_Commencement of the Viceroyalty of Blasco Nunnez Vela, and renewal of the
civil war in Peru by the usurpation of Gonzalo Pizarro_.
At this period, some of the clergy who had been in the New World,
represented to the Emperor Don Carlos and the lords of his council, that
the Spaniards treated the natives in the conquered provinces of America
with extreme cruelty, depriving them of all their property by excessive
exactions, forcing them to labour in the mines and to dive for pearls
beyond their strength, obliging them to carry heavy burdens in long
journeys, and frequently subjecting them to arbitrary punishments, and
even wantonly putting them to death; insomuch that their numbers were fast
diminishing, and that in a short time they would be entirely extirpated
from Mexico and Peru and the other continental dominions of Spain in
America, as was already the case in the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Porto
Rico, Jamaica, and others, where hardly any trace remained of the original
inhabitants. To confirm these representations, they particularly recited
many instances of cruelty exercised by the Spaniards upon the Indians,
among which were numerous circumstances that were by no means well
authenticated. They alleged as one of the greatest of these evils, and a
principal cause of the destruction of the Indians, that they were forced
to carry heavy burdens on long journeys, far beyond their strength,
without any consideration of justice or humanity. They added that these
tyrannical practices had been carried to the greatest excess by the
governors, lieutenants, and other officers of the crown, and by the
bishops, monks, and other favoured and privileged persons, trusting to
their authority and immunities to be exempted from punishment for their
improper conduct, by which they were encouraged to the commission of every
excess.
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