For acting in any other way
burdens your royal conscience, since those who perform such service
are very poor, and do not dare to ask for their pay, if it is not
given them. Consequently they very often do not receive it. In this
way are they much burdened by personal services.
_Item_: Considering the nature of the Indians, who are generally
indolent and lazy--inasmuch as the religious have always forbidden
them to pay the tributes in kind, insisting that they be allowed to
choose for themselves in what they wish to pay it, consequently the
rate of living has risen greatly. The country is steadily going to ruin
because the Indians are not compelled to pay in kind; for they refuse
to plant or cultivate, and all engage in mercantile pursuits, seeing
that they can easily gain the ten reals which is the amount of their
tribute. Although the effort has been made to remedy this by another
way--namely, by official visits from the alcaldes-mayor, in order that
they may rear fowls and plant fields, the result of that has been to
strip them of their possessions. For when the alcaldes-mayor go to
inspect them (that is, every four months), and do not find the fowls
that they have ordered the Indians to rear, they sentence them to a
pecuniary fine. Such is the Indian that he does not take warning from
that, nor will he work unless he knows that he must pay the tribute
in kind. Moreover, it often occurs that the justices themselves take
from the Indian the fowls that he has reared; and then when they go
to visit him and he does not have them, they punish him with stripes
and fines.
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