terwards, many Christians turned on the said lord and destroyed
him and many of his people; they killed the rest with the usual
servitude, so that to-day there is neither sign nor any vestige
whatsoever that there was ever a town or born man where formerly was
thirty leagues of dominion well populated. The murders and
destruction done by that miserable man and his company in that
kingdom which he devastated, are without number.

The Province of Nicaragua

In the year 1522 or 1523 this same tyrant invaded the most
delightful province of Nicaragua to subjugate it; it was an unlucky
hour when he entered it. Who could adequately set forth the
happiness, healthfulness, agreeableness, prosperity, and the number
of dwellings and concourse of the people that were there? it was
truly a marvellous thing to see how full it was of towns, stretching
for a length of nearly three or four leagues, thickly planted with
the most marvellous fruit trees; which was the reason that there was
such an immense population.
2. So much injury and assassination, so much cruelty, wickedness and
injustice, was done to those people by that tyrant, together with
the others, his companions, that human language would not suffice to
relate it; for he was accompanied by all those who had helped to
destroy all the other kingdom. The land being flat and open, the
natives could not hide in the mountains, and their country was so
delightful, that it was with difficulty and great grief that they
brought themselves to abandon it; for this reason they suffered, and
will suffer great persecutions, and they tolerated the tyranny and
the slavery of the Christians to the extent of their endurance, and
because they are naturally a very humble and pacific people.
3. He sent fifty mounted soldiers, and had the inhabitants of a whole
province, larger than the country of Rusenon(87) killed with lances,
without leaving man nor woman, old nor young alive. He did this for
a very trifling reason; such as because they did not come as soon as
he called them, or because they did not bring him enough loads of
maize, (which is the grain of that country) or enough Indians to
serve him or some other of his company: the land being flat, no one
could esca