Indian Laws

The Laws of the Indies are the legislation enacted by the Spanish monarchs to regulate the social, civil, political and economic life of the American and Asian territories belonging to the Spanish Empire.

Fundamentally, they are the compilation of the Laws of Burgos and the New Laws, which tried to grant rights to the indigenous people against the abuses that were being committed. As well as constituting a great 'corpus iuridicus' by which Regulations were established for festivals and other cultural activities, along with commercial exchanges and other economic activities, as well as guidelines on taxation (taxes) and the exercise of public offices (such as administration) and regulations. of coexistence for relations between the people of the Indies. Unlike other colonial empires of the time, the Spanish monarchy showed a deep zeal for establishing a legal basis for its overseas domains.

According to the Residency Trial, the conviction for incurring illegalities or errors with respect to the laws for the protection of the indigenous population (and in general, for the good administration of the Indies and its inhabitants), invalidated the functionary (including the viceroys) to be able to progress in the Spanish administration.

The compilation was printed on 6 occasions, all in Madrid: 1681, 1756, 1774, 1791, 1841 and 1889. Being composed of 9 Books (without names, only the enumeration), 218 titles (which indicate the subject to which that the ordinances and laws contained refer to) and 6377 laws. In addition to being constituents of the Newest Compilation of the Laws of Spain of 1805. In these, great legal importance was given to American customary law, both of Creole and indigenous origin, by which for the latter it ended up ordering that the indigenous laws and customs that were not in contradiction with religion or the laws in force in the Crown of Castile be maintained.

Background

From a formal point of view, Indian Law would emerge from the Capitulations of Santa Fe, where the conditions for the good government of the lands that were to be discovered were developed, inspired by medieval Castilian Law. In these initial years, in early Indian Law, the Capitulations (contracts of the Crown of Castile with a discoverer or conqueror) and the Asientos (commercial contracts) had a lot of weight to constitute a legislated right for America. From the first years of the conquest, there was concern on the part of the official authorities of the Hispanic Monarchy (such as the Catholic Monarchs) regarding the treatment that the natives of the West Indies (America) should have and how to ensure that the laws of the Spanish state are respected among their subjects. in the New World, whether Spanish or indigenous, faced with the dark news of the violations against their rights due to the lack of a predetermined and specific policy in these first years of the conquering enterprise (which was understood in different ways by its creators and some sometimes moving away from the official mission of the Spanish monarchy of being a pacification company). This caused countless laws to be passed in order to resolve the problems that appeared at every time and place in the enormous and diverse territory of the Indies, responding to information originated by heterogeneous and sometimes even contradictory interests, since the intervention of The crown and its laws of coexistence were essential to prevent it from falling into the law of the strongest. Causing it to be a priority for the Crown to serve American subjects first rather than peninsular subjects.

Isabel I of Castile was the first authority to worry about the Indians, being that in a Royal Provision of July 20, 1500, the Castilian monarch would prohibit slavery, as well as order that they be repatriated to America, and that their lands and properties that had previously belonged to them be returned to them. Declaring that not even a Spaniard had any power against his vassals, who were under his protection and that no one could dare to challenge his authority. From the beginning the Castilian monarch had asked the Spanish explorers to do "treat to said Indians very well and with affection, and to refrain from doing them any harm, providing that both towns should talk and be intimate and serve each other in everything they can"as dictated in a royal decree of May 29, 1493 giving instructions to Christopher Columbus in which the concern of the Spanish kings for the well-being of the Indians is evident from the first moment. Thus, the first antecedents to regulate the life of the Indian settlers were the Instructions of Granada in 1501, ordered by the Catholic Monarchs, Isabel and Ferdinand, to Friar Nicolás de Ovando, as a consequence of news about disorders made in the newly established Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, by which direct rules were established on the treatment that It should be given to the natives of the colonies, by which they conceive the Indians as worthy people and free vassals who must be well treated like those of Castile and any other person under their protection, according to the eternal Law of God. They even wanted to grant the Indians some rights that the Spaniards of the Metropolis did not possess (such as being consulted about the taxes that would be imposed on them, something that the Communards Movement demanded in the War of the Communities of Castile 20 years later).

"First, you will diligently seek the things of God's service... Because we wish the Indians to become our holy Catholic Faith, and their souls are saved... You will be very careful to seek, without making them any strength, how the religious who are there inform and admonish for it with much love... Others: You will seek as the Indians are well treated, and may surely walk all over the earth, and none will force them, neither steal them, nor do any other evil or harm." If the caciques know of any abuse, "let them tell you, for you will punish him." The tributes to the King must be agreed upon with them, "so that they may know that they are not made unrighteous." In the end, if the royal officers did something wrong, "remove them the office, and punish them according to righteousness... and in everything to do as vices that fulfill the service of God, and discard our consciences, and profit our rents, for we do all the confidence of you."

An example that these orders did not remain empty promises is in: The existence in the oldest documents, such as the one from the year 1503, which contains mandates to found educational institutions in the discovered territories, as well as for the construction of hospitals where it was urgent to care for the poor, be they pagan Indians or Christian Spaniards. Royal Decrees, Royal Decrees, Orders, Regulations, Offices or even Consultations and Debates between the Cortes were made solely for those purposes. Also a Royal Decree of April 16, 1495 for Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca in the Port of Cádiz with instructions to paralyze the sale of slaves, annulling another decree of April 12 tolerating the trade of slaves captured in war by the expedition of Antonio de Torres, based on the following reason: "Because We would like to obtain information from Lawyers, Theologians and Canonists if with good conscience can be sold», while he pointed out that Spain had to “avoid[r] the illegal and dangerous situation that was being consolidated in Portugal”. Subsequently, after the conclusion of a 5-year meeting of legal philosophers to verify the illegality of these acts, Isabela ordered that the Indians be collected to be delivered to Pedro de Torres and repatriated with their families, declaring that the Indians were “actual or potential subjects” of the Crown, decreeing the Royal Decree of June 20, 1500 (pointing to Pedro Torres) by which the Spaniards were obliged to place the Indians in freedom and returned to their lands (previously making an inventory of how many there were in Spain in order to achieve this efficiently), with future provisions in which it was formally decreed that the Indians were considered free men before the Hispanic Monarchy, that they should be returned their properties and reaffirming the prohibition on the sale of indigenous people.

"The Hispanic Monarchs become zealous defenders of the freedom of the Indians. Legal provisions are reiterated and very explicit by decreeing that aborigines were considered free, vassals of the Crown of Castile. "

Antonio Rumeu de Armas (histor)

"A memorable feast for the whole world, for it points out the first recognition of respect for the dignity and freedom of all men, as unseen and primitive as they may be; principle that had not been proclaimed in any legislation until then, and much less had been practiced in any country."

Rafael Altamira (histor)

In addition, since Isabela is imbued with a moral obligation to instruct the Indians in the Catholic religion with peace and tranquility, in a spirit of benevolence, sweetness and Christian peace, she demanded that messages and gifts be sent to the chiefs to meet and establish friendly relations with them in order to get them to accept the Gospel (which was a priority for the Spanish state, leaving economic benefits as something secondary, which she put into conflict to the government with some conquerors), Isabel la Católica longing for Castilian education to be taught (teaching Spanish and for Spaniards to learn native languages), health care to be established, political systems to be established and spiritual values to be disseminated Christians to their millions of new subjects; including the mandate to Nicolás de Ovando in 1503 in which he declared “Marry Spaniards with Indian women and Indian women with Spanish men” to promote Mestizaje and that spirit that both peoples should serve each other because they were under the protection of the same sovereign who saw them as equals, needing to become familiar and collaborate freely; Isabela also ordered Ovando that a chaplain live in each town, a church be built and the Indians be taught the Christian faith (the hospital was built San Nicolás de Bari, the first stone construction in Santo Domingo, and two other hospitals-hospices on the island). To ensure that its will is carried out, the monarchy sent trusted people from the kingdom (endowing them with administrative powers and judicial), such as Don Juan de Fonseca or Francisco de Bobadilla, to report on events in America and severely punish those who did not enforce the Queen's plans. Thus, the Instruction of March 29, 1503 introduced the figure and position of the Visitor, with the function of watching over the Indians and preventing any harm from being caused to them, not being able to allow the Spaniards to take advantage of the Indians, in addition to guarantee that the Spaniards paid a fair salary to the Indians who voluntarily wanted to work for them, in addition to verifying their commercial buying and selling relationships and that the Spaniards paid the Indians a fair amount for commercial exchanges; Emphasis would also be placed on the spiritual Soul of the Indian (something exclusive to human beings), as well as allowing Indians to travel to Europe (under the condition that it was of their own free will, requiring the authorization of the governor to verify it).

