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
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
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
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
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
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
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