Part 19 (1/2)
4.4. The fourth tyrant went there recently, in the year 1538, with his plans made and with great preparations. Since three years nothing has been seen or heard of him.
5.5. We are sure, that as soon as he landed he committed cruel deeds and at once disappeared: and that, if he be alive, he and his men have destroyed numbers of people in these three years, if he encountered any on his march, for he is one of the notorious, and experienced ones who, together with his other companions, has done the most harm and wickedness, and has destroyed many provinces, and kingdoms. But we rather believe that G.o.d has given him the same end as the others.
6.6. Three or four years after the above things were written, three of the other tyrants returned from the land called Florida; they had accompanied the chief tyrant whom they left dead, and we learned from them what cruelty and unheard of wickedness, these inhuman men committed there against those innocent and harmless Indians, princ.i.p.ally during the life of their commander and also after his unhappy death: therefore what I foretold above has not turned out wrong.
7.7. And so many things confirm the rule I laid down at the beginning: that the more they continue to discover, ruin, and destroy both peoples and countries, the more notorious are the cruelties and iniquities they commit against G.o.d and their fellow creatures.
8.8. It is already wearisome to us to relate so many, and such execrable, horrible, blood-thirsty operations, not by men, but by ferocious beasts, hence I will not stop to relate any but the following.
9.9. They found large towns full of people who were friendly, intelligent, politic, and orderly. They did great slaughter among them, according to their custom, in order to impregnate the hearts of those people with fear of them.
10.10. They tormented and killed them, loading them like animals. When one became tired, or fainted, they cut off his head at the neck, in order not to free those in front from the chain that bound them, and the body fell to one side and the head to the other, as we have told elsewhere above.
11.11. In one town where they went they were received with joy, and over-abundant food was given them, while more than six hundred Indians carried their loads, like beasts of burden, and cared for their horses; when the tyrants had left there, a captain who was a relative of the chief tyrant, turned back to rob the entire town whose people felt themselves safe; and with a lance, he killed the lord and king of the town, and did other cruel deeds.
12.12. Because the inhabitants of another large town seemed to them to be a little more on their guard, on account of the infamous and horrible deeds of which they had heard, they put to the sword large and small children and old people, subjects and lords, without sparing any one.
13.13. It is said that the chief tyrant had the faces of many Indians cut, so that they were shorn of nostrils and lips, down to the beard; and in particular of a group of two hundred whom he either summoned or who came voluntarily from a certain town. Thus he despatched these mutilated, suffering creatures dripping with blood to carry the news of the deeds and miracles done by those baptised Christians, preachers of the Holy Catholic faith.
14.14. It may be judged in what state those people must be, how they must love the Christians, and how they will believe that their G.o.d is good and just, and that the law and religion they profess and praise, is immaculate.
15.15. Most great and outlandish are the evils done here by those unhappy men, sons of perdition. And thus the wickedest of captains died miserably and without confession; and we doubt not that he is buried in h.e.l.l, unless by chance, G.o.d out of His divine mercy has mysteriously succoured him despite his guiltiness for such execrable wickedness.
Rio della Plata
1. Three or four times since the year 1522 some captains have visited Rio della Plata, (102) where there are large kingdoms and provinces, and very friendly and intelligent people.
2.2. We know, in general, that they have committed many homicides and much injury. In particular, as it is so distant from the Indies, we have nothing signal to tell.
3.3. We have no doubt at all, however, but that they have and do carry on the same practices as in other places; because they are the same Spaniards, and some among them have visited other regions, and because they go to get wealth and power just like the others; it is impossible for this to come about, except by destruction, ma.s.sacres, robbery, and the extermination of the Indians by the adoption of the perverse rule and system they have all alike followed.
4.4. After writing the above, we have learned, with ample proof, that they have destroyed and depopulated great provinces and kingdoms of that country, murdering, and cruelly treating those unfortunate people; they have thereby made themselves even more notorious than the others, because, being at a greater distance from Spain, they could do more as they pleased and consequently lived in greater disorder and with less justice. As for justice, however, there has never been any in all the Indies, as is seen from what has been related above.
