Part 20 (2/2)

LETTER

1. He allowed the Indians to be chained and put in prisons, and so it was done. And the said captain took three or four in chains for himself; by so doing and by robbing the Indians of their supplies instead of providing for necessary sowing and populating, the natives of the country were reduced to such want, that great numbers of them were found in the streets starved to death.

2.2. He killed about ten thousand souls by making the Indians carry the Spaniards' baggage to and from the beach, because all who reached the coast died of the heat.

3.3. After this he followed the same trail and road as Juan de Ampudia, sending the Indians he had brought from Quito, a day in front, to discover the Indian towns and to sack them so that he and his people might avail themselves of them on their arrival. Those Indians belonged to him and his companions, one of whom had two hundred, another three hundred, according to the number each brought with him, and they carried whatever their masters robbed. And in this they treated children and women most cruelly.

4.4. He followed the same course in Quito, burning all the country and the stores of maize belonging to the lords; he consented to the killing of great numbers of sheep, all of which form the princ.i.p.al provision and maintenance of the natives and of the Spaniards; for the latter use two or three hundred just to eat the brains and fat alone, and waste the meat.

5.5. His friendly Indians who went with him, killed great numbers of sheep, just to eat the hearts, not eating anything else. And so two men in a province called Purua killed twenty-five sheep and pack-sheep, just to eat the brains and fat, although among the Spaniards they cost twenty and twenty-five pesos each.

6.6. By such excessive disorder, they killed more than a hundred thousand head of animals, which reduced the country to very great want, while the natives died of starvation in great numbers. Although there was more maize in Quito than can be told, this bad order of things brought such penury on the people that a measure of maize came to cost ten pesos, and a sheep the same.

7.7. When the said captain returned from the coast, he determined to leave Quito, to go in search of Captain Juan de Ampudia. He took more than two hundred foot and hors.e.m.e.n, among whom he led many inhabitants of the country of Quito. The said captain permitted the colonists who accompanied him to draw the lords from their departments and as many Indians as they liked, and this they did.

8.8. Alonso Sanchez Nuyta took a lord and more than a hundred Indians with their wives; Pedro Cobo and his cousin, more than a hundred and fifty with their wives and many of the children, who otherwise all died of starvation. And so likewise Moran, an inhabitant of Popayan, had more than two hundred persons; and all the other inhabitants and soldiers also took as many as each could.

9.9. And the said soldiers asked him if he would give them licence to put the Indians they brought with them, in prison; and he said yes, until they died, and when these were dead, also others; for if the Indians were va.s.sals of His Majesty, they were also of the Spaniards, and they died in war.

10.10. In this way the said captain left Quito and went to a town called Otabalo, which he owned at that time by virtue of the distribution, and he demanded five hundred men for the war from its lord, who gave them to him with some Indian chiefs. He distributed some of these people among the soldiers and the rest he took with himself, some with packs, and others in chains, and some, who served him and brought him food, were free; the soldiers also took them, bound in this way with chains and cords.

11.11. When they left the province of Quito they took away more than six thousand Indians, men and women of whom not twenty men returned to their country: because they all died of the great and excessive labours imposed on them, in countries far from their native land.

12.12. It happened at this time, that one Alonso Sanchez was sent by the said captain in command of certain people in a province; on the way, he met a number of women and boys loaded with provisions who, instead of fleeing, waited for him, to give them to him; and he had them all put to the sword.

13.13. And a miracle happened when a soldier was stabbing an Indian woman; at the first blow the sword broke in half, and at the second only the handle was left, without his being able to wound her. Another soldier with a double bladed dagger wanted to stab another Indian woman, but at the first blow four fingers' length of the point broke off, and at the second nothing remained but the handle alone.

14.14. When the said captain left Quito, leading away such a quant.i.ty of natives, separating them from their wives, giving some of the young girls to those Indians he took with him, and others to those who were left behind on account of their old age, a woman came behind him, with a little child in her arms, weeping and begging him not to take her husband away from her, because she had three little children whom she would not be able to bring up, and who would die of starvation; and seeing that he answered her roughly the first time, she came back a second with louder cries saying, that her children would die of starvation: and when she saw, that he commanded she should be driven away and that he would not release her husband, she threw the child on some stones and killed it.

