hey came like tame lambs, he seized them and
demanded so many loads of gold. They replied that they had none,
because that country does not produce it. Guiltless of other fault
and without trial or sentence, he immediately ordered them to be
burned alive.
3. When the rulers throughout all those provinces saw that the
Spaniards had burnt that one and all those chief lords, only because
they gave them no gold, they all fled from their towns and hid in
the mountains; they commanded all their people to go to the
Spaniards and serve them as their lords, but that they should not,
however, reveal to them their hiding place.
4. All the inhabitants came to offer themselves to his men and to serve
them as their lords. This compassionate captain replied that he
would not receive them; on the contrary, he would kill them all, if
they did not disclose the whereabouts of their chiefs. The Indians
answered that they knew nothing about them but that the Spaniards
should make use of them, of their wives and children whom they would
find in their houses, where they could kill them or do with them
what they wished. And this the Indians declared and offered many
times.
5. Stupefying to relate, the Spaniards went to the houses where they
found the poor people working in safety at their occupations with
their wives and children, and there they wounded them with their
lances and cut them to pieces. They also went to a quiet, large and
important town, where the people were ignorant of what had happened
to the others and were safe in their innocence; within barely two
hours they destroyed it, putting women, children, and the aged to
the sword, and killing all who did not save themselves by flight.
6. Seeing that with such humility, submission, patience and suffering
they could not break nor soften hearts so inhuman and brutal, and
that they were thus cut to pieces contrary to every show or shadow
of right, and that they must inevitably perish, the Indians
determined to summon all their people together and to die fighting,
avenging themselves as best they could on such cruel and infernal
enemies; they well knew, however, that being not only unarmed but
also naked and on foot, they could not prevail against such fierce
people, mounted and so