ooner or later the
natives would become disgusted with such perverse works, and that
perhaps the evil consequences would fall on them, especially as the
evil deeds of the Spaniards constantly disturbed the Indians and
prevented them from preaching to them in tranquillity. They
therefore determined to abandon the kingdom.
35. Thus the country was left without the light and help of doctrine;
and those souls were abandoned to the obscurity of ignorance and
misery, in which they formerly were. The Indians were deprived,
till better times should come, of assistance and the diffusion of
the knowledge of God, which they had been already receiving with
eagerness; it was just as though we were to deprive plants of water
a few days after planting them: and this was brought about by the
inexpiable fault and consummate malice of those Spaniards.

The Province of Santa Maria

The province of Santa Marta was a country where the Indians had a
great deal of gold because both it and the places round about have
rich mines which were diligently worked. And for this reason, from
the year 1498 till the present 1542, numberless Spanish tyrants have
continually gone there with ships to ravage and kill those people
and to steal their gold. They afterwards returned in the ships with
which they made numerous expeditions, murdering and massacring, with
notorious cruelty; this commonly occurred along the seacoast and a
few leagues inland, till the year 1523.
2. In the year 1523 some Spanish tyrants went to take up their abode
here. And because the country, as has been said, was rich, divers
captains succeeded one another, each crueller than the other, so
that it seemed as though each had made a vow to practise more
exorbitant evils and cruelty than the other, in verification of the
rule we have given above.
3. In the year 1529 there arrived a great tyrant accompanied by many
men, devoid of any fear of God or any mercy on mankind; so great
were the massacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he
surpassed all his predecessors. During the space of six, or seven
years that he lived, he and his men stole much treasure. (96)
4. He died without sacraments after also avoiding the commission of
investigation met on h