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 massa­cring, 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 God or any mercy on mankind; so great were the massacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he surpassed all his predecessors. During the space 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 [pg 371] 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 vassals to grievous tortures to force them to disclose the gold and the town where it was to be had: as has been said they surpassed, 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 massacres, the destruction, injustice, violence, slaughter, and the great sins the Spaniards have committed in this Kingdom of Santa Marta, against God, 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 God 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 assert, oh Sacred Cæsar, 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 harass 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, [pg 372] 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 God 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 God 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 assassinating, or robbing, or destroying, or killing, or burning Your Majesty's vassals to force their gold from them, does not make bold to claim that he is serving Your Majesty. It would therefore be well, Most [pg 373] Christian Cæsar, that Your Majesty should make known by rigorously punishing some of them, that such services as are contrary to the service of God, 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 massacres 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 God make it known to those who can, and ought to remedy it.