Don Philip our Lord.
Most High, and Mighty Lord.
| 1. | As divine Providence has ordained
that in his world, for its government, and for the common
utility of the human race, Kingdoms and Countries should be
constituted in which are Kings almost fathers and pastors,
(as Homer calls them) they being consequently the most noble,
and most generous members of the Republics, there neither is
nor can be reasonable doubt as to the rectitude of their
royal hearts. If any defect, wrong, and evil is suffered,
there can be no other cause than that the Kings are ignorant
of it; for if such were manifested to them, they would
extirpate them with supreme industry and watchful
diligence. |
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| 2.2. | It is seemingly this that the divine
Scriptures mean in the Proverbs of Solomon, qui sedet in solio
iudicii, dissipat omne malum intuitu suo: because it
is thus assumed from the innate and peculiar virtue of the
King namely, that the knowledge alone of evil in his Kingdom
is absolutely sufficient that he should [pg 312] destroy it; and
that not for one moment, as far as in him lies, can he
tolerate it. |
| 3.3. | As I have fifty, or more, years of
experience in those countries, I have therefore been
considering the evils, I have seen committed, the injuries,
losses, and misfortunes, such as it would not have been
thought could be done by man; such kingdoms, so many, and so
large, or to speak better, that most vast and new world of
the Indies, conceded and confided by God and his Church to
the Kings of Castile, that they should rule and govern it;
that they should convert it, and should prosper it
temporally, and spiritually. |
| 4.4. | When some of their particular
actions are made known to Your Highness, it will not be
possible to forbear supplicating His Majesty with importunate
insistence, that he should not concede nor permit that which
the tyrants have invented, pursued, and put into execution,
calling it Conquests; which if permitted, will be repeated;
because these acts in themselves, done against those pacific,
humble, and mild Indian people, who offend none, are
iniquitous, tyrannous, condemned and cursed by every natural,
divine, and human law. |
| 5.5. | So as not to keep criminal silence
concerning the ruin of numberless souls and bodies that these
persons cause, I have decided to print some, though very few,
of the innumerable instances I have collected in the past and
can relate with truth, in order that Your Highness may read
them with greater facility. |
| 6.6. | Although the Archbishop of Toledo,
Your Highness' Preceptor, when Bishop of Cartagena, asked me
for them and presented them to Your Highness, nevertheless,
because of the long journeys by sea and land Your Highness
has made, and of the continual royal occupations, it may be
that Your Highness either has not read them or has already
forgotten them. [pg
313] |
| 7.7. | The daring and unreasonable cupidity
of those who count it as nothing to unjustly shed such an
immense quantity of human blood, and to deprive those
enormous countries of their natural inhabitants and
possessors, by slaying millions of people and stealing
incomparable treasures, increase every day; and they insist
by various means and under various feigned pretexts, that the
said Conquests are permitted, without violation of the
natural and divine law, and, in consequence, without most
grievous mortal sin, worthy of terrible and eternal
punishment. I therefore esteemed it right to furnish Your
Highness with this very brief summary of a very long history
that could and ought to be composed, of the massacres and
devastation that have taken place. |
| 8.8. | I supplicate Your Highness to
receive and read it with the clemency, and royal benignity he
usually shows to his creatures, and servants, who desire to
serve solely for the public good and for the prosperity of
the State. |
| 9.9. | Having seen and understood the
monstrous injustice done to these innocent people in
destroying and outraging them, without cause or just motive,
but out of avarice alone, and the ambition of those who
design such villainous operations, may Your Highness be
pleased to supplicate and efficaciously persuade His Majesty
to forbid such harmful and detestable practices to those who
seek license for them: may he silence this infernal demand
for ever, with so much terror, that from this time forward
there shall be no one so audacious as to dare but to name
it. |
| 10.10. | This—Most High Lord—is most fitting
and necessary to do, that God may prosper, preserve and
render blessed, both temporally and spiritually, all the
State of the royal crown of Castile. Amen. |
| 1. | The Indies were discovered in the
year fourteen hundred and ninety-two. The year following,
Spanish Christians went to inhabit them, so that it is since
forty-nine years that numbers of Spaniards have gone there:
and the first land, that they invaded to inhabit was the
large and most delightful Isle of Hispaniola which has a
circumference of six hundred leagues. |
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| 2.2. | There are numberless other islands,
and very large ones, all around on every side, that were
all—and we have seen it—as inhabited and full of their native
Indian peoples as any country in the world. |
| 3.3. | Of the continent, the nearest part
of which is more than two hundred and fifty leagues distant
from this Island, more than ten thousand leagues of maritime
coast have been discovered, and more is discovered every day;
all that has been discovered up to the year forty-nine is
full of people, like a hive of bees, so that it seems as
though God had placed all, or the greater part of the entire
human race in these countries. |
| 4.4. | God has created all these numberless
people to be quite the simplest, without malice or duplicity,
