons blasphemously affirming that they did it in honour of our Redeemer and his Apostles and then putting fire under them they burnt the poor wretches alive Those whom their pity did think fit to spare they would send away with their hands half cut off and so hanging by the skin Thus upbraiding their flight Go carry letters to those who lye hid in the mountains and are fled from us This Death they found out also for the Lords and Nobles of the Land they stuck up forked sticks in the ground and then laid certain perches upon them and so laying them upon those perches they put a gentle fire under causing the fire to melt them away by degrees to their unspeakable torment One time above the rest I saw four of the Nobles laid upon these perches and two or three other of these kinde of hurdles furnished after the same manner the clamours and cries of which persons being troublesome to the Captain he gave order that they should be hang'd but the Executioner whose name I know and whose parents are not obscure hindred their Calamity from so quick a conclusion stopping their mouthes that they should not disturb the Captain and still laying on more wood till being roasted according to his pleasure they yeelded up the ghost Of these and other things innumerable I have been an eye-witnesse Now because there were some that shun'd like so many rocks the cruelty of a Nation so inhumane so void of piety and love to mankinde and therefore fled from them to the mountains therefore they hunted them with their Hounds whom they bred up and taught to pull down and tear the Indians like beasts by these Dogs much humane bloud was shed and because the Indians did now and then kill a Spaniard taking him at an advantage as justly they might therefore the Spaniards made a Law among themselves that for one Spaniard so slaine they should kill a hundred Indians Of the Kingdomes which the Island of Hispaniola did contain THE Island of Hispaniola had in it five very great Kingdomes and five very potent Kings to whom the other Lords of which there was a very great number were for the most part subject for there were some few Lords of peculiar Countries that did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of these Kings one of these Kingdomes is called Maqua which signifies a plain This Plain if there be any thing in the world worth taking notice claims a very nice observation For from the South to the North it is stretcht forward fourscore miles in length in breadth it takes up sometimes eight sometimes five and sometimes ten miles on all sides it is shut up with very high mountains it is watered by thirty thousand Rivers and Rivolets whereof twelve are not lesse then either Duerus Ebrus or Guadalgevir and all the Rivers which run from the Mountains on the West side whose number is twenty thousand do all of them abound with gold With which Mountain the Province of Cibao is bounded where are the Mines of Cibao that afford the most exquisite and pure Gold which is so much valued among us This Kingdome was govern'd by Guarionex who had under his jurisdiction as his vassals Lords and Governors so potent that every one of them was able to bring into the field for the service of Guarionex above Sixteen thousand men apiece Some of which Lords I very well knew
this King was not meanly vertuous by nature peaceful and much devoted to the King of Castile This King commanded his subjects that they should present to the Spaniards a bell full of Gold which when they were not able to do by reason that the people had but little skill how to dig out the Gold he thereupon commanded them to present the Spaniards with as much as they could fill Here a Cacicus or Governour offer'd himself to the service of the King of Castile upon condition that he would take care that all the Countrey from Isabella to St. Domingo being five hundred miles in length might be till'd which promises I am very confident he would cheerfully have performed and then might the King of Castile have had a revenue of above Three millions of Castilian Crowns and there had been still remaining in the Island above fifty Cities as large all of them as Sevill But what was the recompence which they afforded to this milde and bountiful Prince they suffered one of the Spanish Captains unworthy of the name of a Christian to vitiate his Wife He might have raised an army and endevoured a revenge but he rather chose to leave his Kingdome and his dignity and to live a banished person in the Province of Coquaios where a potent vassal and subject of his inhabited But the Spaniards hearing of his flght resolved not to let him lurk anywhere but immediately making war upon him that had received them so liberally they never rested till they had wasted all the Kingdome to finde him out at length he fell into their hands and no sooner had they taken him but they fettered him immediately putting him into a ship that was bound for Spain but the ship was wrackt by the way many Spaniards perishing and a great treasure of Gold being lost God so taking revenge upon their enormities Another Kingdome was called Marien where there is a port at one end of the plain that looks toward the North being larger and more fertile then the Kingdome of Portugal and which very well deserves to be better peopled for it abounds with Mountains wherein are great store of Gold Mines The name of the King that there ruled was Guacanagari under whom there were many other potent Lords some of whom I knew To this place came the old sea Captain that first discovered America who was received with so much courtesie and friendship by Guacanagari who gave him and his associates all the help and assistance that might be for his ship was there sunk that upon his return into Spain he would often affirm that his own parents in his own Countrey were never so friendly to him This King flying from the cruelty and enormous murders of the Spaniards being depriv'd of his Kingdome died poorly in the mountains The rest of his Nobles ended their lives in that servitude and slavery which shall be hereafter related The third Kingdome was Maquana a Countrey very temperate and fertile where the best Sugar in that Island is made In this Countrey at that time Canabao did reign who for power dignity gravity and the ceremonies which were used towards him far exceeded the rest This King suspecting nothing lesse was by the craft and subtlety of the Spaniards taken in his own house whom when they had taken they put a shipboard to send him to Castile but there being six ships in the Port ready to set sayle the sea began to swell so high and to be so unruly that all the six ships with the Spaniards in them together with King Canabao who was laden with chains all perished in the waves The great God shewing the Judgements of his wrath upon these unjust and wicked wretches as he had done upon the others This King had three or four brothers stout and valiant men who being offended at the Captivity of their Lord and King hearing of the devastations and rapines daily committed by the Spaniards in these Countries and understanding that their brother was dead resolved to take armes for the reliefe of their Countrey but the Spaniards meeting them with a certain number of horse which are a very great terror to the Indians made such a slaughter among them that they depopulated the greatest part of this Countrey The Fourth Kingdome was called Xaraqua being in the centre and middle of the whole Island for eloquence of language as also for good government and gentile customes it excels all the rest there was in it a great company of Lords and noble men and for the people themselves they were the most comely in the whole Island The King of this Countrey was called Behechio who had a sister who was called Anacaona Both the Brother and the Sister were very bountifull to the Spaniards for they had freed them from the dangers of imminent death shewing great kindnesses to the Kings of Castile Behechio being dead the Kingdome was solely govern'd by his Sister Now it happened one day that the Governour of the Island with sixty Horse and three hundred Foot though the Horsemen were sufficient not only to wast the Island but also the whole Continent cal'd to him about three hundred of the Peers and Lords of the Nation the greatest part whereof who were the more powerful having by craft got them together in a straw Cottage he cause to be burnt alive together with the house the rest with an infinite sight of people he caused to be put to death by the Souldiers who murdred the poor people like dogs with their Swords and Launces As for Anacaona the Queen that he might seem to be more courteous to her he caused her to hang her self And if it happened that any who were either moved with compassion or covetousnesse thinking to make lacqueys or servants of the Children had set them behinde their horses another would come behinde them and either run them through or cut off their legs if they hung down upon the horse sides And when certain of the Indians who escaped this furious massacre fled into an Island distant from them about some eight miles they were by the Governour condemned to perpetual servitude The wars being now at an end and the inhabitants all killed up the women and children being only reserved they divided them among themselves giving to one thirty to another forty to one a hundred to another two hundred and those that had most received them on this condition that they should instruct them in the Catholick Faith though commonly their Masters were a company of stupid ignorant and covetous fellowes and defiled with all manner of vices But the main care was to send the men to work in the Gold Mines which is an intolerable labour and to send the women to manure and till the ground an exercise fit only for the stoutest men These they fed with nothing but roots and hearbs so that the milk of women with childe being dried up by that reason the poor little infants died And the men being
permitting them to discern that no man can be called a Rebell who is not before a Subject This cruel Tyrant leaning upon this pretence sent two other Captains excelling himself in fury and impiety to Guatimala the most fertile and most flourishing Kingdome both for men and fruit of any that were situated southward They had also received commands to visit the Kingdomes of Naco Honduras and Guaimara looking toward the north and being distant from Mexico above three hundred miles the one was sent by land the other by sea being both of them well furnished with men and ammunition for Horse and Foot And this I dare affirm that the enormities committed by these two Captains and by him especially that was sent to Guatimala for the other dyed an evill death in good time are enough to fill a particular volume so many were the slaughters violences injuries butcheries and beastly desolations which they perpetrated as do not only amaze the present but must of necessity strike a horror into future ages for in this place their abominations and devastations were more fatal then in any place before As for him that went by sea he vex'd all the shore with his incursions and cruelties to whom there came certain out of the Kingdome of Yucatan which lies in the way to the Kingdomes of Naco and Naymura whither he was then marching and brought him many presents yet he was no sooner come into the Countrey but he sent the souldiers to depopulate and waste the same who ceased not to commit many abominable outrages Among the rest a certain seditious rebel entring into a region bordering upon Guatemala burnt up their City killing the Inhabitants and laying waste all the Countrey which he did on purpose that if he should be pursued by his enemies they might be liable to the revenge of the Indians as they passed along which happened accordingly for there the chief Commander from whose power the foresaid Captain had rebell'd was slain but he was succeeded by many other fell tyrants who with their wonted cruelties and captivity destroyed the people selling them to those that brought garments and other provision and by that kinde of servitude which they practised from the year 1524. to the year 1535. they depopulated and made desert the provinces of Naco and Honduras which seemed to be the Elysium and Paradise of the world in every respect And I have lately seen them so destroyed that it would move the most stony heart to compassion In these eleven years there prrished in this Countrey above two millions scarce two thousand now remaining who daily diminish through the hardnesse of their servitude But as for that abominable tyrant that exceeded all that were before in tyranny and is equall to all that remains behinde let us now finde him out in Guatimala He going through the Provinces adjoyning to Mexico toward Guatimala which are above four hundred miles in length minded nothing else all the way he went but slaughters rapines burnings depopulations compelling all upon the foresaid pretence to submit themselves to their cruelties in the name of the King of Spain whom they had never seen nor heard of and whom they could not but think more unjust and cruel then his Ministers and Officers yet giving them no time to deliberate they wasted all before them with fire and sword Of the Kingdome and Province of Guatimala AT their first entrance into this Kingdome they committed a very great outrage But for all that their chief Lord and Governor carried in a Litter came forth to meet him with Drums and Trumpets and great joy attended by many of the Nobles of the City of Vtlacan the greatest Mart Town of that Kingdome where they gave him provisions in abundance with all that he could desire That night the Spaniards lodg'd without the City not thinking themselves safe in a Town so well fortified as that was The next day he called to him the chief Lord with a great number of the Nobles demanding of them a very great quantity of Gold They returning him answer that they could not satisfie his request by reason that their Countrey afforded not Gold were immediately by his command without any cause or form of proceeding all burnt alive The rest of the Nobles of these Provinces seeing that all the chiefest of them who had the power and government of the Kingdome in their hands were for no cause put to death but because they were not able to give them gold fled to the mountains for safety charging their subjects to submit themselves to the Spaniards but not to tell them where their sculking places were nor to give them notice of their flight Whereupon an infinite number of the Indians came to the Spaniards requesting that they might be their subjects and that they might serve them The Captain made answer that he would not receive them and that moreover he would kill them all unlesse they would declare whither their Lords were fled the Indians replyed That they knew nothing of it but their Wives and Children they said were ready to serve them adding that they were at home in their houses whither they might goe and either kill them or use them as they pleas'd which offers they made to them again and again But strange to tell the Spaniards demanded their Cities and Towns killing these poor creatures who as they thought were secure at their work They came to a very large Town which being confident of their own innocence thought themselves safer then the rest but in two hours space they brought such a desolation upon it killing all ages and sexes that there was not a person left alive but what saved themselves by flight The Indians perceiving that with all their humility their patience and their presents that they were not able to asswage the fury of these inhumane creatures and that they were daily killed up like dogs began to think of taking armes for they thought it better since an evill death could not be avoided rather to die fighting and taking revenge upon their enemies then to be killed like beasts by them But when they saw their want of armes their feeblenesse their nakednesse and that they were utterly unskilfull in the management of horses that they might have some way of prevailing upon their enemies it came in their minds to dig certain ditches in the waies that so the horses as they went along might fall into them at the bottome of these pits they had driven in stakes sharpned at the top and they had covered them over with clods of earth that they might not be discovered twice or thrice the Spaniards fell into these ditches but afterwards by their care they easily avoided them And therefore they made a Law among themselves that all the Indians which they took of what ever sex or degree should be thrown into those pits which they had made Into these pits they threw women big with childe and all the aged persons that they could
