A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Of the River Yuya Pari.
This River washeth the Province arising from its head or fountain in another Region,
Two Hundred miles off and better, By this a wretched Tyrant entred it and laid waste
the Land for the space of many miles, and murder'd abundance of them by Fire and
Sword, &c. At length he died violently, and all his Forces moldred away of themselves,
many succeeded him in his iniquity and cruelty and so dayly destroy them, sending to
Hell the Souls redeemed by the blood of the Son of God.
Of the Kingdom of _Venecuela.
Our Sovereign Lord the King in the Year 1526, over-perswaded by fallacious
appearances (for the Spaniards use to conceal from His Majesties knowledge the
dammages and detriments, which God himself, the Souls and state of the Indians did
suffer) intrusted the Kingdom of Venecuela longer and larger then the Spanish
Dominions, with its Government and absolute Jurisdiction to some German
Merchants, with power to make certain Capitulations and Conventions, who came into
this Kingdom with Three Hundred Men, and there found a benign mild and peaceable
people, as they were throughout the Indies till injured by the Spaniards. These more
cruel then the rest beyond comparison, behav'd themselves more inhumanely then
rapacious Tygres Wolves and Lyons, for they had the jurisdiction of this Kingdom, and
therefore possessing it with the greater freedom from controul; lay in wait and were
the more vigilant with greater care and avarice to understand the practical part of
heaping up Wealth, and robbing the Inhabitants of their Gold and Sliver, surpassing
all their Predecessors in those indirect ways, rejecting wholly both the fear of their God
and King, nay forgetting that they were born men with reasonable Faculties.
These incarnate Devils laid waste and desolate Four Hundred miles of most Fertile
Land, containing vast and wonderful Provinces, most spatious and large Valleys
surrounded with Hills, forty Miles in Length, and many Towns richly abounding in
Gold and Silver. They destroy'd so many and such considerable Regions, that there is
not one supernumerary witness left to relate the Story, unless perchance some that
lurkt in the Caverns and Womb of the Earth to evade death by their inhumane Swords
embrew'd in Innocent Indian blood, escaped. I judge that they by new invented and
unusual Torments ruinated four or five Millions of Souls and sent them all to Hell. I
will give a taste of two or three of their Transactions, that hereby you may guess at the
rest.
They made the supream Lord of the Province a Slave, to squeeze his Gold from him,
racking him to extort his confession who escaping fled into the Mountains, their
common Sanctuary, and his Subjects lying absconded in the Thickets of the Woods,
were stir'd up to Sedition and Tumult or Mutiny. The Spaniards follow and destroy