Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings Part 17

1. After the great cruelties and ma.s.sacres, that have been described (besides those not mentioned) had been committed in the provinces of New Spain and that of Panuco another senseless and cruel tyrant(94) arrived in Panuco in the year 1525. By committing great cruelty and putting many in irons, and enslaving great numbers of freemen in the ways above told, and sending shiploads of them to the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, where they could best he sold, he finished devastating all that province. Eighty Indians, reasonable beings, were given in exchange for a horse.

2.2. From Panuco, he was sent to govern the city of Mexico and all New Spain as President, with other great tyrants as Auditors: and the great evils, many sins and the amount of cruelty, robbery, and abomination he and they together committed, are beyond belief. They thus reduced all that country to such extreme ruin, that in two years they would have brought New Spain to the condition of the island of Hispaniola, had G.o.d not prevented them by the resistance of the Franciscan friars and afterwards, by the appointment of a Royal Audiencia composed of good men, friendly to all virtue.

3.3. One of this man's companions forced eight thousand Indians to work, without any payment or food, at building a wall around his great garden; they dropped dead from hunger but he showed no concern whatever.

4.4. When this president, of whom I said he finished devastating Panuco, learned that the said good royal Audiencia was coming, he found an excuse to go inland to discover some place where he might tyrannise; he forced fifteen, or twenty thousand men of the province of Mexico to carry the baggage of his expedition, of whom not two hundred returned, all the rest having perished under his tyranny.

5.5. He arrived in the province of Mechuacan, which is forty leagues distant from Mexico and similar to it, both in prosperity, and in the number of its people. The king and ruler came out to receive him with a procession of numberless people, rendering a thousand services and making him presents; he at once took the said king prisoner because he was reputed to have great riches of gold and silver: to force him to surrender his many treasures, the tyrant began to put him to the following tortures.

6.6. Having put his feet in stocks, with his body stretched and his hands tied to pieces of wood, they placed a pan of fire near his feet, and a boy with a sprinkler soaked in oil, sprinkled them every now and then to burn the skin well. On the one side there stood a cruel man with a loaded arbalist aimed at his heart: on the other stood another holding a terrible and fierce dog which, had he let it, would have torn the king to pieces in a moment; and thus they tortured him to make him disclose the treasures; until a Franciscan monk, being informed of it, delivered him from their hands, though he died at last of his tortures. They tortured and killed many lords and princes of the provinces in like fashion, to make them give up their gold and silver.

7.7. At this time a certain tyrant, going as inspector rather of the purses and the property of the Indians than of their souls and bodies, found that some Indians had hidden their idols, as the Spaniards had never taught them about another better G.o.d. He took the lords prisoner till they gave him the idols, thinking they would be of gold or silver, and because they were not, he punished them cruelly and unjustly.

8.8. And not to be defrauded of this purpose, which was to rob, he compelled the said lords to buy back the idols from him: they bought them with such gold and silver as they could find, to adore them as their G.o.d like they were accustomed. These are the works these wretched Spaniards perform, and the example that they give, and the honour they procure for G.o.d in the Indies.

9.9. This great tyrant pa.s.sed from the province of Mechuacan into that of Xalisco, which was as full of people as a hive is of bees, most populous and most prosperous, because it is one of the most fertile and marvellous in the Indies. There was a certain town whose houses extended nearly seven leagues. On his arrival there, the lords and people came joyfully forth, bearing gifts, as all the Indians are in the habit of doing when they go to receive any one.

10.10. He began to commit the usual cruelties and wickedness as all there are in the habit of doing, and much more besides, to obtain the object they hold as G.o.d, which is gold.

11.11. He burnt the towns, captured the lords, tortured them-made slaves of everybody he captured and led numbers away in chains. Women just confined were loaded down with the baggage they carried for the wicked Christians and, not being able to carry their infants for fatigue and the weakness of hunger, they threw them by the roadside where numbers perished.

12.12. One wicked Christian having seized a maid by force, to sin with her, the mother sprang to tear her away from him, but he seized a dagger, or sword, and cut off the mother's hand; and because the maid would not consent, he stabbed her and killed her.

13.13. Among many other free people he unjustly caused to be marked as slaves, were four thousand five hundred men, women, and nursing children of a year old; others also of two, three, four and five years old, although they went forth peacefully to meet him; there were numberless others that were not counted.

14.14. When the countless iniquitous and infernal wars and ma.s.sacres were terminated, he laid all that country under the usual, pestilential and tyrannical servitude to which all the tyrant Christians of the Indies are in the habit of reducing these peoples. In which he consented that his own majordomos and all the others, should use cruelty and unheard of tortures to extract gold and tribute from the Indians.