On her deathbed, Isabel la Católica would make it very clear in her will that her will to respect the indigenous people's rights and properties be imitated by the rest of her heirs, and that her subjects continue the work of Spain in the New World according to such indications (which would ultimately be the essence of the imperial doctrine that would inspire the Laws of the Indies):

"XI. I also command that insofar as the Pope granted us the Islands and Tierra Firme del Mar Ocean discovered and to discover [America and the nearby islands], and as it was my intention to seek, induce and attract the peoples who populate them to the Catholic faith, and send to the Prelate and Religious and Cleric Islands and other docta people... to instruct the inhabitants of those Catholic lands and to teach them good customs. I implore the king my lord very affectionately, and I order and command the princess, my daughter, and the prince, her husband, to do so, and to do so, and to do so, and to do so, to do much diligence, and to give no room for the Indians, neighbors, and inhabitants of the Indians and Tierra Firme, won and to win, to receive the right thing in their people, nor to give rise. "

Codicil of 23 November 1504

After the death of Isabel, Fernando El Católico continued the work of promoting miscegenation, which is why he decreed the Royal Decree of June 6, 1511, which prohibited forced marriages between Indians and Spaniards, based on the fact that Also in Spain, its subjects were free to marry or not, at the same time recognizing the virtues of promoting unions between both peoples, so that Spaniards knew the geography and customs of the discovered lands along with their characteristics, and the Indians could integrate into Christian civilization along with its way of life. Later, the royal provision of October 19, 1514 authorized mixed marriage between Spaniards and Indians with formal recognition before the law and thus had the necessary regularizations of the marriage institution, adding that no prohibition could be given against such marriages, Later, in the Royal Decree of February 5, 1515, he would close any legal loophole regarding marriages between Spaniards and Indians by decreeing that: “the said Indian women and men have complete freedom to marry whoever they want, as well as Indians.” as with natives of these parts and that no impediment be placed on them.”.

Regarding the news of war crimes between significant factions of Spanish Conquistadors, together with the receipt of trials that portrayed the natives as miserable people and in a degrading state, the Crown was encouraged to take open measures against political immoralities, carrying out debates full of moral reflection on Natural Law (such as the famous Junta of Valladolid or the previous Junta of Burgos), and thus give an impetus to adopt Paternalistic strategies on the part of the Spanish state to treat indigenous subjects with compassion such as & #34;younger brothers". This firm conviction of the Spanish royalty was presented in the face of the punishment received by Cristóbal Guerra in the Royal Decree of December 2, 1501, in which he was obliged to free and return to America the Indians that he had captured and sold. A similar incident had happened with Christopher Columbus himself for having tried to enslave 1,600 Indians, Gonzalo Gómez de Cervantes being sent to verify by all possible means those accusations against Columbus from his Crown informants, and to know the whereabouts of those Indians (said Columbus's actions would have been a product of the legal custom of the time in which it was legal to establish a regime of servitude to conquered populations without Christian faith, because they were considered barbarians, under the condition that they had waged war against the Catholics). present the desire to regulate the taxation of the indigenous, their work regime and ensure good treatment for being subjects under the same protection of the Monarchy as any other subject. Also when a series of measures were carried out in 1511 and 1512 (which would establish the bases for the Laws of Burgos) to regulate aspects of the life of the Indian, who is declared a "free and rational being" (such recognition was defended by the Dominicans after the insistence of the sermons of Antonio de Montesinos to Fernando El Católico), which also came to found institutions that would come to regulate the freedoms of the Encomenderos and other Spanish authorities to prevent them from enriching themselves at the expense of the submission of the Indian, granting the first legislative body of Labor Law in America.The moral questioning of the exploitation of the Indians ended up becoming a legal questioning in this context, thanks to the institutionalized church (through the Order of Preachers) it was of great importance in this historical context because tying the law of nations to the gospel, preventing the conquerors from establishing the conditions of coexistence in the territory. However, based on the Siete Partidas of Alfonso the Wise, the exceptional slavery of people captured in war and who were enemies was considered lawful. of the faith (like the Caribs) due to crimes and serious crimes such as Cannibalism, something confirmed in a Royal Provision of August 29, 1503 on the basis that they were populations that committed crimes against their subjects Spaniards and Indians. Thus, the Ordinances of the Royal Provision of Granada (November 17, 1526) stipulated that the "religious become the protective wall of the indigenous people", something that was coming anticipating from the Regency of Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain (1495 to 1517).

"Where there were people who say cannibals they never wanted to hear or welcome them, before they defended themselves with the weapons and rebuked them that they could not enter or be in the said yolks where they are and even in the sorcery they killed some xpians and then here they have been and are in their hardness and pertinazia by making war with the ynds who are at my service and feeding them.

Isabel II, Letter of Provision authorizing the reduction to slavery of the Cannibal Indians (29-VIII-1503)

There were even concerns among the Spanish who arrived in America, who began to question the right to force Indians to work in the mines. The most influential American personalities in Castile, in defense of the freedom and rights of the natives, were the Provisor Luis de Morales, Juan Polo de Ondegardo y Zárate (governor of Cusco), the lawyer Martel Santoro and Bartolomé de las Casas (bishop of Chiapas). Emperor Charles V of Germany and I of Spain, concerned about accusations of injustice that came from multiple sources, would dictate New Laws for the Indies. Among its most notable aspects were that: it was reaffirmed that the Indians were free subjects, who could not be ordered to work without their consent, and that, if they accepted, they would have to be remunerated fairly for the value of their work (forced labor being illegal); Furthermore, with respect to the confiscated lands (according to the practices of the repartimientos), it was ordered that they be reconsidered so that the Indians could preserve the necessary properties that allow them to live freely, prohibiting their transfer to places that are foreign to their regions (Homelands) where they had traditionally settled. Prior to this, Carlos, being aware of the importance of the Americas, founded the Council of the Indies in 1524 to deal with the complexities of the overseas possessions of the Kingdom of Castile, and Before establishing the viceroyalties, he established a Royal Audience to administer justice. With the discovery of large deposits of silver in northern Mexico in the 1540s and in 1545 in Peru at Potosí, Charles's advisors urged regulation of mining and ensured that bullion was directed to the crown's coffers., even allowing the Indians the power to own mines and exploit them. He also authorized the purchase of lands from the Indians, but ordering that there should always be an Oidor to ensure that it is done with justice and prevent the Indians from having their lands taken away. or be prevented from working on them, in addition to demanding that their unjustly expropriated lands be returned to the local nobles.

"For which we give license and faculty to all and any Indian that the provinces subject to the real audience of Peru, so that they can freely take and have mines of gold and silver, and to wash them in the said provinces, as they do and can do the Spaniards who in it reside [...] so that no Spanish nor Cacique has no part or hand in the mine that ansi such Indian and Indians tuvieren".

