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
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
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
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
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