5.5. Among infinite other cases, the three following have been read before the Council of the Indies. A tyrant governor commanded certain of his people, to go to some Indian town and, if food was not given them, to kill all the inhabitants. Thus authorised, they started and, because the Indians considered them their enemies and more out of fear and the desire to escape from them, than from a want of generosity, refused to supply them, the Spaniards put more than five thousand persons to the sword.
6.6. Another time a certain number of people presented themselves peaceably for their service, or perhaps they had been summoned by the Spaniards; and because they did not come quickly enough, or because, as is their habit and common usage, they wished to inspire them with fear and horrible fright, the Governor commanded that they should all be consigned into the hands of their Indian enemies.
7.7. They wept and cried, praying that the Spaniards would kill them, rather than deliver them to their enemies. (103) And as they would not leave the house where they were, they were cut to pieces there, weeping, and crying out: ”We came peaceably to serve you and you kill us? May our blood, remain on these walls as testimony of our unjust death and of your cruelty!” This was, in truth, a notorious action, and worthy of consideration, but much more of being lamented.
The Vast Kingdoms and Great Provinces of Peru
1. In the year 1531 another great tyrant went with certain people to the kingdoms of Peru,(104) which he invaded by virtue of the same t.i.tle, intentions, and principles as all the former ones, because he was one of the most experienced, and since a long time had taken part in all the cruelties and ma.s.sacres that had been committed on the continent since the year 1510; he was devoid of faith and honour, and he did more cruelty and slaughter, destroying towns, killing and exterminating the people of them and causing such great mischief in these countries that, I am certain, it would be impossible for any one to recount and describe them till we shall see and know them clearly in the day of judgment. I could not, nor should I know how to describe the deformity, the character, and the circ.u.mstances of some incidents that I would relate, and which greatly aggravate their hideousness.
2.2. From his unhappy landing, he killed and destroyed some peoples and robbed them of a large quant.i.ty of gold. In an island near the same province called Pugna which is very populous and pleasing, they were received by the lord and people like angels from heaven and, after having eaten all their provisions in six months, the Indians again uncovered the store of corn they had laid up for themselves and their families in time of drought and barrenness, tearfully offering it for their consumption. The payment that was finally awarded the natives, was to put them to the sword, for they killed great numbers with lances, and those whom they captured alive, they made slaves; in consequence of this and the other great notorious cruelties done there, they left this island almost deserted.
3.3. From there the Spaniards went to the province of Tumbala, which is on the continent, where they killed and destroyed everything they could. And because all the people fled from their fearful and horrible operations, they declared they had revolted and were in rebellion against the king.
4.4. This tyrant employed the following artifice. He demanded still more from all who either offered or whom he asked to present him with gold, silver, and their other possessions, until he saw that they either had no more, or brought no more: he then declared that he received them as va.s.sals of the king of Spain and embraced them; he caused two trumpets to be sounded, giving them to understand that for the future he would take nothing more from them, nor do them any harm; he esteemed it permissible to rob them or to take all they gave, out of fear inspired by the abominable reports they heard of him, before he received them under the shelter and protection of the king, as though after they were received under the royal protection he would no more oppress, rob, desolate, and destroy them.
5.5. A few days later came the universal king and emperor of those kingdoms, who was called Atabaliba with many naked people armed with ridiculous weapons and ignorant of how swords cut, and lances wound, and horses run; nor did they know the Spaniards, who would a.s.sault the very devils if they had gold, to rob them of it. He arrived at the place where they were, and said: ”Where are these Spaniards? let them come forward, for I shall not stir from here till satisfaction is rendered me for my va.s.sals whom they have killed, for the town they have desolated, and for the riches they have stolen from me.”
