Fines paid into the royal treasury
68. Item: We command that our treasurer shall receive all fines, in whatever manner they shall be applied by our auditors, whether to our treasury, or to court rooms, or to other expenses. Our alguazil-mayor shall take charge of the enforcement of them. The amounts so received by the said treasurer shall be immediately brought before the officials of our royal exchequer, who shall deposit them in the chest of the three keys, and enter in a record everything thus collected from the said sentences. They shall keep separate the fines for the treasury and those for court rooms; and our said president and auditors shall supervise the care thereof taken by the treasurer, who shall at the end of each year, on account of the said sentences [condenaciones] and the receipt thereof, send to our Council of the Yndias a condensed report thereof, attested by his signature and that of the officials, and a certificate from the clerks of the said Audiencia as to the sentences given.
69. Item: There shall be in the possession of our president a record in which every clerk shall enter in his presence, every week, the sentences passed in presence of the said clerk, on pain of being obliged to pay them from his own property. When the president and auditors shall have need of anything, they shall give a warrant for it on our treasurer on account of those moneys collected under judicial sentences passed for similar objects.
Probate matters
70. Further: We command that our Audiencia shall audit the accounts of the administrators of the estates of deceased persons, and shall see if they have observed the ordinances and decrees given with regard thereto. These accounts shall be audited in the month of January, on pain of loss of salary for two months, to be taken from that due the first third of the year, unless they show that they have audited the said accounts in the said month. We command further that, for the good administration of the estates of deceased persons, our said Audiencia shall appoint each year an auditor who shall be judge of such administration, and may try the matter as if the whole Audiencia were to try it.
Indians, and matters relating to them
71. Item: Our said president and auditors shall always take great care to be informed of the crimes and abuses which shall be committed, or have been committed, against the Indians who shall be under our royal crown, or against those granted in encomiendas to other persons by the governors or private persons. The said president and auditors shall make inquiry as to the manner in which the ordinances and instructions given in regard to this matter have been and are observed, punishing the guilty with all rigor, and providing means to bring it about that the said Indians shall be better treated and shall be instructed in our holy Catholic faith, regarding them as our free vassals. This must be their chief care; it is that for which we have chiefly to hold them accountable, and that in which they are chiefly called on to serve us.
72. We command that our said president and auditors shall take great care to give no opportunity that, in the cases in which Indians shall be plaintiffs or defendants, orders shall be granted on ex parte motions [procesos ordinarios] or that the suits shall be long continued without prompt decision. Our said auditors shall preserve the usages and customs of the Indians when they are not plainly unjust, and shall take care that the same are preserved by the inferior judges.
73. Let our said Audiencia and the bishop see to it that in every village there shall be a person appointed to give instruction in doctrine to the Indians and blacks who serve without going into the field, every day one hour; and to those who go into the field, on Sundays and feast-days. And let the Audiencia and the bishop compel their lord to bid them go and learn the doctrine.
74. Item: Let no judge of first instance in the district o our said Audiencia meddle with depriving the caciques[8] of their caciquedoms for accusations brought before the said judge, on pain of removal from office and a fine of fifty thousand milreis to our treasury. Let the decision of the case in dispute be reserved for our Audiencia, for the auditor who shall next inspect the said villages.