pe from their horses and from their infernal wrath.
4. He sent some Spaniards to invade other provinces, which means to go
and murder the Indians; and he let the assassins bring away as many
Indians as they pleased from the peaceful settlements, to serve
them; they put these Indians in chains so that they should not set
down the loads weighing three arobas that they bound on their backs.
And it happened sometimes out of the many times he did it, that out
of four thousand Indians, not six individuals returned alive to
their homes, because they were left dead by the way.
5. And when some became tired, or lame on account of the great weights,
or fell ill through hunger, fatigue and weakness, they cut off their
heads at the neck so as not to loosen them from their chains, and
the head fell to one side, and the body to the other. It may be
imagined how their companions would feel. When orders were given
for similar expeditions, the Indians, knowing from experience that
none who started ever returned, went weeping, and sighing, and
saying: "Those are the roads, we trod to serve the Christians; and
although we laboured hard, we finally returned after some time to
our own homes and to our wives and children; but now we go without
hope of ever returning, nor of seeing them again, or of having life
any more."
6. Once, because it suited his inclination to make a new distribution
of Indians, and also, they say, to take them from his enemies and
give them to his friends, the Indians were unable to plant their
crops; and as bread ran short, the Christians took from the Indians
all the maize they had to maintain themselves and their children; in
consequence more than twenty or thirty thousand souls died of
hunger; and it happened, that a certain woman was driven by hunger
to kill her own son for food.
7. As each of the towns was a very pleasing garden, as has been said,
the Christians settled in them; each one in the place that fell to
his share or, (as they say,) was committed to his charge; each one
carried on his own cultivation, supporting himself with the meagre
provisions of the Indians, thus robbing them of their private lands
and inheritances, by which they maintained themselves.
8. In this wise the Spaniards kept within their own hous