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
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
separated from the women there was no more issue to be expected from them The men perished in the Gold Mines with hunger and labour the women perished in the fields being tired out with the same calamities and thus was a vast number of the inhabitants of this Island wholly extirpated Besides all this they caused them to carry great burdens of a hundred and fourscore pound and to travell with it a hundred or two hundred miles They were also forc'd to carry the Spaniards up and down in their Hamechs using them in manner of beasts to carry their burthens and the necessaries of their journeys And as for the blows which they gave them with whips cudgels and their fists wherewith they continually tormented them in their labour I could be hardly able to finde either time or paper to make a narration large enough of those things Now it is here to be noted that the desolation of these Islands and Provinces happened after the death of Queen Isabel who deceased in the year 1504 for before that time few of the Provinces were intrenched upon by any unjust war or over-flowed with this deluge of devastation or if any thing was before that time done it was conceal'd from the knowledge of the Queen for she was alwayes zealous and solicitous for the safety and prosperity of this poor people And this may be also a generall rule that the Spaniards to what ever part of the Indies they did come to after that time ceased not to exercise their abominable slaughters tyrannies and execrable oppressions upon the poor people and being delighted with new kindes of torments daily encreased their cruelty and rage Of the Islands St. John and Jamaica IN the year 1509. the Islands of St. Iohn and Iamaica that look'd like fruitful gardens were possessed by the Spaniards with the same bloudy intentions as the other were for there they also exercised their accustomed cruelties killing burning roasting men and throwing them to the dogs as also by oppressing them with sundry and various torments in the Gold Mines as if they had come to rid the earth of these innocent and harmelesse creatures of whom above six hundred thousand were murthered in these two Islands so lavish were the Spanish swords of the bloud of these poor souls scarce two hundred more remaining the rest perished without the least knowledge of God Of the Island of Cuba IN the year 1511. they went over into the Island of Cuba which extends as far in length as it is from Valladolid to Rome in which there were many fair Provinces inhabited with an infinite number of people where the humanity and clemency of the Spaniards was not only as little as it had been in other places but their cruelty and rage much greater In this Island many things were done worthy observation A certain Lord of great power among them by name Hathvey who had fled over to Cuba that he might avoid either death or perpetual captivity hearing by some of the Indians that the Spaniards were also come into this Island having assembled the Indians together he began as followeth Countrymen and Friends you are not ignorant of the rumour by which we understand that the Spaniards are come among us neither am I now to tell you how they have used the inhabitants of Hapti so the call Hispaniola in the Indian language you know it by a sad experience nor can we hope to finde them more merciful then they did Then quoth he Countreymen do you know the Errand which brings them hither To whom they replyed that was unknown to them yet they further replyed that that they were well assured of the cruel nature of the Spaniard Then quoth he I le tell ye the cause of their coming They do worship some covetous and unsatisfied Deity and to content the greedy worship of that Celestial Power they require many things from us using all their endevour to murther and enslave us Which having said taking up a little Chest filled with Gold he proceeded in these words Behold here the God of the Spaniards and therefore if you think fitting let us daunce and sing before this their God Perhaps we may thereby appease his rage and he well then command the Spaniards to let us alone Who with an unanimous shout cryed out all Well said well said and so they went to dauncing round this box not ceasing till they had sufficiently wearied themselves Then the Lord Hathvey going on with his speech quoth he If we do keep this God till he be taken from us we shall be surely slain and therefore I think it expedient for us to cast it into the River so his counsell being followed the Chest was cast into the River When the Spaniards had landed in this Island this noble man that had sufficient tryal of their manner avoided them as much as he could still flying from them and defending himself by force of armes upon all occasions But at length being taken for no other reason but because he fled from those that sought his life and defended himself that he might not be tormented to death he was by the Spaniards burnt alive While he was tyed to the stake there came to him a Monk of the Order of St. Francis who began to talk to him of God and of the Articles of our Faith telling him that the small respite which the Executioner gave him was sufficient for him to make sure his salvation if he believed Upon which words after Hathvey had a little while paus'd he asked the Monk if the door of heaven was open to the Spaniards who answering Yes to the good Spaniards Then replyed the other Let me go to Hell that I may not come where they are It happened once that the Citizens of a very fair City distant about twelve miles from the place where we were came forth of the City to do us honour and to submit themselves to the King of Castile but they being returned home the Governour of the Spaniards about the middle of the night as they were sleeping in their bed and least suspecting any such thing sent a company who came suddenly upon them and set fire upon their houses burning up both men women and children here some they murthered others whom they spared they tormented to make them tell where they had hid their Gold after which they made them their slaves having first marked them in the body and immediately as soon as the fire was spent they ran to finde out the Gold At that time the Spaniards got above ten hundred thousand Crowns of Gold out of which the King scarce had three hundred thousand sent him there were slain in this place eight hundred thousand people and those other Tyrants that came afterwards emptied the Island of those that remained Among all the notorious enormities committed by the foresaid Governour there is one not to be omitted a certain noble Indian presenting him perhaps more for fear then love a present
