The scope of the laws was originally restricted to the island of Hispaniola but was later extended to the islands of Puerto Rico and Santiago, later renamed Jamaica. These laws authorized and legalized the colonial practice of creating encomiendas, where Indians were grouped together to work under a colonial head of the estate for a salary, and limited the size of these establishments to between 40 and 150 people. They also established a minutely regulated regime of work, pay, provisioning, living quarters, and diet.[1] Women more than four months pregnant were exempted from heavy labor.[2]
The document also prohibited the use of any form of punishment by the encomenderos, reserving it for officials established in each town for the implementation of the laws. It also ordered that the Indians be catechized, outlawed bigamy, and required that the huts and cabins of the Indians be built together with those of the Spanish. It respected, in some ways, the traditional authorities, granting chiefs exemptions from ordinary jobs and granting them various Indians as servants.[3]
They were amended and improved in the Laws of Valladolid the following year, 1513.[citation needed]
The limited fulfillment of the laws sometimes led to protests and claims.[citation needed] Sometimes they were seen as a legalization of the previously poorer situation, which created momentum for reform, later carried out through the Leyes Nuevas ("New Laws") in 1542, a new set of stricter regulations about life in the New World including the rights of indigenous peoples, as well as the Laws of the Indies, to encompass the Papal bull and all edicts.
Generally, these laws are considered to be precursors of the declaration of human rights and international law,[4] although some scholars criticize their lack of implementation and some of its policies.[5]
Origins
Cardinal Archbishop Domingo de Mendoza of Seville heard reports of the abuse of the Americas' Indians and sent a group of Dominican missionaries to Hispaniola to stop the maltreatment. They could not legally stop it, but missionaries made complaints and stirred up a debate that the settlers feared would make them lose their property interests; Fray Antonio de Montesinos preached to the colonists that they were sinning and did not have the right to force the Indians to serve them, claiming they should only be converted to Christianity.[citation needed]
The colonists disagreed and decided the best way to protect their interests was to come together as a group and choose a Franciscan Friar named Alonso de Espinal to present their case to King Ferdinand II of Aragon and his daughter Queen Joanna of Castile, the co-rulers of Spain, and refute Montesinos's accusations. The colonists' plan backfired, though, and Spain was outraged by the cases of maltreatment of the Indians. To solve the moral and legal question, the rulers commissioned a group of theologians and academics to come up with a solution.
The friars and other Spanish academics pressured King Ferdinand II of Aragon and his daughter, now the ruling Queen of Castile, Joanna I of Castile, to pass a set of laws to protect the rights of the natives of the New World, which were to become the 1512 Laws of Burgos. In Burgos, on 27 December 1512, thirty-five laws were put into effect to secure the freedom of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and to enforce Indian Reductions rules governing conversions.
Summary
It declared that the Indians are free people; that they ought to be instructed in the Christian faith; that they might be ordered to work, but so that their working should not hinder their conversion, and should be such as they could endure; that they should have cottages and lands of their own, and time to work for themselves; that they should hold communication with the Christians; and that they should receive wages, not paid in money, but in clothes and furniture for their cottages.[6]
In total there were 35 laws promulgated by the Burgos document in 1512, summarized as follows:[7][2]
The Indians are to be moved to encomiendas. For every fifty Indians, four lodges shall be built (thirty by fifteen feet). This land cannot be taken from them since they were taken from their original land. The Indians will do the planting of all of the food. During the proper seasons, the encomenderos (men looking over the Indians) will have the Indians plant corn and raise the hens.
The Indians will leave their land voluntarily to come to the encomiendas so that they shall not suffer from being removed by force.
The citizen to whom the Indians are given must erect a structure to be used as a church. In the church must be a picture of Our Lady and a bell with which to call the Indians to prayer time. The person who has them in the encomienda must go with them to church every night and make sure they cross themselves and sing several hymns. If an Indian does not come to the church, he is not allowed to rest the next day.