Philip II, 1551

An example of this Spanish legal concern was the promulgation of laws (from the viceroyalties) in which a provision of 1580 was contemplated for the Kingdom of Chile to preserve indigenous laws and customs (something that other regions of Chile would have). the colony). Also ordinances that prohibited the taking of their property from the indigenous people, under the excuse that they were idolaters or uncivilized, forcing them to return what was stolen according to the law of Spain. Like the case of the officials of the Viceroyalty of Peru during the Spanish-Inca wars.

“It was determined that if I obo any or some who thought that it hurts good and just war, the qual is not true that I would get some debris, but if I obo that with this ignorance seemed to him that they could take away the Indians what they had to be ydolatras or eat human flesh or sacrifice men or for other similar or apparent reasons that they would be forced to think that the war was tender... if there were some who seemed to take away

Geronimo de Loayza, 1560

Also, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the judge of the second Royal Court of Mexico and bishop of Michoacán, Vasco de Quiroga (who had previously been part of the body of Lawyers of the Court of the Catholic Monarchs, linked to the administration of justice), who founded schools, colleges and sanatoriums for the natives, as well as his famous hospital towns (Indian towns with the capacity for economic self-sufficiency) with the aim of protecting and helping the populations natives to achieve their social development and physical recovery. This was due to his sensitivity for the indigenous population, his concern for literature and education and his desire to fulfill the will of Isabel la Católica regarding the healing and healing of the sick, as well as the teaching of the Indian of good manners. He published multiple works focused on the Indian and full of recommendations, advice and rights and laws to protect the dignity of indigenous life. He also founded the Colegio de San Nicolás de Pátzcuaro to consecrate his pedagogical work through the first Seminar in America.

On July 3, 1549, Charles I gave orders to the Council of the Indies to paralyze all conquests, in order to ensure with certainty that Spain and its subjects were acting according to moral righteousness, thus stopping any project. to penetrate the American continent until 1556. This was due to the emergence of philosophical questions, mostly by Catholic jurists and scholastic philosophers of law, presenting the dilemma of whether the Hispanic Monarchy had the moral right to legally conquer the Indies.. Thus, there was a strong questioning of the legality of Spanish titles in America (especially regarding their ownership of the territories), no longer reducing the issue to the poor treatment and exploitation of the Indians, but to a total issue of the very presence of the Spanish in America along with their right to govern. Years before, since 1542, a moral crisis was forming in the Hispanic government due to the Spanish colonization in America, because the Crown of Castile was constantly overwhelmed by monstrous denunciations of abuses, especially by the conquests in Peru. and those carried out in the New Kingdom of Granada, which would generate anguish in members of all the Estates, including the prelates and knights within the Spanish Nobility. Thus, Carlos I, influenced by the reflections of Francisco de Vitoria and the School of Salamanca, together with the pressure of missionaries like Bartolomé de las Casas, wanted to be sure that its power was irreproachable or to be prepared to abandon the territories. Therefore, it was ordered to stop all military enterprises in the overseas dominions until a board of wise men ruled on the most just way to carry them out, seriously considering the total or partial abandonment of the New World until the issue was resolved. imperial doubt about how to avoid in the future the possibility of abusive discoveries, overwhelming conquests and predatory colonizations that were based on the oppressive exploitation of indigenous labor. Finally, this was carried out in the Junta of Valladolid, from which conceptions of the human rights of the Indians would emerge according to the Thomist natural law, with the Hispanic Monarchy being a pioneer, both in theory and in praxis, on how to address respect towards the conquered. Theologians and jurists from all parts of the empire began to arrive at the capital, presenting the best souls of Spain, such as Domingo de Soto, Bartolomé de Carranza, Melchor Cano, and also Pedro de la Gasca (the first peacemaker of the Peru after the civil wars between the conquerors of Peru) together with the jurists of the Council of the Indies. Bartolomé de las Casas would defend that wars of conquest were unjust, while Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda would defend the opposite. The court, after long debates, voted and tied, so there was no official ruling, but there were several binding reports in which the purpose was to ensure that the treatment granted to the natives was correct. It was the first time that kings and theologians considered that men have fundamental rights for the mere fact of being men (Ius gentium), rights of the eternal Law that are prior to any positive law written in treaties. Never before has a European people asked itself in such depth where its own rights end, the rights of the victor, and where the rights of others, those of the vanquished, begin. Never had power submitted to moral philosophy in such a way.

Finally, after the incessant debates in the Junta of Valladolid for the rights of the indigenous, the New Laws were promulgated, after a compromise between the position of Brother Bartolomé de las Casas and Francisco de Vitoria (missionary action), in contrast to that of Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (evangelizing conquest), concluding that the natives had natural rights with freedoms typical of the Ius gentium that had been recognized since the pontifical concession of the Treaty of Tordesillas (they could not be enslaved, but rather free vassals), But at the same time, the Spanish monarchy had legitimate possession of the temporal sovereignty of the Indians and their lands after the conquest, and therefore, military action was legitimate, as long as it was through Just War.Thus, Spain He did not abandon the Indies, largely based on the sayings of Vitoria: “After many barbarians have converted there, it would neither be convenient nor lawful for the prince to abandon the administration of those provinces.” Therefore, Spanish rule was maintained as Sepúlveda claimed, but it was recognized that the Indians were people with their own rights as De las Casas stated, along with the papal bull Sublimis Deus of 1537. Given this, there was no longer talk of conquest, but of pacification, so urbanization was resumed, with specific instructions to avoid harm to the Indians. The regulations on how to act in the future, regarding discoveries and colonization, were the following:

-In the discoveries: They would be licensed from the Audience and carrying at least one religious designated by it. In these trips, property was prohibited from stealing from the natural and taking these by force, except for some of them who wanted to go for interpreters. No Virrey or Governor would undertake new journeys of discovery on his own. Not by sea, not by land. - In the colonizations: Commends would be prohibited from the first life; the freedom of the slave Indians (they were forbidden to make them slaves in the future); a revision of the divisions of Indians (to the Audiences) would be ordered to pass to the Crown those that some Spaniards had in excess; all the Indians that privately had no legitimate title would be charged;

Carlos I de España

When it became clear that it was important to establish royal control, Charles sought to undermine the growing power of an elite of conquistadors, most notably the Encomenderos who were granted personal concessions of indigenous labor in perpetuity (Encomienda), through the promulgation of the New Laws of 1542, which ended the rights of the holders of the concessions in perpetuity. However, there were uprisings (such as the War of the Encomenderos of Peru), for which even authorities such as Viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela would give their lives for compliance with these laws, which were seen as a declaration of war for the Encomenderos who They did not want to free their Indians. Finally the repression was organized by Pedro de la Gasca, to whom Carlos granted broad powers to reestablish royal authority.

After the abdication of King Charles I of Spain, he would leave the following in his Palamós Instructions for Philip II of Spain with respect to the Kingdoms of the Indies:

"And as for the government of the Indies, be careful and request to know how things happen there, and to assure them by the service of God, that it be served and obeyed as is reason, with which the Indians will be well governed and with justice, and the land will become populated and remake those provinces, and to restore and reform the last opressions and

Indigenous rights and the context of the laws

The first compilations of Indian laws were made in the second half of the XVI century, and were called &# 34;Cedulars". For the prior development of a Compilation of the Laws of the Indies of a general nature, the contributions of Diego de Zorrilla, Rodrigo de Aguiar y Acuña, Juan de Solórzano y Pereyra and Antonio de León Pinelo were of vital importance. Relevant is the compilation of 1563 on the laws dictated for New Spain, in order of date (starting with 1525), carried out during the administration of Viceroy Luis de Velasco (by order of Philip II of Spain in 1560), after being entrusted as such work to the person of Vasco de Puga, the prosecutor of the Royal Court of Mexico, being printed in Mexico City under the name "Cedulario de Vasco de Puga", together to the collaboration of the editor Diego de Zorrilla, the review of Rodrigo de Aguiar y Acuña and the advertising of Antonio de León Pinelo to the first 4 books to help their review. The Viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, would attempt a similar project, although it could not be completed.

