me to bury him why do you give me this sick man to be his keeper And thus let us consider in what estimation the Indians are among the Spaniards and how the precept of Charity on which the Law and the Prophets depends is observed among them There is nothing more detestable or more cruel then the tyranny which the Spaniards use toward the Indians for the getting of pearl Surely the infernall torments cannot much exceed the anguish that they indure by reason of that way of cruelty for they put them under water some four or five ells deep where they are forced without any liberty of respiration to gather up the shels wherein the Pearls are sometimes they come up again with nets full of shels to take breath but if they stay any while to rest themselves immediately comes a hangman row'd in a little boat who as soon as he hath well beaten them drags them again to their labour Their food is nothing but fish and the very same that contains the Pearl with a small portion of that bread which that Countrey affords in the first whereof there is little nourishment and as for the latter it is made with great difficulty besides that they have not enough of that neither for sustenance they lye upon the ground in fetters lest they should run away and many times they are drown'd in this labour and are never seen again till they swim upon the top of the waves oftentimes they also are devoured by certain sea monsters that are frequent in those seas Consider whether this hard usage of the poor creatures be consistent with the precepts which God commands concerning charity to our neighbour by those that cast them so undeservedly into the dangers of a cruel death causing them to perish without any remorse or pity or allowing them the benefit of the Sacraments or the knowledge of Religion it being impossible for them to live any time under the water and this death is so much the more painful by reason that by the coarctation of the brest while the lungs strive to do their office the vitall parts are so afflicted that they dye vomiting the bloud out of their mouthes Their hair also which is by nature black is hereby chang'd and made of the same colour with that of the sea Wolves their bodies are also so besprinkled with the froth of the sea that they appear rather like monsters then men By this intolerable labour or rather diabolical exercise they have consumed all the Lucayans for their particular gain out of every Indians labour gaining above fifty or a hundred Crowns They sold them also against all justice only because Lucayans were most skilfull swimmers There perished also many of the Inhabitants of other Provinces in this place Of the River of Yuya Pari. THrough this Province runs the River of Yuya Pari which rises in other Countreys about two huudred miles distant Into this River entred a perfidious Tyrant wasting many miles of Land committing many slaughters consuming many by fire and putting an infinite number of these poor Indians to the sword that liv'd peaceably in their own houses without any suspicion of making disturbance At length he dy'd an evill death and all his forces came to ruine though he were succeeded by many others not inferiour to him in impiety who daily destroy the souls of the poor Indians for whom the bloud of Christ was spilt Of the Kingdome of Venecuela IN the yeare 1526. our Soveraigne Lord the King through the false perswasions of some evil Counsellours made over to certaine Dutch Merchants the Kingdome of Venecuela being more large and long then Spain giving to the Governour a full and plenary jurisdiction over the said People upon certain conditions They entered this Region with about 30. men where they found the people affable and courteous as they were in other Countries of India before they were killed up by the Spaniards They by many degrees crueller then the rest of whom we have spoken shewed themselves more fierce and greedy then Tygers Wolves or Lyons for having a jurisdiction over the Land and therefore possessing it more freely they bestirred themselves with greater fury and covetousnesse in the heaping up of Gold and Silver then any of their Predecessors had done before them laying aside all feare of God or of the King and forgetting all humanity These incarnate devils laid waste and spoiled above 400. miles of most fertile land containing very great Provinces fruitful Vallies forty miles in length and an infinite number of Villages abounding with Gold and Silver So many and so many several regions they so utterly depopulated that they hardly left a Messenger of these sad tydings but those which hiding themselves in the Caverns and Bowels of the Earth escaped the thirst of their enraged swords With new and unusual sorts of torments they destroyed above four or five millions of people Neither do they yet put an end to their abominable crimes and enormities Three or four of their mad actions I will rehearse whereby the reader may judge of the rest The chiefe Lord of the Province they took captive putting him to several torments to squeeze his Gold from him but he escaping fled to the Mountaines and thereupon his Subjects that lay hid among the Woods and Bushes began to raise a tumult The Spainards followed destroying abundance of the people and as for those who were taken alive they were publickly sold for slaves In many Provinces and indeed in most Provinces where they came before the captivity of the chief Lord they were still welcom'd by the Indians with Songs and Dances and great Presents of Gold though the thanks which they gave them was alwayes with the points of their swords still recompensing them with Massacres One day when they came forth to meet the Spaniards the German Tyrant and Captaine caus'd an infinite number of them to be shut up in a house made up with straw where he