distance from Valladolid
to Rome; it is now almost entirely deserted. The islands of San
Juan [Porto Rico], and Jamaica, very large and happy and pleasing
islands, are both desolate. The Lucaya Isles lie near Hispaniola
and Cuba to the north and number more than sixty, including those
that are called the Giants, and other large and small Islands; the
poorest of these, which is more fertile, and pleasing than the
King's garden in Seville, is the healthiest country in the world,
and contained more than five hundred thousand souls, but to-day
there remains not even a single creature. All were killed in
transporting them, to Hispaniola, because it was seen that the
native population there was disappearing.
11. A ship went three years later to look for the people that had been
left after the gathering in, because a good Christian was moved by
compassion to convert and win those that were found to Christ; only
eleven persons, whom I saw, were found.
12. More than thirty other islands, about the Isle of San Juan, are
destroyed and depopulated, for the same reason. All these islands
cover more than two thousand leagues of land, entirely depopulated
and deserted.
13. We are assured that our Spaniards, with their cruelty and execrable
works, have depopulated and made desolate the great continent, and
that more than ten Kingdoms, larger than all Spain, counting Aragon
and Portugal, and twice as much territory as from Seville to
Jerusalem (which is more than two thousand leagues), although
formerly full of people, are now deserted.
14. We give as a real and true reckoning, that in the said forty years,
more than twelve million persons, men, and women, and children, have
perished unjustly and through tyranny, by the infernal deeds and
tyranny of the Christians; and I truly believe, nor think I am
deceived, that it is more than fifteen.
15. Two ordinary and principal methods have the self-styled Christians,
who have gone there, employed in extirpating these miserable nations
and removing them from the face of the earth. The one, by unjust,
cruel and tyrannous wars. The other, by slaying all those, who
might aspire to, or sigh for, or think of liberty, or to escape from
the torments that they suffer, such as all the native Lords, and