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
They erected certain Gibbets, large, but low made, so that their feet
almost reacht the ground, every one of which was so order'd as to bear
Thirteen Persons in Honour and Reverence (as they said blasphemously)
of our Redeemer and his Twelve Apostles, under which they made a Fire
to burn them to Ashes whilst hanging on them: But those they intended
to preserve alive, they dismiss'd, their Hands half cut, and still
hanging by the Skin, to carry their Letters missive to those that fly
from us and ly sculking on the Mountains, as an exprobation of their
flight.
The Lords and Persons of Noble Extract were usually expos'd to this
kind of Death; they order'd Gridirons to be placed and supported with
wooden Forks, and putting a small Fire under them, these miserable
Wretches by degrees and with loud Shreiks and exquisite Torments, at
last Expir'd.
I once saw Four or Five of their most Powerful Lords laid on these
Gridirons, and thereon roasted, and not far off, Two or Three more
over-spread with the same Commodity, Man's Flesh; but the shril
Clamours which were heard there being offensive to the Captain, by
hindring his Repose, he commanded them to be strangled with a Halter.
The Executioner (whose Name and Parents at _Sevil_ are not unknown to
me) prohibited the doing of it; but stopt Gags into their Mouths to
prevent the hearing of the noise (he himself making the Fire) till that
they dyed, when they had been roasted as long as he thought convenient.
I was an Eye-Witness of these and and innumerable Number of other
Cruelties: And because all Men, who could lay hold of the opportunity,
sought out lurking holes in the Mountains, to avoid as dangerous Rocks
so Brutish and Barbarous a People, Strangers to all Goodness, and the
Extirpaters and Adversaries of Men, they bred up such fierce hunting
Dogs as would devour an _Indian_ like a Hog, at first sight in less
than a moment: Now such kind of Slaughters and Cruelties as these were
committed by the Curs, and if at any time it hapned, (which was rarely)
that the _Indians_ irritated upon a just account destroy'd or took away
the Life of any _Spaniard,_ they promulgated and proclaim'd this Law
among them, that One Hundred _Indians_ should dye for every individual
_Spaniard_ that should be slain.
_Of the Kingdoms contained in_ Hispaniola.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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