commanded that they should be all cut in pieces Now by reason that there were beames in the house whither the Indians got up to avoid the fury of the German swords therefore O cruel beasts the Governour sent certaine men to set fire upon the house and so burnt them alive So that now the whole Region lay waste and desolate the inhabitants being all fled to the Mountaines for safety They came afterwards to another large Province neere to that of St. Martha where they found the Indians in their houses and Cities very peaceably employed about their occasions where they liv'd a good while at the charges of the inhabitants the Indians serving them like men in whose power their lives and safeties were induring beyond imagination their continual importunities and daily oppressions which were almost intolerable This being added which I said before that one Spainard consumes in one day as much as would suffice to serve an Indian family consisting commonly of ten persons for a whole month At that
destroyed the inhabitants thereof amounting to above 500000. souls partly killed and partly forced away to work in other places so that there going a ship to visit those parts and to glean the remainder of those distressed wretches there could be found no more then eleven men Other Islands there were near the Island of St. Iohn more then thirty in number which were totally made desert All which Islands though they amount to such a number containing in length of ground the space of above Two thousand miles lie now altogether solitary without any people or Inhabitant Now to come to the Continent we are confident and dare affirm upon our own knowledge that there were ten Kingdomes of as large an extent as the Kingdome of Spain joyning to it both Arragon and Portugal containing above a thousand miles every one of them in compass which the unhumane and abominable villanies of the Spaniards have made a wilderness of being now as it were stript of all their people and made bare of all their inhabitants though it were a place formerly possessed by vast and infinite numbers of men And we dare confidently aver that for those Forty years wherin the Spaniards exercised their abominable cruelties and detestable tyrannies in those parts that there have innocently perish'd above Twelve millions of souls women and children being numbred in this sad and fatall list moreover I do verily believe that I should speak within compass should I say that above Fifty millions were consumed in this Massacre As for those that came out of Spain boasting themselves to be Christians they took two several waies to extirpate this Nation from the face of the Earth the first whereof was a bloudy unjust and cruel war which they made upon them a second by cutting off all that so much as sought to recover their liberty as some of the stouter sort did intend And as for the Women and Children that were lest alive they laid so heavy and grievous a yoke of servitude upon them that the condition of beasts was much more tolerable Unto these two heads all the other several torments and inhumanities which they used to the ruine of these poor Nations may be reduced That which led the Spaniards to these unsanctified impieties was the desire of Gold to make themselves suddenly rich for the obtaining of dignities honours which were no way fit for them In a word their covetousness their ambition which could not be more in any people under heaven the riches of the Countrey and the patience of the people gave occasion to this their devillish barbarism For the Spaniards so contemned them I now speak what I have seen without the least untruth that they used them not like beasts for that would have been tolerable but looked upon them as if they had been but the dung and filth of the earth and so little they regarded the health of their souls that they suffered this great multitude to die without the least light of Religion neither is this lesse true then what I have said before and that which those tyrants and hangmen themselves dare not deny without speaking a notorious falshood that the Indians neevr gave them the least cause to offer them violence but received them as Angels sent from heaven till their excessive cruelties the torments and slaughters of their Country-men mov'd them to take Armes against the Spaniards Of Hispaniola They erected certain Gallowses that were broad but so low that the tormented creatures might touch the ground with their feet upon every one of which they would hang thirteen persons blasphemously affirming that they did it in honour of our Redeemer and his Apostles and then putting fire under them they burnt the poor wretches alive Those whom their pity did think fit to spare they would send away with their hands half cut off and so hanging by the skin Thus upbraiding their flight Go carry letters to those who lye hid in the mountains and are fled from us This Death they found out also for the Lords and Nobles of the Land they stuck up forked sticks in the ground and then laid certain perches upon them and so laying them upon those perches they put a gentle fire under causing the fire to melt them away by degrees to their unspeakable torment One time above the rest I saw four of the Nobles laid upon these perches and two or three other of these kinde of hurdles furnished after the same manner the clamours and cries of which persons being troublesome to the Captain he gave order that they should be hang'd but the Executioner whose name I know and whose parents are not obscure hindred their Calamity from so quick a conclusion stopping their mouthes that they should not disturb the Captain and still laying on more wood till being roasted according to his pleasure they yeelded up the ghost Of these and other things innumerable I have been an eye-witnesse Now