15.15. One majordomo of his killed many peaceable Indians, by hanging, burning them alive, throwing them to fierce dogs, and cutting off their feet and hands and tearing out their tongues and hearts, for no other reason than to frighten them into submission and into giving him gold and tribute, as soon as they recognised him as the same celebrated tyrant. He also gave them many cruel beatings, cudgellings, blows and other kinds of cruelty every day and every hour.

16.16. It is told of him that he destroyed and burnt eight hundred towns in that kingdom of Xalisco: he goaded the Indians to rebellion out of sheer desperation, and after they saw such numbers perish so cruelly, they killed some Spaniards, in which they were perfectly justified, and then retreated to the mountains.

17.17. Afterwards, the injustice and oppression of other recent tyrants who pa.s.sed that way to destroy other provinces-which they called _discovering_ them,-drove many Indians to unite and to fortify themselves among certain cliffs: against them the Spaniards have again perpetrated such cruelty, killing numberless people, that they have almost finished depopulating and destroying all that large country.

18.18. These wretched, blind men whom G.o.d has permitted to yield to reprobate appet.i.te, do not perceive the Indians' cause, or rather the many causes sanctioned by every justice, and by the laws of nature, of G.o.d and of man, to cut them to pieces, whenever they have the strength and weapons, and to drive them from their countries: nor do they perceive the iniquity and great injustice of their own pretensions, which are condemned by all laws, not to mention the many outrages, tyrannies and grave and inexpiable sins they have committed against the Indians, by repeatedly making war on them: seeing nothing of this, they think and say and write, that the victories they obtain over the innocent Indians by destroying them, are all conceded to them by their G.o.d, because their iniquitous wars are just. Almost as though they rejoiced, and glorified, and rendered thanks to G.o.d for their tyranny: like those tyrant bandits did of whom the prophet Zacharias says in chapter eleven Pasce pecora occisionis, quae qui occidebant non dolebant, sed dicebant: Benedictus Deus, quia divites facti sumus.

The Kingdom of Yucatan

1. In the year 1526, by lying and deceiving and by making offers to the King, as all the other tyrants have done till now to obtain offices and positions, so as to rob, another unhappy man(95) was elected governor of the kingdom of Yucatan.

2.2. This kingdom possessed a dense population, because the country is very healthy and abounding much more than Mexico in provisions and fruit: and honey was particularly abundant, more so than in any other part of the Indies thus far discovered.

2.3. The said kingdom has a circ.u.mference of about three hundred leagues.

Its people were famous among all those of the Indies for prudence and cleanliness, and for having fewer vices and sins than any other; and they were very willing and worthy of being brought to the knowledge of G.o.d. A great town might have been built there by the Spaniards where they might have lived as in a terrestrial paradise had they been worthy; but, on account of their great avarice, stupidity and grave sins they were not; just as they have not been worthy to possess the many other countries that G.o.d has disclosed to them, in the Indies.

4.4. This tyrant, with three hundred men whom he brought with him, began by making cruel war on those good and innocent people, who kept within their houses without offending any one; and they killed and destroyed countless people.

5.5. The country produces no gold, and if it had he would have used up the people by working them in the mines; to coin gold therefore out of the bodies and souls of those for whom Jesus Christ died, he made slaves indifferently of all whom he did not kill; many ships were attracted thither by the news that slaves were to be had, all of which he sent back loaded with human beings whom he sold for wine, oil, vinegar, pork, clothing, horses and whatever else he and his men thought they needed.

6.6. He selected the most beautiful maid from fifty or a hundred, and gave her to him who chose her, in exchange for an aroba of wine, or oil, or for a pig: and similarly a handsome boy, chosen from among two hundred or three hundred, for the same amount. One boy, who seemed to be the son of a prince was given in exchange for a cheese; and a hundred people for a horse.

7.7. He continued with these operations from the year 1526 to 1533 which were seven years, ruining and depopulating those countries, and killing those people without pity, till news of the riches of Peru reached the place and the Spaniards left him, and that h.e.l.l ceased for some days.

8.8. Afterwards, however, his ministers returned to commit more great evils, robbery, wickedness, and great offence against G.o.d: and neither have they ceased at the present time. Thus have they almost entirely depopulated all those three hundred leagues that were, as has been said, so densely peopled.

9.9. No one could believe, neither could the particular cases of cruelty that were done here, be related. I will only tell of two or three, that I remember.

10.10. On one occasion these wretched Spaniards set out with fierce dogs to hunt Indians, both women and men, and an Indian woman who was too ill to escape, took a cord and, so that the dogs should not tear her to pieces as they tore the others, she tied her little son of one year to one foot, and then hanged herself on a beam; she was not quick enough before the dogs came up and tore the child limb from limb, although a friar baptised it before it expired.

