Spanish Law of the Indies

After Christopher Columbus` voyage in 1492, settlers, explorers, and conquistadors of all kinds immediately headed to the New World colonies, where they tortured and killed Indigenous peoples to take their lands and wealth. The first four role groups should prepare a position with arguments on each of the proposed laws, while the last group (the Council) should develop questions. Each group will then present its position on the first legislative proposal to the Council of India. The Council can ask questions of any group once it is ready. The Council will then discuss and decide whether to approve, reject or amend the proposed legislation. The same procedure should be followed when examining other legislative proposals. Las Casas, Bartolomé de. A brief account of the destruction of India. New York: Penguin Books, 1992 [originally published 1552]. La Recopilación was criticized for its many inconsistencies, periodic inaccuracies in wording, and excessive attention to trivial and ceremonial issues and trade regulations that were virtually unenforceable, and for depriving colonial masters of a responsible role in government and commerce. Yet it was the most comprehensive code of law ever introduced for a colonial empire, establishing humane (though often ignored) principles for the treatment of Native Americans. As for the new laws, they marked an important change in Spanish politics.

The era of conquest was over: bureaucrats, not conquistadors, would hold power in America. Depriving the conquistadors of their encomiendas meant nipping the nascent aristocratic class in the bud. Although King Charles repealed the New Laws, he had other ways to weaken the powerful New World elite, and within a generation or two, most encomiendas had returned to the crown anyway. Laws of India, the body of law promulgated by the Spanish Crown in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries for the government of its kingdoms (colonies) outside Europe, mainly in America; specifically, a series of collections of decrees (cedulas) compiled and published with royal permission, culminating in the Recopilación de las leyes de los reinos de Indias (1680). Since the beginning of the colonization of America, Castilian law was the basic private law in the colonies, but since there were special conditions, the Spanish crown enacted laws in the field of public law specifically for India (America). An important aspect of this legislation was therefore the adaptation of Castilian administrative and judicial institutions to the state needs of the New World. The laws of Burgos were promulgated in December. On 27, 1512, by Ferdinand II, the Catholic, governed the relations between the Spaniards and the conquered Indians, especially to ensure the spiritual and material well-being of the latter, who were often treated severely. Charles I`s New Laws of India (1542), which sought to correct shortcomings in the previous code, met with armed resistance from American colonists and was reissued in a weaker version in 1552. In the same year, a Commercial Code was published for the Casa de Contratación (Chamber of Commerce). In 1563, the powers and procedures of colonial audiencias (courts) were established. The Discovery Ordinances issued in 1573 prohibited unauthorized operations against independent Indian tribes.

1. Conquistadors: soldiers and encomienda masters who conquered the New World for Spain 2. Viceroys: The king`s representatives in the New World. Each heads the government of a Spanish colony. 2. What is the Encomienda system? How did the conquistadors justify this? How did Las Casas and other critics condemn him? Pizarro`s revolution was crushed, but the revolt showed the King of Spain that the Spaniards of the New World (and Peru in particular) were serious about protecting their interests. Although the king believed that the new laws were morally the right thing to do, he feared that Peru would declare itself an independent kingdom (many of Pizarro`s supporters had urged him to do so). Charles listened to his advisers, who told him that he had better seriously weaken the New Laws, or he risked losing parts of his new empire. The new laws were repealed and a watered-down version was passed in 1552. The reaction to the new laws was swift and radical: conquistadors and settlers throughout Spanish America were furious. Blasco Nuñez Vela, the Spanish viceroy, came to the New World in early 1544 and announced that he intended to enforce the New Laws.