most obedient, most faithful to their natural Lords, and to
the Christians, whom they serve; the most humble, most
patient, most peaceful, and calm, without strife nor tumults;
not wrangling, nor querulous, as free from uproar, hate and
desire of revenge, as any in the world. |
| 5.5. | They are likewise the most delicate
people, weak and of feeble constitution, and less than any
other can they bear fatigue, and they very easily die of
whatsoever infirmity; so much so, that not even the sons of
our Princes and of nobles, brought up in royal and gentle
life, are more delicate than they; although there are among
them such as are of the peasant class. They [pg 315] are also a very
poor people, who of worldly goods possess little, nor wish to
possess: and they are therefore neither proud, nor ambitious,
nor avaricious. |
| 6.6. | Their food is so poor, that it would
seem that of the Holy Fathers in the desert was not scantier
nor less pleasing. Their way of dressing is usually to go
naked, covering the private parts; and at most they cover
themselves with a cotton cover, which would be about equal to
one and a half or two ells square of cloth. Their beds are of
matting, and they mostly sleep in certain things like hanging
nets, called in the language of Hispaniola hamacas. |
| 7.7. | They are likewise of a clean,
unspoiled, and vivacious intellect, very capable, and
receptive to every good doctrine; most prompt to accept our
Holy Catholic Faith, to be endowed with virtuous customs; and
they have as little difficulty with such things as any people
created by God in the world. |
| 8.8. | Once they have begun to learn of
matters pertaining to faith, they are so importunate to know
them, and in frequenting the sacraments and divine service of
the Church, that to tell the truth, the clergy have need to
be endowed of God with the gift of pre-eminent patience to
bear with them: and finally, I have heard many lay Spaniards
frequently say many years ago, (unable to deny the goodness
of those they saw) certainly these people were the most
blessed of the earth, had they only knowledge of God. |
| 9.9. | Among these gentle sheep, gifted by
their Maker with the above qualities, the Spaniards entered
as soon as they knew them, like wolves, tigers, and lions
which had been starving for many days, and since forty years
they have done nothing else; nor do they otherwise at the
present day, than outrage, slay, afflict, torment, and
destroy them with strange and new, and divers [pg 316] kinds of cruelty,
never before seen, nor heard of, nor read of, of which some
few will be told below: to such extremes has this gone that,
whereas there were more than three million souls, whom we saw
in Hispaniola, there are to-day, not two hundred of the
native population left. |
| 10.10. | The island of Cuba is almost as long
as the distance from Valladolid to Rome; it is now almost
entirely deserted. The islands of San Juan [Porto Rico], and
Jamaica, very large and happy and pleasing islands, are both
desolate. The Lucaya Isles lie near Hispaniola and Cuba to
the north and number more than sixty, including those that
are called the Giants, and other large and small Islands; the
poorest of these, which is more fertile, and pleasing than
the King's garden in Seville, is the healthiest country in
the world, and contained more than five hundred thousand
souls, but to-day there remains not even a single creature.
All were killed in transporting them, to Hispaniola, because
it was seen that the native population there was
disappearing. |
| 11.11. | A ship went three years later to
look for the people that had been left after the gathering
in, because a good Christian was moved by compassion to
convert and win those that were found to Christ; only eleven
persons, whom I saw, were found. |
| 12.12. | More than thirty other islands,
about the Isle of San Juan, are destroyed and depopulated,
for the same reason. All these islands cover more than two
thousand leagues of land, entirely depopulated and
deserted. |
| 13.13. | We are assured that our Spaniards,
with their cruelty and execrable works, have depopulated and
made desolate the great continent, and that more than ten
Kingdoms, larger than all Spain, counting Aragon and
Portugal, and twice as much territory as from Seville to
Jerusalem (which is more than two thousand leagues), although
formerly full of people, are now deserted. |
| 14.14. | We give as a real and true
reckoning, that in the said forty years, more than twelve
million persons, men, and women, and children, have perished
unjustly and through tyranny, by the infernal deeds and
tyranny of the Christians; and I truly believe, nor think I
am deceived, that it is more than fifteen. |
| 15.15. | Two ordinary and principal methods
have the self-styled Christians, who have gone there,
employed in extirpating these miserable nations and removing
them from the face of the earth. The one, by unjust, cruel
and tyrannous wars. The other, by slaying all those, who
might aspire to, or sigh for, or think of liberty, or to
escape from the torments that they suffer, such as all the
native Lords, and adult men; for generally, they leave none
alive in the wars, except the young men and the women, whom
they oppress with the hardest, most horrible, and roughest
servitude, to which either man or beast, can ever be put. To
these two ways of infernal tyranny, all the many and divers
other ways, which are numberless, of exterminating these
people, are reduced, resolved, or sub-ordered according to
kind. |
| 16.16. | The reason why the Christians have
killed and destroyed such infinite numbers of souls, is
solely because they have made gold their ultimate aim,
seeking to load themselves with riches in the shortest time
and to mount by high steps, disproportioned to their
condition: namely by their insatiable avarice and ambition,
