Nowe because these moste outeragious and infinite massacres are put downe by Don Bartholmewe de las Casas, the bisshoppe above mentioned, and dedicated to Kinge Phillippe that nowe ys, which author testifieth that to his inspeakable grefe he was an eye witnesse of many of them, therefore it seemeth best unto me to bringe him in, which in his firste chapiter describeth the same in manner followinge:—
Upon these lambes (meaninge the Indians), so meke, so qualified and endewed of their Maker and Creator, as hath bene said, entred the Spanishe, incontinent as they knew them, as wolves, as lyons, and as tigres moste cruell, of longe tyme famished; and have not don in those quarters these forty yeres be paste, neither yet doe at this presente, oughte els then teare them in peces, kill them, martir them, afflicte them, tormente them, and destroye them by straunge sortes of cruelties, never either seene or reade or hearde of the like (of the which some shalbe sett downe hereafter); so farr forthe as of above three millions of soules that were in the Ile of Hispaniola, and that wee have seene there, there are not nowe twoo hundreth natives of the contrie. The Ile of Cuba, which is as farr in lengthe as from Valladolid untill Rome, ys at this day, as it were, all waste. St John’s Ile, and that of Jammaica, bothe of them very greate, very fertile, and very faire, are desolate. Likewise the Iles of Lucayos nere to the Ile of Hispaniola, and of the north side unto that of Cuba, in nomber beinge above three score ilandes, together with those which they call the Iles of Geant, one with another greate and little, whereof the very worste is fertiler then the kinges garden at Civill, and the contrie the helthsomest in the worlde. There were in some of these isles more then five hundred thousande soules, and at this day there is not one only creature; for they have bene all of them slaine, after that they had drawen them oute to labor in their myneralls in the Ile of Hispaniola, where there were no more lefte of the inborne natives of that iland. A shippe ridinge for the space of three yeres betwixte these ilandes, to the ende that after the wyninge of this kinde of vintage to gleane and cull the remainder of these folke (for there was a goodd Christian moved with pitie and compassion to converte and wynne unto Christe suche as mighte be founde), there were not founde but eleven persons, which I sawe. Other iles, more than thirtie, nere to the Ile of St. John, have likewise bene dispeopled and massacred. All those iles conteyne above twoo thousande leagues of lande, and are all dispeopled and laid waste.