To make sure the Indians are learning Christianity properly, they shall be tested every two weeks and taught what they do not know by the Encomendero. He shall teach them the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Articles of Faith. Any encomendero that does not do this properly will be fined six gold pesos.
A church will be built equidistant from all estates. On Sundays, Mass shall be observed and a feast will be eaten. If the encomendero does not bring his Indians, he will be charged ten gold pesos.
If the church is too far away, another will be built.
The priests who collect tithes from the estates must have priests continually in the churches of the estates.
There shall be churches built at the mines so that the Indians working the mines may hear mass on Sundays.
Whoever has fifty Indians must choose one boy who the encomendero thinks is able, to be taught to read and write, and also the importance of Catholicism. This boy will then teach the other Indians because the Indians would more readily accept what the boy says than what the Spaniards says. If the encomendero has one hundred Indians, two boys shall be chosen. The faith must be ingrained into their heads so the souls of the Indians are saved.
If an Indian falls sick near where there is a priest, the priest must go to him and recite the Credo and other profitable things of the Catholic faith. The Indian shall make confession without being charged a fee. If the Indian is to die, he shall be buried with a cross near the church. If he is not buried, the encomendero owes a fine of four gold pesos.
The Indians must not be used as carriers for transporting things to the Indians at the mines.
All Spanish inhabitants who have Indians in an encomienda must have the infants baptized within a week of their birth.
After the Indians have been brought to the estates, gold shall be searched for as follows: Indians in an encomienda must search for gold for five months a year and at the end of the five months are allowed to rest for forty days. During the forty days, the Indians are not to be employed, unless they are a slave and accept to plant the crops. During the forty days, the Indians will be further instructed in faith since they have more time to learn.
The Indians must be allowed to perform their sacred dances.
All citizens who have Indians are required to feed them breads, yams, peppers, and on Sundays feed them dishes of cooked meat. For every offense, a fine of two gold pesos shall be paid.
According to Catholicism, the Indians are not allowed to have more than one wife at a time and they are not allowed to abandon their wives.
Sons of the chiefs of the Islands who are under the age of thirteen are to be given to the Friars so they can be taught how to read, write, and other things about Catholicism. When the sons reach the age of nineteen, they are to return to the encomienda and teach the others.
Pregnant women are not to be sent to the mines or made to plant the crops. They shall be kept on the estate and made to do household duties such as cooking and weeding. After the child is born, she can nurse it until it is three years old. After this time, she can return to the mines and other duties.
The Indians should not sleep on the ground. Each encomendero should provide his Indians with hammocks.
The Indians are to be given one gold peso every year to pay for clothing.
Indians may not change their masters. One encomendero cannot employ or house an Indian belonging to another encomendero.
The Indian chiefs are allowed two Indians to perform personal duties for every forty of their subjects. Also, visitors to the estates must treat the Indians well and teach them what they know of Catholicism.
Official inspectors must keep records of the activities and also the treatment of the Indians in the encomiendas. They must keep track of the population and how much gold is being mined.
The Indians are not to be physically or verbally abused for any reason.
The Indians are not to be used in private trade or for any other economic interest.
Encomenderos that have their Indians working in distant mines shall combine efforts with other estates to help provide food for the Indians.
Indians from other lands must also be taught the things of the Catholic faith. They are to be treated kindly, unless they are slaves.
If an encomendero dies, his successor takes control of the Indians.
Two inspectors should be appointed to each Estate.
The inspectors are to be chosen by the Admiral, judges, and officers. These people should be compensated by being given Indians in encomienda.
Villages should be inspected two times a year, once in the beginning of the year, and once in the summer.
If there is a runaway Indian, inspectors cannot apprehend them. They must be given to a man of good conscience who will find the Indians' encomendero.
All inspectors should hold a copy of the Laws of Burgos, signed by the Governor.
Inspectors must be provided residences.
One person may not have more than one hundred and fifty Indians and no less than forty Indians in encomienda at one time.