because there were some that shun'd like so many rocks the cruelty of a Nation so inhumane so void of piety and love to mankinde and therefore fled from them to the mountains therefore they hunted them with their Hounds whom they bred up and taught to pull down and tear the Indians like beasts by these Dogs much humane bloud was shed and because the Indians did now and then kill a Spaniard taking him at an advantage as justly they might therefore the Spaniards made a Law among themselves that for one Spaniard so slaine they should kill a hundred Indians Of the Kingdomes which the Island of Hispaniola did contain THE Island of Hispaniola had in it five very great Kingdomes and five very potent Kings to whom the other Lords of which there was a very great number were for the most part subject for there were some few Lords of peculiar Countries that did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of these Kings one of these Kingdomes is called Maqua which signifies a plain This Plain if there be any thing in the world worth taking notice claims a very nice observation For from the South to the North it is stretcht forward fourscore miles in length in breadth it takes up sometimes eight sometimes five and sometimes ten miles on all sides it is shut up with very high mountains it is watered by thirty thousand Rivers and Rivolets whereof twelve are not lesse then either Duerus Ebrus or Guadalgevir and all the Rivers which run from the Mountains on the West side whose number is twenty thousand do all of them abound with gold With which Mountain the Province of Cibao is bounded where are the Mines of Cibao that afford the most exquisite and pure Gold which is so much valued among us This Kingdome was govern'd by Guarionex who had under his jurisdiction as his vassals Lords and Governors so potent that every one of them was able to bring into the field for the service of Guarionex above Sixteen thousand men apiece Some of which Lords I very well knew
permitting them to discern that no man can be called a Rebell who is not before a Subject This cruel Tyrant leaning upon this pretence sent two other Captains excelling himself in fury and impiety to Guatimala the most fertile and most flourishing Kingdome both for men and fruit of any that were situated southward They had also received commands to visit the Kingdomes of Naco Honduras and Guaimara looking toward the north and being distant from Mexico above three hundred miles the one was sent by land the other by sea being both of them well furnished with men and ammunition for Horse and Foot And this I dare affirm that the enormities committed by these two Captains and by him especially that was sent to Guatimala for the other dyed an evill death in good time are enough to fill a particular volume so many were the slaughters violences injuries butcheries and beastly desolations which they perpetrated as do not only amaze the present but must of necessity strike a horror into future ages for in this place their abominations and devastations were more fatal then in any place before As for him that went by sea he vex'd all the shore with his incursions and cruelties to whom there came certain out of the Kingdome of Yucatan which lies in the way to the Kingdomes of Naco and Naymura whither he was then marching and brought him many presents yet he was no sooner come into the Countrey but he sent the souldiers to depopulate and waste the same who ceased not to commit many abominable outrages Among the rest a certain seditious rebel entring into a region bordering upon Guatemala burnt up their City killing the Inhabitants and laying waste all the Countrey which he did on purpose that if he should be pursued by his enemies they might be liable to the revenge of the Indians as they passed along which happened accordingly for there the chief Commander from whose power the foresaid Captain had rebell'd was slain but he was succeeded by many other fell tyrants who with their wonted cruelties and captivity destroyed the people selling them to those that brought garments and other provision and by that kinde of servitude which they practised from the year 1524. to the year 1535. they depopulated and made desert the provinces of Naco and Honduras which seemed to be the Elysium and Paradise of the world in every respect And I have lately seen them so destroyed that it would move the most stony heart to compassion In these eleven years there prrished in this Countrey above two millions scarce two thousand now remaining who daily diminish through the hardnesse of their servitude But as for that abominable tyrant that exceeded all that were before in tyranny and is equall to all that remains behinde let us now finde him out in Guatimala He going through the Provinces adjoyning to Mexico toward Guatimala which are above four hundred miles in length minded nothing else all the way he went but slaughters rapines burnings depopulations compelling all upon the foresaid pretence to submit themselves to their cruelties in the name of the King of Spain whom they had never seen nor heard of and whom they could not but think more unjust and cruel then his Ministers and Officers yet giving them no time to deliberate they wasted all before them with fire and sword Of the Kingdome and Province of Guatimala AT their first entrance into this Kingdome they committed a very great outrage But for all that their chief Lord and Governor carried in a Litter came forth to meet him with Drums and Trumpets and great joy attended by many of the Nobles of the City of Vtlacan the greatest Mart Town of that Kingdome where they gave him provisions in abundance with all that he could desire That night the Spaniards lodg'd without the City not thinking themselves safe in a Town so well fortified as that was