A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies/Chapter 8

New Spain was discovered Anno Dom. 1517. and in the detection there was no first or second Attempt, but all were exposed to slaughter. The year ensuing those Spaniards (who style themselves Christians) came thither to rob, kill and slay, though they pretend they undertook this Voyage to people the Countrey. From this year to the present, viz. 1542. the Injustice, Violence and Tyranny of the Spaniards came to the highest degree of extremety: for they had shook hands with and bid adieu to all fear of God and the King, unmindful of themselves in this sad and deplorable condition, for the Destructions, Cruelties, Butcheries, Devastations, the Domolishing of Cities, Depradations, &c. which they perpetrated in so many and such ample Kingdoms, are such and so great, and strike the minds of Men with so great horror, that all we have related before are inconsiderable comparatively to those which have been acted from the year 1518 to 1542, and to this very month of September that we now live to see the most heavy, grievous and detestable things are committed, that the Rule we laid down before as a Maxim might be induputably verified, to wit, that from the beginning they ran headlong from bad to worse, and were overcome in their Diabolical acts and wickedness only by themselves.

Thus from the first entrance of the Spaniards into New Spain, which hapned on the 18th day of April in the said month of the year 1518, to 1530, the space of ten whole years, there was no end or period put to the Destruction and Slaughters committed by the merciless hands of the Sanguinary and Blood-thirsty Spaniard in the Continent, or space of 450 Miles round about Mexico, and the adjacent or neighboring parts, which might contain four or five spatious Kingdoms, that neither for magnitude or fertility would give Spain her self the pre-eminance. This intire Region was more populous then Toledo, Sevil, Valedolid, Saragoza, and Faventia; and there is not at this day in all of them so many people, nor when they flourisht in their greatest height and splendor was there such a number, as inhabited that Region, which embraceth in its Circumference, four hundred and eighty Miles. Within these twelve years the Spaniards have destroyed in the Said Countinent, by Spears, Fire and Sword, computing Men, Women, Youth, and Children above Four Millions of people in these their Acquests or Conquests (for under that word they mask their Cruel Actions) or rather those of the Turk himself, which are reported of them, tending to the ruin of the Catholick Cause, together with their Invasions and Unjust Wars, contrarty to and condemned by Divine as well as Human Laws; nor are they reckoned in this number who perished by their more then Egyptian Bondage and usual Oppressions.

There is no Tongue, Art, or Human knowledge can recite the horrid Impieties, which these Capital Enemies to Government and all Mankind have been guilty of at several times and in several Nations; nor can the circumstantial Aggravations of some of their wicked Acts be unfolded or display'd by any manner of Industry, time or writing, but yet I will say somewhat of every individual particular thing, which this protestation and Oath, that I conceive I am not able to comprehend one of a Thousand.