However, the person of Juan de Ovando y Godoy would obtain irreplaceable importance for being the one who began the codifying movement of Indian Law, as a consequence of his visit to the Council of the Indies in 1571, of which he made efforts to improve its efficiency of such institution when he obtained the Presidency in both Councils, the Council of the Indies and the Council of Finance (being something exceptional for the History of the Spanish Empire). On the basis of these works, which were partial in scope, in the middle of the century XVII the preparation of a compilation of all the laws approved by the Spanish monarch and the Council of the Indies for America began. The work The organization and compilation took more than forty years, ending in 1680 with the promulgation of the Compilation of Laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies. He highlighted in his head Law I of Title

"When it was granted to us by the Holy Apostolic See the Islands and Tierra Firme of the Ocean Sea, uncovered and uncovered, our main intention was at the same time that we begged Pope Alexander VI, in good memory, who made us the concession "to seek to induce and bring the peoples of them, and to convert them to our holy Catholic faith, and to send to the said islands and Tierra Firme, Prelate and Religious, I beseech the King my Lord, very affectionately and command and command the Princess my daughter and the Prince her husband, to do so and to do so, and that this is their main purpose and to do so, and do not consent or give room to the neighboring Indians and dwellers of the said Islands and Tierra Firme, cattle and to win receive any blemish in their people and goods: they send out what is right and done.

Charles II of Habsburg

Royal Certificate of Charles II

Finally, Mr. Fernando Paniagua concluded the hard work, aided by the bases that he inherited from the project of his predecessors, publishing it in 1680 by King Charles II of Spain, naming it as "Compilation of the laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies.

The Royal Decree consists of 330 pages, promulgated on November 1, 1681.

Because having been informed of the great fault he did for the government of my Kings and Lords of the West Indies, Islands and Tierra Firme of the Ocean Sea, the Compilation of Laws that by the mandate of the Lords My Glorious Progenitors, had begun, and continued until this time, in which by the grace of God is over. And having been consulted and begged by the Council of Indias, I gave them authority, strength and virtue, (in) how much the Laws need to be published, fulfilled and executed, as appropriate. And because it is also convenient, that all this matter may run, and have the ultimate perfection by the Tribunal that gave it principle, by this order, and I give license, and faculty to have on account, and provision of my Council of the Indies (authorize that) any Printer of these Kingdoms can print the Book of the said Compilation of Laws, incorporating in it the Cédulas, Provisions, Agreements, and Despa. And command, that no Printer, or any other person may print, or sell the such Recollection without any particular license from those of the said My Council, to which I give it, and conceive, so that without limitation of time I can make the impressions that appear to him, and to have to his care the sending, distribution, and collection of the Books that divide him, and profit in these Date in San Lorenzo, first November of a thousand and six hundred and eighty-one years.

By mandate of the Lord's King.

Don Francisco Fernández de Madrigal.

Carlos II

Subsequent Development and Application

Shortly after its promulgation, the compilation of 1681 was presented with a need to be updated in the face of the numerous legislation that had been promulgated during and after the development of the compilation. Over the years, an immense amount of information was accumulated. legislative material promulgated after the Compilation, which made it necessary to make new compilations of laws, which only had a partial scope and did not cover all Indian legislation. Furthermore, the Compilation and the additions made to it during the XVIII century do not cover the entire Indian legislative corpus, since they leave out the provisions adopted by the colonial authorities in America.

On June 6, 1803, a Royal Decree would be issued to protect the archaeological and monumental heritage, including that of a historical nature for the Indies.

For Manuel Fraga, doctor in Law and professor in Political Law and Theory of the State and Constitutional Law, the Laws of the Indies "above all the frailties of every human work constitute a monument of those that honor their authors."

«The Spanish Empire was not, in respect of indigenous peoples, extermination or isolation, but of moral attraction and legal equality (...) Its characteristic trait is precisely that and its title of glory immaculate in the purpose of the laws, stained in reality against the tenacious impulse of them, impotent to encompass the magnitude of the territory and to prevent human condition from the frequency and ease of abuse."

Niceto Alcalá Zamora

With respect to compliance with Indian laws in Latin American society, the Venezuelan historian, Caracciolo Parra Pérez, made the following analysis, using the social dynamics of the Captaincy General of Venezuela as a sample.

“ The result of the investigation, given to Venezuela, which in this book was undertaken, can be synthesized in a number of denials, which are given to the meditation of the critics of our history: It is not true that the Indians have been systematically destroyed by the Spanish. The conquest was hard and terrible for some tribes, who heroically defended themselves against the invader for a century; but the indigenous people subjected had better luck in Venezuela than in other European colonies. It is not true that the Government looks with disdain at the criollos and keeps them in a state of inferiority to the European Spaniards. It is not true that criollos were deprived of public office and honor. It is not true that justice has always been arbitrary and always administered against Venezuelans. It is not true that Spain encouraged the separation of castes, although of all evidence such separation was then the best means of maintaining public peace. It is not true that the metropolis deliberately put all sorts of obstacles to the establishment of industries and the development of trade. It is not true that criollos have been condemned to the most abject ignorance. It is not true that Venezuelans have lived three hundred years of terror before the Inquisition and under a theocratic government, inspired by priests and friars. It is not true, judging by the irrisory sum that the settlers paid for the treasury and by the string of taxation, that they were overwhelmed by the weight of the arbitrary and excessive fisco. It is not true that the Venezuelan society of the eighteenth century, which distinguished or illustrious travellers appreciated, was backward, poor and even rude, as it has been intended, in relation to the large number of European countries. It is not true that the General Captain was a despota without constitutional norms, which acted according to his whims, nor that the colonial government was a barbarian system. It is not true that the municipal liberties, the basis of the others and perhaps the only effective ones, cease to exist, and that the City Council, the Creole fortress, has ended up completely folding before the political power. It is not true that the Government of the colony left the main problems of the administration unresolved, nor that it was characterized by corruption and the abandonment of the public thing. The undeniable prosperity that reigned in Venezuela when the Revolution broke out, naturally proportionate to the resources of the country and its population, and compared to the state of the other contemporary European colonies, is, on the contrary, a very powerful argument for the administrative effectiveness of the regime. In short: the impartial study of the facts, the medium and the historical period leads, in Venezuela, to absolve the Spanish and, in many cases, to praise their sanity and clairvoyance. The opinion of [Rafael María Baralt ΔBaralt]] about the political system and the administrative mechanism of the Office of the Attorney General can be held, in general, as just, and coincides with that of [Francisco] Depons and other direct observers. The despotic, retrograde, inert and anti-American qualifications used to give that regime are fearful and inconsistent. In any case, the accusations to Spain for systematic tyranny and mismanagement of public businesses could be formulated with greater equity against other colonizing States of that time and even later. And as for pure principles, it is proved that the laws of India were superior to the analogous ones that they then observed, or did not observe, the other nations.”

Vid. Parra Pérez, Caracciolo. The Spanish Regime in Venezuela. Ob. Cit, p.p. 273-276.

Composition

They are divided into 9 books where the following topics are discussed:

• Book 1: Refers to religious matters, such as patronage regio, the organization of the Church, culture and teaching.

• Book 2: It deals with the structure of the Indian government with special reference to the functions and competence of the Indian Council and the hearings.

• Book 3: It summarizes the duties, competence, powers and functions of viceroys, governors and military.

• Book 4: Concerns discovery and territorial conquest. It sets population standards, land distribution, public works and mining.