15.15. When the said captain arrived in the province of Lili at a town called Palo near the great river, he found there the Captain Juan de Ampudia, who had gone in advance to explore and pacify the country; the said Ampudia had founded a town called Ampudia, in the name of His Majesty and of the Marquis Francisco Pizarro, and had appointed Pedro Solano de Quinones and eight rulers as ordinary judges; and the greater part of the country was at peace, and divided. As soon as he knew that the said captain was at the river, he went to see him accompanied by many of the inhabitants and peaceful Indians, loaded with provisions and fruit; and from thenceforward all the Indians in the neighbourhood went to visit the said captain, and to bring him food.

16.16. These were the Indians from Namudi, Palo, Soliman, and Bolo; but because they did not bring as much maize as he wanted, he ordered many Spaniards to go with their Indians, men and women to get maize, wherever they found it. So they went to Bolo and to Palo, where they found the Indians, tranquil in their houses; and the said Spaniards and those who went with them, stole and carried off the maize, gold, stuffs, and all the Indians possessed, and they bound many of them.

17.17. When the Indians saw that they were treated so badly, they went to complain to the said captain of what had been done, and to request that the Spaniards should restore all they had taken from them. He would not have anything restored, but told them that his men would not go there a second time.

18.18. Within three or four days the Spaniards returned for maize, and to rob the Indians of the town. The Indians having seen that the said captain kept and observed his word so little, all the country revolted, which did much harm and disservice to G.o.d Our Lord, and to His Majesty.

19.19. So the whole country is left deserted, because the people have been destroyed by their enemies the Olomas and Manipos: these are a warlike people from the mountains, who descended every day to the plains to capture and despoil them, seeing that their towns and native country were left abandoned; and the most powerful among them ate the weaker, because they were all dying of starvation.

20.20. Having done this, the said captain returned to the said country of Ampudia, where he was received as General and seven days later he again left to go to the places called Lili and Peti, accompanied by more than two hundred men on foot and on horse.

21.21. Afterwards the said commander sent his captain in all directions, making cruel war on the natives; and so they killed great numbers of Indians, men and women, and burnt their houses and stole their goods: this lasted many days.

22.22. The lords of the country seeing that they were killing and destroying them, sent some peaceable Indians, with provisions. And the said captain having left for a settlement called Yce, he at once sent some Spaniards to rob, capture, and kill as many Indians as they could, commanding that many houses should be burnt; and so they burnt more than a hundred.

23.23. From there he went to another town, called Tolilicuy, (105) where the lord at once came forth peaceably with many Indians: and the said captain demanded gold of him and of his Indians. The lord said he had but little, but that he would give him what he had. They all immediately began to bring him what they could.

24.24. The said captain gave each of the Indians a ticket bearing the name of the said Indian who had given him gold, threatening that any Indian who did not pay and was without this ticket, should be thrown to the dogs. Terrified by this, all the Indians who had gold, gave him all that they could; and those who had none fled to the mountain and to other towns, for fear of being killed; for which reason a great number of natives perished.

25.25. The said captain forthwith ordered the lords to send two Indians to another town, called Dagua, to order the inhabitants to come peaceably to him, and bring him a quant.i.ty of gold.

26.26. On arriving at another town, he sent a number of Spaniards, and Indians from Tolilicuy to capture many Indians, and so the following day they brought back more than a hundred persons with them. He took all those capable of carrying loads, for himself and the soldiers, and put them in chains so that they all died; and the said captain gave the infants to the said lords of Tolilicuy to be eaten. And to-day in the house of the said Lord Tolilicuy there are the skins of the infants full of ashes.

27.27. Without saying anything, he departed from there for the provinces of Calili, where he joined Captain Juan de Ampudia, who had been sent by him to explore the country by another route; both the one and the other did much slaughter and much injury to the native people wherever they went.

