of two or
three vessels, and the tyrant villains who go to capture and prey
upon the natives in their homes, receives his share.
32. And when the lot falls on a drove in which there is some old or ill
person, the tyrant who gets it, says: "Why in the devil do you give
this old man to me? That I shall bury him? Why should I take this
ill one? To nurse him?" It may be seen how the Spaniards despise
the Indians and whether they carry out the precept of divine love to
one's neighbour, upon which rest the law and the prophets.
33. The tyranny exercised by the Spaniards upon the Indians in fishing
pearls, is as cruel, and reprehensible a thing as there can be in
the world. Upon the land there is no life so infernal and hopeless
as to be compared to it, although that of digging gold in the mines
is the hardest and worst.
34. They let them down into the sea three and four and five fathoms
deep, from the morning till sunset. They are always swimming under
water without respite, gathering the oysters, in which the pearls
grow.
35. They come up to breathe bringing little nets full of them; there is
a hangman Spaniard in a boat and if they linger resting, he beats
them with his fists, and, taking them by the hair, throws them in
the water to go on fishing.
36. Their food is fish and the fish that contain the pearls, and a
little cazabi or maize bread, which are the kinds of native bread:
the one gives very little sustenance and the other is very difficult
to make, so with such food they are never sufficiently nourished.
Instead of giving them beds at night, they put them in stocks on the
ground, to prevent them from escaping.
37. Many times the Indians throw themselves into the sea while fishing
or hunting pearls and never come up again, because dolphins and
sharks, which are two kinds of very cruel sea animals that swallow a
man whole, kill and eat them.
38. From this it may be seen, whether the Spaniards who thus seek profit
from the pearls, observe the divine precepts of love to God and
one's neighbour; out of avarice, they put their fellow creatures in
danger of death to the body and also to the soul; because they die
without faith and without sacraments.
39. They lead the Indians such a wretched life that they ruin and waste
them