Amendments were added to the Laws of Burgos on 28 July 1513.
Indian women married to Indian men are not to be forced to serve with their husbands at the mines or anywhere else unless it is by their own free will or unless their husbands wish to take them.
Indian children do not have to do the work of adults until the reach the age of fourteen. They are then made to do the tasks of children, like weeding or working in their parents' estates.
Unmarried Indian women who are under the authority of their parents have to work with them on their lands. Those not under the authority of their parents must be kept apart so they do not become vagabonds.
After two years of service, the Indians are free to go. By this time they will be civilized and proper Christians, able to govern themselves.
Results
Bartolomé de Las Casas believed that the New World was granted to Spain and Portugal solely for the conversion of the Native residents. The Indians, he believed, should not be used for other purposes, especially not for profit. The only solution was to remove the presence of the Spanish colonists from the Indians, except for practising missionaries.
On 28 July 1513, four more laws were added in what is known today as Leyes Complementarias de Valladolid 1513, three related to Indian women and Indian children and another more related to Indian males. They were operational till 17 November 1526, when the so-called Ordenanzas de Granada 1526 came effective. These new amended laws reflected the theological and political disputes among the Spanish theologians, and the intervention of the Popes including their advisers.
The later "Ordenanzas de Granada," 1526, were discussed mainly between king Charles I of Spain and "Licenciado" Rodrigo de Figueroa as a consequence of the extensive Institutional Battling promoted by famous Dominican Father Bartolomé de las Casas, an offspring of a merchant family from Seville, dealing in the past with black African slaves brought to the Caribbean islands, apparently, since no earlier than 1501, borrowing perhaps, in some cases, the sociological views on "evangelization" of renowned Scottish Professor at University of Paris, c. 1510, John Mair, (1467–1550).
Hanke, Lewis (1949). The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (1959ed.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp.23–25.
Hussey, Ronald D. (1932). "Text of the Laws of Burgos (1512-1513) Concerning the Treatment of the Indians". The Hispanic American Historical Review. 12 (3): 301–326. doi:10.2307/2506673. JSTOR2506673.
Simpson, Lesley Byrd (1950). The Encomienda of New Spain (1982 Reprinted.). University of California Press. pp.29–38. ISBN0520046307.
Pedro FERNANDEZ RODRIGUEZ. "los dominicos en el contexto de la primera evangelizacion de Mexico, (1526–1550)", Salamanca, Edit. San Esteban, 308 pages, (1994),
A. MORO OREJON. "Ordenanzas reales sobre los Indios, (Las Leyes de 1512–1513)". Anuario de Estudios Americanos, 13, (1956), pp 317 – 371.
R. KONETZKE. Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de la Formacion Social de Hispano-America, 1493–1810, Vol. 1, 1493–1592, Madrid, C.S.I.C., (1953).
R. ALTAMIRA. "El texto de las Leyes de Burgos de 1512". Rev. de Historia de America, 4, (1938), pages 6 – 79.
V. D. CARRO. "La Teologia y los Teologos-Juristas Españoles en la Conquista de America", Madrid, C.S.I.C., 2 vols, (1944). 2nd edition, Salamanca, (1951).
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
The Spanish colonization of the Americas began in 1493 on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola after the initial 1492 voyage of Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus under license from Queen Isabella I of Castile. These overseas territories of the Spanish Empire were under the jurisdiction of Crown of Castile until the last territory was lost in 1898. Spaniards saw the dense populations of indigenous peoples as an important economic resource and the territory claimed as potentially producing great wealth for individual Spaniards and the crown. Religion played an important role in the Spanish conquest and incorporation of indigenous peoples, bringing them into the Catholic Church peacefully or by force. The crown created civil and religious structures to administer the vast territory. Spanish men and women settled in greatest numbers where there were dense indigenous populations and the existence of valuable resources for extraction.
