As for the other Indians who are under the dominion of the king of Spain, if he did not take some order about them, they would be as barbarous in their belief as the others. At the commencement of his conquests, he had established the Inquisition among them, and made slaves of or caused them to die cruelly in such great numbers, that the sole recital would cause pity. This evil treatment was the reason that the poor Indians, for very apprehension, fled to the mountains in desperation, and as many Spaniards as they caught they ate them; and on that account the said Spaniards were constrained to take away the Inquisition, and allow them personal liberty, granting them a more mild and tolerable rule of life, to bring them to the knowledge of God and the belief of the holy church; for if they had continued still to chastise them according to the rigor of the said Inquisition, they would have caused them all to die by fire. The system that is now used is, that in every estance (estancia), which are like our villages, there is a priest who regularly instructs them, the said priest having a list of the names and surnames of all the Indians who inhabit the village under his charge.
There is also an Indian, who is as the fiscal of the village,[87] and he has another and similar list; and on the Sunday, when the priest wishes to say mass, all the said Indians are obliged to present themselves to hear it; and before the priest begins the mass, he takes his list, and calls them all by their names and surnames; and should any of them be absent, he is marked upon the list, and the mass being said, the priest charges the Indian who serves as fiscal, to inquire privately where the defaulters are, and to bring them to the church; in which, being brought before the priest, he asks them the reason why they did not come to the divine service, for which they allege some excuse, if they can find any; and if the excuses are not found to be true or reasonable, the said priest orders the fiscal to give the said defaulters thirty or forty blows with a stick, outside the church, and before all the people.
[87] Indian Fiscal. "According to the size of the village, the church will have a certain number of singers, of trumpeters and players of the hautbois, over whom the priest appoints a certain officer, whom they call the fiscal, who walks before them with a white staff in his hand, having a cross of silver at the top, to show that he is an officer of the church. On the Sundays and feast days he is obliged to assemble the young men and girls at the church, before and after the service."--Gage's _Voyage_.