light upon till the pit was full It was a sad sight to behold women with child goar'd through the body with these stakes while others that lay uppermost were killed with swords and launces those that would not in were cast to their dogs They burnt a very potent Peer of the Nation in a great fire saying that he was much honoured with that kinde of death Among other abominations committed by this Captain and his followers who were not at all more gentle then their leader this was one more memorable then the rest Into the Province of Cuzcatan where the City of our Saviour is situated being a Countrey which together with the neighbouring sea coast is extended about forty or fifty miles in length and also into the City of Cuzcatan it self which is the Metropolis of the whole Countrey he was received with very great joy the Indians expecting his coming laden with a present of above thirty thousand Turkies and other things necessary for their refreshment But he having received their gift commanded the Spaniards every one of them to take as many Indians as they pleased and to keep them for service as long as they should stay there Whereupon every one took a hundred lesse or more according as his occasions required And as for the poor Captives they served them with so much zeal and affection that they could require nothing more then adoration it self After this the Captain required of the people a great quantity of Gold who returned him answer that they would give him all the Gold they had Whereupon the Indians brought together a great company of spears which were guilt with Orichalcum so that they seemed to be gold but the Captain causing them to be touched and not finding them to be gold spake thus to the people All curses light upon such a Region as this wherein there is no Gold and then commanded all those that had taken servants to keep them in chains and to mark them with the mark of servitude which was immediately done the Kings mark being burnt into their flesh which I saw also done to the son of the chiefest man in all the City Those Indians that escaped with the rest of the inhabitants of the Countrey gathered themselves together resolving to hazard a war with the Spaniards but alas with small prosperity there being an infinite number of them slain After this they returned to Guatimala where they built a City which God in his justice destroy'd overwhelming it first with earth then with stones of a vast bignesse and lastly letting in upon it a great deluge of waters Now after that they had slain all that were able to make resistance against them they carried away the rest into captivity or forced them to give away their children as tribute due to the Spaniards for they use the service of no other creatures And thus part being sold into the Countreys of Peru and part destroyed by the sword they made a wildernesse of one of the most happy and populous Countreys of those parts stretching out in length and bredth above a hundred miles This the tyrant himself confessed writing that this County was more populous then the County of Mexico as indeed it was This man in the space of fifteen years which was from the year 525. to 540. together with his associates massacred no lesse then five millions of men and do daily destroy those that are yet remaining It was the custome of this Tyrant when he made war upon any Town or Countrey to carry along with him as many as he could of the subdued Indians compelling them to make war upon their Countreymen and when he had ten or twenty thousand men in his service because he could not give them provision he permitted them to eat the flesh of those Indians that they had taken in war for which cause he had a kind of shambles in his Army for the ordering and dressing of mans flesh suffering Children to be killed and broyled in his presence The men they killed only for their hands and feet for those they accounted dainties Which being understood by the neighbours they were all struck with astonishment Of New Spain As also of Panucon and Xalisco THese horrid murders and massacres being committed besides others that I have omitted in the Provinces of New Spain there came another cruel and furious Tyrant into the Provinces of Panucon who having perpetrated many hainous iniquities and sent great numbers of the Natives to be sold in the Countreys of Spain laid waste all this Kingdome and once it hapned that they used eight hundred of the Indians in stead of a team to draw their carriages as if they had been meer beasts and irrational creatures He was afterwards made President of the City of Mexico and with him many other his fellow tyrants advanced to the office of Auditors which Offices they contaminated with so many impieties and abominations that it is hardly to be imagined And as for this Countrey it self they so far destroyed it that if some of the Franciscan Friers had not strenuously opposed him and that the Kings Councel had not provided a sudden remedy for it in two years space they had wholly depopulated New Spain as they had done in Hispaniola One of the Associates of the President that he might enclose his Garden with a wall used the service of eight thousand Indians and because he afforded them neither food nor wages they all perished after a most sad and lamentable manner After the first Captain of whom we spake before had put an end to the destruction of Panucon and that there came newes to him that the Kings Councell was coming into these parts he went further into the Countrey that he might exercise his cruelties with more liberty and caused fifteen or twenty thousand of the Indians to follow and carry the burthens of the Spaniards of whom scarce two hundred returned alive the rest being all destroyed at length they came to the Province of Machuaca which is distant above forty miles from Mexico and is nothing at all inferior to the other either for plenty of provision or number of people the king coming to meet him with all shewes of respect and honour they put in prison because he was reported to be very rich which that they might get from him they thus tormented him having put his feet in a kinde of stocks and stretching out his body they tyed his hands to a stake and then putting fire to his feet while a boy was set to baste them with oyle that they might roast the better there stood another also with dogs behind him threatning to set them upon him which if he had done they would have soon put an end to his life and with these torments they vexed him to make him bring his treasures to light At length there came a Franciscan Frier who freed him from his torments but not from death which immediately ensued With this kinde of torture
of God by their wicked courses neither have they yet made an end so that now three hundred miles of Land lie untill'd and void of inhabitants The particulars of their cruelty are not to be remembred only two or three that come into my minde I will relate While the Spaniards were hunting after the Indians with their dogs they met with an Indian Women who being sick and seeing that she was not able to escape them taking a rope hang'd her self hanging also her childe of a year old about her waste by the feet but the dogs immediately fell upon the childe only he was baptized by a religious person before he died When the Spaniards departed out of the Kingdome invited the son of a certain Noble man Governor either of a City or great Province that he would go along with him who answering that he was unwilling to leave his native Countrey they threatned to cut off his ears unlesse he would go along with him notwithstanding all which he persevered in his resolution whereupon they cut off his nose and the upper part of his lip with as little remorse as if they had been paring their nailes This Furcisur carried himself obscenly toward a deserving religious person boasting to him that he had got as many Indians as he could with childe that they might yeeld the more profit in the sale of them In this Kingdome or else in some province of new Spain it hapned that a Spaniard being a hunting his dogs seemed to him to be a hungry whereupon he took a little Infant out of the mothers armes and cutting off the thighs and armes of the Childe cast it to his dogs and when they had devoured those he cast the whole body to them Thus we see how they were delivered over to a reprobate sense and what a value they put upon these creatures formed after the Image of God But now worse things follow Many cruelties and indeed innumerable which were never before heard of I doe omit only I shall adde this one These ambitious blinde and execrable tyrants going out of this Region to seek more riches there went with them four Monks of the Order of St. Francis together with Father Iames to keep the Countrey in peace and to bring the remainder of those that were left by their preaching to the knowledge of Christ I do beleeve that these were they that in the year thirty four were solicited by the Indians to come into their Countrey and to preach to them the knowledge of the true God To which purpose they gathered assemblies and congregations together that they might know what sort of people these were that call'd themselves Fathers and Fryers who differed so much from the rest of the Spaniards that vex'd them with so much affliction and torment At length they receiv'd them but on condition that they would come alone and not let any other of the Spaniards enter in among them which those religious persons promis'd for they had not only a liberty but a command from the Governour of New Spain that they should so promise them and that the Spaniards should do them no harm or injury Upon which they began to preach the Gospel among them and to declare to them the holy intention of the King of Spain of which things they had not yet received any knowledge nor that they had any other King then him who oppressed them with so much tyranny The religious persons had not been there above forty daies when they began to bring in all their Idols and to commit them to the fire and afterwards they brought their children whom they loved as dearly as the apples of their eyes to the religious persons to be instructed And thus being perswaded by these religious persons they did more then ever had been done in the Indies before for what ever the Tyrants that had oppressed them were wont to tell them they only spoke in contempt and derision on the Indians for above twelve or fifteen Kings of large Provinces together with their subjects by their Councell and consent all of them acknowledged the King of Castile to be their superiour Lord of their own accord and received him for their Emperour as he was King of Spain In testâ—mony whereof I have a writing in my own custody signed by those persons Thus not without the great joy of those devout persons an entry was made for the bringing of those inhabitants that were remaining in these Countreys to the knowledge of Christ but in the mean while by another way there entred in among them about eighteen Spanish Horsemen and twelve footmen bringing with them great loads of Idols which they had brought out of other Countreys The Captain of the foresaid Spaniards called to him one of the Noble men of this Countrey and commanded him to take these Idols and to distribute them among his people and bring in exchange an Indian man or woman for every Idol otherwise threatning to make war upon him the foresaid Lord out of fear took those Idols giving every one of them to his subjects commanding them to worship them and also to send back in recompence to the Spaniards some of their people to serve them The Indians terrifi'd delivered their children after a certain proportion those that had two giving one and those that had three delivering two and thus they ended this sacrilegious merchandize and so the Cacique gave satisfaction to the Spaniards I dare not call them Christians One of these sacrilegious Robbers Iohn Garcia by name being very sick and like to die had under his bed two burthens of these Idols who when the Indian woman that looked to him was with him commanded her that she should not deliver those Idols at a small rate because they were of the best sort and therefore that she should not sell them but for an Indian man or woman in exchange and as he was making this kinde of will he expired And who can now question but that his soul is now tormented in the flames of Hell Consider by this what was the progresse of Religion and what examples of Christianity the Spaniards did shew when they came into America how they honour'd God themselves or how much they car'd that the Indians should know the right worship of him Judge which is the greater crime that of Ieroboam who made Israel to sin causing two golden Calves to be set up and to be worshipt by the people or of the Spaniards who caused the Indians to buy their Idols and made merchandize of them These are the deeds of the Spaniards who most often out of a desire of heaping up gold did sell and do yet sell did deny and do yet deny Christ their Redeemer The Indians seeing that the Promises of the religious persons that the Spaniards should not enter into their Countrey were not performed and that the Spaniards brought Idols out of other places to sell them into their Countrey whereas the religious persons