The next day he called to him the chief Lord with a great number of the Nobles demanding of them a very great quantity of Gold They returning him answer that they could not satisfie his request by reason that their Countrey afforded not Gold were immediately by his command without any cause or form of proceeding all burnt alive The rest of the Nobles of these Provinces seeing that all the chiefest of them who had the power and government of the Kingdome in their hands were for no cause put to death but because they were not able to give them gold fled to the mountains for safety charging their subjects to submit themselves to the Spaniards but not to tell them where their sculking places were nor to give them notice of their flight Whereupon an infinite number of the Indians came to the Spaniards requesting that they might be their subjects and that they might serve them The Captain made answer that he would not receive them and that moreover he would kill them all unlesse they would declare whither their Lords were fled the Indians replyed That they knew nothing of it but their Wives and Children they said were ready to serve them adding that they were at home in their houses whither they might goe and either kill them or use them as they pleas'd which offers they made to them again and again But strange to tell the Spaniards demanded their Cities and Towns killing these poor creatures who as they thought were secure at their work They came to a very large Town which being confident of their own innocence thought themselves safer then the rest but in two hours space they brought such a desolation upon it killing all ages and sexes that there was not a person left alive but what saved themselves by flight The Indians perceiving that with all their humility their patience and their presents that they were not able to asswage the fury of these inhumane creatures and that they were daily killed up like dogs began to think of taking armes for they thought it better since an evill death could not be avoided rather to die fighting and taking revenge upon their enemies then to be killed like beasts by them But when they saw their want of armes their feeblenesse their nakednesse and that they were utterly unskilfull in the management of horses that they might have some way of prevailing upon their enemies it came in their minds to dig certain ditches in the waies that so the horses as they went along might fall into them at the bottome of these pits they had driven in stakes sharpned at the top and they had covered them over with clods of earth that they might not be discovered twice or thrice the Spaniards fell into these ditches but afterwards by their care they easily avoided them And therefore they made a Law among themselves that all the Indians which they took of what ever sex or degree should be thrown into those pits which they had made Into these pits they threw women big with childe and all the aged persons that they could
had made them to burn all theirs that there might be but one worship of one God came and spoke to them in this manner Why have you told us so many untruths promising so faithfully to us that the Spaniards should not come into our Countrey Why have you burnt our gods when as they do bring and sell others among us are the gods of other Countreys better then our own The Friers although they had little to say yet they made a shift to pacifie their mindes and immediately went to the Spaniards declaring to them the evill which they had done humbly beseeching them to depart Which the Spaniards not only utterly denyed but also which was more wicked and abominable they perswaded the Indians that they were called by the Friers which being believ'd they took councell to kill the religious persons who being admonished by certain other Indians avoided that danger and fled But after their departure knowing the falshood and treachery of the Spaniards they sent messengers fifty miles after them craving pardon in the name of the Indians and intreating them to return The religious persons as upright servants of God and zealous for the souls of those poor people gave credit to the messengers and returned and were entertained as if they had been Angels sent from heaven and remained with the Indians for five moneths receiving a thousand courtesies from them But when the Spaniards would not depart from thence although the Viceroy used all his endevours to recall them he declared them Traytors and guilty of high Treason and moreover when the persevered in their tyranny and oppression the religious persons seeing that though revenge came late that yet they would not go unpunished and fearing lest that revenge might fall upon their own heads and besides not being able to preach the Gospell in quiet by reason of the incursions of the Spaniards resolv'd to leave the Kingdome which now remains destitute of all knowledge the souls of these poor Indians remaining in their past miseries of ignorance and Heathenisme all the streams of divine knowledge being taken from them by these cursed Spaniards as when water is taken from the young plants for at the time when they went away the Indians were very covetous after the knowledge of our Religion Of the Province of Sancta Martha THE Province of St. Martha by reason of the Golden Mines the fertility of the place wa◠a brave Island wherefore from the year 1528. to 1542. many tyrants went thither by sea with their incursions wasting and spoyling all the Island after a strange manner destroying the inhabitants and robbing them of all their Gold And so the whole Countrey was wasted by them especially all the coast and the places adjoyning untill the year 1523. And because it was a fruitfull Countrey there went thither at severall times severall Captains succediug one another