• Book 5: Legislation on various aspects of public law, jurisdiction, functions, competence and powers of mayors, corrections and other minor officials.

• Book 6: It deals with the situation of indigenous people, their social status, the regime of trustees, taxes, etc.

• Book 7: It summarizes aspects linked to police action and public morality.

• Book 8: Legisla on the rent and financial organization.

• Book 9: Refers to the Indian commercial organization and the means of regulating it, with special reference to the Contracting House.

“Book VI, on the Indians, contains the main part of the protective legislation, which promoted its incorporation into the Christian culture. It was the result of the tenacious campaign for the missionaries, bishops and good rulers of New Spain and other regions. He has been the subject of general praise.”

José Bravo Ugarte. Political Institutions of New Spain (p. 19). JUS, Mexico, 1968

At the same time, based on the principle of the Indian writers that the law starts from facts and not ideas, the following rules were established for compliance with the laws of the Indies:

• Natural law (the Metaphysical essence of the law by the mere fact of being real persons in a natural order of justice) is above the positive law (the law written in matter, which is deduced from natural law to form a framework of formal justice).
• Tradition (Customary law), based on certain requirements of the Moral, is a rule of law.
• A future law corrects one from the past.
• A law enacted for a case must also be applied to those that are analogous or similar.
• The special law prevails over the general law.

Job Benefits

● The Law of 8 hours:

By Law VI of 1593, King Philip II of the House of Austria decrees in his domains that:

“All the workers will work 8 hours every day, four in the morning and four in the afternoon in the fortifications and factories that are made, distributed to the most convenient times to get rid of the rigor of the Sun, more or less what seems to the Engineers, so that there is no lack of a point of what is possible, they also tend to seek their health and conservation.”

Philip II, 1593

• In the second volume, book III, title VI, Law VI (“Let the workers work eight hours each day divided as appropriate”) this day is set for work in the preparation of fortifications and factories, formally, the day was applied for the construction of strong and palaces of the Spanish Crown.

"It is complied with, but it is not fulfilled"

The formula of "the law is obeyed, but it is not fulfilled" It was an aphorism mentioned very frequently during the application of Indian law. That has generated, in modern legal historiography (influenced by Positivism or Rationalism), a belief that the American authorities were in constant rebellion with the mandates of the Metropolis, and that only the Indian laws were complied with, on rare occasions, despite bad rulers who avoided its application as much as possible, giving an image that colonial Latin America was a place with total discredit of the laws and an example of the political corruption of Hispanic countries. However, that would be a misunderstanding of the true meaning of that political formula (caused by a modernist view of such an aphorism that belonged to a legal order different from that used by the judicial processes of contemporary times), where the law was one more element. of several that constituted the legal order of the Indian reality, and by which, the legislator respected the duty to comply with the norms of natural law, but not the positive laws that could have been decreed by the mental ignorance of some jurist with American reality (largely due to communication problems due to long distances or imperfect reports of the situation), being illegitimate laws insofar as they did not adapt to local customs or social needs in the concrete reality. Although there were cases of malicious breaches of the law to delay or forget the issuance of a law, this phrase would rather be the vindication of a right in the executors of the law to omit compliance with some illegitimate mandate, based on a opposition that has just foundations, since all authorities (such as the king and his officials) had the power to amend an erroneous decision. Being complementary to the fundamental right of subjects (subject to the law) to make use of the resource of supply so that a law that is fair and necessary is complied with or established, thereby providing protection psychological to the governed subjects, and guarantees to the governors of being able to review laws that could contradict the needs of the community or suffer from vices contrary to natural law (but always everything at the request of the interested parties, not due to arbitrariness, to fulfill the pact between vassal and sovereigns with mutual benefits). Being synthesized by the phrase of Calderón de la Barca, in his work Life is a Dream, in which the phrase "In what is not just the law the King must not obey is mentioned; . This custom would have strong bases in the Siete Partidas, in which the following was found about the control of legality:

"If against the communal law of some people, or to the damage of the grape given some letters, the first must not be fulfilled. Ca non have strength, for they are to the harm of many; but they must show the King, begging him, and asking mercy, about that which sends them to send in that letter. But if then the King will, in all guises, whatever, they must fulfill what he commands. "

Not obeying a law, due to rebellion of the subjects or malice of the executors of the law, was considered an illegal action and could be penalized as a crime. Only opposition to a law that was regulated by law was legitimate (contrasting the decree with concrete reality), while it was legal to oppose laws that could harm the common good or cause greater damage than those they seek to remedy. The power to suspend any law would be based on avoiding injustice, but always having to recognize its compliance as an obligation to recognize the legitimate authority of the king and his officials (then, never ignoring the authority of the legitimate power of the legislators, nor ignoring the jurisdiction of the kingdom), and rather, allowing the Spanish monarchy to amend its mandates and make them more fair and viable in the face of laws and decrees that were against the law and the parties involved.

"The obedience and subsequent non-compliance of the law was not a corrupt one that gave apparent legality to an anarchical situation in fact, characterized by the contempt of the provisions of the monarch and the 'spirit of pride' of the subjects. It constituted a real resource for intrinsic vice of legitimacy, and as such legislated by the Castilian laws."

GALLO GARCY, "The law as a source..." cit., 102.

However, unlike peninsular Spain, in the Indies it was prohibited to invoke the formula of 'it is obeyed, but it is not fulfilled'; if it was understood as the "suspension of a rule until the king's response arrived" (practiced in medieval Castilian law to communicate to the king that a royal decree was unfair, did not comply with the law or had a formal procedural defect, waiting for his response to repeal it and/or enact a new law that revises it), it was only allowed to break a law that could lead to irreparable or scandalous damage, or if the document was based on an erroneous narration of the facts, it being mandatory to add one of these reasons (and substantiate it according to the facts) to request the suspension of a law to the Council of the Indies. That greater restriction on the American authorities, compared to the Castilian ones, was due to the constant complaints of non-compliance with royal decrees in the first years of conquest, causing a special strengthening of legal documents to protect the Laws of the Indies.

“The viceroys and the hearings had discretionary authority in situations in which the actual mandates significantly disagree with the local realities or when their entry into force could create injustice. They could suspend the execution of a law, and they did it in a quaint ceremony: the president kissed the royal cédula and called on the formula “I obey but I do not fulfill.” Once the formula was applied, the hearing should present to the Indian Council concrete proposals under which the suspended legislation could be improved or amended.”

John Leddy Phelan

The Laws in the Viceroyalty of New Spain

In the Viceroyalty of New Spain, specific Laws were applied in order to regulate life and work.

In terms of labor, provisions were issued that tried to benefit the indigenous people, called naturals at that time. The economic interests of the upper classes were harmed if these provisions were applied in their entirety.

The following points would be applied:

• Protecting minors, Law 3a, Title 13°, Book VI
• Rule the duration of the employment contract to 8 hours a day, making Spain the first country in the world to apply the 8-hour day, moving to England for more than 200 years, Law 13a, Title 13°, Book VI
• Human Treatment and Justice in Workers-Patronal Relations, Law 13a, Title 5, Book VI
• Obligation to make payments on time every week, with money and not in kind, Law 12, Title 15, Book VI
• Freedom of work In addition, certain regional rights similar to those possessed by the Spaniards of Europe (and that had not yet been generalized on the peninsula), such as the 1786 Order of Intendents, which granted the Indians the right to choose their own authorities annually (in the main towns).