11.11. When the Spaniards were leaving the kingdom, one of them asked the son of a lord of a certain town or province to go with him; the child answered, that he did not wish to leave his country: the Spaniard replied, "come along with me, or I will cut off your ears"; as the boy said that he would not, the man seized a dagger and cut off one of his ears, and then the other; and on the boy still saying that he would not leave his country, he slit his nostrils, laughing as though he were only giving him a pinch.

12.12. This lost soul lauded himself, and shamelessly boasted before a venerable monk that he tried his best to get many Indian women with child, because when they were pregnant he got a better price on selling them for slaves.

13.13. In this kingdom, or possibly in a province of New Spain, a Spaniard went hunting game, or rabbits, with his dogs; one day, not finding anything to hunt, it seemed to him that the dogs were hungry, so he seized a little child from its mother and cut off its arms and legs with a dagger, giving each dog its portion and when they had eaten these pieces he threw that little body on the ground for all of them together.

14.14. Consider only the inhumanity of the Spaniards in these parts and how G.o.d has let them fall into reprobate appet.i.te; consider of what account they hold these people who are created in G.o.d's image and redeemed by His blood. But we shall see worse things below.

15.15. Leaving the infinite and unheard of cruelties perpetrated by those who call themselves Christians, in this kingdom where there is no justice worth speaking of, I will conclude with this only: that when all the infernal tyrants had left, eager for and blinded by the riches of Peru, Fray Jacomo proceeded, with four monks of his Order of St. Francis, to that kingdom, to pacify it, and to preach and bring to Jesus Christ the remnant of people left from the infernal harvesting and the tyrannical ma.s.sacres committed by the Spaniards during seven years; and I think that these monks went there in the year thirty-four.

16.16. They sent ahead certain Indians from the province of Mexico as messengers, to inquire whether the natives were satisfied that the said monks should enter their country, to bring them news of the one only G.o.d, who is G.o.d and true Lord of all the world.

17.17. They [the Indians] a.s.sembled many times and consulted about the thing, having first made many inquiries as to what sort of men these were, who called themselves _fathers_ and _brothers_, and as to what they laid claim; and in what they were different from the Christians from whom they had suffered so many offences and such injustice.

18.18. They resolved at last to receive them, on the condition that they came alone with no Spaniards. The monks promised this because the Viceroy of New Spain had granted them this privilege and had given orders that no more Spaniards except the monks were to be allowed to enter the country, nor should the Indians suffer any harm from the Christians.

19.19. The friars, as is their custom, preached to those people the gospel of Christ, and the holy intentions of the king of Spain towards them. With such love and pleasure did they receive the doctrine and example of the monks, and so greatly did they rejoice over the news of the kings of Castile, of whom in all the past seven years the Spaniards had never given them information nor that there was any king other than he, who tyrannised and destroyed here, that after the monks had preached there forty days, the lords of the country brought and consigned to them all their idols that they might burn them.

20.20. And afterwards they gave them their own children, whom they love more than the light of their eyes, that they might train them. And they built them churches, monasteries and houses: and friars, were invited to other provinces, to preach and bring the natives to the knowledge of G.o.d and of him whom they called the great king of Castile.

21.21. And, persuaded by the monks, the Indians did a thing never done again up to the present day; and all that some of those Tyrants pretend about those kingdoms being destroyed by the friars, is falsehood and lies.

22.22. Twelve or fifteen lords, each ruling many va.s.sals and large territories, a.s.sembled their people and, after taking their votes and consent, subjected themselves of their own will to the dominion of the kings of Castile, receiving the Emperor, as King of Spain, for their supreme and universal sovereign; and they made some sinas, like signatures, which I have in my possession, together with the attestations of the said friars.

23.23. Just when this growth of faith inspired the friars with great joy and hope of drawing to Jesus Christ the still numerous people of that kingdom who survived the murders and unjust wars, eighteen Spanish tyrants on horse entered a certain part of the country with twelve others on foot, which makes thirty, and they brought with them many loads of idols taken from the Indians in other provinces.

24.24. And the captain of the said thirty summoned a lord of the country where he had entered, and told him that he must take those loads of idols and distribute them throughout his country, trading each idol for an Indian man or woman, to make them slaves; he threatened to make war on the chief if he refused.

25.25. Forced by fear, the said lord distributed the idols throughout all this territory and commanded all his va.s.sals that they should accept and adore them, and give him Indian men and women as slaves for the Spaniards. In alarm, the Indians who had two children gave one of them, and those who had three gave two; and in this way they concluded that sacrilegious commerce and the lord, or prince satisfied the Spaniards.