in cruelty so that every one striv'd to out-vie his predecessor in the inventions of exquisite torments to afflict the poor people And thus also in this place they confirm'd our foresaid Axiome In the year 1529. there went thither a very great tyrant accompanied with many Troops with an intention to exceed all the rest of his predecessors in cruelty who took away abundance of treasure from the people in the space of seven years in which exile he dying without repentance into his place other tyrants succeeded where with their bloudy hands and impious points of their swords they destroy'd all the rest that their predecessors had spared And such a desolation they brought upon many provinces by their accustomed waies of cruelty and inflicted so many torments upon the Princes and people to force them to declare where their treasure lay that from the year 1529. to this day they depopulated above four hundred mile of land the number of people in these parts slain being not inferior to those who had been slain in other places If I had decreed to reckon up the impieties slaughters cruelties violences rapines murders and iniquities and other crimes committed by the Spaniards against God the King and these innocent Nations I should make two large a volume yet I shall do my endevour if God grant me life For the present I will rehearse a part of those things which the Bishops of these Provinces wrote to the King our Soveraign Lord These were letters dated the 25. of May in the year 1541. In which these words are written I tell your sacred Majesty that there is no remedy to ease this afflicted Nation but to deliver it out of the power of these step-fathers and to give it into the power of a loving husband which may use it with more gentlenesse as befits it and that as soon as may be for if there be any delay it must of necessity perish And a little after he proceeds thus By which it shall be apparent to your Majesty how deservedly the Governors of these Provinces ought to be deprived of their dignity that the Provinces may be eased which if it be not suddenly done these provinces will never be eased This also your Majesty may further take notice of that they are not men that live here but Devils that there are no servants of God or the King to be found but traytors both to the Law and King Now certainly there is nothing more destructive to the peace of the Nation and that hinders more the conversion of those that live there in peace then the cruel and hard usage which the Spaniards afflict those innocent people withall which bred in them such a loathing of the Spanish name that nothing is more odious and detestable For the Indians call them Yaes which in their language signifies Devils And truly not without reason for the actions of these people have been more like the actions of Devils whereby it happens that the Indians seing such crimes committed by the Spaniards both of high and inferiour conditions so void of pity and compassion cannot chuse but think amisse both of God the King and 〈◊〉 of the Christians and to labour to 〈◊〉 them to the contrary is a vain and fruitlesse labour and whereby a greater advantage is given them to laugh at Christ and his Law And as for the Indians that take armes to defend themselves they think it better to die once then to fall into the hands of their enemies and to be afflicted with many deaths These things most invincible Caesar I have learnt by experience He addes further Your Majesty hath in these Countreys more friends and servants then you are aware of for there is no souldier of all those that serve in these parts who does not publickly and openly professe whether he rob steal kill or burn the subjects of your Majesty for the obtaining of gold but that he does it to do your Majesty service Wherefore most invincible Caesar it would be requisite that you should signifie by the severe correction of some how displeased you were with such services
Island and full of people he was receiv'd by the Prince and the inhabitants thereof as if he had been an Angel sent from heaven But after that six months were past in which time the Spaniards had consum'd all their provision they then brought forth the corn which they had reserv'd against times of barrennesse for themselves their wives and children in places under the ground offering it to them with tears in their eyes desiring them to do what pleas'd them with it But they ill rewarded them in the end killing a very great number of them with their swords and lances and those whom they took alive they carri'd away into Captivity emptying and destroying the Country with many other cruelties From thence they went to the Island of Tumbala which is situated in the Continent where he kill'd all that fell into his power and because the people being astonished at their barbarism fled away from them they accus'd them of Rebellion against the King of Spain This Tyrant us'd also this kind of subtilty toward the Indians He commanded those whom he took and others which brought him presents still to bring him more till he saw that they were quite destitute telling them that he recev'd them now as Vassals and Subjects of the king of Spain flattering them also and telling them that he would neither take them nor do them any other injury As though it had been a thing lawful for him to rob spoile them and to terrifie them with such kinde of strange news before he had receiv'd them into the protection of the King of Spain or as if after he had so receiv'd them to protection he had never done any injury or laid any oppression upon them After this the King and Supreame Emperour of all these Regions Acaliba by name brought against the Spainards a great power of pittiful naked Creatures and arm'd with most ridiculous weapons not knowing the sharpnesse of the Spanish