assist the sentinels and aid in
other duties of war, just as if they were well paid. Hence ensue
oppression and ill-treatment of the Indians; for sometimes when an
Indian has some food that he has cooked for his own meal, a soldier
enters and takes it away from him. Not only that; they also maltreat
and beat the Indians, and when I, being near at hand, go to them and
reprimand them for it, they say to me: "What is to be done? must we
be left to die?" I assure your Majesty that in this matter I suffer
an intolerable torment; because all come to me with their troubles,
and I have not the means to remedy them. I only pity them, and do what
I can, with my limited means, to aid them. Moreover, the encomenderos
refuse to pay tithes, although they have been ordered to do so; nor
can the royal officials pay me what your Majesty orders to be given
me from your royal treasury, because they assert that no adequate
instructions are sent them. Thus I am without means for myself or for
the poor. The former governors were accustomed to divide among the poor
soldiers some of the rice paid to your Majesty as tribute, in order
that they might endure their misery; but now not even this is given to
them. It is a still greater oppression that the authorities neither
consent to furnish them a living, nor give them permission to go in
search of it or even to leave this island. I gave to the governor the
decree regarding this matter which your Majesty ordered to be sent;
but nothing has been done, because in it your Majesty did no more
than to order him to attend to it, and to do what he might think best.

The governor consulted me about his intention to add to the tribute
of the Indians two more reals apiece, with which to support the poor
soldiers; and I convened the fathers and the clergy to confer about
this matter. Seeing that this country cannot be sustained unless there
are Spaniards in it, unless the encomenderos are supported, unless the
tributes are collected with the aid and assistance of the soldiers
here, and unless the Indians pay the tribute which the encomenderos
levy for love of the faith, they concluded that the encomenderos
are obliged to support the soldiers, who are necessary to render the
country secure. But, on the other hand, they considered that as the
encomenderos of these islands are very poor, and some of them are
married, and very few have encomiendas of reasonable extent, and they
can maintain themselves only with