CHAPTER 22

HOW THE INDIANS THEMSELVES WERE EXHAUSTED AND COULD NOT ENDURE THE CRUELTIES OF THEIR GODS

This excessive cruelty in shedding so much human blood, and the heavy tribute represented by constantly having to win captives to feed their gods, had exhausted many of those barbarians, seeming unbearable to them; and yet, because of the great fear aroused by the idol's ministers for their part, and the tricks with which they deceived the people, the Indians continued to carry out their harsh edicts; but inwardly they wished to be free of such a heavy charge. And it was the Lord's providence that the first men to bring the news of Christ's law found these people in this state of mind, for there is no doubt that it seemed a good law to them and a good God who wished to be served in that way. A worthy father in New Spain told me in this regard that when he went to that realm he had asked an old and important Indian why it was that the Indians received the law of Jesus Christ so quickly and why they had abandoned their religion without more proofs or verification or any dispute about the matter, for it seemed that they had changed without being moved by sufficient reason. The Indian replied, "Do not believe, Father, that we accept the Law of Christ as unthinkingly as you say, for I want you to know that we were so weary and unhappy with the things that the idols commanded us to do that we had tried to leave them and accept a different law. And, as it seemed that the one that you people preached to us had no cruelties and was much to our liking, and was so just and good, we realized that it was the true law, and so we received it very willingly." What this Indian said is fully confirmed by what we read in the first reports sent by Hernán Cortés to the emperor Charles V, where he relates that after he had conquered the City of Mexico and was in Coyoacin ambassadors came to him from the republic and province of Michoacin, asking him to send them his religion and someone to expound it, for they intended to leave theirs because they thought it wrong. Cortés did so, and today these are among the best Indians and best Christians in New Spain.' The Spaniards who witnessed those cruel human sacrifices were determined to do all in their power to destroy that accursed butchery of men; and they became all the more determined when one afternoon, before their very eyes, the Indians sacrificed sixty or seventy Spanish soldiers whom they had captured in a battle that occurred during the conquest of Mexico. And on another occasion they found in a room in Texcoco, written with charcoal: "Here was kept prisoner the unfortunate such-and-such a one and his companions, whom the Indians of Texcoco sacrificed." Another case occurred that was strange but true, for persons very worthy of belief attest to it; and this was that the Spaniards were watching one of those spectacles of sacrifice and they had split open and torn out the heart of a very handsome youth and cast him tumbling down the stairs as was their custom; and when he came to the bottom the youth said to the Spaniards in his own tongue, "My lords, they have killed me;" which caused tremendous pity and horror in our people. And it is not incredible that he could have spoken after his heart had been ripped out, for Galen reports that it happened sometimes during sacrifices of animals that they breathed after their hearts were removed and placed on the altar and even roared loudly and ran away for a short time. Leaving aside for the moment the question of how this conforms with nature, my point is to show what intolerable servitude those savages suffered from the infernal murderer and what great mercy the Lord has done them by divulging to them his gentle, just, and wholly agreeable religion!!!