If any one is guilty of a grave crime—­that is, has committed murder or adultery, or given poison, or any other like serious matter—­although there may be no proof of it beyond the suspicion of the principal person against whom the hurt was done, they take for their slaves, or kill, not only the culprit but his sons, brothers, parents, relatives, and slaves.

If any one who is left an orphan come to the house of another, even of a kinsman (unless it be his uncle, paternal or maternal), for food only, its inmates enslave him.  Likewise in time of famine and distress, during which they may have given relatives food only a few times, they have sold the latter for their slaves.

Many also become slaves on account of loans, because these loans continue to increase steadily every three or four months; and so, however little may be the sum loaned them, at the end of little more or less than two years they become slaves.  And now, sacred Majesty, if it be forbidden, in those places where the Spanish live, to acquire slaves in any shape or manner—­those who were made slaves and were slaves before we came here and are slaves now, and whom the natives buy and sell among each other, as merchandise or other profitable wares that they possess—­without them this land cannot be preserved.  This, your Majesty, is all known here of the slaves that I have been able to find out, having diligently sought and made the acquaintance of persons who know their language and customs.

Guido de Lavezaris

Documents of 1575-76

Part of a letter to the viceroy.  Guido de Lavezaris; [1575?] Letter to Felipe II.  Juan Pacheco Maldonado; [1575?] Encomiendas forbidden to royal officials.  Francisco de Sande, and others; May 26, 1576 Letter to Felipe II.  Francisco de Sande; June 2, 1576

Sources:  These documents are obtained from MSS. in the Archivo general de Indias at Sevilla.

Translations:  The first document is translated by Alfonso de Salvio; the second and third, by Arthur B. Myrick; the fourth, by Jose M. Asensio.

Part of a Letter to the Viceroy by Guido de Lavecaris

I am very glad that your Excellency adjusted matters by ordering the return of the negroes and Indians who had been carried from this land; for all of us were very anxious as to the number that we were to send hereafter in the ships which should leave these regions.  May our Lord prosper your Excellency’s life so that it may be of service to our Lord and to his Majesty, as it has been thus far.

In this voyage our men seized two Chinese junks laden with merchandise, plundered all the goods, and brought here one of the laden junks and four Chinese.  Afterward these Chinese, together with the others, who had remained in those islands where they had been seized, were sent back, so that they might return to their own country.  I was exceedingly sorry that such an injury should be inflicted upon men who had neither offended us nor given us occasion to justify this action; and what grieves me most in this affair is the news which the Chinese will carry to their own country about us, and about the good deeds which were done to them, and which they saw done to others, for our credit in China.