it would be a tedious thing to relate them I have also seen the Spaniards set their dogs upon the Indians to devour them and such a number of houses and villages burnt by them that it would be over long to rehearse them This is also a truth that they would snatch young Infants out of their mothers bellies and cast them as far as they could throw them besides many other cruelties which they committed which did not a little amaze me though they are too many to be numbred I do also affirme that the Spaniards got together as many of the Indians as possibly they could croud into three houses and there upon no occasion given burnt them to death At that time it chanc'd that a certain Presbyter by name Ocaena snatch'd an Infant out of the fire which one of the Spaniards beholding immediately took the child out of his hands and threw it into the fire which Spaniard the same day that he did this vile act as he returned to his Quarters fell down dead by the way whom I perswaded the rest to leave unburied I have also seen them send to the Noblemen and chief Rulers of the Indians to come to them engaging to secure them and to let them return in peace but when they came they caused them to be immediately burnt Two they burnt while I was present one being the Lord of Andonia the other of Tumbala neither could I by any perswasions prevail with them to take them out of the fire and this I speak in the presence of God and according to my own conscience that I never knew of any commotion or rebellion raised by the Indians of Peru against them though it was apparent to all how they did torment and massacre them Which had they done considering how the Spaniards broke their faith and promises to them how against all Law and Right they practis'd nothing else but their desolation and destruction certainly they had done well chusing rather noble a death then to endure such tedious miseries I doe also affirme out of the mouths of the Indians themselves that greater quantities of Gold lie hid then are yet discovered which because of the cruelties and injustice of the Spaniards they are loath to reveale nor will reveale till the tyrannical hand of the Spaniards shall be taken off them rather chusing to dye as others have done Whereby God is offended and the Affaires of the King many times impeded For he hath been defrauded of more then would serve to maintain Castile the recovery of which cannot be performed without much difficulty and large expences And thus far I have related the very words of this religious person confirm'd by the Bishop of Mexico before whom he justified all that is here written Here we must consider these things to be such as this Religious person was an eye-witnesse of having traveld long in those parts for the space of above nine or ten yeares and had compassed above fifty or a hundred miles of that Country when there were but few Spaniards that liv'd in those parts though afterwards to the noise of the Gold there flockt thither above five thousand who scattered themselves through those large Provinces that contain'd in length above five or 600 miles which they totally laid waste committing rather more and greater cruelties then they had done in any other Countries and to say truth from that time until this present year they destroy'd a thousand times more persons then he makes mention of and with lesse feare either of God or of the King and with lesse pity they massacred the greatest part of mankind of those that inhabited those Regions killing above four millions of people A few dayes after with darts made of reeds they shot at the most potent Queen who was the Wife of Elinguus in whose hands the whole Administration of the Government of these Kingdomes remain'd which occasioned him to rebel against them and to this day he holds out against them At length they took his Queen and contrary to all right and equity they put her to death though it was reported that she was great with child for no other cause but that they might afflict her husband But if I should goe to particularize the murders and slaughters committed in that Region the Reader would finde them so horrid and so numerous that in both respects they would far exceed what hath been said touching the other parts of India Of the New Kingdome of GRANATA IN the yeare 1539. many of these Tyrants departing from Venecuela Santa Martha and Carthagena met together to make a Conquest of Peru. And many others comming out of the same Regions having a desire to make a further Progress they found many pleasant Countries about some 300. miles from Carthagena divers gallant Provinces well stored with courteous and affable Inhabitants like to other places in India abounding also in Gold and Precious Stones which are called Emraulds which Provinces by a new name they called New Granata because that the Tyrant that first came into these parts was borne in the Kingdome of Granata And because those that robb'd and spoil'd these Countries were cruel men and perverse Stewards famous butchers and spillers of humane blood therefore are their diabolical actions so great and so many that they farre surpassed those which were done before them in other Countries of which some of the most select ones I will rehearse A certain Governour because he that destroy'd those parts would not admit him to share with him in his gettings made certain Inquisitions and proofes which he got prov'd by many witnesses by which are apparent the murders and homicides which the other committed in the committing whereof he perseveres unto this day There were read in the Councel and stand these recorded In the said Examinations the witnesses depose that when all these Kingdomes were peaceful the Indians serv'd the Spaniards getting their living by painful labours in the tillage of the Earth bringing them what quantity of Gold or Gems they had or could get having also divided their houses and their habitations among them of which they are not a little covetous as being a means for them to obtain their Gold the more easily But when all the Indians were labouring under their accustomed tyranny the Chief Captain and Tyrant of the Spaniards took the King and Lord of the Country and kept him a prisoner for the space of six or seven moneths for no other reason then to squeez from him what Gold and precious Stones he could The said King whose name was Bogata through fear promised him that he would give him a golden house hoping by that meanes to be set at liberty and so he sent his Indians who brought back great sums of Gold and Precious Stones But because the King gave them not a golden house therefore they told him that he must be put to death because he did not stand to his word Whereupon the Tyrant commanded
destroyers and Abaddons of mankinde who are with him and to whom he gives the power to exercise these strange abominations are so many and so great that if his Majesty do not stop the deluge of evils which they bring along with them for the slaughters of the Indians are made onely through the desire of their Gold though it be all in their own hands already in a very short time the Kingdom will be ruin'd laid desolate and the land when all the Inhabitants are destroy'd must of necessity lie untill'd In this place we must noe passe by a most pernicious cruelty of these Tyrants which was so violent that in the space of two or three years for no longer time there was between the desolation and the discovery of this Kingdom which was the most populous Country in the whole World they totally ruin'd and depopulated the whole Country shewing themselves so void of compassion so empty of grace so regardlesse of the Kings honour that they had not left a person living had not his Majesty a little stopt the current of their cruelty which I the more easily believe because I have seen my selfe in a few dayes several great Kingdomes and Countries destroy'd and desolate There are some large Provinces adjoyning to the Kingdom of new Granata which are call'd Popagan and Cali and three or four others which stretch themselves in length above 500. miles which they destroy'd in the same manner as they did the other and by their foresaid Massacres brought down to the lowest degree of desolation and this some who return'd out of these Countries came to us relate But if there were ever any thing to be bewailed by man they were the stories which they told of large Cities ruin'd and buried in their own ashes scarce fifty houses remaining where before there were above a thousand or two thousand and the sad narrations which they brought of large Countries and Regions that lay desolate and spoil'd of their inhabitants At length there went out of the Kingdomes of Perne through the Country of Quitonia into the Regions of Granata and Popaganum many very cruel Tyrants who march'd through the Carthagenians and Vrabia to reach Calisium while others stay'd to assaile Quitonium it selfe But these at length joyn'd together depopulating above sixe hundred miles in length with an infinite waste of men to the remainder whereof they are at present no lesse cruel And thus what I set down as a rule still holds good that the violence and cruelty of the Spaniards by continuance still waxed more and more furious and bloody But among all these Crimes which are onely worthy of fire and sword that have been perpetrated in these Countries this which followes is worthy the taking notice of When the heate of Massacring and killing is over they carry captive away sometimes two hundred sometimes three hundred men apeice and when their master pleases he commands a hundred at a time to be brought before him to whom when they come like meek and patient lambs he commands thirty or forty of them to be put to death telling the rest that thus they shall all be us'd unlesse they prove diligent in his service Consider I beseech you all that read or shall read these few papers whether an act so horrible so detestable so inhumane do not exceed all the iniquities and cruelties that the imagination of man can comprehend and whether such Spaniards may not be deservedly called Devils or whether it be not a thing almost indifferent whether the Indians should be in the hands of Spaniards or of the Infernal spirits Neither will I forget to relate one barbarou's action which as I think doth exceed the cruelty of beasts The Spaniards which are among the Indians do breed up a sort of fierce dogs which they teach and instruct to fall upon the Indians and devour them Now let all men judge whether Christians or Turks in this it much imports not whether so much cruelty ever peirc'd their eares before These dogs they take along with them in all their expeditions carrying also divers Indians in chaines for the sustenance of those dogs And it was a common thing for them to say one to another Give me a quarter of your Indian for my dogs and too morrow when I bill one I will pay it you again As if they were no more to be accounted of then the offals of a hog or sheep Others were wont to go a hunting in the morning and being ask'd how they had sped Oh very well reply'd the other my dogs have kill'd fifteen or sixteen Indians this morning These have been all proved in the impeachments made by one Tyrant against another Could there be any thing more horrible or more cruel But I will here stay until there shall come news of greater impieties if greater there can be or till we shall return to behold these things which for the space of above forty years we have already seen And now I do protest according to my conscience and in the sight of God that the losses of the Indians were so great and so many their subverted Cities the cruelties and massacres so horrible the violences and iniquities so in human that though I have done my utmost to relate what I could and to paint them in their own lively colours yet have I not been able to rehearse one thing done among a thousand either as to the quantity or the quality of the Crimes And now that all true Christians may be mov'd with the greater compassion towards the poor creatures that their losses may appeare the more deplorable that they may with a greater indignation detest the ambition cruelty and covetousness of the Spaniards to those which I have abovesaid I will also adde this for a truth that from the time America was first discovered unto this present the Indians never were the men that ever shewed the least disaffection or offer'd the least injury to the Spaniards but rather ador'd them as Angels of immortality come to visit them from Heaven till their owne actions betrayd them to a far worse censure This I will also adde that from the beginning to this day the Spaniards were never any more mindful to spread the Gospel among them then as if they had been dogs but on the contrary forbid religious persons to exercise their dutie deterring them by many afflictions and persecutions from preaching and teaching among them for that they thought would have hindered them in getting their Gold and kept the people from their labours Neither had they any more knowledge of the God of Heaven as to say whether he were of wood brasse or iron then they had above a hundred years before New Spaine being onely excepted whither the Religious persons had most liberty to go So that they all dy'd without Faith or Sacraments to the willing destruction of their souls I Frier Bartholmew Casaus of the Order of St. Dominic who went to these parts through the mercy of God desiring the salvation of the Indians that so many precious soules redeemd with the blood of Christ might not perish but wishing with my whole heart that they might through the knowledge of their Creator live eternally Because of the care also and compassion which I beare to my Country which is Castile fearing lest God should destroy it in his anger for the sins which it hath committed against his divine Majesty the faith and the honour of divers great persons in the Court of Spaine zealously religious and who abominate these bloody and detestable actions after many hinderances of businesse did at length put an end to this brief Tractate at Valentia the eighth day of December 154â— when the Spaniards though they were in some places more cruel in some places lesse after the end of all their torments violences tyrannies desolations and oppressions were at length come to Mexico which enjoyes a gentler usage then other parts for there is an outside of Justice which doth something restrain their cruelty though not at all the immoderate tributes which they lay upon them And now I have a real hope that Charles the Fifth our Soveraign Lord and Prince Emperor King of Spaine to whose eares the wickednesses and impieties of these tyrants do daily come which are committed against the will of God in these Countries for they have hitherto conceal'd these things from him not lesse subtilly then maliciously will extirpate the causes of so many evils and apply fitting remedies to the calamities of this New World delivered by God to him as to a Lover of Justice and Mercy Which God we doe beseech to grant him happinesse in his life and in his Imperial dignity and to bless his Royal soule with eternal happiness Amen FINIS The Historical Relation of the Spanish Massacres in the West Indies