Swords and Lances nor the strength of their Horses to the place where they lay approach'd the Spaniards who certainly would rob the devils of Gold if they had it This King resolv'd to call the Spaniards to an account for the slaughters of his people the destruction of his Country the robberies which they committed upon his Treasures But the Spaniards met him kill'd an infinite number of his people and seiz'd upon his person which was carried in a kind of Litter Now they come to Capitulations about his redemption He promises ten millions of Crowns and numbers down fifteen they promis'd to release him but never stood to their words falsifying all the protestations which they made to the King telling him how that his Subjects were gathered together again by his command To whom the King made answer that there could not be a leafe of a tree moved without his will and authority but if they were now assembled anywhere together it was not by his power who was now their captive for they might take away his life if they pleas'd Notwithstanding all which they consulted whether they should burn him alive or no which sentence they afterwards passed but by the intreaty of some that sentence was mitigated and he was commanded to be strangled The King understanding that he was to dye spake to them in these words Why do you kill me Did you not promise to set me at liberty so I would give you Gold I gave it you and more then you requir'd yet if it be your will that I must dye send to your King of Spain But ere he could utter more the flames prevented him Consider here the equity of this war the Captivity of this Prince the sentence of his condemnation and the execution of that sentence the conscience of the Spaniards which nothing deterr'd them from consuming and taking away by violence the great Treasures of this great King and of his Nobles how they all concur to aggravate their devillish iniquity Concerning the foule and enormous cruelties wherewith they wholly extirpated the people of these Regions I will here relate a few seen by a Friar of the Order of St. Francis and confirm'd and committed to writing under his own hand and seale and disperc'd not onely in these Provinces but in the Kingdome of Castile A copy of which I can produce signed with his own hand wherein these things following are contain'd I Brother Mark of Cilicia of the Order of St. Francis cheif Governour of all the Brotherhood of that Order in the Provinces of Peru being one of the first religious persons that went into those parts speak this for a certain truth testifying those things which I have seen and which properly concern the inhabitants of these Countries First I am an eye-witnesse and do affirme upon my knowledge that the inhabitants of Perue were a Nation very courteous affable and loving to the Spaniards and I have seen Presents of Gold Silver and precious Stones given by those people to the Spaniards in great abundance besides many other offices of service which they daily did for them Neither did the Indians ever move war till they were forc'd to it by the contumelies and injuries of the Spaniards But on the contrary the Spaniards being received by them with all the shews of respect and freindship were continually furnish't both with men and women for their service I am also a witnesse that upon no occasion given them by the Indians the Spaniards did enter their Country and burnt to death their great Emperour call'd Ataliba after they had receiv'd from him as a ransome from his captivity above two millions of Gold His whole Kingdome having submitted themselves to him without any resistance With the same cruelty was Cochilimacha his Captain General put to death who came with other Noble men of the Country to the Spaniards in peace The same Fate also follow'd another potent Lord of the Province of Quitonia whom they also burnt without any occasion given or injury done them As unjustly did they burne also Schapera Prince of the Canaries They also burnt the feet for Aloides the most potent Lord in all the Provinces of Quitonia afflicting him with many other torments to make him confesse where the Gold of Ataliba lay though as afterwards it appear'd he knew nothing of it They also kill'd Quitonius Cocopagauga Governour of all the Provinces of Quitonia who at the importunities of Sebastian Barnaclacanus Captain of the Governour came in peace to the Spaniards because he could not give them the sum which they demanded thus they put to death divers other of the Noblemen of the Country and as I understand it is the intention of the Spaniards not to leave one of the Lords and Noblemen of that place alive I do also affirme that I have seen the Spaniards for no other cause but to satisfie their own wills dismember the Indians both men and women cutting off their eares noses and hands and that in so many places and regions that
that he should be brought before him and thus they presum'd to call to judgement one of the greatest Kings of the Land Whereupon sentence was given that hee should be tormented because he had not given the gold'n house Whereupon they tortur'd him dropping hot sope upon his belly then they fetterd his two feet to two posts or stakes and bound his neck to another then two men holding his hands they set fire to his feet the Tyrant comming now and then to him and threatning death to him unlesse that he would tell them where his treasure lay But that could not be done for with torments they soon ended his life Which things while they were doing the displeasure of Heaven fell upon the City for their sakes whereby it was immediately consum'd with fire The other Captaines of the Spaniards resolving to walk in their Leaders footsteps because they knew no Art but that of dismembring the poor people were not less guilty of the same crimes