ed for their mode of
living through a multitude of slaves. Thus our Spaniards when they
entered the islands found so many slaves that there were chiefs
who had one, two, and three hundred slaves, and those generally of
their own color and nation, and not of other foreign nations. The
most general origin of those slaveries were interest and usury. That
was so much practiced among them, that no father would aid his son,
no son his father, no brother his brother, and much less any relative
his relative, even though he were suffering extreme necessity, without
an agreement to restore double. If payment was not made when promised,
the debtor remained a slave until he paid. That happened often, for
the interest or increase continued to accumulate just so long as the
payment was deferred. Consequently, the interest exceeded the wealth
of the debtor, and therefore the debt was loaded upon his shoulders,
and the poor creature became a slave; and from that time his children
and descendants were slaves. Other slaveries were due to tyranny
and cruelty. For slaves were made either in vengeance on enemies, in
the engagements and petty wars that they waged against one another,
in which the prisoners made remained slaves, even though they were of
the same village and race; or as a punishment which the more powerful
inflicted on the weaker ones, even for a matter of little importance,
of which they made a matter of insult. For instance if the lesser did
not observe the interdict on talking and noise, usual in the time of
the burial of the chiefs; if he passed near where the chief's wife was
bathing; or if any dust or any other dirt fell from the house of the
timaua upon the chief or his wife when passing through the street:
then in these and numberless other similar cases the powerful ones
deprived the poor wretches of liberty, and tyrannically made them
slaves--and not only them but their children, and perhaps the wife and
near relatives. The worst thing is that all those who had been made
slaves by war, or for punishment of debts, were rigorously regarded
as such, as slaves for any kind of service or slavery, and served
inside the house. The same was true of their children, in the manner
of our slaveries, and they could be sold at will. However, the masters
were not accustomed to sell those born under their roof, for they
regarded them in the light of relatives. Those slaves were allowed
to keep for themselves a portion of any profit w