In Peru, where the former conquistadors had the most to lose, the settlers rallied behind Gonzalo Pizarro, the last of the Pizarro brothers (Juan and Francisco died and Hernando Pizarro was still alive but imprisoned in Spain). Pizarro raised an army and declared that he would defend the rights for which he and so many others had fought so hard. At the Battle of Añaquito in January 1546, Pizarro defeated Viceroy Núñez Vela, who was killed in battle. Later, an army commanded by Pedro de la Gasca defeated Pizarro in April 1548: Pizarro was executed. In 1495, the Crown ordered that money from the sale of Indian slaves be set aside until some troubling questions could be resolved: Did Spain have “only title” to India? Could Spain legitimately wage war on indigenous peoples, enslaving them or forcing them to work in some other way? Did the Indians have the ability to embrace Christianity and live like the Spaniards? Were the Indians human beings? The Valladolid debate (1550-1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of a people colonized by colonizers. It took place at the Colegio de San Gregorio in the Spanish city of Valladolid and was a moral and theological debate about the colonization of America, its justification for conversion to Catholicism and, in particular, about the relationship between European settlers and New World Native Americans. These were a number of opposing views on how indigenous people should be integrated into colonial life, their conversion to Christianity, and their rights and duties. According to French historian Jean Dumont, the Valladolid debate was an important turning point in world history “At that moment, the dawn of human rights appeared in Spain”. [2] Most of the cantons established in any part of the Spanish Empire in America before the various parts became independent countries were planned according to laws. This includes many townships with Spanish names in what is now the United States.

The creation of a central square and a straight street grid differed from the random and organic growth that led to winding streets in many former cantons of the Iberian Peninsula. At this point, we should take a step back and look at how cities were planned and laid out in colonial times in the Southwest and Mexico. We need to have an understanding of Spanish urbanism because the basic rules as practiced in colonial times influenced the collective architecture of houses, institutional structures such as government buildings and churches, and public spaces. These, in turn, formed the very specific streetscape that defines Latin American urbanism. Las Casas continued to catalog the tortures of the conquistadors – throwing Indians into pits with sharp stakes, impaling them from horses as they tried to escape, grilling children on a fire. The Dominican monk eventually accused that after the survivors were enslaved or forced into encomiendas, their Spanish masters began to “slowly kill them with forced labor.” In America, events have taken their own course. The Spanish conquistadors who went to Hispaniola, then to other Caribbean islands and finally to the mainland were harsh and violent. They took what they wanted, and when the Indians resisted – or even when they didn`t – the conquistadors attacked them and massacred them.

Until 1499, Columbus rewarded his men for helping to conquer India by forcing the Indians to work for them. This prompted Queen Isabella to ask, “With what authority does the admiral give my vassals [subjects]?” (4) The books of Juan Gines de Sepulveda may not be printed or distributed in India. In addition, indigenous peoples should be treated fairly and granted broad rights. The encomiendas granted to members of the colonial bureaucracy or clergy were to be immediately returned to the crown. The clauses of the new laws that most worried the Spanish colonists were those that explained the decadence of the encomiendas or indigenous workers by those who had participated in the civil wars (which was the case for almost all Spaniards in Peru) and a provision that did not make the encomiendas hereditary: all encomiendas would return to the crown after the death of the current holder. The Spanish Viceroyalty in America generated conflicts between indigenous peoples (“indigenous” or “Indians”) and Spanish settlers. The Spanish tried to control the natives to force their work. At the same time, conflicts arose over policy and implementation between the Encomenderos and the Crown. The Spanish had a mixed record in America as a colonial power. The most terrible abuses occurred in the colonies: indigenous peoples were enslaved, murdered, tortured and raped during the conquest and at the beginning of the colonial period, later, they were deprived of their rights and excluded from power.

Individual atrocities are too numerous and horrific to list here. Conquistadors such as Pedro de Alvarado and Ambrosius Ehinger reached a level of cruelty almost unimaginable to modern feelings. Topics: History — History of modern times (1500 to 1700) In return, the natives provided food, gold, minerals, timber or other valuable goods that could be extracted from the country. The Encomienda land passed from one generation to the next, allowing the families of the conquistadors to settle as the local nobility.