A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies: Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them.Casas, Bartolomé de las
History
A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies: Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them.
Casas, Bartolomé de las
Indians, Treatment of -- Latin America; Spain -- Colonies -- America
The Warlike Engagements being over, and the Inhabitants all swept away,
they divided among themselves the Young Men, Women, and Children
reserved promiscuously for that purpose, one obtained thirty, another
forty, to this Man one hundred were disposed, to the other two hundred,
and the more one was in favor with the domineering Tyrant (which they
styled Governor) the more he became Master of, upon this pretence, and
with this Proviso, that he should see them instructed in the Catholick
Religion, when as they themselves to whom they were committed to be
taught, and the care of their Souls instructed them were, for the major
part Idiots, Cruel, Avaritious, infected and stained with all sorts of
Vices. And this was the great care they had of them, they sent the
Males to the Mines to dig and bring away the Gold, which is an
intollerable labor; but the Women they made use of to Manure and Till
the ground, which is a toil most irksome even to Men of the strongest
and most robust constitutions, allowing them no other food but Herbage,
and such kind of unsubstantial nutriment, so that the Nursing Womens
Milk was exsiccated and so dryed up, that the young Infants lately
brought forth, all perished, and females being separated from and
debarred cohabitation with Men, there was no Prolification or raising
up issue among them. The Men died in Mines, hunger starved and
oppressed with labor, and the Women perished in the Fields, harrassed
and broken with the like Evils and Calamities: Thus an infinite number
of Inhabitants that formerly peopled this Island were exterminated and
dwindled away to nothing by such Consumptions. They were compelled to
carry burthens of eighty or one hundred pound weight, and that an
hundred or two hundred miles compleat: and the _Spaniards_ were born by
them on the Shoulders in a pensil Vehicle or Carriage, or kind of Beds
made of Net-work by the _Indians_; for in Truth they made use of them
as Beasts to carry the burthens and cumbersom baggage of their
journeys, insomuch that it frequently happened, that the Shoulders and
Backs of the _Indians_ were deeply marked with their scourges and
stripes, just as they used to serve a tired Jade, accustomed to
burthens. And as to those slashes with whips, blows with staves, cuffs
and boxes, maledictions and curses, with a Thousand of such kind of
Torments they suffered during the fatigue of their laborious journeys
it would require a long tract of time, and many Reams of Paper to
describe them, and when all were done would only create Horror and
Consternation in the Reader.
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