ial,
etc. Such sums as these, which fairly beggared the poor Indians, enabled
the clergy to build costly churches and mission houses and to keep up
abundant revenues.

These general statements very faintly picture the actual state to which
the Indians were reduced. This may be better shown by some instances of
their sufferings. The Timebos Indians, for example, of the province of
Velez, New Grenada, were reduced to such extreme misery by the
embezzlement of the funds, that whole families flung themselves from the
top of a rock twelve hundred feet high into the river below. One night, in
order to escape from the cruelty of the colonists, the whole tribes of the
Agatoas and Cocomes killed themselves, preferring death to the horrors of
Spanish rule. Many Indians strangled themselves when in peril of being
enslaved by the Spaniards, feeling that a quick death was better than a
slow one under the torture of incessant toil.

In one instance, when a party of hopeless natives had come together with
the intention of killing themselves, an intendant came to them with a rope
in his hand, and told them that if they did not give up their purpose he
would hang himself with them. This threat filled them with such horror at
the prospect of meeting a Spaniard in the spirit world, that they fled
from the spot, preferring life with all its terrors to such a companion.

As may well be imagined, the natives did not all yield resistlessly to
their tyrants. Thus, in exasperation at the quantity of gold-dust which
they were forced to pay as tribute, the people of Aconcalm, in the
province of Canas, seized the brutal Spanish collector one day, and gave
him melted gold to drink, "to satisfy in this way his insatiable thirst
for gold."

In December, 1767, the descendants of the two tribes which had owned the
mining valley of Caravaya descended on the white inhabitants in revenge
for a usurpation of their lands which had taken place more than two
centuries before. They settled the question of ownership by burning the
city and killing all the inhabitants with arrows and clubs. When news of
this was received by the viceroy, Don Antonio Amat, he swore on a piece of
the true cross to kill all the savages in Peru. He was prevented from
carrying out this threat only by the prayers of the actress Mariquita
Gallegas, whom he loved, and who convinced him that it was his duty as a
Christian to convert them to the religion of Christ rather than to
massac