Souldiers who according to their wonted customes of fraud and impiety carried away captive the Prince of the Province who either because that name was given him by the Religious persons or by the other Spaniards was call'd Alfonsus for they delight to be called by the names of the Christians and therefore before they are informed of any thing else they desire to be baptized By these souldiers was Alfonsus craftily seduced a shipboard under pretence that they would give him a Banquet with their Prince there went seventeen other persons for they had a confidence that the Fryers would keep the Spaniards from doing them any injury For otherwise the said King would not have trusted them so far but they were no sooner on shipboard but the Spaniards hoysed up their sailes for Hispaniola where they sold all the Indians for slaves Now all the Region being troubled for the losse of their King and Queen flockt to the Religious persons and had like to have slain them who perceiving the injustice of the Spaniards were very much troubled and I do beleeve that they had rather have lost their lives then that the Indians should have suffered such an injury to the hinderance of their salvation but the Indians were satisfied with the promises of the religious persons who told them that as soon as any ships came to the Island they would take the first opportunity to go to Hispaniola and endevour to get their King and Queen set at liberty Providence sent a ship thither to confirm the condemnation of those that govern'd by which these religious persons sent to the religious persons of Hispaniola but got no redress for the Spaniards there were receivers of the prey When the religious persons who had promised to the Indians that their King should return within four moneths saw that he did not come in eight moneths they prepared themselves for death and to give up their lives to Christ to whom they had offer'd them before their departure out of Hispaniola and so the innocent Indians reveng'd themselves upon the innocent Friers For the Indians believed that the religious persons were guilty of the said treachery partly because that their promises concerning the return of their King in four moneths had prov'd so vain partly because the Indians make no distinction between the religious persons and the theeving Spaniards It hapned also that at another time through the great tyranny and oppression of the evil Christians that the Indians slew two religious persons of the order of St. Dominic of which I was a very real witnesse as being one of those who escaped the same fate by a great miracle which I had resolved not to have mentioned lest the horror of the fact should deter others Wherefore to avoid prolixity I shall say no more concerning these things leaving them to be revealed at the day of judgement when God shall pour his vengeance down upon these robbers and destroyers of mankinde In these Provinces in the Bay of Coderat there was a City the Lord of which was called Higueroto a name common either to the persons or to the officers of the place He was a person so milde and gentle and all his subjects endued with such vertue using the Spaniards that arriv'd there with that civility that they thought nothing too much for them bestowing all things needfull either for sustenance or delight that their Countrey afforded This Lord had saved many from death who had escaped out of other Provinces from the murthers and slaughters of the Spaniards being a kind of a sanctuary for the sick and half famished persons that came into his Countrey and when they were recovered sent them back again to the Island of pearls where the Spaniards liv'd though he had an opportunity to have slain them there being none to regard or misse them in brief the Spaniards had all the houses of the inhabitants in common and all the subjects of Higueroto they called their own subjects but a perfidious Spaniard took councel how he might destroy this Region which seem'd it self so safe and secure presently therefore he sayl'd thither and invited a great number of men to come a shipboard who giving credit to the Spaniards came willingly to them but they were no sooner entred the ship but the Spaniards hoysed sayl for the Island of St. Iohn where they sold them all At the same time I arriv'd at this Island where I saw this tyrant and was told the relation of what he had done He wholly destroyed the City it self which the other Spaniards who were wont to harrace all the sea coast were notwithstanding much troubled at abominating actions so hainous committed against them who had been so courteous and liberal to them and where they had been entertain'd as in their own houses I will not recite the infinite wickednesses which have been committed by them and are daily committed among them These Spaniards departed from the sea coast to the Islands of Hispaniola and St. Iohn carrying with them above two millions of men to the said Islands which they afterwards destroyed through hard labour and continual bad usage those that before liv'd in this Island being not reckned into their number who were an infinite and unspeakable number and it is a most sad thing to consider and that which would move the most cruel hearts to see all this fertile shore lie desert and depopulated This is also a known thing that they never do transport Indians from these places but in their voyage they do pay the third â—art of them as a tribute to the waves besides those that are murthered in their own houses The cause of all these things are their own wicked purposes that is to say by the sale of the Indians to heap up treasure yet furnishing the ships not with half provisions for the sustenance of those that they transport because they would not be at too much charges and sometimes there are hardly provisions enough to suffice the Spaniards themselves so that the Indians ready to die for hunger and thirst are immediately thrown into the sea And it was related to me for certain that a ship going from Hispaniola to the Island of Lucayos sayl'd thither without any compasse only by the Carkasses that floated up and down the sea Afterwards when they are landed where they are carried to be sold there is no man that would not be mov'd with compassion to see both old and young men and women naked and hungry drop and faint as they goe along Afterwards they divide them like sheep separating sons from fathers wives from their husbands and then making up a company of ten or twenty those that set out the ships and fitted them with necessaries presently cast lots for their shares And when the lot fell upon a company that had an old or a sick man he to whom the lot fell was wont to break forth into these expressions Cursed be this old fellow why do you give him
