Repentance

Fray Toribio de Motolinia

Fray Toribio de Motolinia placed ten crosses in the Mexican earth to atone for sins of European Christians.

This cross, my God, is for the diseases that were not known here and that rage so terribly among the natives.

This one is for war and this for hunger, which has killed as many Indians as there are drops in the sea or grains of the sand.

This is for the tribute collectors, drones who eat the honey of the Indians; and this one for tribute which the Indians must sell their children and their lands to pay.

This is for the gold mines, which stink so of death that one can’t go within a league of them.

This is for the slaves who have been dragged here from all directions like herds of beasts, branded on the face; and this one for those who fall by the wayside carrying the enormous loads to maintain the mines.

And this one, Lord, for the perpetual conflicts and skirmishes of us Spaniards, which always end with the torture and murder of Indians.

Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire: Genesis, 95

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10601a.htm