ite massacres are put downe
by Don Bartholmewe de las Casas, the bisshoppe above mentioned, and
dedicated to Kinge Phillippe that nowe ys, which author testifieth that to
his inspeakable grefe he was an eye witnesse of many of them, therefore it
seemeth best unto me to bringe him in, which in his firste chapiter
describeth the same in manner followinge:--

Upon these lambes (meaninge the Indians), so meke, so qualified and
endewed of their Maker and Creator, as hath bene said, entred the
Spanishe, incontinent as they knew them, as wolves, as lyons, and as
tigres moste cruell, of longe tyme famished; and have not don in those
quarters these forty yeres be paste, neither yet doe at this presente,
oughte els then teare them in peces, kill them, martir them, afflicte
them, tormente them, and destroye them by straunge sortes of cruelties,
never either seene or reade or hearde of the like (of the which some
shalbe sett downe hereafter); so farr forthe as of above three millions of
soules that were in the Ile of Hispaniola, and that wee have seene there,
there are not nowe twoo hundreth natives of the contrie. The Ile of Cuba,
which is as farr in lengthe as from Valladolid untill Rome, ys at this
day, as it were, all waste. St John's Ile, and that of Jammaica, bothe of
them very greate, very fertile, and very faire, are desolate. Likewise the
Iles of Lucayos nere to the Ile of Hispaniola, and of the north side unto
that of Cuba, in nomber beinge above three score ilandes, together with
those which they call the Iles of Geant, one with another greate and
little, whereof the very worste is fertiler then the kinges garden at
Civill, and the contrie the helthsomest in the worlde. There were in some
of these isles more then five hundred thousande soules, and at this day
there is not one only creature; for they have bene all of them slaine,
after that they had drawen them oute to labor in their myneralls in the
Ile of Hispaniola, where there were no more lefte of the inborne natives
of that iland. A shippe ridinge for the space of three yeres betwixte
these ilandes, to the ende that after the wyninge of this kinde of vintage
to gleane and cull the remainder of these folke (for there was a goodd
Christian moved with pitie and compassion to converte and wynne unto
Christe suche as mighte be founde), there were not founde but eleven
persons, which I sawe. Other iles, more than thirtie, nere to the Ile of
St. John, have likewise bene dis