Note 11 — Part I

6. The pious feeling with which the Indians have been regarded has rendered still more delicate the question of the tributes which have been imposed upon them; nevertheless, all our authors agree in justifying not only those which at first were laid upon them, but those which for just reasons were afterward increased. Moreover, it was decided by a council of very learned men whom the emperor Carlos Fifth consulted that the Indians ought to pay the same tributes which the other vassals were paying in España, appraising their value, and moderating the tax according to the resources of the tributaries and to what each province could carry and endure;11 and from this proceed to the laws which have been established, and the royal decrees that have been issued, for this purpose. These ordinances are even more benign than the aforesaid decision; for really the poverty of the Indians has been exaggerated more than is just, and it has been believed that by these moderate measures the conquest of the Indias, both spiritual and temporal, would be more easily effected—which I do not attribute to that, but to the great reverence which the reputation and glorious achievements of the Spaniards occasioned in the Indians.