hath destroy'd an infinite number of people for he among all those who have done most mischeife in ruining both Provinces and Kingdoms is famous for his Savage fury wherefore I am apt to believe that God hath put the same end to his life as to the others Three or four years after these things happened which I have related the other Tyrant that went along with him who there ended his dayes departed out of that Country whose cruelties and rapines while the chiefe Captaine liv'd and after his death were so many as we since understood that what we said before may still stand for an Axiom that the further they went the more exorbitant was their fury and iniquity But because it is so irksome to me to rehearse these Execrable and bloody acts not of men but of beasts I will no longer dwell upon them but go to those things which followed after They found a numerous people wise and well moralliz'd over whom they exercis'd their wonted tyrannies seeking to strike an awe and dread into them with the anguish and the burdens wherewith they oppressed them And if they fainted by the way they would not take the pains to open the fetters but came to the fainting person and cut off his head or his hands and so left them Once entring into a certaine Village they were with great joy and exultation received by the Spaniards who gave them provision till they were satisfied allowing them also six hundred Indians to carry their burdens and to look to their horses But the Spaniards being departed a certain Captain of Kin to the chiefe Tyrant returned to spoile them that mistrusted nothing who there slew the King of the Province with his Lance and committed many other cruelties In another Village whose Inhabitants seem'd to be more vigilant by reason of the horrid iniquities which as they heard the Spaniards were wont to commit they put all to the sword young and old little and great Lord and subject sparing none that came in their way The chief Tyrant with a nose and lips down to his beard having call'd together a great number of Indians reported to have been about two hundred caused them all to have their members lopt off leaving them in this sad and painful condition the blood streaming forth to be witnessâ—s of the mercy of these persons baptiz'd in the Catholike Faith Now let us judge of the love which such kinde of men beare toward Christianity or after what manner they beleeve in God whom they boast to be good and just and whose Law is without blemish Most pernicious have been the evils committed by these wicked men the sons of perdition At length this wretched Captaine dyed without any repentance neither can we doubt but that he now lies fetter'd in the shades of Hell unlesse God of his infinite mercy and goodnesse not according to his deserts have taken compassion on him Of the River of Plate or the Silver River ABout the yeares one thousand five hundred and two or three some four or five Captaines undertook a journey to the River of Plate which containes many Provinces and Countries which flourish with people very rational and of handsome dispositions In general we can say that they did there commit many horrid mischiefes and execrable murders But being at a very great distance from those Indians of whom we have talked more at large we can relate nothing singular or particular onely we doe not question but they do employ themselves in the same works of darknesse as hath been hitherto practised in divers other places for they are Spaniards still and many of them the very same who were present at the other Massacres and having the same intention to become rich and potent which they cannot obtaine but by the same courses as they formerly took following the bloody footsteps of those who have already destroyed and slain so many Indians After I had written what I have above mentioned it hath been related to me for certaine that they have depopulated and laid waste many Provinces and Kingdoms in those Regions rendring themselves so much the more exquisite and devilish in their oppressions slaughters and massacres of those people by how much they are at a farther and more convenient distance from Spaine and laying aside all thoughts of Justice which indeed was never practis'd in those Regions of America as doth sufficiently appeare by what we have above writtrn Among all the Enormities which shall follow after this one was read in the Councel A certain Gouernour had given in charge to his souldiers that into whatever Village they came that should deny them provision that they should there put all the Inhabitants to the sword Upon which Warrant the souldiers went and because the Indians would not submit to them as to enemies fearing rather to come into their sight then that their Liberality or Store would be defective they immediatly put to the sword above 5000. of them A certain number of men also living in peace offer'd their service to them they afterwards were by chance summon'd by the Governour and because they came not so suddenly as his fury expected he thereupon commanded that they should be delivered to those Indians that were their enemies With tears and outcries they beseeched him that he would rather permit them to die by their hands then deliver them up to the mercy of their foes and when they would not come out of the houses where they were they were all torne lim-meale crying out and saying We come in peace to serve you and you now kill us may our blood sprinkled upon these walls be a testimony of our unjust death and of your cruelty Certainly this was a deed not only to be bemoaned but also to be bewaild and pity'd Of the great Kingdomes and large Provinces of Peru. IN the yeare 1531. a great Helluo and devourer of men went into the Kingdoms of Peru upon the same pretences and with the same intention as the rest and being one of those who had been present at the murders and slaughters committed in other places in the year 1510. therefore he proceeded with a greater hardnesse of heart in his outrages and robberies and being a man of no faith or truth he laid waste Cities and Villages slaying all the Inhabitants and was the cause of all those mischiefes that followed afterward in those Kingdomes to undertake the Narration of which and to represent them all to the Reader is a thing impossible until they shall perfectly and clearly appear at the day of judgement before all men And for my selfe I doe confesse should I goe about to describe the deformity the quality and circumstances of their actions it would be a task too difficult for me At his first enterance he wasted certain Villages and plundred the Country of a great quantity of Gold And one time coming into an Island adjoyning to these Regions which was known by the name of Pagna being a fertile
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