the greatest, that could be on the earth. These lands, being
so happy and so rich, and the people so humble, so patient,
and so easily subjugated, they have had no more respect, nor
consideration nor have they taken more account of them (I
speak with truth of what I have seen during all the
aforementioned time) than,—I will not say of animals, for
would to God they had considered [pg 318] and treated them as animals,—but as
even less than the dung in the streets. |
| 17.17. | In this way have they cared for
their lives—and for their souls: and therefore, all the
millions above mentioned have died without faith, and without
sacraments. And it is a publicly known truth, admitted, and
confessed by all, even by the tyrants and homicides
themselves, that the Indians throughout the Indies never did
any harm to the Christians: they even esteemed them as
coming from heaven, until they and their neighbours had
suffered the same many evils, thefts, deaths, violence and
visitations at their hands. |
| 1. | In the island of Hispaniola—which
was the first, as we have said, to be invaded by the
Christians—the immense massacres and destruction of these
people began. It was the first to be destroyed and made into
a desert. The Christians began by taking the women and
children, to use and to abuse them, and to eat of the
substance of their toil and labour, instead of contenting
themselves with what the Indians gave them spontaneously,
according to the means of each. Such stores are always
small; because they keep no more than they ordinarily need,
which they acquire with little labour; but what is enough for
three households, of ten persons each, for a month, a
Christian eats and destroys in one day. From their using
force, violence and other kinds of vexations, the Indians
began to perceive that these men could not have come from
heaven. |
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| 2.2. | Some hid their provisions, others,
their wives and children: others fled to the mountains to
escape from people of such harsh and terrible intercourse.
The Christians gave them blows in the face, beatings
[pg 319] and
cudgellings, even laying hands on the lords of the land. They
reached such recklessness and effrontery, that a Christian
captain violated the lawful wife of the chief king and lord
of all the island. |
| 3.3. | After this deed, the Indians
consulted to devise means of driving the Christians from
their country. They took up their weapons, which are poor
enough and little fitted for attack, being of little force
and not even good for defence; For this reason, all their
wars are little more than games with sticks, such as children
play in our countries. |
| 4.4. | The Christians, with their horses
and swords and lances, began to slaughter and practise
strange cruelty among them. They penetrated into the country
and spared neither children nor the aged, nor pregnant women,
nor those in child labour, all of whom they ran through the
body and lacerated, as though they were assaulting so many
lambs herded in their sheepfold. |
| 5.5. | They made bets as to who would slit
a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow: or they opened
up his bowels. They tore the babes from their mothers' breast
by the feet, and dashed their heads against the rocks. Others
they seized by the shoulders and threw into the rivers,
laughing and joking, and when they fell into the water they
exclaimed: “boil body of so and
so!” They spitted the bodies of other babes, together
with their mothers and all who were before them, on their
swords. |
| 6.6. | They made a gallows just high enough
for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens, in
honour and reverence of our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles,
they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the
Indians alive. |
| 7.7. | They wrapped the bodies of others
entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to
it; and so they [pg
320] burned them. They cut off the hands of all they
wished to take alive, made them carry them fastened on to
them, and said: “Go and carry
letters”: that is; take the news to those who have
fled to the mountains. |
| 8.8. | They generally killed the lords and
nobles in the following way. They made wooden gridirons of
stakes, bound them upon them, and made a slow fire beneath:
thus the victims gave up the spirit by degrees, emitting
cries of despair in their torture. |
| 9.9. | I once saw that they had four or
five of the chief lords stretched on the gridirons to burn
them, and I think also there were two or three pairs of
gridirons, where they were burning others; and because they
cried aloud and annoyed the captain or prevented him
sleeping, he commanded that they should strangle them: the
officer who was burning them was worse than a hangman and did
not wish to suffocate them, but with his own hands he gagged
them, so that they should not make themselves heard, and he
stirred up the fire, until they roasted slowly, according to
his pleasure. I know his name, and knew also his relations in
Seville. I saw all the above things and numberless
others. |
| 9.10. | And because all the people who could
flee, hid among the mountains and climbed the crags to escape
from men so deprived of humanity, so wicked, such wild
beasts, exterminators and capital enemies of all the human
race, the Spaniards taught and trained the fiercest
boar-hounds to tear an Indian to pieces as soon as they saw
him, so that they more willingly attacked and ate one, than
if he had been a boar. These hounds made great havoc and
slaughter. |
| 10.11. | And because sometimes, though
rarely, the Indians killed a few Christians for just cause,
they made a law among themselves, that for one Christian whom
[pg 321] the
Indians killed, the Christians should kill a hundred
Indians. |