Against The Applicable Law And Practiced Religion Of Columbus

PART XI / XIV

The decisive meeting between the Catholic Monarchs and Columbus was held at the Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe in Gaudalupe, Caceres, in Extremadura, Spain. The meeting occurred in June 1492, and is the same venue that houses the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe, also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe, an adaptation of the Virgin Mary by the Latin Catholic Church associated with apparitions in Mexico.

In 1493, Columbus returned from his first voyage back to the same venue in which the decisive meeting took place, the Spanish Monastery of Santa Maria, which houses the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, to thank Her for his success.

Te Deum Excerpt, Chapter 8

1512 – Laws of Burgos

The Laws of Burgos of 1512 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 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.

In total, there were 35 laws promulgated by the Burgos document in 1512. 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.

The limited fulfillment of the laws sometimes led to protests and claims. Sometimes they were seen as a legalization of the previously poorer situation.

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 practicing missionaries.

Cardinal Archbishop Domingo Mendoza of Seville heard of reports of the abuse of 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.

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. Dominican Friars, under the sponsorship of Diego de Deza, supported the scientific examination of Christopher Columbus’s claims for exploring the West that Columbus presented to then Queen of Castile, Isabel I of Castile, and her husband, King of Aragon Ferdinand II of Aragon.

After 1508, the friars made the case to defend the aboriginal American Indians from becoming serfs or slaves of the new colonists. 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, put into effect on December 27, 1512. A step forward to secure the freedom of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and to enforce Indian Reductions rules governing conversions.

1542 – New Laws

A number of Spanish missionaries argued for stricter rules, including Bartolomé de las Casas and Francisco de Vitoria. Their goal was to protect the Indians against forced labor and expropriation, and to preserve their cultures. Some discussions challenged the very legitimacy of the conquest and colonization. Eventually, the reformists influenced the King and his court to pass reforms that came to be known as the New Laws.

Some of these laws were redundant. Some established protections and rights for Native Americans that native Spaniards did not have themselves. Given the distance from the colonies and the time needed to travel between there and Spain, the Crown was unable to fully monitor compliance with the more ambiguous laws.

The new laws included the prohibition of enslavement of the Indians and provided for gradual abolition of the ‘encomienda’ system in America by forbidding it to be inherited by descendants. The New Laws stated that the natives would be considered free persons, and the ‘encomenderos’ could no longer demand their labor. However, the prohibition against enslaving Indians was a right that did not apply to native Castilians themselves. In Spain, slavery was permitted almost exclusively as a penalty for a serious crime or some exceptional circumstances. Granting extra protection for Native Americans was an attempt by the Crown to address its inability to monitor, from Spain, the legitimacy of the claims regarding reasons to enslave a person in the New World, and it acknowledged that false claims could be fabricated to enslave and exploit the native peoples.

The introduction and corruption of the ‘encomienda’ system is now considered to have been an alternative for outright slavery and a Castilian institution that did not work properly in America. The ‘encomienda’ was a system that interchanged a person’s work for military protection by a higher authority. It had been part of the Castilian legal system since the Reconquista. Given the limited size of the Crown’s army, this system allowed nobles or warlords to trade protection for the labor of persons under their purview. It was a way to aid in ensuring the safety of the population of the border areas during the repopulation of the no-man’s-land between Castile and the southern Muslim areas. It required either the consent of both parties or the direct intervention of the king, who was responsible for setting reasonable conditions for the parties and to intervene (militarily if required) in case of abuses.

In America, however, colonists used ‘encomiendas’ to create conditions similar to slavery in areas that did not require such protection. Authorities other than the king claimed the right to assign ‘encomiendas’ and assigned the most unpleasant or dangerous jobs to the natives.

When the New Laws where passed, every European man holding an ‘encomienda’ in Peru learned that his grant of labor could be confiscated if he was guilty of having taken part in the civil disturbances of Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. As a result, privileged Spanish colonists were disturbed about implementing the New Laws. In Peru, Gonzalo Pizarro led a revolt of protesting ‘encomenderos’, who took to arms to “maintain their rights by force” for control of Indian lands and labor.

The Supreme Court of Peru invited Pizarro to take control of the government after his forces reached Lima from Bolivia. Pizarro took over Lima and Quito (now in Ecuador). Viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela, who had attempted to impose the decrees, was overthrown. Pizarro and his army killed Núñez Vela in 1546. Pizarro’s power stretched form Peru north to Panama. Charles I and the court became alarmed, and were convinced that the immediate abolition of the ‘encomienda’ system would bring economic ruin to the colonies. To deal with the revolt, Charles I sent Pedro de la Gasca to the colony; a bishop and diplomat, he did not command an army but was given full powers to rule and negotiate a settlement with Pizarro and his followers. However, Pizarro declared Peru independent from the King. La Gasca provisionally suspended the New Laws. Pizarro was later captured and executed, accused of being a “traitor to the King.”

Although in New Spain (now Mexico), the initial reaction of ‘encomenderos’ was noncompliance, they did not organize a rebellion as in Peru. New Spain’s first viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, prudently refrained from enforcing the parts of the New Laws most objectionable to the ‘encomenderos’.

While the New Laws were partly successful, due to the opposition of colonists, they did result in the liberation of thousands of indigenous workers from enforced servitude.

Part XII

Part X

Preface