How mighty wonders have been clearly seen in the discovery of these
Indies, how our Sovereign Lord God desires to watch over the Spaniards,
and how He also chastises those who are cruel to the Indians.
Before finishing this first part, it seems good that I should here
mention some of the marvellous works which our Lord God has seen fit to
display in the discovery which the Christian Spaniards have made in
these kingdoms, as well as the punishments he has inflicted on certain
notable persons. For they will teach us how we must love Him as a
father, and fear Him as a just Judge and Lord.
Passing over the first discovery made by the admiral Don Christoval
Colon, and the successes of the Marquis Don Fernando Cortez, and of
other captains and governors who discovered Tierra Firme, because I only
wish to mention the events of the present time, I come to the marquis
Don Francisco Pizarro. How many hardships did he and his companions
suffer, without discovering anything beyond the land north of the river
San Juan, and the succours brought by the adelantado Don Diego de
Almagro did not suffice to enable him to press forward. Then it was that
the governor Pedro de los Rios, learning from the couplet which was
written to him:--
“Look out, Señor Governor,
For the drover while he is near,
For he goes home to get the sheep
For the butcher who is there.”[542]
that Almagro came to bring people to the shambles of these hardships,
where Pizarro would butcher them, sent Juan Tafur of Panama to bring
them back. They all returned with him except thirteen Christians[543]
who remained with Don Francisco Pizarro in the island of Gorgona, until
Don Diego Almagro sent them a ship with which to continue the voyage.
It pleased God that, though they had made no discovery during the three
or four previous years, they discovered all in ten or twelve days. Thus
these thirteen Christians, with their leader, discovered Peru.
Afterwards, at the end of some years, when the same marquis with 160
Spaniards invaded the country, he could not have prevailed against the
multitude of Indians, if God had not permitted that there should be a
very cruel war between the two brothers Huascar and Atahualpa, at the
time. When the Indians rose against the Christians at Cuzco, there were
not more than 180 Spaniards mounted and on foot, to resist the attacks
of Manco Ynca at the head of more than 200,000 Indians. It was a miracle
how they escaped from the hands of the Indians during a whole year, and
some of the Indians themselves affirm that sometimes, when they were
fighting with the Spaniards, they saw a celestial figure which did them
great mischief. When the Indians set fire to the city, and the flames
began to approach the church, it was seen to reach it three times, and
to be put out as often, the place where the flames touched it being
covered with dry straw.
The captain Francisco Cesar, who set out from Carthagena in the year
1536, and traversed great mountains and deep rivers, with only sixty
Spaniards, reached the province of Guaca, where there was a principal
house dedicated to the devil, and he collected thirty thousand _pesos_
of gold from a tomb near it.[544] When the Indians saw how few Spaniards
there were, more than twenty thousand assembled and surrounded them. As
the Spaniards were so few and weak, having eaten nothing but roots, God
still favoured them so that they killed and wounded many Indians,
without losing a man. Not only did God work this miracle for the
Christians, but he was also served by guiding them to a road which took
them to Uraba in eighteen days, when they had wandered on the other for
a whole year.
We have seen many more of these miracles, but it must suffice to say
that a province containing thirty or forty thousand Indians is held by
forty or fifty Christians. And in lands where there are heavy rains or
continual earthquakes, we see clearly the favour of God, as soon as
Christians enter them. For the rains abate, the lands become profitable,
and there are fewer storms than in the times before the Christians
arrived.
Another thing must also be noted, which is, that those who carry the
standard of the cross as their guide must not make their discoveries as
tyrants, for those who do so receive heavy chastisement. Of those who
have been tyrants, few have died natural deaths, such for instance as
those who compassed the death of Atahualpa. All these have perished
miserably. It would even appear that the great wars in Peru have been
permitted by God, to punish the conquerors, and thus Carbajal may be
looked upon as the executioner of His justice. He lived until God’s
chastisement was complete, and then paid with his life for the grave
crimes he had committed. The marshal Don Jorge Robledo consented to
allow great harm to be done to the Indians in the province of Pozo, and
many to be killed with crossbows and dogs. And God permitted that he
should be sentenced to death in the same place, and have for his tomb
the bellies of the Indians.[545] The comendador Hernan Rodriquez de Sosa
and Baltasar de Ledesma died in the same way, and were also eaten by the
Indians; they having themselves been previously very cruel to them. The
Adelantado Belalcazar killed many Indians in Quito; and God permitted
that he should be driven from his government by the judge who came to
try him, and that he should die at Carthagena on his way to Spain, poor,
and full of sorrow.[546] Francisco Garcia de Tobar, who was so much
feared by the Indians by reason of the number he had killed, was himself
killed and eaten by them.
Let no one deceive himself with the belief that God has not punished
those who were cruel to these Indians; for not one of them failed to
receive chastisement in proportion to the offence. I knew one Roque
Martin, an inhabitant of the city of Cali, who gave the dead bodies of
the Indians to the dogs, and afterwards the Indians killed, and, I even
believe, ate him. I could enumerate many other examples, but I shall
conclude by saying that our Lord favours us in these conquests and
discoveries; but if the discoverers afterwards become tyrants, He
chastises them severely, as I have myself seen, some of them dying
suddenly, which is a thing most to be feared.