Cardinal Adrian’s councils declare the Indians free and sign Paria contract

Then bishop of Burgos sent to summon the cleric Casas, and the Bishop gathered to himself Hernando de Vega, and the licentiate Zapata, and Francisco de los Cobos, secretary, and others of the Royal Council, and treating with the Cleric for and against, he defending the for, and the Bishop and the rest the against, limiting and narrowing the power given to the Cleric and the whole negotiation (although not with so much rigor, but very differently from the manner the Bishop had held before, seeing that the whole congregation of the learned had determined it, and also because his anger at the Cleric now seemed to have been mitigated, for the vexations the Cleric had so many times caused him), the agreement was finally concluded in good peace, designating as limits of the land that was entrusted to him from the province of Paria inclusive to that of Santa Marta exclusive, which along the seacoast, east and west, are 260 leagues, a few more or less, and both limits running in a straight line until they reach the other coast of the South or Mediodía, which are, as has since appeared, more than 2,500 leagues inland, because there is no other sea until the strait of Magellan. …