Part 16 (1/2)
And it happened sometimes out of the many times he did it, that out of four thousand Indians, not six individuals returned alive to their homes, because they were left dead by the way
55 And when sohts, or fell ill through hunger, fatigue and weakness, they cut off their heads at the neck so as not to loosen them from their chains, and the head fell to one side, and the body to the other It ined how their coiven for si fro, and sighing, and saying: ”Those are the roads, we trod to serve the Christians; and although we laboured hard, we finally returned after some time to our own hoo without hope of ever returning, nor of seeing the life any more”
66 Once, because it suited his inclination to make a new distribution of Indians, and also, they say, to take theive them to his friends, the Indians were unable to plant their crops; and as bread ran short, the Christians took from the Indians all the maize they had to maintain themselves and their children; in consequence er; and it happened, that a certain woer to kill her own son for food
77 As each of the toas a very pleasing garden, as has been said, the Christians settled in them; each one in the place that fell to his share or, (as they say,) was coe; each one carried on his own cultivation, supporting hi them of their private lands and inheritances, by which they maintained themselves
88 In this wise the Spaniards kept within their own houses all the Indian lords, the aged, the women, and the lads, all of whoht, without rest They employed even the children, as soon as they could stand, in excess of their powers And in this way they have wasted, and to-day still waste those few that are left, not allowing the of their own In this they even surpassed the similar injustice they perpetrated in Hispaniola
99 They have exhausted and oppressed, and caused the pre them carry planks and tiues distant; also by sending them to seek for honey and wax in the ers; and they have loaded and do still load pregnant and confined women, like animals
1010 The most horrible pestilence that has principally destroyed this Province, was the license which that governor gave to the Spaniards, to ask slaves from the princes and lords of the towns Every four or five months, or whenever one obtained the favour or license froovernor, he asked the lord for fifty slaves threatening, if he did not give thes
1111 As the Indians usually do not keep slaves and, at h their towns and took, first all the orphans; next, of those who had two children they asked one, and of those who had three, two: and in this way the lord coreat wailing and weeping in the town, for they seem, more than any other people, to love their children
1212 By such conduct fro six or seven years, five or six vessels carried on this traffic, taking all this multitude of Indians to sell them as slaves in Panama and Peru, where they all died It has been verified and experienced a thousand ti the Indians away from their native country, they at once die ive them little to eat and never relieve theht by others, to make them work In this way they have carried off more than five hundred thousand souls fro slaves of people ere as free as I am
1313 In their infernal wars and the horrible captivity into which they put the Indians up to the present time, the Spaniards have killed more than another five or six hundred thousand persons, and they still continue All these massacres have occurred in the space of fourteen years At present they kill daily in the said province of Nicaragua, from four to five thousand persons, with servitude and continual oppression; it being, as was said, one of the most populous in the world
New Spain
1 New Spain was discovered in the year 1517 (88) And the discoverers gave serious offence to the Indians in that discovery, and co theh they say that they go to populate And from the said year 1518, till the present day (and we are in 1542) all the iniquity, all the injustice, all the violence and tyranny that the Christians have practised in the Indies have reached the limit and overflowed: because they have entirely lost all fear of God and the King, they have forgotten themselves as well So many and such are the massacres and cruelty, the e and theft, the violence and tyranny throughout the nu told bycompared to as practised here
22 Yet, even had we related everything, including e have onitude, to the acts which, from the said year 1518 till the present day of this year 1542 have been coravest and most abominable acts are done and committed; because the rule we have mentioned above verifies itself, that froreater wickedness and infernal works
33 Consequently, from the invasion of New Spain which was on April 18th of the said year 1518 till the year 1530, which elve entire years, the murders and the massacres lasted With bloody hands and cruel swords the Spaniards continually wrought in nearly four hundred and fifty leagues of country belonging to the City of Mexico and its surroundings, which nue and htful than Spain
44 All these countries were oza, together with Barcelona; because these cities have not, nor did they ever have so many inhabitants when they were at their fullest, as God placed, and as are to be found in all the said leagues; to go around which, one ues
55 In the said twelve years more than four million souls have been killed by the Spaniards with swords and lances, and by burning alive woues, during the time what they call ”conquests” lasted In fact, they were violent invasions by cruel tyrants, condemned not only by the divine law, but by all human laws; they were much worse than those of the Turks to destroy the Christian Church Besides all this, there are the deaths they have caused, and cause every day by the tyrannical servitude, the daily afflictions and oppressions above described
