His fingers won’t obey him anymore. He dictates the letter. Without anybody’s permission, he addresses himself directly to the Holy See. He asks Pius V to order the wars against the Indians stopped and to halt the plunder that uses the cross as an excuse. As he dictates he becomes indignant, the blood rises to his head, and the hoarse and feeble voice that remains to him trembles.
Suddenly he falls to the floor.
(70 and 90)
1566: Madrid Even if You Lose, It’s Still Worthwhile
The lips move, speak soundless words. “Forgivest Thou me, Lord?”
Fray Bartolomé pleads for mercy at the Last Judgment for having believed that black and Moorish slaves would alleviate the fate of the Indians.
He lies stretched out, damp forehead, pallid, and the lips do not stop moving. From far off, a slow thunderclap. Fray Bartolomé, the giver of birth, the doer, closes his eyes. Although always hard of hearing, he hears rain beating on the roof of the Atocha monastery. The rain moistens his face. He smiles.
One of the priests who accompanies him murmurs something about the strange light that has illumined his face. Through the rain, free of doubt and torment, Fray Bartolomé is traveling for the last time to the green worlds where he knew happiness.
“I thank Thee,” say his lips in silence while he reads the prayers by the light of fireflies, splashed by the rain that strikes the palm-frond roof.
“I thank Thee,” he says as he celebrates Mass in sheds without walls and baptizes naked children in rivers.
The priests cross themselves. The clock’s last grains of sand have fallen. Someone turns over the hourglass so that time will not be interrupted.
(27, 70, and 90)
1568: Los Teques Guaicaipuro
Never again will the river reflect his face, his panache of lofty plumes.
This time the gods did not listen to his wife, Urquía, who pleaded that neither bullets nor disease should touch him and that sleep, the brother of death, should never forget to return him to the world at the end of each night.
The invaders felled Guaicaipuro with bullets.
Since the Indians elected him chief, there was no truce in this valley nor in the Avila Mountains. In the newly born city of Caracas people crossed themselves when in a low voice they spoke his name.
Confronting death and its officials, the last of the free men has fallen shouting, Kill me, kill me, free yourselves from fear.
(158)
1568: Mexico City The Sons of Cortés
Martín was the name of Hernán Cortés’s oldest son, his blood son born of the Indian woman Malinche. His father died leaving him a meager annual pension.
Martin is also the name of Hernán Cortés’s legitimate son, born of a Spanish woman, a count’s daughter and niece of a duke. This Martín has inherited the coat of arms and the fortune: He is marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, owner of thousands of Indians and leagues of this land that his father had humiliated and loved and chosen to lie in forever.
On a saddle of crimson velvet embroidered with gold, Martín the marquis used to wander the streets of Mexico. Behind him went his red-liveried guards armed with swords. Whoever crossed his path doffed his hat, paid homage, and joined his entourage. The other Martin, the bastard, was one of the retinue.
Martín the marquis wanted to break with Spain and proclaim himself king of Mexico. When the plot failed, he babbled regrets and named names. His life was spared.
Martín the bastard, who has served his brother in the conspiracy and everything else, is now writhing on the rack. At his side, the scribe records: He was stripped and put in the cincha. On being admonished, he said he owed nothing. The torturer gives a turn to the wheel. The cords break the flesh and stretch the bones.
The scribe records: He is again admonished. Says he has no more to say than what he has said.
Second turn of the wheel. Third, fourth, fifth.
(28)
1569: Havana St. Simon Against the Ants
Ants harass the city and ruin the crops. They have devoured more than one heavy-sleeping Christian via the navel.
In extraordinary session, Havana’s authorities resolve to ask the protection of a patron saint against the bibijaguas and other fierce ants.
Before the Reverend Alonso Álvarez, lots are drawn among the twelve apostles. The winner is St. Simon, whom they take as advocate so that he may intercede with Our Lord God, that He may remove all ants from this community, the houses and haciendas of this town, and its environs.
In return, the city will throw an annual party in honor of the blessed St. Simon, with sung vespers, Mass, compulsory-attendance procession, and bullfight.
(161)
1571: Mexico City Thou Shalt Inform On Thy Neighbor
From the balconies hang coats of arms, gay carpets, velvets, banners. The armor of the knight of the Order of Santiago, who dips his standard before the viceroy, glitters. Pages raise their big axes around the immense cross nailed to the scaffold.
The inquisitor general is arriving from Madrid. Kettledrums and trumpets announce him. He comes on the back of a mule with jeweled trappings, amid countless lighted candles and black capes.
Under his supreme authority heretics will be tortured or burned. Centuries ago Pope Innocent IV ordered assassins of souls and robbers of the faith of Christ to be rewarded with torments; and much later Pope Paul III prohibited the torture to last more than an hour. Since then, inquisitors take a small break from their work every hour. The inquisitor general newly arrived in Mexico will see to it that green wood is never used in the executions, so that the city will not be choked with noxious smoke; and he will order them for clear days so that all may appreciate them. He will not bother with Indians, since they are new in the faith, feeble folk, and of little substance.
The inquisitor general takes his seat beside the viceroy. An artillery salvo greets him. The drums roll and the town crier proclaims the general edict of the faith. The edict orders everyone to inform on anyone they know or have seen or heard, not excepting wives, husbands, fathers, or anyone else, no matter how intimate. All are obliged to denounce live or dead people who have said or believed heretical, suspicious, erroneous, reckless, offensive, scandalous, or blasphemous words or opinions.
(115 and 139)
1571: Madrid Who Is Guilty, Criminal or Witness?
The face itself, or the mirror that reflects it? The king does not think twice about it. By decree he orders the confiscation of all the manuscripts left by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas so that they may not fall into the hands of bad Spaniards and enemies of Spain. Especially worrying to Philip II is the possible publication or circulation in some manner of the extremely voluminous History of the Indies, which Las Casas could not finish and which survives, a prisoner under lock and key, in the San Gregorio monastery.
(70 and 90)
1572: Cuzco