In addition, the indigenous people had the right to write to the King of Spain in their native languages (predominantly Nahuatl as the lingua franca, but also Mixteco, Zapotec, etc.) with requests to maintain their lands, their status, and even a perpetual salary (especially those who descended from Indian auxiliaries of the conquest). The indigenous nobility received advice and managed to be treated as another nobleman of the Kingdom of Castile, asking the officials of the Spanish empire what symbols their family shields should have, according to their own indigenous tradition. By law, the use of native languages was tolerated and even promoted in the dynamics of colonial society. The Spaniards, in turn, had to resort to indigenous specialists to be able to carry out some infrastructure work, and they had a duty by law to carry out works of public service to the subjects of the indigenous communities (such as the Padre Tembleque Aqueduct to transport water to the people of Otumba), in the same way that was done with European subjects. That ennoblement of the indigenous people, and the recognition of the local aristocracies, symbolized the bases of Indian law in a social pact between the indigenous chiefs and the Kings Catholics for the development of a social order favorable to indigenous subjects for the protection of the Spanish monarch.

When the territorial organization of New Spain developed, the laws established that, as long as the Indians were up to date with their legal documents, they could obtain an exemption from the indigenous tribute or request grants. Above all, the Indians were recognized as having the title to their lands, being protected against the attempts of usurpation by some Spaniards, for which several disputes would arise, for which through their authorities (mayors and chiefs) they made their claims forward. and complaints before the authorities of the Royal Court. In addition, the viceregal authorities always had to carry out an investigation, before granting any property, to find out if the requested lands could harm the residents of the area.

On the other hand, a health policy was developed with the Indians, giving ordinances and royal decrees to found hospital institutions in order to specifically attend to the physical needs of the Indians, highlighting the Royal Hospital of Indians of Mexico, which in turn time he helped the evangelization of the Indians and the restructuring of their communities, as well as combating the Epidemics brought by the diseases of the Europeans. They usually remained under the administration of the Dominicans, Augustinians and Franciscans.

Although an attempt was made to make a drastic increase in the indigenous tribute, the Superior Board of the Royal Treasury of New Spain declared that it could not be the king's intention to condemn the natives in an unhappy situation, "but rather that They are required to pay the tribute that their forces can bear with the softness and sweetness that the laws so highly recommend, reducing the tax burden for the Republic of Indians by arguing that there would be serious consequences of increasing taxes without At the same time, the wages of the Indians were increased. The process to determine the taxes to be paid by the Indians, in a fair amount, was carried out in 3 ways:

1. The visit: It consisted in knowing the economic possibilities of the indigenous.
2. The account: It consisted in knowing your number.
3. The taxation: I tried to fix the class and amount of taxes.

In the Philippines

The laws were brought by the 1.er bishop in the Philippines, Domingo de Salazar (disciple of Bartolomé de las Casas). He insisted that the gospel, far from dispossessing the pagans, should perfect them along with what they already had. Therefore, the freedom and right of the indigenous tribes to govern themselves, in peace and justice, should not be impeded by the Spanish Crown if certain conditions were established (that of spreading the Gospel and putting its message into practice on a political level, being a duty according to the Royal Patronage of the Indies and Thomist Natural Law). In the words of José Rizal, this explained why in the following 300 years, the indigenous Filipinos accepted Spanish authority, because they were treated humanely thanks to the Laws of the Indies. This being so, the Spanish friars in the Philippines would protect the indigenous people from the claims of the Encomenderos, allowing themselves to be voluntarily recruited into the Army of the Spanish Monarchy and some government offices agreed to include them. However, imperfections arose after the attempts of the Spanish Empire in the Bourbon Reforms to secularize its domains to have better control over the church, relegating the clergy composed of natives from power functions after the Expulsion of the Jesuits and the Independence of Mexico, which would generate problems that would not be resolved until the Independence of the Philippines.

The Laws in the Viceroyalty of Peru

With regard to the Indian Laws in Peru, the good reception (in Indian law) of multiple institutions originated by the legal tradition of the indigenous people stands out, for example: community funds (based on Andean Reciprocity), the yanaconaje contract, the mita or shift work, the organized community of the Ayllus (with its implications on land ownership), and the use of the organization of the Inca Empire, especially due to the Reforms made by Viceroy Francisco of Toledo. Among those institutions that the Spanish rescued, there was also the Tambos, which, after the serious deterioration they suffered due to the wars of the century XVI, royal certificates would be issued to function as in the times of Huayna Cápac. Inca institutions of a tributary nature were also maintained, such as the tocuirico under a colonial reformulation in which they would ensure the “purity of customs, the cleanliness of the houses and streets of the town, the strict observance of sexual morality, the prohibition of everyone eating together in the square, instead of everyone eating at home like men of reason, the control of attendance to religious instruction, etc", the quipus in order to account for the inventory of the community's livestock and the urban planning of the Indian reductions, the chasquis under a way of acting that reached the River de la Plata to be informants and bring mail about the provinces furthest from the viceregal capital. It sought to pragmatically maintain certain "Laws of the Inca" that helped good government, in terms of surveillance and control of social order, among those provisions were the categories of yanaconas, mitayos, hatunrunas.

In terms of guaranteeing social conditions of decent living, the Peruvian viceroys, after receiving reports of mistreatment and exploitation of the workers of the Indian political society, made multiple efforts to comply with Indian laws and respect for the law. natural of the Indian and mestizo as a human person:

I have been misunderstood that the ynds who serve in the works are due to their large sum of weights and are paid with sticks and other things so that many die without charging what is due to them and to see that they come

Marquis de Guadalcazar, 1622

• In 1664, virrey Diego de Benavides consolidated in the Virreinate of Peru the day of public work (9-10 hours), the minimum wage, and the exceptions to work by sex, age and residence. It also ordered the closure and destruction of numerous informal works where indigenous people were exploited for more than 14 hours and where they were forced to work even children.
• In the 1668-1670s, the viceroy Pedro Fernández de Castro restructures the labor system of the Indians in the mines, haciendas and works, to prevent them from being exploited and abused. It also prohibits "owners of plantations, wits, mines and deeds" from compelling orphaned children to work against their will.
• In 1680, Virrey Melchor de Liñan ordered that employers (miners, encommends, ranchers, ranchers and workers) must issue employment contracts for all their workers. The Governor also states that "Indians" who are not subject to myths, have the freedom to change their jobs, if their emperor fails to pay their wages or requires additional hours of work that have not been fixed in their contract. In 1681 he also ordered the destruction of several pieces that did not comply with the ordinances and imprison many owners of wits.
• In 1687 the virrey Melchor of Navarra forbade that the employers of the farms and farms will pay their workers with utensils, food or any type of merchandise, establishing that they should be paid their corresponding wages according to the rates established by the government.

In the economic sphere, the Cacique and petty bourgeois Indians were possessors of real power that gave rise to conflicts in defense of their rights, and that of the tributary Indians at their service. They also managed to enjoy the right to possess and administer mines for their exploitation, despite the fact that this sector was controlled mostly by Spanish guilds, which had better machinery and owned a large number of mitayos. Although it was difficult for them to compete with the Spanish and Creole miners, the indigenous authorities nevertheless managed to benefit from the mining sector, especially in the 20th century XVII during the Habsburg era. With the Bourbons, mining became a subsistence sector for the indigenous people. In addition to the Mitayo Indians who had to be sent to the mines on a mandatory basis, many Indian chiefs also rented their Indian laborers to the Spanish mining guilds, for very high prices that were around 200 to 340 pesos per season. They even controlled the sector of transporting minerals for processing, earning approximately 40-100 pesos per trip.

“The cacique had a gold mine and a silver mine near the mountain range, in a black hill and in another coloured. It is said that they were very rich mines because they took a lot of gold for Cuzco.”

Domínguez, 2002

“The Somondoco cacique, possessed a mine of emeralds, which when the graduate Gonzalo Jiménez discovered it, sent to the king a thousand eight hundred emeralds by the fifth that chores the monarchs of Spain.”

