“The Governor once arbitrarily changed the distribution of the Indians, conveying most of them to his favorites, to the exclusion of those with whom he was displeased. The result of this was a great scarcity of food; and the Spaniards seizing upon the provisions of the Indians, caused a great distress, and induced a disorder which destroyed upwards of thirty thousand of the people. “All the cities, and fields around them, were like pleasant gardens, which the Spaniards cultivated according to the share which each one had assigned him by lot; and to save their own revenues, supported themselves from the stores of the Indians, thus consuming, in a short time, what these poor people had got together with great care and toil. Nobles, women, and children were all compelled to work day and and night; many died under the burthens which were imposed upon them. For they obliged them to carry on their shoulders to the ports, which were in some cases distant thirty leagues, the plank and timbers used in building vessels.” Las Casas, however, regards the practice of exacting slaves from the caziques, for transportation and sale elsewhere, as one of the chief causes of the depopulation of the country. Five or six ship-loads were annually taken to Peru and Panama, and sold there. He calculates that half a million of Indians were thus drawn out of Nicaragua alone; but this number appears incredible. The statement that from fifty to sixty thousand perished in the wars of the Conquest is perhaps, nearer the truth; for, as he observes, “this was one of the best peopled countries in all America.” When the Council of the Indies began to repress the cruelties of the conquerors, the governors of Nicaragua proved themselves refractory; indeed, Rodrigo de Contreras openly disobeyed his instructions in this respect, which was the proximate cause of the insurrection headed by his son, to which I have elsewhere alluded.