26.26. One of these impious and infernal bandits, called Juan Garcia, when ill and near death, had under his bed two loads of idols and he commanded an Indian woman who served him, to be very careful not to exchange those idols for fowls, but each one for a slave because they were very valuable. And finally with this testament and occupied with this thought the unhappy man died. And who doubts that he is buried in h.e.l.l?

27.27. Consider therefore of what profit are the religion and the examples of Christianity of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; what honour they procure for G.o.d; how they work that he may be known and adored by those people; what care they take that His holy faith be sown, grow and expand in those souls. And judge whether this be a less sin than Jeroboam's qui peccare fecit Israel by making two golden calves, for the people to adore. Or whether it equals that of Judas or causes more scandal.

28.28. These then are the deeds of the Spaniards who go to the Indies; in their desire for gold they have numberless times sold, and do sell, and have forsworn Jesus Christ.

29.29. When the Indians saw that the promise the monks made them that the Spaniards should not enter those provinces did not come true, and that the same Spaniards brought their idols from other countries to sell, after they had given all their own G.o.ds to the monks to be burned, so that they might adore the one true G.o.d, they became tumultuous and the whole country was enraged with the friars, to whom they said: 30.30. Why have you lied and deceived us saying that Christians could not enter this country? And why have you burnt our G.o.ds when your Christians bring G.o.ds from other provinces to sell to us? Were perhaps our G.o.ds not better than those of other nations?

31.31. The friars having nothing to reply, calmed them as best they could.

They sought out the thirty Spaniards, telling them the harm they had done and beseeching them to depart, but they would not go; on the contrary they gave the Indians to understand, that it was the friars themselves who had made them come there,-which was the height of all malice.

32.32. At last the Indians determined to kill the friars; being warned by some Indian, the latter escaped one night. And when the friars had left, and the Indians perceived their innocence and virtue and the malice of the Spaniards, they sent messengers a distance of fifty leagues after them, praying them to return, and asking their pardon for the anxiety they had caused them.

33.33. The friars, being servants of G.o.d and zealous for those souls, gave them credence, and returned to the country where they were received like angels, the Indians rendering them a thousand services; and they stayed there four or five months longer.

34.34. As that country was so distant from New Spain, the Viceroy's efforts to expel those Christians from it were fruitless, and they persisted in remaining there although he had them proclaimed traitors; and because they never ceased their outrages and habitual oppression of the Indians, it seemed to the monks that, sooner or later the natives would become disgusted with such perverse works, and that perhaps the evil consequences would fall on them, especially as the evil deeds of the Spaniards constantly disturbed the Indians and prevented them from preaching to them in tran- quillity. They therefore determined to abandon the kingdom.

35.35. Thus the country was left without the light and help of doctrine; and those souls were abandoned to the obscurity of ignorance and misery, in which they formerly were. The Indians were deprived, till better times should come, of a.s.sistance and the diffusion of the knowledge of G.o.d, which they had been already receiving with eagerness; it was just as though we were to deprive plants of water a few days after planting them: and this was brought about by the inexpiable fault and consummate malice of those Spaniards.

The Province of Santa Maria

1. The province of Santa Marta was a country where the Indians had a great deal of gold because both it and the places round about have rich mines which were diligently worked. And for this reason, from the year 1498 till the present 1542, numberless Spanish tyrants have continually gone there with ships to ravage and kill those people and to steal their gold. They afterwards returned in the ships with which they made numerous expeditions, murdering and ma.s.sacring, with notorious cruelty; this commonly occurred along the seacoast and a few leagues inland, till the year 1523.

2.2. In the year 1523 some Spanish tyrants went to take up their abode here. And because the country, as has been said, was rich, divers captains succeeded one another, each crueller than the other, so that it seemed as though each had made a vow to practise more exorbitant evils and cruelty than the other, in verification of the rule we have given above.

3.3. In the year 1529 there arrived a great tyrant accompanied by many men, devoid of any fear of G.o.d or any mercy on mankind; so great were the ma.s.sacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he surpa.s.sed all his predecessors. During the s.p.a.ce of six, or seven years that he lived, he and his men stole much treasure. (96) 4.4. He died without sacraments after also avoiding the commission of investigation met on his account; and afterwards, other murderous and thieving tyrants succeeded, who continued to destroy those people who had survived the treatment and cruel swords of their predecessors.

