Many injuries have been and are still practiced on the Indians by the Spaniards or by their encomenderos themselves. Even murders have been committed; and since they live in remote regions, and since the aggrieved parties cannot go to plead their justice, or have no one to plead it for them, if it even comes to the ears of the governor, it is not corrected. For the latter either says that it must appear in writing or that when he shall go to that place he will inflict punishment for the matter. So he remarked to me when I told him of an Indian woman whom Luys Perez had killed, and of the other chief woman who had been imprisoned, and of the Indian whom Gudinez killed. So declared the adelantado when the deeds of Luys de la Aya, Andres de Ybarra, and of the accountant were discussed.
All or most of the Spaniards act as justices when they go through the villages and decide the suits and quarrels among the natives. They take pay for it, although they often judge unjustly in favor of him who pays more. Your Reverence will inform his Majesty of the condition of the people and that they do not have any king or sovereign, but live in bands or families where the richest or the most powerful is the leader. Some tyrannize over and pillage the others. The slaves owned by the natives are partly so from time immemorial, for their parents and grand-parents were slaves, as were their ancestors; Some have become slaves for loans and debts because they always reckon the loans by usurious rates which are greatly practiced here. Some are slaves for crimes, either for having stolen the slightest thing or for having given false testimony, or having dared do anything by word or deed against a chief. Others, and these are the fewest, are those who have been captured in the wars which they wage among themselves, some of which have been waged for many years between enemies, while others are waged because of some injury done to one side by the other. It is difficult to ascertain which of those causes is just. However, they are so evilly inclined a race in respect to this that when occasion offers they do not keep faith with their friend. Since the coming of the Spaniards to this land there has been another kind of slaves who have sold themselves very cheaply in times of famine in order to live during the famine—the father to his son, the brother to his brother, the uncle to his nephew, and others likewise—in which he who bought showed charity to the one purchased. Such slaves were never sold unless by such an one who could not live through his own efforts. I do not speak of those who pillaged the timauas and sold them as slaves.
