y of our friends
to break and crush their pride, to avoid greater evil. If some have
gone to excess in this matter, it is the individual excess which casts
blame on the community in general, because the instructions that the
governors have given and do give, whenever any expedition is made,
are Christian in tone, and quite in conformity with those which they
have from his Majesty. If sometimes the commanders have inflicted
injury or waged any war, it is because the malice of the natives is
so great, that wherever they sally out in war, with their ambuscades
and other treacheries they provoke the Spaniards to self-defense. If
the latter go with the mailed hand, it is for the security of their
own persons; for, if they were unarmed and unprepared, the natives
would kill them--as they have done to many Spaniards whom they have
caught astray and alone, killing them and practicing great cruelties
upon them. Therefore it is necessary to go everywhere with weapons in
hand, for the security of the Spaniards; for there is so little justice
and reason among these natives, and they never obey one another, or
have lords or headmen among them, but all sorts of disorders, clans,
and factions. Before the Spaniards came hither, the natives killed
one another in their own villages for very slight causes. Wherefore
it is clear that wherever the Spaniards go, they must go ready and
prepared to defend themselves, as they are but few among many infidels,
and loyal among traitors. Therefore it is a perfectly good argument
to say that wherever they go they go with weapons in hand. As to
the matter of maintaining the natives in peace and justice, it is
a just one. Therefore we try in every way to protect those who are
friendly to us. Those who are in the neighborhood of the Spaniards
are very well protected and defended--not only from their enemies, who
aforetime were wont to make war on them, but even from their servants
and the members of their households, who among them were wont to kill,
punish, and enslave one another, a thing not done now. And if this is
done in any remote district, it is in places in which, on account of
their remoteness, no remedy can be had from the Spaniards. Thus it is
of great use and profit that the Spaniards have come to the natives
hereabout, on account of the security that they have from one another,
and because they have free recourse to their trade and interests
without being hindered or robbed by any one. The