66 Neither language, nor knowledge, nor human industry could suffice to relate in detail the dreadful operations of those public andin concert in soly in others, within the aforesaid circuit In truth, respecting the circurievous, no exercise of diligence and ti could hardly explain the of so onthe thousandth part
1 A other massacres there was one took place in a town of more than thirty thousand inhabitants called Cholula; all the lords of the land, and its surroundings, and above all the priests, with the high priest careat submission and reverence, and conducted the houses of the prince, or principal lords; the Spaniards determined on a massacre here or, as they say, a chastisehout that country, because in all the lands the Spaniards have invaded, their aim has always been to nal slaughter
22 To accomplish this, they first sent to summon all the lords and nobles of the town and of all its dependencies, together with the principal lord; and when they caan to speak to the captain of the Spaniards, they were proive the alar it
33 They had asked for five or six thousand Indians to carry their baggage, all of whom immediately came and were confined in the courtyards of the houses To see these Indians when they prepared the to excite great compassion for they come naked, with only the private parts covered, and with sore food; they all sit down on their heels, like soall collected and assembled in the courtyard, with other people ere there, soates of the courtyard to guard them: thereupon all the others seized their swords and lances, and butchered all those la
55 Two or three days later, many Indians who had hidden, and saved themselves under the dead bodies (so many were they) came out alive covered with blood, and they went before the Spaniards, weeping and asking for mercy, that they should not kill them: no mercy nor any compassion was shown them; on the contrary, as they came out, the Spaniards cut them to pieces
66 More than one hundred of the lords whom they had bound, the captain commanded to be burned, and iround One lord however, perhaps the chief and king of that country, ed to free himself, and with twenty or thirty or forty other reat temple, which was like a fortress and was called Quu, where they defended thereat part of the day
77 But the Spaniards, fro these people destitute of weapons, set fire to the te out: ”wretched o then! in Mexico you will find our universal lord Montezueance upon you for us” It is said, that while those five, or six thousandput to the sword in the courtyard, the captain of the Spaniards stood singing
Mira Nero de Tarpeya A Roma como se ardia
Gritos dan ninos y viejos, Y el de nada se dolia
(89) 88 They perpetrated another great slaughter in the town of Tepeaca, which was er and more populous than Cholula; they put nureat and particular kinds of cruelty
99 Froreat king Montezuma sent them thousands of presents; and lords and people came to meet them with festivities while on their arrival at the paved road to Mexico, which is two leagues long, his own brother appeared, accoold, silver and clothing At the entrance of the city he hireat court to receive theiven orders they should be lodged; on that sa to as told ed by so Montezuuard of eightyall this, of which there would be s to say, I only wish to relate a notable thing that those tyrants did here When the captain of the Spaniards went to capture a certain other captain, (90) who came to attack him, he left one of his captains with, I think, a hundredMontezu to increase the fear of thehout the land, a practice, as I have said, to which they often resorted
1111 All the Indians, plebeians as well as nobles of Montezuive pleasure to their captiveother festivals they celebrated for him, one was the performance in all the quarters and squares of the city of those customary dances, called by them mitotes, and in the islands, areytos In these dances they wear all their richest ornaments, and as this is their principal enjoyreatest nobles and knights and those of royal blood, according to their rank, perfors where their sovereign was a prisoner
1212 More than 2000 sons of lords were assembled in the place nearest to the said palaces ere the flower and the best nobility of all Montezuma's empire The captain [Alvarado] of the Spaniards went thither with a squadron of his men and he sent other squadrons to all the other parts of the city, where they were perfor that they went to witness them; and he commanded that at a certain hour all should fall upon them
1313 And while the Indians were intent on their dances in all security he cried, Santiago! and fell upon them; with their draords the Spaniards pierced those naked and delicate bodies, and shed that generous blood, so that not even one was left alive The same was done by the others in the other squares
1414 This was a thing that filled all those kingdouish, larief And until the end of the world, or till they are entirely destroyed, they will not cease in their dances, to la-as we say here in romances,-that calamity and the destruction of all their hereditary nobility, in wholoried for sosuch injustice and unheard of cruelty, inflicted upon so many innocent and inoffensive people, the Indians, who had tolerated with patience the equally unjust imprisonment of their supreme monarch, because he hi war on the Christians, now took up arhout the city and attacked the Spaniards, many of ounded and with difficulty found safety in flight
1616 Threatening the captive Montezuer at his breast, they forced him to show himself on the battle the house and calm themselves His subjects had no mind to obey him any further, but on the contrary, they conferred about electing another sovereign and commander ould lead them in their battles