Bartolomé de las Casas, OP was a Spanish clergyman, writer, and activist best known for his work as an historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman, then became a Dominican friar. He was appointed as the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings, the most famous being A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Historia de Las Indias, chronicle the first decades of colonization of the Caribbean islands. He described and railed against the atrocities committed by the conquistadores against the indigenous peoples.
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar was a Spanish conquistador and the first governor of Cuba. In 1511 he led the successful conquest and colonization of Cuba. As the first governor of the island, he established several municipalities that remain important to this day and positioned Cuba as a center of trade and a staging point for expeditions of conquest elsewhere. From Cuba, he chartered important expeditions that led to the Spanish discovery and conquest of the Aztec Empire.
Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during the territories' imperial era between 15th and 19th centuries. To the end of its imperial rule, Spain called its overseas possessions in the Americas and the Philippines "The Indies", an enduring remnant of Columbus's notion that he had reached Asia by sailing west. When these territories reach a high level of importance, the crown established the Council of the Indies in 1524, following the conquest of the Aztec Empire, asserting permanent royal control over its possessions. Regions with dense indigenous populations and sources of mineral wealth attracting Spanish settlers became colonial centers, while those without such resources were peripheral to crown interest. Once regions incorporated into the empire and their importance assessed, overseas possessions came under stronger or weaker crown control.
The encomienda was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. In theory, the conquerors provided the labourers with benefits, including military protection and education. The encomienda was first established in Spain following the Christian Reconquista, and it was applied on a much larger scale during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Spanish East Indies. Conquered peoples were considered vassals of the Spanish monarch. The Crown awarded an encomienda as a grant to a particular individual. In the conquest era of the early sixteenth century, the grants were considered a monopoly on the labour of particular groups of indigenous peoples, held in perpetuity by the grant holder, called the encomendero; starting from the New Laws of 1542, the encomienda ended upon the death of the encomendero, and was replaced by the repartimiento.
The New Laws, also known as the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians, were issued on November 20, 1542, by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and regard the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Following denunciations and calls for reform from individuals such as the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, these laws were intended to prevent the exploitation and mistreatment of the indigenous peoples of the Americas by the encomenderos, by limiting their power and dominion over groups of natives.
Slavery in the Spanish American viceroyalties included indigenous peoples, enslaved people from Africa, and enslaved people from Asia. The economic and social institution of slavery existed throughout the Spanish Empire including Spain itself. Enslaved Africans were brought over to the continent for their labour, indigenous people were enslaved until the 1543 laws that prohibited it.
The Spanish Requirement of 1513 (Requerimiento) was a declaration by the Spanish monarchy, written by the Council of Castile jurist Juan López de Palacios Rubios, of Castile's divinely ordained right to take possession of the territories of the New World and to subjugate, exploit and, when necessary, to fight the native inhabitants. The declaration was made on behalf of Ferdinand II of Aragon and his daughter, the Queen regnant Joanna of Castile.
A tributary state is a pre-modern state in a particular type of subordinate relationship to a more powerful state which involved the sending of a regular token of submission, or tribute, to the superior power. This token often took the form of a substantial transfer of wealth, such as the delivery of gold, produce, or slaves, so that tribute might best be seen as the payment of protection money. It might also be more symbolic: sometimes it amounted to no more than the delivery of a mark of submission such as the bunga mas that rulers in the Malay Peninsula used to send to the kings of Siam, or the Tribute of the Maltese Falcon that the Grand Master of the Order of St. John used to send annually to the Viceroy of Sicily in order to rule Malta. It might also involve attendance by the subordinate ruler at the court of the hegemon in order to make a public show of submission.
Frey Nicolás de Ovando was a Spanish soldier from a noble family and a Knight of the Order of Alcántara, a military order of Spain. He was Governor of the Indies (Hispaniola) from 1502 until 1509, sent by the Spanish crown to investigate the administration of Francisco de Bobadilla and re-establish order. Ovando "pacified" the island by force, subduing native Americans and rebellious Spaniards, with disorderly colonists being sent back to Spain in chains. He implemented the encomienda system with the native Taíno population.