Teares of ye Indians or inquisition for Bloud Being a Relation of ye Spannish Massacres in those part R Gaywood fecit The Tears of the INDIANS BEING An Historical and true Account Of the Cruel Massacres and Slaughters of above Twenty Millions of innocent People Committed by the Spaniards In the Islands of Hispaniola Cuba Iamaica c. As also in the Continent of Mexico Peru other Places of the West-Indies To the total destruction of those Countries Written in Spanish by Casaus an Eye-witness of those things And made English by I. P. DEUT. 29.15 Therefore thine eye shall have no compassion but life for life tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot LONDON Printed by I. C. for Nath. Brook at the Angel in Cornhil 1656. TO His Highness OLIVER LORD PROTECTOR of the Commonwealth of England Scotland Ireland With the Dominions thereto belonging May it please your Highness I Have here laid prostate before the Throne of Your Justice above Twenty Millions of the Souls of the slaughter'd Indians whose forc'd departure from their Bodies Cruelty it self compassionates Yet me-thinks I hear a sudden stillness among them the cry of Blood ceasing at the noise of Your great transactions while You arm for their Revenge By which it is apparent how well your Highness doth observe the will of the most High using Your vast Power and Dignity onely to the advancement of his Glory among the Nations while the Divine Deitie bequeathes You back again immediate Recompences crowning You like his holy Warriour David with the highest degree of earthly Fame Therefore hath he inspired your Highness with a Prowess like that of Ioshua to lead his Armies forth to Battel and a Zeal more devoutly fervent than that of Iehu to cut off the Idolater from the earth Which Divine vertues appear so eminent in You that there is no man who opposes not himself against Heaven but doth extol Your just Anger against the Bloudy and Popish Nation of the Spaniards whose Superstitions have exceeded those of Canaan and whose Abominations have excell'd those of Ahab who spilt the Blood of innocent Naboth to obtain his Vineyard And now may it please your Highness God having given You a full Victory over Your Enemies in this Land and a fix'd Establishment by the prosperous and total quelling of those pertinacious Spirits certainly there is no true English-man who doth not lift up his eyes to heaven with Thanks to Almighty God that You have made the Land so happie as to be the Admiration of other Nations who have laid themselvs at Your feet for Alliances as knowing Your wonderful Successes both by Sea and Land Pardon me Great Sir if next my zeal to Heaven the loud Cry of so many bloudy Massacres far surpassing the Popish Cruelties in Ireland the Honour of my Country of which You are as tender as of the Apple of Your own eye hath induced me out of a constant Affection to your Highness Service to publish this Relation of the Spanish Cruelties whereby all good men may see and applaud the Justness of Your Proceedings Being confident that God who hath put this Great Designe into Your Hands will also be pleased to give it a signal Blessing which is the Prayer of Your HIGHNESS most faithful and most obedient Servant I. Phillips To all true English-men NEver had we so just cause to exclaim in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah O that our heads were waters and our eyes fountains of tears that we might weep for the Effusion of so much Innocent Blood which provok'd these sad Relations of devout CASAUS by reason of the cruel Slaughters and Butcheries of the Iesuitical Spaniards perpetrated upon so many Millions of poor innocent Heathens who having onely the light of Nature not knowing their Saviour Iesus Christ were sacrificed to the Politick Interest and Avarice of the wicked Spaniards The blood of Ireland spilt by the same Faction in comparison of these Massacres was but as a Drop to the Ocean It was the Saying of Christ himself the Son of Mercy and Redeemer of the World That we ought not to cast the Childrens Bread to dogs But what would he have judg'd of those that not onely cast the Bread but the Blood and not onely the Blood but the Innocent Blood of men women and children to satisfie the contemptible hunger of their Hounds The intention of these men was Murder and they kill'd up the poor Indians not as if they had been their Fellow-Mortals but like Death it self and invaded their Land not like Men but like the Pestilence whose destruction is Epidemical When our own Case had a small Resemblance of this how sensible the People were and how they mourned at the burning of a poor Village the usual Accidents or rather things to be expected in a tedious and necessitated War but had you been Eye-witnesses of the transcending Massacres here related had you been one of those that lately saw a pleasant Country now swarming with multitudes of People but immediately all depopulated and drown'd in a Deluge of Bloud had you been one of those that saw great Cities of Nations and Countries in this moment flourishing with Inhabitants but in the next totally ruin'd with such a general Desolation as left neither Person living nor House remaining had you seen the poor innocent Heathens shaming and upbraiding with the ghastliness of their Wounds the devilish Cruelties of those that called themselves Christians had you seen the poor creatures torn from the peace and quiet of their own Habitations where God had planted them to labour in a Tormenting Captivity by many degrees worse then that of Algier or the Turkish Galleys your Compassion must of necessity have turn'd into Astonishment the tears of Men can hardly suffice these are Enormities to make the Angels mourn and bewail the loss of so many departed souls as might have been converted and redeemed to their eternal Mansions We read of old of the Ten Persecutions wherein the Primitive Christians were destroy'd by the Cruelties of the Heathen Emperours but we now read of Christians the Professors of a Religion grounded upon Love and Charity massacring where there was no cause of Antipathy but their own obstinate Barbarism as if because their Wickedness had so far transform'd them into Devils they were resolved to deface the image of God so innocently conversing among them The Turks and Scythians shall be now no more the Adagies of Cruelty among us for here is a Christian Nation which hath taken off that Envie from them and entayl'd it upon themselves And now O men of England let me ask you but this Question Whether you that for these many years have had the Honour to be the Patrons of Religion whose Charity hath still relieved and whose Power hath still defended the Cause of the Oppressed at home and abroad whether you can withdraw your Assistance from this Great Work and deprive your selves of that Birth-right which you seem to
have among the Nations God still continuing the Management of his Iustice in the hands of our most Fortunate and Lawful Magistrate whom he hath rais'd up as his Great Instrument to revenge the Blood of that innocent People Consider this moreover That you are not uow to fight against your Country-men but against your Old and Constant Enemies the SPANIARDS a Proud Deceitful Cruel and Treacherous Nation whose chiefest Aim hath been the Conquest of this Land and to enslave the People of this Nation witness those Invasions in the days of Queen ELIZABETH whose Leagues of Amity we had more reason to repent of then to rejoyce at as being destructive to the Nation and made with those that onely sought the Advantages of Peace that they might be more safe to do us Mischief and so little they car'd for Peace with us that they never sought it but when meer Vrgencies of State requir'd and never kept their Articles when they had the least hope of Profit to themselves Of which we need not look for ancient Examples they are fresh in Memory and have been too sadly and undeservedly sustain'd both nearer home and of late years in the West-Indies also as appears by that Pious and Prudent DECLARATION set forth by his Highness the LORD PROTECTOR as if Providence had so ordain'd it that by the Wrongs of our Country-men in those Parts we should be interested in the Quarrel of those Innocent Nations Neither need we to fear the Vaunts of the Spanish Monarch whose Government stands not on those strong Foundations that some imagine Blood and Tyrannie being the chief Pillars of his Greatness or rather his Arcana Imperii his Empire being onely strong in this That the Weaknesses thereof have not yet been well look'd into Should we chase him from his Indian Treasures he would soon retire to his Shell like a Snail tapt upon the horns And perhaps it would not a little avail to the General Peace of Europe whereby we should be strengthened against the Common Enemy of Christianitie For doubtless it hath been the Satanical Scope of this Tyrant To set all the European Princes at Variance and to keep them busie at home that they might not have leasure to bend their Forces against his Golden Regions But he pretends a Right to them though upon very slender Grounds for that the English may better claim then himself it being first discovered as is well known and tendered to Henry the Seventh by Sebastian Cabot one of his own Captains Which brings to minde the Poor Spirits of our English Kings who would not regard such an Advantage so highly importing the Honour of the Nation so far as to be almost guilty of the Bloud shed in those parts through their neglect But for farther satisfaction concerning the Right of the English to the West-Indies I shall refer you to a further Treatise which I may ere long put forth And now honoured Country-men seeing that by Divine Providence the Cruelties and Barbarous Massacres of the Spaniards have been so apparently presented to you I cannot but be confident of your Endeavours as you tender the Good and Welfare of your Native Country to acquit your selves in so just a Cause which God hath put into the Heart and Hands of our Supreme Magistrate who is so Vigilant to embrace all Opportunities for the Good of the Nation Tears of the Indies or Inquisition for Bloud being the Relation of the Spanish Massacre there IN the year 1492. the West-Indies were discovered in the following year they were inhabited by the Spaniards a great company of the Spaniards going about 49. years agoe The first place they came to was Hispaniola being a most fertile Island and for the bignesse of it very famous it being no less then six hundred miles in compass Round about it lie an innumerable company of Islands so throng'd with Inhabitants that there is not to be found a greater multitude of people in any part of the world The Continent is distant from this about Two hundred miles stretching it self out in length upon the sea side for above Ten thousand miles in length This is already found out and more is daily discovered These Countreys are inhabited by such a number of people as if God had assembled and called together to this place the greatest part of Mankinde This infinite multitude of people was so created by God as that they were without fraud without subtilty or malice to their natural Governours most faithful and obedient Toward the Spaniards whom they serve patient meek and peaceful and who laying all contentious and tumultuous thoughts aside live without any hatred or desire of revenge the people are most delicate and tender enjoying such a feeble constitution of body as does not permit them to endure labour so that the Children of Princes and great persons here are not more nice and delicate then the Children of the meanest Countrey-man in that place The Nation is very poor and indigent possessing little and by reason that they gape not after temporal goods neither proud nor ambitious Their diet is such that the most holy Hermite cannot feed more sparingly in the wildernesse They go naked only hiding the undecencies of nature and a poor shag mantle about an ell or two long is their greatest and their warmest covering They lie upon mats only whose who have larger fortunes lye upon a kinde of net which is tied at the four corners and so fasten'd to the roof which the Indians in their natural language call Hamecks They are of a very apprehensive and docible wit and capable of all good learning and very apt to receive our Religion which when they have but once tasted they are carryed on with a very ardent and zealous desire to make a further progress in it so that I have heard divers Spaniards confesse that they had nothing else to hinder them from enjoying heaven but their ignorance of the true God To these quiet Lambs endued with such blessed qualities came the Spaniards like most cruel Tygres Wolves and Lions enrag'd with a sharp and tedious hunger for these forty years past minding nothing else but the slaughter of these unfortunate wretches whom with divers kinds of torments neither seen nor heard of before they have so cruelly and inhumanely butchered that of three millions of people which Hispaniola it self did contain there are left remaining alive scarce three hundred persons And for the Island of Cuba which contains as much ground in length as from Valladolid to Rome it lies wholly desert untill'd and ruin'd The Islands of St. Iohn and Iamaica lie waste and desolate The Lucayan Islands neighbouring toward the North upon Cuba and Hispaniola being above Sixty or thereabouts with those Islands that are vulgarly called the Islands of the Gyants of which that which is least fertile is more fruitful then the King of Spains Garden at Sevil being situated in a pure and temperate air are now totally unpeopled and
of above nine thousand Crowns the Spaniards not content with this tied him to a stake and stretching out his Legs put fire to them requiring a greater sum of Gold who not able to endure the torment sent home for three thousand more notwithstanding the Spaniards with a fresh rage began to torment him again but seeing that he was able to give them no more they kept him so long over the fire till his marrow dropt from the soles of his feet whereof he died These were the torments wherewith they murthered not only the common People but the Peers and Lords of those Nations Sometimes it would happen that a Band of Spaniards ranging abroad would light upon a mountain where the Indians were fled for protection from their cruelty where they immediately fell upon the Indians killing the Men and taking the Women and Virgins captive when a great company of the Indians pursued them with weapons for the recovery of their Wives and Children they resolving not to let go their prey when the Indians came near them immediately with the points of their swords ran the poor Women and Children through the bodies Upon which the wretched Indians beating their brests for grief would now and then burst forth in these words O perverse men O cruel Spaniards What will ye kill helplesse women There was the house of a Noble man distant from Panama above 15. miles he was by name called Paris and he was very wealthy in Gold to him the Spaniards came and by him they were entertained like Brothers he giving to the Captain as a Present fifteen thousand Crowns who by that perceiving that he must of necessity have a very great treasure feigned a departure but about the middle of the night returning again entred the City set it on fire sacrificing the poor people to the flames Hence they took away about fifty or sixty thousand Crowns The Noble man escaping gathered together what force he could and made after the Spaniards who were gone away with no lesse then a hundred and forty thousand Crowns of his own Treasure when he had overtaken them he fell upon them and having slain above fifty of the Spaniards he recovered his Gold again The rest saved themselves by flight But not long after the Spaniards returned with greater force upon the Noble man and having routed him made slaves of all his people Of the Province of Nicaraqua IN the year 1522. the foresaid Governour went to subdue the Province of Nicaraqua There is no man that can sufficiently expresse the fertility of this Island the temperateness of the air or the multitude of the people that did inhabit it There was a vast number of people in this Province for it contained divers cities above four mile in length and for plenty of fruits which was the cause that it was so extreamly well habited without compare This people because their Countrey was all plain and level had not the shelter of the Mountains neither could they be easily perswaded to leave it so pleasant was their habitation And therefore they endured far the greater misery and persecution and underwent a more unsufferable slavery being the lesse able to bear it by how much they were of a milde and gentle nature This Tyrant vex'd and tormented these poor creatures with so many continual injuries slaughters captivities and cruelties that no tongue is able to expresse them Into this territory he sent above fifty horse who totally extirpated the people of this Province by the Sword sparing no age nor sex not for any wrong they did them but sometimes it came not so speedily when they called as they expected or if they brought not such quantities of corn as they imposed or if they did not bring a sufficient quantity of Indians to their service for the Countrey being in a plain there was no avoiding the fury of the Horsemen He commanded these Spaniards to go pillage and depopulate other Countreys permitting to these Robbers and Hangmen to bring away and enslave what number of these poor people they pleased whom they laded with chains that weighed above sixty or fifty pound that they might not have the opportunity of escaping so that it seldome hapned that above four in four thousand returned home and if either through the weight of their chains or for hunger or thirst they did chance to faint by the way because they would not hinder their journey they cut off their heads immediately throwing the head in one place and the body in another And the poor captive Indians when they saw the Spaniards preparing for such journeys at their departure would weep and fall into these kinde of sad expressions These are the journeys that we have often gone to serve the Christians and then we could return home again to visit our Wives and Children but now all hope is cut off from us and we must never see them more It happened also by reason that it came into the Governors minde to change the Indians from one Master to another pretending to take away force from some that he saw began to envie him that there was no seed time nor harvest for a whole year now rather then the Spaniards would want they took it from the Indians by which means there perished no lesse then thirty thousand people which caused one woman for hunger to eat her own childe And because these Cities and other places were such pleasant abodes therefore the Spaniards took up their habitations in these places dividing the possessions among themselves and as for the Indians both old and young they lived in the houses of the Spaniards drudging day night in a perpetual captivity who spared not the smallest children but impos'd on them burdens as much as they were able to bear and sometimes more by this means allowing them neither houses nor any thing else proper to themselves they destroyed them daily and do daily destroy them so that they exceeded the cruelties which they had committed in Hispaniola They hastned also the death of many of these poor people by forcing them to carry timber and planks for shipping to the port that was distant about thirty miles from this place compelling them also to fetch honey and wax from the Mountains where they were many times devoured by the Tygres Neither were they ashamed to lade and burthen Women with childe as if they had been only beasts for carriage But there was no greater plague that depopulated this Countrey then a liberty granted by the Governour to the Spaniards for the requiring of slaves and captives from the Nobles and potent men of the Kingdome who as often as the Spaniards obtained leave to demand them which was every four or five moneths and sometimes oftner gave them constantly fifty servants whom the Spaniards still threatned that if they would not be obedient they would either burn them alive or throw them to the dogs Now because the Indians have but few servants for it