Miró, 2011

In addition, within the military jurisdiction of the Royal Peruvian Army, there was strict obedience to the Indian laws to avoid abuses and war crimes, because multiple problems were presented among the people who made up the military institution, of a socializing and moralizing nature (these problems were due to the fact that the majority of them were people with different occupations, unequal training, diverse customs, speakers of several languages and with different ethnic castes). Thus, robberies, murders, bodily injuries, street fights, etc., common crimes within the military jurisdiction, had to be dealt with; and among those present through civil jurisdiction, adultery, non-payment to support unacknowledged children (especially food), insults and “normal” desertion (whether veteran soldiers or militiamen) occurred. Those who were proven guilty of their complaints received multiple punishments (regardless of whether they were white, Creole, Indian, mestizos, castizo, black, mulatto, or brown), such as being placed in a stocks for days or being sentenced to forced execution. public works service for years. White and mestizo officers who wanted to force servants (mostly blacks and Indians) to work without pay, and even accuse them of theft or damage to their property, also went through military jurisdiction for crimes of abuse. before the Royal War Audit, these also having a role in leveling power relations within the estate society between nobles and serfs.

Notable cases of application of the Indian Laws in Peru

• The denunciation of the Archbishop of Popayán, Juan del Valle, in 1548, that abusive taxes were charged to the Indians. Sending the clergy Luis Sánchez to file a complaint with the Council of Indias. Those complaints were repeated by various members of the clergy such as Francisco Morales (1561), Bartolomé de la Vega (1563), Francisco Falcón (1567). Although there were proposals to exempt the Indians from paying taxes on the basis of their status as minors, in the end it was determined that tax charges could only be prohibited which were immoderate, as it is argued that there would be damage to the Indians if they did not pay tax charges to finance the maintenance of their social infrastructure.
• During the 1570s and 1580s, the Inca nobles, who were direct descendants of the emperors of Tahuantinsuyo, would enter into a dispute with the caciques and communities of their 4 who had been their subjects who were called theirs. "incas of privilege" (because they did not come from pancakes, if not they were Curacas of the peoples conquered by the Incas or who obtained titles for their services in the Spanish conquest). These noble incas of pancakes wanted their nobility to be recognized as a hereditary thing and to give them privileges of being free to pay taxes, going as far as to conclude all the noble incas in a single block, while the incas of privilege (the caciques of Condesuyo, the Canches, Collasuyo, Andesuyo, Chinchaysuyo) opposed such claims in the virrenal courts, arguing that almost all tax burdens would fall on them and their communities if the descendants of the Incas were exonerated from personal services and republican tasks. Thus, the incas went to learn from Castilian law (especially appealing to the Hidalgo-Pechero dichotomy), obtaining witnesses, prosecutors and defenders before the Courts, signed powers in the legal jurisdiction and declared before Indian corrections, interpreters and protectors. All was due to the fact that the viceroy Francisco de Toledo ordered, through the Royal Treasury, to enlist many nobles as tributary Indians, seeing that the majority of Cuscaños did not pay tribute by claiming that they were free Indians, ordering to bind the Cusqueños of the city to the service of the King or some particular, but entering into conflict with previous ordinances of the Royal Audience of Lima, “to the ynds that are found and seem to be sons and decedents of Topa Ynga Yupangui dexen bibuir freely where they are without paying tribute or other seruiçios some but goçen de liuertad”. Such a dispute would be moved from the Royal Audience to the same Indian Council. Finally, after presenting his pleadings and probations through the attorney Miguel Ruiz, Fernando de Jaén, Cristóbal de Molina and other representatives, they managed to annul Toledo's provision by demonstrating that they had already been recognized as Hidalgos, and that only the Indians outside the Incas pancakes (these hatunrun Indians or their caciques) had to pay tribute, as had been done in time of the Incas.
• The first mention of the existence of a " xaponés Indian" in Peru was recorded in 1596, when the virreys García Hurtado de Mendoza and Luis de Velasco ruled. Francisco Xapón was apparently a "Xopian slave" who was sold, for a value of 800 pesos, to Father Miguel Jerónimo de Porras. This "Xaponian Indian" claimed to be natural of the "Province of the Kingdom of the Xaponés" and that the Portuguese had "made the West Indies as a slave" unjustifiedly. Francis, 21 years old, appealed to the Royal Audience of Lima from Cordoba (Rio de la Plata) asking for his freedom while appealing to Indian laws, stating that, according to these, "there are no reasons for me to be sold as a slave" because he was a Christian, and because of where he came there were no longer slaves, because Toyotomi Hideyoshi "supped slavery in 1587 X. Finally Francisco was released by the virrenal authorities and ended his days in Córdoba.
• The case of Melchor Carlos Inca, who in the year 1600 traveled to interview with King Felipe III of Spain to achieve the defense of his idols. This was due to the permutation of Peru's properties in exchange for properties in the Peninsula, but this required the appointment of Peru's accountant. Finally, an agreement was reached where he was appointed Knight of the Order of Santiago as compensation.
• Don Vicente de Mora Chino (Ladino plebeyo or with probable descent of the Chimú nobility), who was "Attorney General of your Indians», for later added also «of the King of Peru’s Indians and the most important», and also obtain the title of «Cacique Principal de varios Pueblos de la Costa Norte de Peru» (between the Chicama valley towards the Chimo valley). As mayor and alferez of Santiago de Cao, he made a trip to Spain in 1721 (which could be financed by a possible network of solidarity organized between caciques and principals) to request directly to the King a claim, after appealing to the Royal Audience of Lima between the years 1715 and 1721 on land grafts of usurpation of land to the Indians (without receiving the due justice for having some oxides). Later, in 1729, after being recognized his perseverance and zealous defense by the Indians among the Spanish courts by the Lithuanian press, he began to receive the powers of other caciques to represent his causes, while he was a "Deputy General" (which legitimized his authority in front of his peers and intensified his power of representation because of the confidence that inspired not only his countrymen, but also the Court). In addition, he introduced the Manifesto of the grievances, bexations and discomfort suffered by the Indians of Peru to the Council of Indias in 1732 (and another in 1735) to warn the King of Spain of the danger of the deterioration of the colonial covenant and to restore the Indian to the natural rights before the Spanish Law and the Christian faith. Finally, the virrey Santobuono was forced to do, as related by the limeño lawyer, Pedro de Vargas:

"at the request of the Indians themselves, to appoint the aforementioned Don Vicente Morachimo by Procurator General of different divisions, to defend his causes"

It is noteworthy that in 1767, two indigenous attorneys (Alberto Chosop and Don Joseph Santiago Ruiz) published in the name of the «Indian Nation», the Cedula of 1766 (with authorization of the viceroy Amat) that ratified the access of the chiefs and principals to receive public and ecclesiastical positions, with Mora Chimo having obtained his certificate in 1725. The effectiveness of Vicente Mora Chimo's performance as "Procurator" in his defense of the indigenous plaintiffs (through the development of the institution of the 'Defensor de Indios' that would develop jurisprudence) inspired indigenous people in other parts of the Spanish Empire to use such a mechanism to defend the interests of their own, as Pedro de Vargas recounted in his memoirs of 1734.