5.5. They marched far inland, ruining and exterminating large and numerous provinces; killing, and making slaves of their people in the ways above told of the others, putting lords and their va.s.sals to grievous tortures to force them to disclose the gold and the town where it was to be had: as has been said they surpa.s.sed, both in number and quality, the operations of all their predecessors so that from the said year 1529, till to-day, they have devastated in those parts more than four hundred leagues of country, which was as densely peopled as the other.

6.6. I truthfully declare that if I had to relate singly the evil, the ma.s.sacres, the destruction, injustice, violence, slaughter, and the great sins the Spaniards have committed in this Kingdom of Santa Marta, against G.o.d, against the King, and against those innocent nations, I would compose a very long history; I shall relate all this however in due time, if G.o.d gives me life.

7.7. Here I wish only to quote some few of the words that the lord bishop of that province now writes to the King: and the date of his letter is the 20th of May, 1541, in which among other words he says thus: 8.8. "I a.s.sert, oh Sacred Caesar, that the way to remedy the ills of this country is for Your Majesty to now take it out of the hands of step-fathers and to give it a husband, who will treat it justly, and as it deserves; and this as soon as possible because otherwise I am certain that the way these tyrants who now have the government, crush and hara.s.s it, will very soon destroy it," etc.

9.9. And further on he says: "therefore Your Majesty will clearly discern that those who govern in these parts, deserve to be destroyed, to relieve the republics. And if this is not done, their infirmities are, in my opinion, without remedy. And Your Majesty will know in like manner that in these parts there are no Christians but demons; neither are there servants of G.o.d nor of the King, but traitors to His law, and to the King."

10.10. "Because in truth, the greatest obstacle I find to winning the Indians from war to peace, and from peace to the knowledge of our Holy Faith, is the harsh and cruel treatment that the peaceable ones receive from the Christians."

11.11. "They have on this account become so fierce and enraged, that nothing is more hated or abhorred by them, than the name of Christians, whom in all this country they call in their language Yares, which means demons; and without doubt they are right, because the deeds they do here are not those of Christians nor of reasonable men, but of devils."

12.12. "From which it arises, that the Indians, seeing these perverse operations are general, and that both the commanders and the subordinates are so devoid of mercy, think that such is the law of the Christians, of which their G.o.d and their King are the authors.

And to try to persuade them to the contrary is like trying to dry up the sea, and only makes them laugh and jeer at Jesus Christ and His law."

13.13. "And the Indian warriors, seeing the treatment shown the peaceable people, count it better to die once, than many times in the power of the Spaniards; I know this most invincible Caesar from experience"

etc.

14.14. And in a chapter further on he says: "Your Majesty has more servants in these parts than is supposed; because there is not a soldier among those here who, while he is a.s.sa.s.sinating, or robbing, or destroying, or killing, or burning Your Majesty's va.s.sals to force their gold from them, does not make bold to claim that he is serving Your Majesty. It would therefore be well, Most Christian Caesar, that Your Majesty should make known by rigorously punishing some of them, that such services as are contrary to the service of G.o.d, are not accepted."

15.15. All the above are formal words of the said Bishop of Santa Marta, and from them it will be clearly seen what is done to-day in these unfortunate countries, and to these innocent people.

16.16. By "Indian warriors" he means those who live in the mountains and have been able to escape from ma.s.sacres perpetrated by the unhappy Spaniards. And he terms "peaceable" those Indians whom the Spaniards, after having killed numberless people, condemn to the aforesaid tyrannical and horrible slavery, in which they then finish destroying and killing them, as appears from the quoted words of the bishop: and in truth very little indeed does he express, of what they suffer.

17.17. When the Spaniards make them labour, carrying loads over the mountains, they kick and beat them, and knock out their teeth with the handles of their swords, to force them to get up when they fall, fainting from weakness, and to go on without taking breath; and the Indians commonly exclaim; "go to, how wicked you are: I am worn out so kill me here, for I would rather die now and here." And they say this with many sighs and gasps, showing great anguish and grief.

18.18. Oh! who could express the hundredth part of the affliction and calamity that these innocent people suffer from the unhappy Spaniards! May G.o.d make it known to those who can, and ought to remedy it.

The Province of Cartagena

1. This province of Cartagena lies westward and fifty leagues below that of Santa Marta, and bordering on that of Cenu as far as the Gulf of Uraba: it comprises about a hundred leagues of seacoast and a large territory inland towards the south.

2.2. These provinces have been as badly treated as those of Santa Marta, distressed, killed, depopulated and devastated, from the year 1498 or 99 until to-day, and in them many notorious cruelties, murders, and robberies have been committed by the Spaniards; but in order to finish this brief compendium quickly and to recount the wickedness done by them elsewhere, I will not describe the details.