is a very great matter to see above three servants in that place waiting upon a Noble man therefore the Nobility were fain to come to their subjects from whom first they took all the Orphans then coming to those that had many children from them that had two they took one and from those who had three they demanded two and thus they were fain to make up the Number which the threatning Tyrant required while the poor people wept and deplor'd the sad misfortune of their Children over whom they are very tender Which being done for a daily continuance in ten or twelve years they made a clean riddance of the inhabitants out of this place For every foot there came five or six ships which returned full of Indians into the Regions of Panama and Peru where they were sold and ended their daies in captivity For experience hath taught us this that when ever the Indians are removed from their accustomed habitations into other climates they quickly die the Spaniards neither affording them sufficient food nor in times of sicknesse diminishing their labour for which end they were only bought And thus the number of people hurried from the enjoyment of their freedome into a sad and laborious captivity amounted to five hundred thousand souls of which above fifty or sixty thousand are already perished and more daily perish All these Massacres were committed within the space of fourteen years There may be now remaining in the Province of Nicaraqua perhaps some four or five thousand men though they daily diminish through the immoderate oppressions of the Spaniards Notwithstanding in former time for number of people it was the most flourishing place in the whole world Of New Spain IN the year 1517. New Spain was discovered after the discovery of which they did nothing first or second but immediately sell to their old practises of cruelty and slaughter for in the following year the Spaniards who call themselves Christians went thither to rob and kill though they gave out that they went to people the Countrey From that year unto this present year 1542. the violence injustice and tyrannies of the Spaniards came to their full height and now quite forgetting their humane natures they laid aside all fear of God or of their King For the slaughters massacres cruelties devastations of Countreys destructions of Cities violences tyrannies and rapines of the Spaniards which they did commit in these so many several and so large Kingdomes are so numberlesse and strike the minde with such a horror that those which we have before related are nothing in respect of these which we are to relate being all perpetrated in the year 1518. and continued to this very moneth in a most sad and dreadfull manner so that what we said before holds very true that the Spaniards still went on from bad to worse themselves striving to exceed themselves in wickednesse And thus from the first entry of the Spaniards into New Spain which happened upon the tenth day of the moneth of Aprill continuing from the eighteenth year untill the thirtieth in which space of time are contained twelve years compleat there hath been no end of the bloudy massacres and cruel slaughters of the Spaniards perpetrated in the continent of Mexico and the parts adjoyning which contained four or five large Kingdomes that neither for compasse nor fertility gave place to Spain All this region was more populous then either Toledo Sevill Valadolid Augusta Caesarea or Faventia nay I may affirm that there is not at this present neither was there when those places were at the highest of their flourishing estate so many people as in those parts which take up the space of above a thousand and eight hundred miles In these ten or twelve years what with Men Women Youths and Children above four millions were by the Spaniards consumed part by fire part by the sword in these destructive wars wars more unjust and more condemn'd both by the Law of God and men then any invasion of the Turk against the Catholique Religion Neither do we now reckon those that died under the intolerable yoke and burdens of their captivity There is no language no art or humane science that can avail to recite the abominable crimes and bloudy actions committed by these enemies not only of Common-wealths but of all humane societies neither can any diligence or time of writing sufficiently aggravate the circumstances of these detestable deeds Notwithstanding something I shall say of every one of them though I do seriously protest that I connot rehearse one thing of a thousand in respect of all that were done Of New Spain in particular AMong other grand murthers of theirs they committed one more notorious in the City Cholula which did contain above thirty thousand families All the potent men of that Region with the Priests who brought along with them their chief Priest also came to meet the Spaniards and that their reception and entertainment might be the more honourable they agreed to entertain the Spaniards in the houses of the greatest Noble men but here the Spaniards consulted how to begin their massacres or as they call'd them chastisements of the people that they might keep in awe every corner of the Countrey with the terror of their cruelties For this was their common custome that they no sooner had set sooting in any place but they committed immediately some notorious violence upon the people that the rest might stand in the greater fear of them They sent therefore to the supreme Lord of the City as also to all the other Lords and Governours that they should give them a meeting but they were no sooner come to parley but they were all immediately laid hold on leaving none to carry back these bad tidings to the rest first they demanded of them six thousand Indians to carry the Luggage which they had with them which when they were brought together they shut up in their houses It was a sad spectacle to behold this poor people preparing themselves to carry those burthens They came naked covering only their secret parts and at their shoulders hung a little Net wherein they kept their food and thus while they stooped under their burthens they lay open to all the cuts and blowes of the Spanish weapons Now being in this manner gathered together in a great and wide place part of the Spaniards all in armes stood at the door to keep the rest out while others with Swords and Launces kill'd the innocent Lambs so that not one escaped After three or four daies were expired some that had hid themselves among the dead bodies all over besmeered with bloud came with all submission imploring mercy and compassion from them but they not at all regarding their tears nor moved with their lamentations immediately hew'd them to pieces All the Lords and Noble men were kept a while in chains and afterward at the Commandement of the Spanish Captain tied to stakes and burnt to death But the King
of the whole Countrey escaped with about thirty or forty men betaking himself to a Temple which was like a Castle and in their language called Quu there defending himself a good part of the day but the Spaniards out of whose hand few of them especially the souldiery escap'd setting the Temple on fire burnt them all that were within alive who as they were dying brake forth into these lamentations O wicked men how have we injured you that you should thus torment us Away away to Mexico where our chief Lord Montenchuma will revenge our quarrel This is also reported that while the Spaniards were busily acting this bloudy Tragedy killing and destroying above six thousand innocent creatures their chief Captain in sport sung these verses One flame the Roman ' City now destroyes And shrieks of people made a dismal noyse While Nero sung and moved with delight From Tarpey Hill beheld the wofull sight Another butchery was by them committed in the City of Tepeaca which was a much larger City then the former Here they put to the sword an infinite number of people with many additions of cruelty Departing from Cholula they came to Mexico the King whereof Montenchuma sent the Peers and Nobles of this Realm with innumerable presents to meet them who all the way testified by several sports and solemnities the joy which they had for their arrivall When they approached neer the wal of the City the Kings Brother came forth with many Noble men to meet him who brought many gifts of Gold and Silver to present them with Coming to the entry of the City there stood the King himself with all his attendants who being carried in a golden Litter accompanied them to the Palace which was prepared for them But that very day as was told me by some that were there they seised upon the King little suspecting any such matter setting a guard upon his person of above eighty Souldiers after that they put him in chains But here passing by many things which might be said I will relate one thing worthy observation The Governor being call'd away to quell one of his Captains that had taken armes against him and having left Montenchuma with a guard of above a hundred it came into the mindes of the Spaniards to do something which might render them dreadful and terrible to the Indians which was a policy as I said before they did often use In the mean while all the Nobility and commonalty of the City minded nothing else but to exhilarate the minde of their captive King with several varieties of sports and recreations Among which there was none that they used more then dancings and revellings which they performed all night long in the streets These exercises they in their language call'd Mirotes but the Islanders Areytos To these recreations they bring together all their wealth and richest garments and what ever they do esteem precious using them as the greatest testimonies of gladnesse The Nobles also and Princes of the Royal bloud every one according to their degree were busie in these sports in those places which were nearest the houses where the King was detained captive Not far from the Palace there were above two thousand youths being all the children of the Nobility and indeed the flower of the Nobility which were in Mantenchuma's Kingdome To these came the Captain of the Spaniards with a small party of Souldiers sending other Troops to other parts of the City as if they only came to be spectators But the Captain had given command that at a certain hour they should fall upon them and he himself being about to lead the way cry'd out St. Iago let us rush in upon them The word being thus given the Souldiees all fell on and with their swords began to hack and hew those delicate bodies spilling that generous and noble bloud with such an unheard of malice that they left not one alive And doing thus to others in other places there fell a dismal fear and amazement upon the whole Countrey Nor will these poor creatures doubtlesse ever forget as long as the world stands to lament and bewail in their solemnities the sad calamity and ruine of the whole seminary of their Nobility of which they were wont so much to boast The Indians beholding this unheard of cruelty and injustice committed upon such a number of innocent souls having with long patience endured the captivity of their King who had charg'd them to be quiet now ran all to their arms and falling upon the Spaniards wounded many the rest narrowly escaping at length the Spaniards putting a Dagger to the brest of the King Montencuma threatned to kill him unlesse he would look through the window and command his subjects to lay down their armes But the Indians at that time contemning the commands of their King chose them a Captain whom they made chief Commander of all their Forces By this time the forementioned Governour was returned from subduing his enemy bringing with him a greater number of Spaniards then he carryed away with him Whereupon the Indians desisted from doing any thing more untill he was entred into the City But then gathering together very great Forces they fought so vigorously that the Spaniards despairing of victory resolved to retreat in a tempestuous night and to leave the City Which being known to the Indians they cut off abundance of them upon the bridges of the Lakes neitheir can any man deny but that they did it justly for the reasons above rehearsed Afterwards the Spaniards having recollected more forces there followed that great contention in the City wherein they committed so many several butcheries upon the Indians by killing and burning both the Commonalty and the Nobility in a most barbarous manner Having committed so many detestable slaughters upon the Indians in Mexico and other places distant ten fifteen and twenty miles from thence this tyrannical plague proceeded to infest and depopulate the City of Panuco There was a wonderful frequency of people in that Countrey neither were the slaughters that were there committed lesse remarkable In the like manner they laid waste the Provinces of Tatepeca Ipilcingonium and Columa every one of which is of as large a compasse as the Kingdomes of Legiona and Castile It is a very hard thing if not altogether impossible to recite all the murthers and cruelties there committed besides that it would cloy the reader Here we must observe that they entred into these Kingdomes and territories which for the abundance of people ought to have been the joy of all true Christians upon no pretence but as they said to reduce them to slavery For at their first entrance they commanded them to swear fealty and obedience to the King of Spain those that would not come in and submit themselves to the will of such unjust and cruel men they proclaimed rebels and and accus'd them of that crime to the King The blindnesse of the chief Governours of the Indies not
