The governor of Borrichena, a Portuguese named Christopher, son of Count Camigua, was massacred by the cannibals of the neighbouring islands, together with all the Christians except the bishop and his servants; the latter only succeeded in escaping, at the cost of abandoning the sacred vessels.  In response to the King’s solicitation, your Apostolic Holiness had just divided this country into five new bishoprics.  The Franciscan friar, Garcias de Padilla, was made Bishop of Santo Domingo, the capital of Hispaniola; the doctor Pedro Suarez Deza was appointed to Concepcion, and for the island of San Juan, the licenciate Alonzo Mauso was named; both these latter being observants of the congregation of St. Peter.  The fourth bishop was the friar Bernardo de Mesa, a noble Toledan, and an orator of the Dominican Order, who was appointed for Cuba.  The fifth received the holy oils from Your Holiness for the colony of Darien; he is a Franciscan, a brilliant orator, and is called Juan Cabedo.

An expedition will, for the following reason, shortly set out to punish the Caribs.  After the first massacre, they returned several months later from the neighbouring island of Santa Cruz, murdered and ate a cacique who was our ally, with all his family, afterwards completely destroying his town.  They alleged that this cacique had violated the laws of hospitality in his relations with several Caribs, who were boat-builders.  These men had been left at San Juan to build more canoes, since that island grows lofty trees, better adapted for canoe building than are those of the island of Santa Cruz.  The Caribs being still on the island, the Spaniards who arrived from Hispaniola encountered them by accident.  When the interpreters had made known this recent crime, the Spaniards wished to exact satisfaction, but the cannibals, drawing their bows and aiming their sharpened arrows at them, gave it to be understood with menacing glances that they had better keep quiet unless they wished to provoke a disaster.  Fearing the poisoned arrows and being likewise unprepared for fighting, our men made amicable signs.  When they asked the Caribs why they had destroyed the village and murdered the cacique and his family, the latter replied that they had done so to avenge the murder of several workmen.  They had collected the bones of the victims with the intention of carrying them to the widows and children of the workmen, so that the latter might understand that the murder of their husbands and fathers had not been left unavenged.  They exhibited a pile of bones to the Spaniards who, shocked by this crime but forced to conceal their real sentiments, remained silent, not daring to reprove the Caribs, Similar stories which I suppress rather than offend the ears of Your Holiness by such abominable narratives, are daily repeated.