Note 27 — ANDA’S MEMORIAL, 1768

In confirmation of the above, see the same historian, book iii, folio 426, in which, treating of the arrival of Governor Santiago de Vera, he says: “He brought very strict orders from his Majesty27 to correct the great excesses which had come to his royal notice, and which had been committed by the encomenderos of the Indians—who, losing shame before God and the world, had descended to such dishonorable acts (perhaps for lack of punishment in the first encomenderos), which transgressed their obligation.” Leaving aside the truth of so great excesses and of the medium by which they came to his royal notice (which if investigated thoroughly must have been, without doubt, through the fathers themselves) it is a fact that a decree was despatched at Lisboa, March 27, 1583, in favor of the Indians, and against the excesses of the encomenderos.