they put to death many other of the Princes and Noble men of the Countrey About this time a certain man who came to visit their purses rather then their souls knowing the Indians to be adorers of Idols for the Spaniards had not taught them better kept them captive till they had delivered all their Images for they thought that they had been all of Gold but when they found themselves deceived he inflicted upon them punishments as if they had committed some great offence and because he would not utterly lose their hopes caused them to redeem their Idols with Gold to adore them and thus did the Spaniards procure the worship of God among the Indians This Tyrant out of the Province of Panucon went to Methuaca and Xalisco which were Countreys fruitful both in men and money and no small glory of the Indian Nation having Cities that were in length above seven miles When he came into these Countreys the Indians as they were wont met him with accustomed signes of joy and gladnesse but he immediately brake forth into his wonted cruelties to attain his usual scope which was the heaping up of Gold the only God which they adore The Cities they burnt to the ground Their Princes having first tormented them they carried away captive binding them in chains Women with childe without any consideration of their weaknesse they oppressed with tedious labours and hunger that they dy'd by the way And as for their Children because they could not carry them they were forc'd to throw them away by which a number of Infants were destroyed There being a certain Christian who went about to defile a virgin her mother interposed her self and would have taken the daughter from him the Spaniard drawing forth his dagger cut off her hand and afterwards slew the virgin because she would not give consent to his lustful desire Among other things also this was most unjust that they caused to be marked with the mark of slavery above four thousand five hundred of the Indians that were all as free born as themselves among which they also caused to be thus marked children of two three or four years old though they were all such as came forth to meet him with great acclamations of joy other things without number I passe by in silence All these above mentioned abominations being done they reduced the rest to a tyrannicall subjection for which cause they thought that they were only sent thither In which regions the said Governour gave liberty to all the Spaniards especially to his Stewards and Officers to exercise what tortures they pleased upon the Indians to draw out of them the knowledge where their treasure lay His Steward in times of peace kill'd many Indians burning some and casting other to his dogs cutting off others hands legs and heads that thereby their minds being totally subjected they should never deny where their Gold or treasure lay hid All these things were done the Tyrant himself beholding and consenting and not only so but they oppressed them and continually abused them with stripes and blowes of their canes and fists leaving no cruelty unexercised toward them In this Kingdome of Xalisco they consumed by fire six thousand villages upon which the Indians growing desperate seeing the remainder of those that escaped daily destroyed they made an insurrection against the Spaniards and killing some of them as they well deserved they betook themselves again to the Mountains But the cruelties and injuries of the Tyrants that went from these parts to depopulate which they called discover other Regions overtaking them many Indians were by them slain while they sought to defend themselves in the rocks and to this present there are a thousand Butcheries committed upon them whereby there are hardly left any people in the whole Countrey And thus the Spaniards being blinded and forsaken by God and given over to a reprobate sense considered not how unagreeable both to the Law of God and nature were their proceedings against the Indians how unjustly they went about to destroy them by force of armes and not only to cast them out of their Countrey but to torture them and cut them in pieces nor do they see how impious their violences and tyrannies are over these poor people they do believe and do affirme both in deed and word that those victories which they have obtained and used to the destruction of the Indians as if their unjust wars were of right and are so impudent as to give God thanks for them like those theeves of whom Zachary speaks in the eleventh Chapter the third and fourth Verses Feed the flock of the slaughter whose possessors slay them and hold themselves not guilty and they that sell them say Blessed be the Lord for I am rich Of the Kingdome of Yucatan IN the year 1526. a vile and impious man through his sawning and lying was made Governour of the Kingdome of Yucatan which was the manner that other tyrants used for the obtaining of their preferments and offices for by their authority they had greater opportunities to do mischief This Kingdome did abound with people both because of the temper of the air and for the plenty of provision in which it excelled the Countrey of Mexico But those things for which it is chiefly famous are Hony and Wax which it afforded to all the Countreys of India which have been hitherto discovered It is three hundred miles in compasse This Nation either as to policy and good government or as to their way of living and conversation excelled all the rest and well deserved to have had more knowledge of the true God There there might have been erected by the Spaniards many brave and large Cities where they might have liv'd as in a Paradise had they not rendred themselves totally unworthy of any such benefits through their own enormities and impieties This Tyrant with three hundred men made war upon these innocent Indians living peaceably in their houses and offering injury to none destroying many people And because the Countrey hath no Gold for if it had they had soon ended the lives of the inhabitants by digging in the Mines making a gain of those bodies and souls for which Christ died therefore those that they left alive they made slaves of sending whole ships away fraighted with people bartering them for Wine Oyle Vinegar Pork Horses and other things which they stood in need of Out of fifty or a hundred Virgins which he had chosen out he exchanged the best of them for the smallest vessell of Wine Oyle Vinegar or Pork and once it chanced that a youth who was the Son of a Prince was exchanged for a Cheese and a hundred persons for a horse This was his imployment from the year 26. to 33. till newes was brought of the Regions of Peru whither the Spaniards going put an end to their villanies here for a small time But after some daies were past over they returned again to their former rapines and dishonouring
had made them to burn all theirs that there might be but one worship of one God came and spoke to them in this manner Why have you told us so many untruths promising so faithfully to us that the Spaniards should not come into our Countrey Why have you burnt our gods when as they do bring and sell others among us are the gods of other Countreys better then our own The Friers although they had little to say yet they made a shift to pacifie their mindes and immediately went to the Spaniards declaring to them the evill which they had done humbly beseeching them to depart Which the Spaniards not only utterly denyed but also which was more wicked and abominable they perswaded the Indians that they were called by the Friers which being believ'd they took councell to kill the religious persons who being admonished by certain other Indians avoided that danger and fled But after their departure knowing the falshood and treachery of the Spaniards they sent messengers fifty miles after them craving pardon in the name of the Indians and intreating them to return The religious persons as upright servants of God and zealous for the souls of those poor people gave credit to the messengers and returned and were entertained as if they had been Angels sent from heaven and remained with the Indians for five moneths receiving a thousand courtesies from them But when the Spaniards would not depart from thence although the Viceroy used all his endevours to recall them he declared them Traytors and guilty of high Treason and moreover when the persevered in their tyranny and oppression the religious persons seeing that though revenge came late that yet they would not go unpunished and fearing lest that revenge might fall upon their own heads and besides not being able to preach the Gospell in quiet by reason of the incursions of the Spaniards resolv'd to leave the Kingdome which now remains destitute of all knowledge the souls of these poor Indians remaining in their past miseries of ignorance and Heathenisme all the streams of divine knowledge being taken from them by these cursed Spaniards as when water is taken from the young plants for at the time when they went away the Indians were very covetous after the knowledge of our Religion Of the Province of Sancta Martha THE Province of St. Martha by reason of the Golden Mines the fertility of the place wa◠a brave Island wherefore from the year 1528. to 1542. many tyrants went thither by sea with their incursions wasting and spoyling all the Island after a strange manner destroying the inhabitants and robbing them of all their Gold And so the whole Countrey was wasted by them especially all the coast and the places adjoyning untill the year 1523. And because it was a fruitfull Countrey there went thither at severall times severall Captains succediug one another in cruelty so that every one striv'd to out-vie his predecessor in the inventions of exquisite torments to afflict the poor people And thus also in this place they confirm'd our foresaid Axiome In the year 1529. there went thither a very great tyrant accompanied with many Troops with an intention to exceed all the rest of his predecessors in cruelty who took away abundance of treasure from the people in the space of seven years in which exile he dying without repentance into his place other tyrants succeeded where with their bloudy hands and impious points of their swords they destroy'd all the rest that their predecessors had spared And such a desolation they brought upon many provinces by their accustomed waies of cruelty and inflicted so many torments upon the Princes and people to force them to declare where their treasure lay that from the year 1529. to this day they depopulated above four hundred mile of land the number of people in these parts slain being not inferior to those who had been slain in other places If I had decreed to reckon up the impieties slaughters cruelties violences rapines murders and iniquities and other crimes committed by the Spaniards against God the King and these innocent Nations I should make two large a volume yet I shall do my endevour if God grant me life For the present I will rehearse a part of those things which the Bishops of these Provinces wrote to the King our Soveraign Lord These were letters dated the 25. of May in the year 1541. In which these words are written I tell your sacred Majesty that there is no remedy to ease this afflicted Nation but to deliver it out of the power of these step-fathers and to give it into the power of a loving husband which may use it with more gentlenesse as befits it and that as soon as may be for if there be any delay it must of necessity perish And a little after he proceeds thus By which it shall be apparent to your Majesty how deservedly the Governors of these Provinces ought to be deprived of their dignity that the Provinces may be eased which if it be not suddenly done these provinces will never be eased This also your Majesty may further take notice of that they are not men that live here but Devils that there are no servants of God or the King to be found but traytors both to the Law and King Now certainly there is nothing more destructive to the peace of the Nation and that hinders more the conversion of those that live there in peace then the cruel and hard usage which the Spaniards afflict those innocent people withall which bred in them such a loathing of the Spanish name that nothing is more odious and detestable For the Indians call them Yaes which in their language signifies Devils And truly not without reason for the actions of these people have been more like the actions of Devils whereby it happens that the Indians seing such crimes committed by the Spaniards both of high and inferiour conditions so void of pity and compassion cannot chuse but think amisse both of God the King and 〈◊〉 of the Christians and to labour to 〈◊〉 them to the contrary is a vain and fruitlesse labour and whereby a greater advantage is given them to laugh at Christ and his Law And as for the Indians that take armes to defend themselves they think it better to die once then to fall into the hands of their enemies and to be afflicted with many deaths These things most invincible Caesar I have learnt by experience He addes further Your Majesty hath in these Countreys more friends and servants then you are aware of for there is no souldier of all those that serve in these parts who does not publickly and openly professe whether he rob steal kill or burn the subjects of your Majesty for the obtaining of gold but that he does it to do your Majesty service Wherefore most invincible Caesar it would be requisite that you should signifie by the severe correction of some how displeased you were with such services
