off more than five hundred thousand souls from this province making
slaves of people who were as free as I am.
13. In their infernal wars and the horrible captivity into which they
put the Indians up to the present time, the Spaniards have killed
more than another five or six hundred thousand persons, and they
still continue. All these massacres have occurred in the space of
fourteen years. At present they kill daily in the said province of
Nicaragua, from four to five thousand persons, with servitude and
continual oppression; it being, as was said, one of the most
populous in the world.

New Spain

New Spain was discovered in the year 1517. (88) And the discoverers
gave serious offence to the Indians in that discovery, and committed
several homicides. In the year 1518 men calling themselves
Christians went there to ravage and to kill; although they say that
they go to populate. And from the said year 1518, till the present
day (and we are in 1542) all the iniquity, all the injustice, all
the violence and tyranny that the Christians have practised in the
Indies have reached the limit and overflowed: because they have
entirely lost all fear of God and the King, they have forgotten
themselves as well. So many and such are the massacres and cruelty,
the murder and destruction, the pillage and theft, the violence and
tyranny throughout the numerous kingdoms of the great continent,
that everything told by me till now is nothing compared to what was
practised here.
2. Yet, even had we related everything, including what we have omitted,
it would not be comparable, either in number or magnitude, to the
acts which, from the said year 1518 till the present day of this
year 1542 have been committed. In this day of the month of
September the gravest and most abominable acts are done and
committed; because the rule we have mentioned above verifies itself,
that from the commencement onwards they have ever been increasing in
greater wickedness and infernal works.
3. Consequently, from the invasion of New Spain which was on April 18th
of the said year 1518 till the year 1530, which was twelve entire
years, the murders and the massacres lasted. With bloody hands and
cruel swords the Spa