Procuradores of New Spain 
143 
to your pleasure, giving some more and others less, harm will result as 
already stated, for in that case the men there would be like a garrison on 
a frontier, and neither would nor could take any interest in the conversion 
of the natives, but only in collecting their salaries. They would not plant 
nor build, the country would go on using them up, and it would be neces¬ 
sary to send people by force from these kingdoms—but only to swell the 
number of deaths. There would be no one to support the religious or 
the clergy or the churches, nor any one to give tithes, nor to whom to sell 
the products of the Indians. It is a great error to think that the Spaniards, 
with salaries alone, will plant or raise crops, as has been said, for they will 
have no place to do it, nor any motive except to return to their own land 
and enjoy what they may have saved from their pay. 
Although it may be assumed and said—as some say and have wished to 
say—that it is evident that your Majesty, by taking all the tributes, would 
enrich yourself more, since you would take all that the encomenderos 
[take] and what they spend in one thing and another you would gain, 
and that you would sustain the country as they sustain it, with the men, 
as has been said, that would be in it—we cannot believe that this proceeds 
from your royal intention, for, besides being a thing that could not be 
endured, there are sufficient reasons already given why in this way the 
land would be lost. No Spaniard would remain in it, and it must be 
granted as a well-known fact that the tributes given by the Indians, as 
has been said, consist of blankets and maize and other things which the 
country produces. For they do not give gold or silver, or if any do give 
them, it is in but a few towns, and in small quantity. From such things 
it is clear that there would be no large revenues for your Majesty, and 
what has come to you has not been from the tributes but from what the 
Spaniards who have had Indians have given, through their industry in 
looking for mines, and buying slaves, and tools, for which they sent to 
these kingdoms. They buy for their slaves the food, necessaries, and 
blankets which the Indians give in tribute, and they trade with one 
another, and this commerce causes the things to rise in value. With this, 
gold and silver are produced with which to pay the duties to your Majesty, 
so that, on the one hand, value is given to the things produced, and, for 
this reason, encouragement to plant and raise cattle, and, on the other 
hand, tithes are provided for. It results that your Majesty has not only 
the fifth which is due you, but the fifths of all the estates that are worth 
enough to pay the percentage to your Majesty, for what is produced by 
five slaves constitutes the fifth for your Majesty, and similarly with the 
other things. Therefore, if this trade does not exist, it is evident that the 
revenue of your Majesty will be lost, for, if there be no perpetuity, none 
of these things can be done, nor will there be any one to do them. 
Another reason. It has been seen by experience that at the time when 
your Majesty, in the year ’30, ordered that the Indians should be placed 
under your rule, the food, necessaries, and other things began to run 
down very much in price. A bushel of wheat was worth one real, a 
load of the best blankets three dollars, which are twenty-four reales in 
silver, and one of maize one-half real. The cattle and animals were held 
at very low prices, and there was no one to buy them. When the persons 
