g Admiral to be
instructed in our language, and afterwards to serve as interpreters in
the exploration of unknown countries. Pinzon betook himself to court
and petitioned the King for authorisation to assume the title of
Governor of the island of San Juan, which is only twenty-five leagues
distant from Hispaniola. He based his claim upon the fact that he had
been the first to discover the existence of gold in that island, which
we have said in our First Decade was called by the Indians Borrichena.

The governor of Borrichena, a Portuguese named Christopher, son of
Count Camigua, was massacred by the cannibals of the neighbouring
islands, together with all the Christians except the bishop and his
servants; the latter only succeeded in escaping, at the cost of
abandoning the sacred vessels. In response to the King's solicitation,
your Apostolic Holiness had just divided this country into five new
bishoprics. The Franciscan friar, Garcias de Padilla, was made Bishop
of Santo Domingo, the capital of Hispaniola; the doctor Pedro Suarez
Deza was appointed to Concepcion, and for the island of San Juan, the
licenciate Alonzo Mauso was named; both these latter being observants
of the congregation of St. Peter. The fourth bishop was the friar
Bernardo de Mesa, a noble Toledan, and an orator of the Dominican
Order, who was appointed for Cuba. The fifth received the holy oils
from Your Holiness for the colony of Darien; he is a Franciscan, a
brilliant orator, and is called Juan Cabedo.

An expedition will, for the following reason, shortly set out to
punish the Caribs. After the first massacre, they returned several
months later from the neighbouring island of Santa Cruz, murdered
and ate a cacique who was our ally, with all his family, afterwards
completely destroying his town. They alleged that this cacique had
violated the laws of hospitality in his relations with several Caribs,
who were boat-builders. These men had been left at San Juan to build
more canoes, since that island grows lofty trees, better adapted for
canoe building than are those of the island of Santa Cruz. The Caribs
being still on the island, the Spaniards who arrived from Hispaniola
encountered them by accident. When the interpreters had made known
this recent crime, the Spaniards wished to exact satisfaction, but the
cannibals, drawing their bows and aiming their sharpened arrows at
them, gave it to be understood with menacing glances that they had
better k