whereby they shew themselves so disobedient and refractory to God himself Which words are taken from the writings of the said Bishop of St. Martha out of which it is manifest what strange things have been committed and are daily committed by them They call the Indians Warlike that continually flie to the Mountains to avoid the cruelty of the Spaniards and they call those the Indians and Inhabitants of the Countrey whom they have subjected to the hardship of a perpetual slavery by the terror of their massacres by which they have been depopulated and wasted as appears out of the letters of the foresaid Bishop who recites but a very few of those things that were committed The Indians of these Regions us'd to break forth into these expressions when they are forc'd naked through the craggie passages of the mountains if at any time they chanced to faint with wearinesse for then they are constantly beaten with canes sometimes their teeth knockt out with the hilts of their swords to make them rise and proceed on in their journeys without any rest then were they wont I say to break forth into these expressions Oh how envious art thou I faint kill me and put an end to my daies this they sigh forth scarcly able to draw out their words the certain signs of an inward anguish and deep distresse but who can comprehend in words the hundredth part of these calamities and afflictions wherewith the Spaniards do torment the poor Indians God of his mercy bring them to the knowledge of those who are able to remedy and prevent them for the future Of the Province of Carthagena THis Province is distant from the Island of St. Martha toward the West 50. miles and is situated upon the confines of the Kingdome of Cerusia being stretched upon the sea coast to the Bay of Vraba a hundred miles in length South ward it is also stretched to a very great length These Provinces from the year 1498. to this present year were handled after a most cruel manner and depopulated with several kindes of slaughters as it happened in the Islands of St. Martha but that I may come to a quick conclusion I shall cease to speak of every particular that I may make hast to the rehearsal of those detestable crimes which they committed in other Countreys Of the shore of Pearls of Paria and of the Island of the Trinity FRom the shore of Paria to the Bay of Vâ—necuela which takes up above two hundred miles in length the Spaniards committed most wonderful depopulations for they gave themselves wholly to their wonted Robberies enslaving also infinite numbers of men on purpose to sell them for money against all the faith and pledges which they had given them for their security for those were things which they never observed though they were entertained by these innocent creatures with all civility and softered in their houses like their parents or children serving them in all things to the utmost of their power and making them masters of all that was in their possession It can hardly be said or expressed with how many injuries and unjust actions they used to afflict the poor Indians in these Countreys from 1510. untill this present year Two or three of their most hainous crimes I will rehearse whereby the reader may judge of the wickedness of those which remain untold Into the Island of the Trinity being larger and more fertile then Sicily and stored with Inhabitants according to their quality more ingenuous vertuous then any other Nation of the Indians a certain Robber went in the year 1510. accompanyed with fifty or sixty other fellow theeves who presently proclaim'd an edict that all the Indians should come into the Island to live with him The Indians received them as their natural Countreymen both Princes and subjects yeelding obedience to them with much chearfulnesse bringing provision to them every day as much as would have sufficed to have served a far greater number for this is the custome of the Inhabitants of this new world to afford all necessaries to the Spaniards in great abundance A little while after the Spaniards built a great house for the Indians to dwel in for they would not that all of them should have more then one house where they might all dwell together that they might with more convenience execute that which they had in their resolutions which they did accordingly for when they had thatched it over and raised it to the height of two men they shut up abundance of them in the said house upon pretence to hasten the work but in truth that those within might not be seen by those without then a part of them compass'd the house with their weapons that none might enter in or go forth after that others of them went in and unsheathing their swords they threatned death to the naked Indians if they stir'd and then bound them And if any of them went about to flye they were in the place immediately cut in pieces some few that escaped part wounded and part whole joyning themselves with those who stood without being about two hundred in number with bowes and arrowes retreated to another house who being all at one end stoutly defending the entry of the house the Spaniards set fire to the other end and so they all there perished by fire Hence they departed with their prisoners all they could lay hold on being about a hundred and eighty to the Island of St. Iohn where the sold half and from thence also to the Island of Hispaniola where they fold the rest Now when I taxed the Captain for his wickednesse after he came to the Island of St. Iohn He gave me this answer Pray sir be patient for I was commanded by those that sent me that those that I could not take by fair means I should seize by force yet the said Captain had related to me for certain that in the Island of the Trinity he found them both fathers and mothers to him which he spoke to his greater confusion and the aggravation of his crime Infinite of other things they did taking captive these poor people against all faith given Let these actions be well considered and whether the Indians so taken may be justly enslaved or no Once the Fryers of the Order of St. Dominick consulted about sending some of their Order to this Island to spread the light of the Gospel among the Indians for the salvation of their souls Whereupon they sent a Licentiate famous for his sanctity with a lay man to accompany him to visit the Countrey converse with the Inhabitants and to seek out fit places for the the building of Monasteries The religious persons being arriv'd were received as Angels from heaven ear being giv'n to their words with all attention alacrity and affection that they were able at that time for they were ignorant of our language it happened afterwards when the religious persons were gone that there came a band of
me to bury him why do you give me this sick man to be his keeper And thus let us consider in what estimation the Indians are among the Spaniards and how the precept of Charity on which the Law and the Prophets depends is observed among them There is nothing more detestable or more cruel then the tyranny which the Spaniards use toward the Indians for the getting of pearl Surely the infernall torments cannot much exceed the anguish that they indure by reason of that way of cruelty for they put them under water some four or five ells deep where they are forced without any liberty of respiration to gather up the shels wherein the Pearls are sometimes they come up again with nets full of shels to take breath but if they stay any while to rest themselves immediately comes a hangman row'd in a little boat who as soon as he hath well beaten them drags them again to their labour Their food is nothing but fish and the very same that contains the Pearl with a small portion of that bread which that Countrey affords in the first whereof there is little nourishment and as for the latter it is made with great difficulty besides that they have not enough of that neither for sustenance they lye upon the ground in fetters lest they should run away and many times they are drown'd in this labour and are never seen again till they swim upon the top of the waves oftentimes they also are devoured by certain sea monsters that are frequent in those seas Consider whether this hard usage of the poor creatures be consistent with the precepts which God commands concerning charity to our neighbour by those that cast them so undeservedly into the dangers of a cruel death causing them to perish without any remorse or pity or allowing them the benefit of the Sacraments or the knowledge of Religion it being impossible for them to live any time under the water and this death is so much the more painful by reason that by the coarctation of the brest while the lungs strive to do their office the vitall parts are so afflicted that they dye vomiting the bloud out of their mouthes Their hair also which is by nature black is hereby chang'd and made of the same colour with that of the sea Wolves their bodies are also so besprinkled with the froth of the sea that they appear rather like monsters then men By this intolerable labour or rather diabolical exercise they have consumed all the Lucayans for their particular gain out of every Indians labour gaining above fifty or a hundred Crowns They sold them also against all justice only because Lucayans were most skilfull swimmers There perished also many of the Inhabitants of other Provinces in this place Of the River of Yuya Pari. THrough this Province runs the River of Yuya Pari which rises in other Countreys about two huudred miles distant Into this River entred a perfidious Tyrant wasting many miles of Land committing many slaughters consuming many by fire and putting an infinite number of these poor Indians to the sword that liv'd peaceably in their own houses without any suspicion of making disturbance At length he dy'd an evill death and all his forces came to ruine though he were succeeded by many others not inferiour to him in impiety who daily destroy the souls of the poor Indians for whom the bloud of Christ was spilt Of the Kingdome of Venecuela IN the yeare 1526. our Soveraigne Lord the King through the false perswasions of some evil Counsellours made over to certaine Dutch Merchants the Kingdome of Venecuela being more large and long then Spain giving to the Governour a full and plenary jurisdiction over the said People upon certain conditions They entered this Region with about 30. men where they found the people affable and courteous as they were in other Countries of India before they were killed up by the Spaniards They by many degrees crueller then the rest of whom we have spoken shewed themselves more fierce and greedy then Tygers Wolves or Lyons for having a jurisdiction over the Land and therefore possessing it more freely they bestirred themselves with greater fury and covetousnesse in the heaping up of Gold and Silver then any of their Predecessors had done before them laying aside all feare of God or of the King and forgetting all humanity These incarnate devils laid waste and spoiled above 400. miles of most fertile land containing very great Provinces fruitful Vallies forty miles in length and an infinite number of Villages abounding with Gold and Silver So many and so many several regions they so utterly depopulated that they hardly left a Messenger of these sad tydings but those which hiding themselves in the Caverns and Bowels of the Earth escaped the thirst of their enraged swords With new and unusual sorts of torments they destroyed above four or five millions of people Neither do they yet put an end to their abominable crimes and enormities Three or four of their mad actions I will rehearse whereby the reader may judge of the rest The chiefe Lord of the Province they took captive putting him to several torments to squeeze his Gold from him but he escaping fled to the Mountaines and thereupon his Subjects that lay hid among the Woods and Bushes began to raise a tumult The Spainards followed destroying abundance of the people and as for those who were taken alive they were publickly sold for slaves In many Provinces and indeed in most Provinces where they came before the captivity of the chief Lord they were still welcom'd by the Indians with Songs and Dances and great Presents of Gold though the thanks which they gave them was alwayes with the points of their swords still recompensing them with Massacres One day when they came forth to meet the Spaniards the German Tyrant and Captaine caus'd an infinite number of them to be shut up in a house made up with straw where he commanded that they should be all cut in pieces Now by reason that there were beames in the house whither the Indians got up to avoid the fury of the German swords therefore O cruel beasts the Governour sent certaine men to set fire upon the house and so burnt them alive So that now the whole Region lay waste and desolate the inhabitants being all fled to the Mountaines for safety They came afterwards to another large Province neere to that of St. Martha where they found the Indians in their houses and Cities very peaceably employed about their occasions where they liv'd a good while at the charges of the inhabitants the Indians serving them like men in whose power their lives and safeties were induring beyond imagination their continual importunities and daily oppressions which were almost intolerable This being added which I said before that one Spainard consumes in one day as much as would suffice to serve an Indian family consisting commonly of ten persons for a whole month At that
time the Indians presented them with several great summes of Gold doing many other kindnesses for them At length when they were about to go away as a recompence for all their courteous entertainment they resolv'd to leave them after this manner The German Tyrant gave command that all the Indians with their wives and children if possible should be gathered together and shut up in one large place which done they were also commanded to signifie to them that whoever desired to be at liberty must redeeme themselves with their wives and children at a certain Ransome impos'd upon them at the discretion of the Governour to hasten them the more and bring them to a greater necessity he commanded that no sustenance should be given them till they had pay'd the sum required Hereupon many sent home for the price of their Redemption that they might be at liberty to seek for Victuals But they had not been long at home ere they were brought back again by the Robbers and shut up in the same place that being oppressed with hunger and thirst they might be forc'd to redeem themselves once more and thus were many of them three or four times faine to ransom themselves And in this manner a Country abounding with Gold and people was totally destroy'd in which there was a Valley forty miles long where they burnt a Village that contained above a thousand houses This Governour went further having a great desire to see the lower parts of Perue for which journey he provided an infinite number of Indians lading them with chaines and heavy burthens and if any of them fainted by the way because they would not stand to loosen the chaines they cut off their hands and heads casting the head one way and the body another and their burdens were divided and impos'd upon others And now should I reckon the Provinces which he laid desert the Cities which he burnt for all their houses are of straw besides the particular slaughters which they made though I am confident of the truth thereof yet should I scarcely be beleeved by reason that so much cruelty could not be suppos'd in man This course took other Tyrants that departed from Venequela and the Province of St. Martha with a resolution to make a further discovery of the Divine Gold of Perue But they found that glorious Country so desert so depopulated so wasted and destroyed that they themselves though a crew of blood thirsty Tyrants were amaz'd and wondred to behold such ruines and depopulations These and many other things were prov'd before the fiscal of the Indian Council and the several proofes are kept by the said Council though t is most certain that they never put to death any of those cursed Tyrants as if all the devastations and murders by them committed had not been at all to be regarded For hitherto the Ministers of Justice in India through their extraordinary and damned blindnesse have never been very solicitous to inquire after the crimes and slaughters which those Tyrants have committed or daily do commit Onely they tell you slightly that because such and such a one did ill and handled the Indians so cruelly that therefore the Treasury of the King was much diminished and this is all they do toward the suppression of so many hainous actions Neither are those which are prov'd verifi'd to any purpose neither is there that credit given to them as indeed there should be for if they would but do their duty both to God and the King they would soon finde the King to have been cheated by the German Tyrants of above three millions of Gold for the Region of Venecuela being about 400. miles in length for the happinesse of the soile and the abundance of Gold is not inferiour to any of the rest and thus in the space of seventeen years wherein these enemies of God and the King have done nothing else but destroy'd and wasted these Countries they have as I said before defrauded the King not of lesse then three millions of Gold Neither is it to be hop'd that these losses can be repaired as long as the World stands unlesse God by some miracle should raise from the dead so many people as have been slaine besides the blasphemies and curses wherewith they have been bold to provoke even God himselfe But what recompence can be made for the destroying of so many soules which through the cruelty and tyranny of so many blood-sucking Tyrants are now tormented in hell This also may be added by way of conclusion to the rest of their Crimes that from the time that they first enterd this Region which is now seventeen years agoe they never ceas'd to send whole Ships laden with Indian Captives to the Islands of St. Martha Hispaniola Iamaica and St. Iohn having sold at the least a million of men neither do they yet forebeare in this yeare 1542. that abominable practice the Royal Council of the King taking no notice thereof and that which they cannot choose but see they not onely dissemble but suffer and uphold them that do it And as for the rest of their Crimes and infinite devastations which they spread all along this part of the Continent for a matter of 400. miles in length together with Venecuela which is under their jurisdiction they shut their eyes when they might have remedi'd them The reason why they did captivate the Indians was onely this out of a perverse obstinate and blinde desire of heaping up Gold and riches which is common to all that have gone into America For these quiet lambes they drew them by violence out of their houses carrying them together with their wives and children into Captivity afflicting them in those horrid manners as abovesaid and burning them with the marke of Slaves Of the Provinces of the Country of Florida INto these Countries there went two several Tyrants at several times from the year 1510. or eleven that they might perpetrate the same abominable actions as the rest had done that by the blood and destruction of the people they might obtaine Offices and dignities which they were no way worthy of But at length they were taken away by an evil death the houses also which they had built them this I witnesse of all the three at the cost of humane blood perish'd with them the memory of them vanishing from the face of the Earth as if they had never been They left these Countries very much troubled and confused having incurr'd no small infamy by reason of the Crimes which they committed though they were not many for God cut them off at the beginning leaving the revenge of those evils which I know and have seen done in the Indies to be poured forth upon this place Of the fourth Tyrant that came well instructed lately in the yeare 1538. we have had no news these three yeares This we are sure of that at the beginning he carried himselfe very cruelly and if he be alive most assuredly he