with divers and most horrible torments afflicting both the Nobles and the Commonaly which submitted themselves unto them though they would faine have bought their peace with great presents both of Gold and Precious Stones They tormented them onely that they might obtaine from them the greater Sums of Gold and Silver and thus all the Noble Blood of that Country was spilt in a most barbarous and shameful manner One time it happend that a certain number of the Indians full of innocence and simplicity came to proffer their service to the Spanish Captain But while they thought themselves safe under the protection of their own humility a Captain at that instant came to the City where they serv'd their Masters who after he had sup'd commanded all the Indians who were sleeping and resting from the hardnesse of their labours to be all put to the sword Which slaughter he made with intention to make himselfe the more dreadful to all the Country Once the Captain commanded all the Spaniards that they should bring forth as many of the Indian Lords or common people as they had in their houses into a publick place and there kill them and thus they slew above four or five hundred men This the witnesses affirme of a certain particular Tyrant that he exercis'd very great cruelties by cutting off the hands noses and feet both of men and women Another time it happend that the chief Captain sent an Officer into the Province of Bogata to enquire who had succeeded the Prince that was so cruelly murdered who riding many miles into the Country took the Indians captive cutting off the hands and ears of many of them onely because they would not tell who was their Kings Successor others they threw to their dogs to be torn to pieces and thus they kill'd and destroy'd great numbers of the Indians in these parts Upon a certain day about the fourth watch of the night they fell upon many Princes Peers and other men who thought themselves in safety for the Spaniards had made promise to them that they should not receive any injury upon which promise they came out of their lurking holes in the mountaines returning without any fear or suspition to their houses all these this Tyrant took and causing them to lay their hands upon the ground with his own sword cut them off telling them that he would chastise them for not declaring where their King was Another time because the Indians did not bring a chest of Gold to the Captain which he required he therefore sent forces to make war upon them in which war so many were slain so many dismembred that the number was hardly to be reckond besides others that they cast to their dogs bred up and fed with humane flesh who were immediately devoured by them Another time the Inhabitants of another Province seeing that they had murderd about four or five of their chief Princes and Rulers fled in fear to a certain mountain for shelter against their inhumane enemies where there were got together above foure or five thousand Indians as hath been proved by witnesses But the Captain or Governour of the Spaniards sent a notorious Tyrant with a company of Souldiers to reduce as he said those rebellious Indians that had fled from their slaughters and cruelties and to chastise them for it as if they had done an unlawful action or as if punishment had been due to the Indians and not rather more deserved by themselves to have bin us'd without all pity who had shewd themselves so mercilesse to others The Spaniards scale this Mountain by force for the Indians were weak and unarmed telling them that they desired peace if they would lay down their Armes whereupon they all immediately threw away their weapons which when the chief Tyrant beheld he sent to certain of the Spaniards to possesse themselves of the cheife places of strength in the Mountaine and then commanded them to fall upon the Indians Whereupon they fall upon them as Wolves or Lyons fall upon a flock of sheep till they were wearied with murdering but they had no sooner taken breath but he commanded them again to renew their fury and caus'd them to precipitate the rest which were remaining from the top of the Rock which was very high and steep And the witnesses affirm that they have seen a cloud of Indians falling down from the Mountain which were all bruis'd to peices And to finish his cruel enterprise he caus'd the Indians that had hid themselves among the thickets to be searched out and put to the sword and then thrown down from the tops of the high mountaines And not satiated with these cruelties that their horrible abominations might be the more notorious he gave command that all the Indians that were reserv'd alive should be kept by his particular souldiers as their slaves a custome which they constantly observed as for the women those excepted whom they thought most fit for their service they were all thrust together into a house made of straw and there burnt to death to the number of above four or five hundred The same Tyrant came to the City of Cota where he took an infinite sight of people and cast fifteen or sixteen of the Nobles and Lords of the Kingdom to his dogs cutting of the hands of many of the Indians both men and women which he hung upon a perch for the Indians to behold in this manner were seen hung together above seventy paire of hands This is also to be added that they cut off the noses both of Infants and their Mothers No man can rehearse the cruelties committed by this man the enemy of God They are innumerable neither heard of nor seen before especially those committed in Guatimala which were their chiefe masterpeices in this art of destruction which they have been so long practising The witnesses do moreover adde this that the cruelties and slaughters committed in the said new Kingdome of Granata by the said Captain and his accomplices the