The Laws of the Indies are the entire body of laws issued by the Spanish Crown for the American and the Asian possessions of its empire. They regulated social, political, religious, and economic life in these areas. The laws are composed of myriad decrees issued over the centuries and the important laws of the 16th century, which attempted to regulate the interactions between the settlers and natives, such as the Laws of Burgos (1512) and the New Laws (1542). Throughout the 400 years of Spanish presence in these parts of the world, the laws were compiled several times, most notably in 1680 under Charles II in the Recopilación de las Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias. This became considered the classic collection of the laws, although later laws superseded parts of it, and other compilations were issued.
A cabeza de barangay, also known as teniente del barrio, was the head of a barangay or barrio political unit in the Philippines during Spanish rule. The office was inherited from the Malayan aristocratic rank of datu after barangays had become tributaries of the Kingdom of the Spains and the Indies. Philip II of Spain decreed that the nobility in the Philippine islands should retain the honours and privileges they had before their conversion to Christianity and subjugation to Spanish rule.
The Real Audiencia of Manila was the Real Audiencia of the Spanish East Indies, which included modern-day Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Micronesia and the Philippines. Similar to Real Audiencias throughout the Spanish Empire, it was the highest tribunal within the territories of the Captaincy General of the Philippines, a dependency of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Andrés Díaz Venero de Leiva was the first president of the New Kingdom of Granada, appointed in 1564.
The Huilliche uprising of 1712 was an indigenous uprising against the Spanish encomenderos of the Chiloé Archipelago, which was then a part of the Captaincy General of Chile. The rebellion took place in the central part of the archipelago.
Slavery in Latin America was an economic and social institution that existed in Latin America before the colonial era until its legal abolition in the newly independent states during the 19th century. However, it continued illegally in some regions into the 20th century. Slavery in Latin America began in the pre-colonial period when indigenous civilizations, including the Maya and Aztec, enslaved captives taken in war. After the conquest of Latin America by the Spanish and Portuguese, of the nearly 12 million slaves that were shipped across the Atlantic, over 4 million enslaved Africans were brought to Latin America. Roughly 3.5 million of those slaves were brought to Brazil.
The practice of slavery in present-day Colombia dates back to the pre-Spanish era and persisted until its definitive abolition in 1851. This practice involved the human trafficking of indigenous individuals, initially among indigenous groups such as the Chibchas, the Muzos, or the Panches, and later by European traders, particularly the Portuguese, who brought enslaved Africans, to the region. Subsequently, commercial elites of the early Republic of New Granada, what is present-day Colombia, also participated in this trade.
An encomienda in Peru was a reward offered to each of the men under the leadership of Francisco Pizarro who began the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532. In the early colonial period of the New World, land had little economic value without labor to exploit it. The grant of an encomienda bestowed an encomendero, the right to collect tribute from a community of indigenous people. The word encomienda means "trust", indicating that the indigenous people were entrusted to the care and attention of an encomendero. In reality, the encomienda system is often compared to slavery. Theoretically, the encomendero grantee did not own the people or the land occupied by his subjects, but only the right to tribute, usually in the form of labor, that he could extract from them.
Polo Ondegardo was a Spanish colonial jurist, civil servant, businessman and thinker who proposed an intellectual and political vision of profound influence in the earliest troubled stage of the contact between the Hispanic and the American Indigenous world. He was born in Valladolid, when the city was the capital of the kingdom of Castile, to a prominent noble family that had strong ties to the royal family. He spent his entire adult life in South America in what is now Peru and Bolivia. He was involved in the political and economic management of the Spanish colony and based on his good knowledge of the laws as licenciado (licentiate) acquired a deep knowledge and practical experience of the Native Americans in the southern Andes, being an encomendero, visitador and corregidor in the provinces of Charcas and Cusco. His administrative reports, well known and appreciated by his peers and contemporaries, have had wide repercussions in the field of Andean studies up to the present time.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