Island and full of people he was receiv'd by the Prince and the inhabitants thereof as if he had been an Angel sent from heaven But after that six months were past in which time the Spaniards had consum'd all their provision they then brought forth the corn which they had reserv'd against times of barrennesse for themselves their wives and children in places under the ground offering it to them with tears in their eyes desiring them to do what pleas'd them with it But they ill rewarded them in the end killing a very great number of them with their swords and lances and those whom they took alive they carri'd away into Captivity emptying and destroying the Country with many other cruelties From thence they went to the Island of Tumbala which is situated in the Continent where he kill'd all that fell into his power and because the people being astonished at their barbarism fled away from them they accus'd them of Rebellion against the King of Spain This Tyrant us'd also this kind of subtilty toward the Indians He commanded those whom he took and others which brought him presents still to bring him more till he saw that they were quite destitute telling them that he recev'd them now as Vassals and Subjects of the king of Spain flattering them also and telling them that he would neither take them nor do them any other injury As though it had been a thing lawful for him to rob spoile them and to terrifie them with such kinde of strange news before he had receiv'd them into the protection of the King of Spain or as if after he had so receiv'd them to protection he had never done any injury or laid any oppression upon them After this the King and Supreame Emperour of all these Regions Acaliba by name brought against the Spainards a great power of pittiful naked Creatures and arm'd with most ridiculous weapons not knowing the sharpnesse of the Spanish Swords and Lances nor the strength of their Horses to the place where they lay approach'd the Spaniards who certainly would rob the devils of Gold if they had it This King resolv'd to call the Spaniards to an account for the slaughters of his people the destruction of his Country the robberies which they committed upon his Treasures But the Spaniards met him kill'd an infinite number of his people and seiz'd upon his person which was carried in a kind of Litter Now they come to Capitulations about his redemption He promises ten millions of Crowns and numbers down fifteen they promis'd to release him but never stood to their words falsifying all the protestations which they made to the King telling him how that his Subjects were gathered together again by his command To whom the King made answer that there could not be a leafe of a tree moved without his will and authority but if they were now assembled anywhere together it was not by his power who was now their captive for they might take away his life if they pleas'd Notwithstanding all which they consulted whether they should burn him alive or no which sentence they afterwards passed but by the intreaty of some that sentence was mitigated and he was commanded to be strangled The King understanding that he was to dye spake to them in these words Why do you kill me Did you not promise to set me at liberty so I would give you Gold I gave it you and more then you requir'd yet if it be your will that I must dye send to your King of Spain But ere he could utter more the flames prevented him Consider here the equity of this war the Captivity of this Prince the sentence of his condemnation and the execution of that sentence the conscience of the Spaniards which nothing deterr'd them from consuming and taking away by violence the great Treasures of this great King and of his Nobles how they all concur to aggravate their devillish iniquity Concerning the foule and enormous cruelties wherewith they wholly extirpated the people of these Regions I will here relate a few seen by a Friar of the Order of St. Francis and confirm'd and committed to writing under his own hand and seale and disperc'd not onely in these Provinces but in the Kingdome of Castile A copy of which I can produce signed with his own hand wherein these things following are contain'd I Brother Mark of Cilicia of the Order of St. Francis cheif Governour of all the Brotherhood of that Order in the Provinces of Peru being one of the first religious persons that went into those parts speak this for a certain truth testifying those things which I have seen and which properly concern the inhabitants of these Countries First I am an eye-witnesse and do affirme upon my knowledge that the inhabitants of Perue were a Nation very courteous affable and loving to the Spaniards and I have seen Presents of Gold Silver and precious Stones given by those people to the Spaniards in great abundance besides many other offices of service which they daily did for them Neither did the Indians ever move war till they were forc'd to it by the contumelies and injuries of the Spaniards But on the contrary the Spaniards being received by them with all the shews of respect and freindship were continually furnish't both with men and women for their service I am also a witnesse that upon no occasion given them by the Indians the Spaniards did enter their Country and burnt to death their great Emperour call'd Ataliba after they had receiv'd from him as a ransome from his captivity above two millions of Gold His whole Kingdome having submitted themselves to him without any resistance With the same cruelty was Cochilimacha his Captain General put to death who came with other Noble men of the Country to the Spaniards in peace The same Fate also follow'd another potent Lord of the Province of Quitonia whom they also burnt without any occasion given or injury done them As unjustly did they burne also Schapera Prince of the Canaries They also burnt the feet for Aloides the most potent Lord in all the Provinces of Quitonia afflicting him with many other torments to make him confesse where the Gold of Ataliba lay though as afterwards it appear'd he knew nothing of it They also kill'd Quitonius Cocopagauga Governour of all the Provinces of Quitonia who at the importunities of Sebastian Barnaclacanus Captain of the Governour came in peace to the Spaniards because he could not give them the sum which they demanded thus they put to death divers other of the Noblemen of the Country and as I understand it is the intention of the Spaniards not to leave one of the Lords and Noblemen of that place alive I do also affirme that I have seen the Spaniards for no other cause but to satisfie their own wills dismember the Indians both men and women cutting off their eares noses and hands and that in so many places and regions that
that he should be brought before him and thus they presum'd to call to judgement one of the greatest Kings of the Land Whereupon sentence was given that hee should be tormented because he had not given the gold'n house Whereupon they tortur'd him dropping hot sope upon his belly then they fetterd his two feet to two posts or stakes and bound his neck to another then two men holding his hands they set fire to his feet the Tyrant comming now and then to him and threatning death to him unlesse that he would tell them where his treasure lay But that could not be done for with torments they soon ended his life Which things while they were doing the displeasure of Heaven fell upon the City for their sakes whereby it was immediately consum'd with fire The other Captaines of the Spaniards resolving to walk in their Leaders footsteps because they knew no Art but that of dismembring the poor people were not less guilty of the same crimes with divers and most horrible torments afflicting both the Nobles and the Commonaly which submitted themselves unto them though they would faine have bought their peace with great presents both of Gold and Precious Stones They tormented them onely that they might obtaine from them the greater Sums of Gold and Silver and thus all the Noble Blood of that Country was spilt in a most barbarous and shameful manner One time it happend that a certain number of the Indians full of innocence and simplicity came to proffer their service to the Spanish Captain But while they thought themselves safe under the protection of their own humility a Captain at that instant came to the City where they serv'd their Masters who after he had sup'd commanded all the Indians who were sleeping and resting from the hardnesse of their labours to be all put to the sword Which slaughter he made with intention to make himselfe the more dreadful to all the Country Once the Captain commanded all the Spaniards that they should bring forth as many of the Indian Lords or common people as they had in their houses into a publick place and there kill them and thus they slew above four or five hundred men This the witnesses affirme of a certain particular Tyrant that he exercis'd very great cruelties by cutting off the hands noses and feet both of men and women Another time it happend that the chief Captain sent an Officer into the Province of Bogata to enquire who had succeeded the Prince that was so cruelly murdered who riding many miles into the Country took the Indians captive cutting off the hands and ears of many of them onely because they would not tell who was their Kings Successor others they threw to their dogs to be torn to pieces and thus they kill'd and destroy'd great numbers of the Indians in these parts Upon a certain day about the fourth watch of the night they fell upon many Princes Peers and other men who thought themselves in safety for the Spaniards had made promise to them that they should not receive any injury upon which promise they came out of their lurking holes in the mountaines returning without any fear or suspition to their houses all these this Tyrant took and causing them to lay their hands upon the ground with his own sword cut them off telling them that he would chastise them for not declaring where their King was Another time because the Indians did not bring a chest of Gold to the Captain which he required he therefore sent forces to make war upon them in which war so many were slain so many dismembred that the number was hardly to be reckond besides others that they cast to their dogs bred up and fed with humane flesh who were immediately devoured by them Another time the Inhabitants of another Province seeing that they had murderd about four or five of their chief Princes and Rulers fled in fear to a certain mountain for shelter against their inhumane enemies where there were got together above foure or five thousand Indians as hath been proved by witnesses But the Captain or Governour of the Spaniards sent a notorious Tyrant with a company of Souldiers to reduce as he said those rebellious Indians that had fled from their slaughters and cruelties and to chastise them for it as if they had done an unlawful action or as if punishment had been due to the Indians and not rather more deserved by themselves to have bin us'd without all pity who had shewd themselves so mercilesse to others The Spaniards scale this Mountain by force for the Indians were weak and unarmed telling them that they desired peace if they would lay down their Armes whereupon they all immediately threw away their weapons which when the chief Tyrant beheld he sent to certain of the Spaniards to possesse themselves of the cheife places of strength in the Mountaine and then commanded them to fall upon the Indians Whereupon they fall upon them as Wolves or Lyons fall upon a flock of sheep till they were wearied with murdering but they had no sooner taken breath but he commanded them again to renew their fury and caus'd them to precipitate the rest which were remaining from the top of the Rock which was very high and steep And the witnesses affirm that they have seen a cloud of Indians falling down from the Mountain which were all bruis'd to peices And to finish his cruel enterprise he caus'd the Indians that had hid themselves among the thickets to be searched out and put to the sword and then thrown down from the tops of the high mountaines And not satiated with these cruelties that their horrible abominations might be the more notorious he gave command that all the Indians that were reserv'd alive should be kept by his particular souldiers as their slaves a custome which they constantly observed as for the women those excepted whom they thought most fit for their service they were all thrust together into a house made of straw and there burnt to death to the number of above four or five hundred The same Tyrant came to the City of Cota where he took an infinite sight of people and cast fifteen or sixteen of the Nobles and Lords of the Kingdom to his dogs cutting of the hands of many of the Indians both men and women which he hung upon a perch for the Indians to behold in this manner were seen hung together above seventy paire of hands This is also to be added that they cut off the noses both of Infants and their Mothers No man can rehearse the cruelties committed by this man the enemy of God They are innumerable neither heard of nor seen before especially those committed in Guatimala which were their chiefe masterpeices in this art of destruction which they have been so long practising The witnesses do moreover adde this that the cruelties and slaughters committed in the said new Kingdome of Granata by the said Captain and his accomplices the