HKB
and severe Punishment of some Malefactors, that it is disservice to you for your Subjects to commit such Evil Acts, as tend to the Disobedience and Dishonour of the Almighty.
What you have read hitherto is the Relation of the said Bishop of St. Martha, Epitomized and Extracted from his Letters, whereby it is manifest, how Savagely they handle these mild and affable People. They term them Warlike Indians, who betake themselves to the Mountains to secure themselves from Spanish Cruelty; and call them Country Indians, or Inhabitants, who by a dreadful Massacre are delivered up to Tyrannical and Horrible Servitude, whereby at length they are become depopulated, made desolate, and utterly destroy'd; as appears by the Epistle of the praementioned Bishop, who only gives us a slight Account or Essay of their persecution and Sufferings. The Indians of this Country use to break out into such Words as these, when they are driven, loaded like Brutes through the uncouth wayes in their Journeys over the Mountains, if they happen to faint through Weakness, and miscarry through extremity of Labour, (for then they are kicked and cudge'd, their Teeth dasht out with the Pummels of their Swords to raise them up again, when tired and fallen under weighty Burthens, and force them to go on without Respiration, or Time to take Breath, and all this with the following increpation, or upbraiding and taunting words, O what a wicket Villain art thou?) I say they burst out into these Expressions, I am absolutely tir'd, kill me, I desire to dye, being weary of my Life as well as my Burthen and Journey: And this not without deep Heart-breaking Sighs, they being scarce able to draw or breathe out their words, which are the Characteristical Notes, and infallible of the Mind drowned in Anguish and Sorrow. My it please our Merciful God to order the discovery of these Crimes to be manifested to those Persons, who are able and oblig'd to redress them.
Of the Province of CARTHAGENA.
This Province is distant Fifty Miles from the Isle of St. Martha Westward, and situated on the Confines of the Country of Cenusia, from whence it extends One Hundred Miles to the Bay of Uraba, and contains a very long Tract of Land Southward. These Provinces from the Year 1498 to this present time were most barbarously us'd, and made desert by Murder and Slaughter, but that I may the sooner conclude this brief summary. I will not handle the particulars, to the end I may the better give an Account of the detestable Villanies that ruin'd other Regions.
*Of the *Pearl-Coast, PARIA, and TRINITY-ISLE.
The Spaniards made great Spoils and Havock from the Parian Coast to the Bay of Venecuola, exclusively, which is about Two Hundred Miles. It can hardly be exprest by Tongue or Pen how many, and how great Injuries and Injustices, the Inhabitants of this Sea-shore have endur'd from the year 1510, to this day. I will only relate Two or Three Piacular and Criminal Acts of the First Magnitude, capable of comprehending all other Enormities that deserve the sharpest Torments, Wit and Malice can invent, and so make way for a deserved Judgment upon them.