La Relación - page 97

La Relación - page 97

while the sole purpose of the others was to steal everything they found, never giving anything to anybody. In this manner they talked about us, praising everything about us and saying the contrary about the others. They replied this way to the Christians' interpreter and told the others through an interpreter they had among themselves, whom we understood. We properly call the people who speak that language the Primahaitu, which is like saying the Basques. We found that this language was used among them and no other was used in the 400-league stretch that we traveled.

The Indians could not be persuaded to believe that we were the same as the other Christians. We had great difficulty and had to insist in order to persuade the Indians to return to their homes. We ordered them to make themselves secure and settle their villages and plant and till the soil, which was already overgrown because it had been abandoned. This land is without a doubt the best in all the Indies, the most fertile and abundant in food. They plant crops three times a year. They have many fruits and beautiful rivers and many other very good bodies of water. There is great evidence and signs of gold and silver deposits. The people are very congenial: they serve Christians-the ones who are friendly-quite willingly. They are well built, much more so than the Indians of Mexico. This truly is a land that lacks nothing to be very good.

When the Indians departed they told us that they would do what we said and would settle their villages if the Christians would allow them. I want to make it quite clear and certain that if they should not do so, the Christians will be to blame. After we sent the Indians away in peace, thanking them for the trouble they had taken with us, the Christians sent us under guard to a certain Justice named Cebreros and two other men with him, who took us through wilderness and uninhabited areas to keep us from talking to Indians and so that we could not see or understand what they really did to the Indians. From this, one can see how easily the ideas of men are thwarted, for we wanted freedom for the Indians,

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