A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Then he proceeded farther to another City, and sent some Spaniards that very Night,
to take the Indians of the City of Tulilicui, who next day brought with them above a
Hundred Persons; some of which (whom he lookt upon to be able to carry burthens) he
reserved for his own and his Soldiers service, and other were chain'd, and perished in
their Fetters: but the little Infants he gave to the Casic of Tulilicui, abovesaid to be
eaten up and devoured, whose skins are stuft with Ashes and hung up in his House to
be seen at this very day. And in the close of this Letter he shuts up all with these
words, 'tis here very remarkable and never to be forgotten, that this Tyrant (being not
ignorant of the Mischiefs and Enormities executed by him) boastingly said of himself,
They who shall travel in these Countreys Fifty years hence, and hear the things related
of me, will have cause to say or declare, that never such a Tyrant as I am marched
through these Regions, and committed the like Enormities.
Now not to quit the Stage without one Comical Scene or Action whereon such
Cruelties have been lively personated, give me leave to acquaint you with a Comical
piece of Grammatical Learning in a Reverend Religioso of these parts, sent thither to
convert the West-Indies Pagans, which the Author mentions among his Reasons and
Replications, and all these I pass by as immaterial to our purpose, many of them being
repeated in the Narrative before.
The weight and burthen of initiating the Indians into the Christian Faith lay solely on
the Spaniards at first; and therefore Joannes Colmenero in Santa Martha, a Fantastic,
Ignorant, and Foppish Fellow, was under Examination before us (and he had one of
the most spatious Cities committed to his Charge as well as the Care and Cure of the
Souls of the Inhabitants) whether he understood how to fortifie himself with the sign of
the Cross against the Wicked and Impious, and being interrogated what he taught,
and how he instructed the Indians, whose Souls were intrusted to his Care and
Conduct; he return'd this Answer, That if he damn'd them to the Devil and Furies of
Hell, it was sufficient to retrieve them, if he pronounced these Words, Per Signin
Sanctin Cruces. A Fellow fitter to be a Hogherd than a Shepherd of Souls.
This Deep, Bloody American Tragedy is now concluded, and my Pen choakt up with
Indian Blood and Gore. I have no more to say, but pronounce the Epilogue made by
the Author, and leave the Reader to judge whether it deserves a Plaudite.
The Spaniards first set Sail to America, not for the Honour of God, or as Persons
moved and merited thereunto by servent Zeal to the True Faith, nor to promote the
Salvation of their Neighbours, nor to serve the King, as they falsely boast and pretend
to do, but in truth, only stimulated and goaded on by insatiable Avarice and Ambition,
that they might for ever Domineer, Command, and Tyrannize over the West- Indians,
whose Kingdoms they hoped to divide and distribute among themselves. Which to deal
candidly in no more or less intentionally, than by all these indirect wayes to
disappoint and expel the Kings of Castile out of those Dominions and Territories, that