The Provinces of that Part of the Continent which is Called Florida
Reading edition
1. These provinces101 have been visited at divers times [pg 390] since the year 1510 or 1511 by three tyrants who imitated the deeds done by the others, and also by two of them in other parts of the Indies seeking to advance to a degree disproportioned to their merit, at the cost of the blood and destruction of their fellow creatures.
2.2. And all three died a bad death, and their families and properties established in human blood, perished, for I am witness of all three, whose very memory is already as extinct in the world as though they had never lived.
3.3. The infamy and horror of their names scandalised all the land because of some massacres they perpetrated: these were not many, however, for God killed them before they did more, for He had reserved till that hour the punishment for the wickedness that I know and saw they committed in other parts of the Indies.
4.4. The fourth tyrant went there recently, in the year 1538, with his plans made and with great preparations. Since three years nothing has been seen or heard of him.
5.5. We are sure, that as soon as he landed he committed cruel deeds and at once disappeared: and that, if he be alive, he and his men have destroyed numbers of people in these three years, if he encountered any on his march, for he is one of the notorious, and experienced ones who, together with his other companions, has done the most harm and wickedness, and has destroyed many provinces, and kingdoms. But we rather believe that God has given him the same end as the others.
6.6. Three or four years after the above things were written, three of the other tyrants returned from the land called Florida; they had accompanied the chief tyrant whom they left dead, and we learned from them what cruelty and unheard of wickedness, these inhuman men committed there against those innocent and harmless Indians, principally during the life of their [pg 391] commander and also after his unhappy death: therefore what I foretold above has not turned out wrong.
7.7. And so many things confirm the rule I laid down at the beginning: that the more they continue to discover, ruin, and destroy both peoples and countries, the more notorious are the cruelties and iniquities they commit against God and their fellow creatures.
8.8. It is already wearisome to us to relate so many, and such execrable, horrible, blood-thirsty operations, not by men, but by ferocious beasts, hence I will not stop to relate any but the following.
9.9. They found large towns full of people who were friendly, intelligent, politic, and orderly. They did great slaughter among them, according to their custom, in order to impregnate the hearts of those people with fear of them.
10.10. They tormented and killed them, loading them like animals. When one became tired, or fainted, they cut off his head at the neck, in order not to free those in front from the chain that bound them, and the body fell to one side and the head to the other, as we have told elsewhere above.
11.11. In one town where they went they were received with joy, and over-abundant food was given them, while more than six hundred Indians carried their loads, like beasts of burden, and cared for their horses; when the tyrants had left there, a captain who was a relative of the chief tyrant, turned back to rob the entire town whose people felt themselves safe; and with a lance, he killed the lord and king of the town, and did other cruel deeds.
12.12. Because the inhabitants of another large town seemed to them to be a little more on their guard, on account of the infamous and horrible deeds of which they had heard, they put to the sword large and small [pg 392] children and old people, subjects and lords, without sparing any one.
13.13. It is said that the chief tyrant had the faces of many Indians cut, so that they were shorn of nostrils and lips, down to the beard; and in particular of a group of two hundred whom he either summoned or who came voluntarily from a certain town. Thus he despatched these mutilated, suffering creatures dripping with blood to carry the news of the deeds and miracles done by those baptised Christians, preachers of the Holy Catholic faith.
14.14. It may be judged in what state those people must be, how they must love the Christians, and how they will believe that their God is good and just, and that the law and religion they profess and praise, is immaculate.
15.15. Most great and outlandish are the evils done here by those unhappy men, sons of perdition. And thus the wickedest of captains died miserably and without confession; and we doubt not that he is buried in hell, unless by chance, God out of His divine mercy has mysteriously succoured him despite his guiltiness for such execrable wickedness.