28.28. The said Juan de Ampudia arrived at a place, the lord of which was called Bitacon; he had prepared some pits for his defence, into which two horses belonging to Antonio Redondo and Marcus Marquez fell; the latter died but the other not. In consequence of this the said Ampudia ordered as many as possible of the Indians, men and women, to be captured; more than a hundred persons were captured whom they threw into those pits alive where they killed them, and they burnt more than a hundred houses in that town.

29.29. Thus they joined one another at a large town and, without calling the Indians pacifically, nor sending interpreters to summon them, they made cruel war on them, and persecuted them, and killed great numbers of them. And as soon as they joined one another as has been said, the aforenamed Ampudia told the captain what he had done at Bitacon, and how he had thrown so many people into the pits; and the said captain replied that he had done very well; and that he himself had done the same at Riobamba, which is in the province of Quito, where he threw more than two hundred persons into the pits; both stayed here, making war throughout the country.

30.30. After this he entered the province of Biru or Anzerma, making cruel war of fire and blood, from this province to the salt ponds. From there he sent Francisco Garcia Tobar forward, making cruel war on the natives as is told above; and the Indians went to him two by two, making signs that they sought peace in the name of all the country, and asking what the Spaniards wished; for if they wanted gold or women or provisions, they should be given them, and begging that they should not be killed in this way: and this the Spaniards themselves have confessed to be true.

31.31. And the said Francisco Garcia told them to go away, that they were drunk, and that he did not understand them, after which he returned to where the said captain was and they set out to march through all the province, making most cruel war on the natives, plundering and killing them; and more than two thousand souls were carried off from there between him and his soldiers, all of whom died in chains.

32.32. Before they left the inhabited country, they killed more than five hundred persons. Thus he returned to the province of Calili; and if on the way some Indian, man or woman, became so tired that he could not walk, they stabbed him; if he was in chains they cut off his head, so as not to undo them and so that the others seeing this, should not feign being ill.

33.33. In this way they all died, and on this journey all the people he had brought from Quito, Pasto, Quilla, Cagua, Paria, Popayan, Lili, Cali, and Anzerma, perished in very great numbers. On his return march, as soon as he entered the large town, they killed all they could. And they captured three hundred persons in that day.

34.34. From the province of Lili, he sent the said captain, Juan de Ampudia, with many people to the place and dwellings of Lili, in order to capture all the Indians, men and women, that he could, for carrying the packs; because all the numerous people he had brought from Anzerma, had already died. And the said Juan de Ampudia brought more than a thousand persons, many of whom he killed.

35.35. The said captain took all the people he needed, giving the rest to the soldiers, who at once put them in chains, where they all died: after depriving the said country of the Spaniards, and of the natives in such great numbers, as is seen by the few that are left, he set out for Popayan.

36.36. On the way he left behind a live Spaniard, whose name was Martin de Aguirre, because he could not walk as much as the healthy ones. On his arrival at Popayan he dwelt in that town, and began to destroy, and rob the Indians of the surrounding country, with the same disorder as he had done in the others.

37.37. He made a royal stamp here and melted all the gold he had gathered, and that Juan de Ampudia had gathered before he came; and without any accounting or explanation, and without giving any part to any soldier, he took it all for himself, except that he gave what he chose to some whose horses were dead. This done, and after taking the fifths of His Majesty he said he was going to Cuzco to report to his Governor; so he set out for Quito, taking a great number of Indians, men, and women, all of whom died on the journey and in that place. And further the said captain returned to destroy the royal stamp he had made.

38.38. It is well at this point to relate a word that this man said of himself, showing that he very well knew the evil and cruelty that he did. He spoke thus: ”In fifty years, those that pa.s.s by here and hear of these things, will say: 'It was here that the tyrant so and so marched.' ”

39.39. These in-comings and out-goings of this captain in those kingdoms, and this way of visiting those people living safely in their country, and these operations practised by him against them, Your Highness should know and be convinced, have always been done by the Spaniards everywhere in the same way, from the discovery of the Indies till the present day.

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