Soon after this I sent messengers to the most noted Indians of the Province of Havane, to encourage and engage 'em to continue in their country, and not to trouble themselves to seek remote places to hide in; and advised 'em to come to us with assurance of our protection. They knew well enough what authority I had over the Spaniards, and I gave 'em my word no injury should be offered 'em: for the past cruelties and massacres their countrymen had suffered, had spread fear and terror through all the country; and this assurance I gave 'em was with the consent and advice of the captains and the officers. When we entered into this province, two-and-twenty of their chiefs came to us, and the very next morning the commander of our troops, without any regard to the promise that had been made 'em, would needs sentence 'em to be burnt, pretending 'twas best to put these people to death, because they might one time or other use some stratagem to surprise and destroy us: and I had all the difficulty in the world to prevent 'em from throwing 'em into the fire. The Indians of Havane, seeing themselves reduced to a state of severe slavery, and that there was no remedy left, but they were irrecoverably undone, began to take refuge in the deserts and mountains to secure themselves if possible from death; some strangled themselves in despair. Parents hanged themselves together with their children, to put the speedier end to their misery by death. Above two hundred Indians perished here after this manner to avoid the cruelty of the Spaniards, and abundance of them afterwards voluntarily condemned themselves to this kind of death, hoping thus in a moment to put a period to the miseries their persecutors inflicted on 'em. A certain Spaniard, who had the title of Sovereign in this island and had three hundred Indians in his service, destroyed a hundred and sixty of them in less than three months by the excessive labor he continually exacted of them. The recruits he took to fill up their places were destroyed after the same manner; and he would in a short time have unpeopled the whole island if death, which took him out of the way, very happily for those poor wretches, had not sheltered 'em from his cruelties. I saw with my own eyes above six thousand children die in the space of three or four months, their parents being forced to abandon 'em, being condemned to the mines. After this the Spaniards took up a resolution to pursue those Indians that were retired into the mountains, and massacred multitudes of 'em; so that this island was depopulated and laid waste in a very little time. And it is a most lamentable spectacle to see so fine a country thus miserably ruined and unpeopled. BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE (1478-1529) [Illustration: CASTIGLIONE]