6.6. The Spaniards attacked him-killing infinite numbers of his people; they took him prisoner from the litter in which he was carried and after they had captured him, they negotiated with him for his ransom: he promised to give four million crowns, and paid them fifteen, after which they promised to set him free.
7.7. They ended by keeping no faith nor truth, for they have never been kept by the Spaniards in their dealings with the Indians: they calumniated him, saying that by his orders the people were a.s.sembling, and he replied that not a leaf moved in all the country save by his will and that if the people were a.s.sembling, they might believe that he was the cause of it: as he was their prisoner, they might therefore kill him.
8.8. In spite of all this they condemned him to be burned alive, although later, some of them begged the captain, to have him strangled and to burn him afterwards. When he learned this he said: ”Why do you wish to burn me? What have I done to you? Have you not promised to free me, after my ransom was paid? Have I not given you more than what I promised you? Send me, as thus you wish it, to your King of Spain.”
He said many other things showing condemnation and detestation of the great injustice of the Spaniards: and at last they burnt him.
9.9. Let the justice of these deeds be considered: the reason of this war: the imprisonment, death sentence, and execution of this monarch; and how conscientiously these tyrants hold the great treasures they steal in those kingdoms from such a great king and from numberless other lords and private people.
10.10. Of the countless notoriously wicked and cruel acts committed in the extirpation of these people by those who call themselves Christians, I will relate some few that a friar of St. Francis witnessed in the beginning; and he signed depositions with his name, sending some of the copies to those regions and others to the kingdoms of Castile: and I have one of the copies in my possession with his own signature, in which he makes the following statements.
11.11. ”I, Fray Marcus de Nizza of the Order of St. Francis, commissary of the friars of the same Order in the provinces of Peru, who were among the first monks who entered the said provinces with the first Christians, speak to render truthful testimony of some of the things that I saw with my own eyes in that country; chiefly concerning the treatment of the Indians and the acquisition of property taken from the natives.”
12.12. ”First of all I am eye-witness, and from actual experience know, that these Indians of Peru are the most affable people that have been seen among the Indians, and were very well inclined and friendly towards the Christians.”
13.13. ”And I saw that they gave gold abundantly to the Spaniards, and silver and precious stones and all that was asked of them, and that they rendered them every good service; and the Indians never went forth in war fas.h.i.+on, but always peaceably, as long as no cruelty and ill-treatment provoked them; on the contrary, they received the Spaniards with all benevolence and honour in their towns, giving them provisions and as many male and female slaves for their service, as they asked.”
14.14. ”I am also witness, and I testify, that without the Indians giving them any cause or occasion, the Spaniards, as soon as they entered their country, and after the chief lord Atabaliba had paid them more than two millions of gold and had left all the country in their power, without resistance, immediately burnt the said Atabaliba, who was ruler of all the country: and after him, they burnt alive his captain-general Cochilimaca who had come peaceably to the governor, accompanied by other high personages.”
15.15. ”Within a few days after these executions they likewise burned Chamba another very high lord of the province of Quito, without him giving them any cause.”
16.16. ”Thus too they burnt unjustly Chapera lord of the Canaries.”
17.17. ”Likewise they burnt the feet of Luis who was one of the great lords in Quito, and tortured him in many other ways, to force him to reveal the hiding place of Atabaliba's gold, of which treasure it was known that he knew nothing whatever.”
18.18. ”They likewise burnt in Quito, Cozzopanga, who was governor of all the provinces of Quito and who had responded to the intimations of Sebastian de Benalcazza, the governor's captain, by coming peaceably; but because he did not give them as much gold as they asked, they burnt him, with many other lords and princ.i.p.al persons.
As far as I could understand, it was the intention of the Spaniards that no lord should survive in all the country.”
19.19. ”The Spaniards a.s.sembled a large number of Indians, and shut up as many as could enter, in three large houses which they then set on fire and burnt them all, although they had never done the slightest thing against any Spaniard, nor given the least cause.”