The government of those people was neither elective nor hereditary; for he who had the greatest valor or tyranny in defending himself was lord.  Consequently, everything was reduced to violence, he who was most powerful dominating the others.  When one went to the chief to plead justice, the latter delivered his sentence without writing anything; and there was no appeal, whether the sentence were just or unjust.  The rich treated the poor and the plebeians as useless brutes, so that those poor wretches flung themselves upon the rocks to die, as they were unable to endure so hard a yoke.  If he who was less did not pay homage to him who was more influential, he was declared as his slave only because the other wished it.  They also deprived those miserable beings of life for such reasons.  Such was their iniquity and madness.

If any criminal received protection in the house of a chief and the latter managed his affair, the one protected became a perpetual slave, together with his wife, children, and descendants, in return for the protection.  Because once while some boats were sailing some drops of water fell on a chief woman, through the carelessness of him who was rowing, it was considered so serious an offense that the poor wretch was condemned to perpetual slavery, together with his wife, children and relatives.  However, our religious destroyed that practice by spreading the holy gospel in that country.

The nobility of those Indians was personal.  It consisted in one’s own deeds, without reference to those of others.  Accordingly, he who was more valiant and killed most men in war was the more noble.  The sign of that nobility consisted in wearing the cloth wrapped about the head (of which we have spoken above), of a more or less red color.  Those nobles were exempt from rowing in the public fleets (and that although they were slaves), and ate with their masters at the table when they were at sea—­a privilege which they gained by their exploits.  In that custom of killing they reared their children and taught them from an early age, so that beginning early to kill men, they might become proud and wear the red cloth, the insignia of their nobility.

Sec.  VII

Governor Don Juan de Silva declares war against those Indians, and our religious enter to preach the gospel faith.

We have extended the relation of the barbarous customs of those Indians, in order that the reader might know the great difficulty in subjecting them to the law of reason, and (what is more) to the mild law of the holy gospel.  Some Spaniards, accompanied by evangelical ministers, had penetrated those provinces at times from the year 1597, with great zeal; but they could not remain there because of the ferocity of the natives, and for other casualties, which make those provinces less habitable, notwithstanding that they abound in many things that are necessary to life and advantageous to commerce.