"To whose example the Naturals of Quito, and other parties have created their Defenders themselves, with whom they live, or more aided or more satisfied of their refuge"

• Fray Calixto de San José Tupac Inca in 1748 wrote a memorial addressed to King Fernando VI of Spain, known as the “Exclamation of the American Indians” (although probably written mostly by Brother Antonio Garro) where he filed complaints against the abuses suffered by the tax Indians by the corrections, governors and other provincial officials; for which he ended up demanding a series of reforms to improve the virreinal government. In 1749 he made a trip to Spain from the Kingdom of Brazil, under the identity of Don Juan Ayllon and accompanied by Fray Isidoro de Cala and Ortega, for which he personally delivered the memorial to the Council of Indias. He waited for three years for an answer from King Fernando VI, without much success. The publication of the memorial in Spain bothered the Bourbon regime because the friar maintained contact with some neighbors of the town of Huarochiri who were discontented with the government and carried out the uprising of Huarochirí of 1749-1750, which coincided with the rebellion of Juan Santos Atahualpa or the rebellion of the Cusco of the Indian Pablo Chapi (Inca Huay vita Cápacy), which would even provoke a rebellion of the Inca Despite this, the adventure of Fray Isidoro de Cala was not misunderstood in the court, nor was anything done against Fray Calixto Inca once it was possible to requisition the copies of the manuscript because it was considered subversive due to misunderstandings in the Courts coming from an envoy of the Royal Audience of Lima talking about the existence of a printed memorial that complicated two San Francisco religious related to the movement that started in Huachi. However, the authors received no punishment, and ironically favored the claims of Brother Calixto in the order. Even so, Indians were forbidden to travel to Spain without the authorization of the superior government until the situation was relaxed by the [[Protestas and rebellions of the centuryXVIII en el Virreinato del Perú]], but promoting that the indigenous authorities submit to the Courts of Spain with just reason and promising to guarantee the proper safety of possible trips.

“THE REY.- Count of Superunda, Relative, Virrey, Governor and Captain General of the Provinces of Peru and President of my Royal Audience residing in the City of the Kings. By the noble and military Indian caciques who reside in that City, and on behalf of all those of their Nation who live in that Kingdom, who, in stimulus of their notorious reality and love that profess me, have longed for some of them to go to Spain to put their real feet; of whose taste they lack to prevent it, when they have requested it, referring in evidence to some copies, and suplicing me to be used to And seen in my Council of Indias, as stated by my Prosecutor: I have resolved: to deny them the broad and general license that request and order you and send you (as I do) that whenever any particular of the aforementioned caciques and Indians wants to come to Spain, telling them the just reason that moves him to such dilated and costly journey, you grant him the necessary, sending him the corresponding aids, so that they do not cause them – Ten and nine January thousand seven hundred and fifty-one.- I'm the one. By mandate of the Lord's King-D. Joaquín José Vásquez and Morales."

Finally, during the reign of Charles III, a good part of their requests were resolved. Thus, on September 11, 1766, the king signed, in San Ildefonso, some provisions to satisfy the requests of Fray Isidoro de Cala (probably having more success than Fray Calixto for having a better character and not participating in the alleged anti-colonial conspiracies of the era) with the objective that Indians could be admitted to religions, receive education in any school and be able to climb, according to their merit and capacity, to dignities or public offices of the viceroyalty without any distinction and such promotion must be attended to in all matters. possible. The Royal Decree of July 12, 1691 was recalled, in which the opening of schools and seminaries for Indians (such as the Royal College of Mexico) had been ordered, whose obligations were reaffirmed for Peru in a Royal Decree of the March 12, 1697 and another on February 1, 1725 (issued due to similar claims by Don Vicente de Mora Chino, main chief of several Indian towns and attorney general of Indians in Peru).

• Don Pedro Tantallatas was a noble Indian of Caxamarca origin, had the responsibility of being the Chief Cacique of All Chota Saints. According to the documents present in the Regional Archive of La Libertad, the hutano cacique had been in conflict with the arbitrariness and abuses of some influential Spanish correspondents and dodados in the region. Arrived at a point where the Indian Laws were not respected, the Tantallata cacique made a trip to Spain in 1777, accompanied by Don Isidro Chavil, with the aim of reclaiming the Council of Indias and King Charles III for the situation that afflicted the Indians of their partiality. The indigenous noble demanded more autonomy, compliance with the guarantees of the colonial pact for the protection of his people from the Republic of Indians, and that the Chotano Indians be granted the power to elect their own local authorities, without the officials of the Spanish republic being able to influence or interfere. By a Royal Clause, King Charles III recognizes the chotano cacique as Governor General of the Naturals of the Chota All Saints Party.
• Don Gaspar Jurado was a mestizo from the beginning of the centuryXIXa native of Quipiracra, who registered as “indio” in the Indian political society. It was a plebeyo Indian who fought before the law against a guild of peninsular and Creole scribes, with the aim of being able to fulfill his aspiration to be in the Chamber of the Royal Audience of Lima, having been a charge that was enabled by Don Emeterio Andrés Valenciano. After making an appeal to the Royal Judiciary, it was determined that Don Gaspar Jury was an Indian who possessed all the necessary attributes and qualities to take office. Beneficiating in addition to the decrees issued by the Courts of Cadiz on Spanish citizenship for indigenous people.

“What is resolved by the Sovereign Courts to save the obstacles that will not be able to justify assumption that without distinction Indians, Spaniards and the children of both of us all have an option for equality, for all kinds of employment and destiny.”

Jury, 1811

Legacy

The laws of the Indies today tend to be a topic of great importance when teaching Law School classes at multiple universities in Latin America and Spain today.

For its part, during the Confiscation process, along with the expropriation of the communal lands of the indigenous people after the Independence of Latin America, there were multiple descendants of Caciques, as representatives of the affected peasant communities, carrying out acts claiming the right to the ownership of their lands based on the Indian Laws and Indian law.

"With the establishment of liberal policies the Indians were at the mercy of the big landowners and foreign investors. The liberal idea of "igualitarism" consisted of homogenizing the entire indigenous population of Bolivia as citizens and promoting the privatization of collective goods. [...] The privatisation of the land resulted in the collapse of the subsistence economy that had been maintained since the Colony and the subsequent social disintegration of the communities, creating an environment of zobra and inequality, which forced the Indians to leave their lands and flee to the main cities in search of work or stay to serve the landowners, where they were reduced to a category similar to that of "modern slaves"

J. Fernández-Davila, 1985

• For example, in Mexico, it is mentioned that in the time of the Second Mexican Empire even the Indian communities appealed to the courts on the basis of Indian law. In this context, there is a constant concern against Creole domicilers who wanted to appropriate their communal Indian lands after the policies of disamortization adopted by Benito Juárez in winning the War of Reform (for which the indigenous communities would be unprotected by the law and their lands outside of expropriation), wanting these the return of institutions of the Old Regmen as the Protector of Indians, rather than being protected by law. This generated that over time, the empire of Maximilian of Mexico was derived from Mexican republican Liberalism, to the extent that it approached the protectionist measures demanded by the conservatives in the social, inspired by the Indian Law and the Laws of Indias (and even to some positions of the utopian Socialism of the rural proletariat, since Maximiliano was influenced by Victorhelant) That is why laws would be decreed more and more far away from the liberal notion, such as the laws of July and September 1865 that restored the legal personality of the indigenous communities (by abolishing equality before the law), the agrarian law of September 16, 1866 (the most radical) that granted land to the indigenous communities of being lacking legal foundation and ejido, continuing the law of June 26 on non-repartition (aducing) community land (annuling the transition to a liberal private property regime) which read as follows:

“shall be divided into fractions and will be awarded to the neighbours of the peoples to which they belong and have the right to them, preferring the poor to the rich, the married to the unmarried and those who have the family to whom they do not have it...”, however, “they will not be distributed or awarded the lands exclusively for the public service of the populations, the waters and the mountains, whose uses are directly owned by the neighbors.

By July 1866, there was an increasingly conservative and reactionary turn in Maximilian's government. This was due to the measures suggested and taken by the political advisors that Emperor Maximilian had, while they noted that the indigenous, and in general the common Mexican, clung to traditionalist New Spain ways of life, being stubborn with their customs., in which they were perceived as a traditional community society that sought to be alien to the Modernization project of the liberal and Individualist-egalitarian model, which came mostly from the Europeanizing Creole elites, and for which the indigenous people did not appear willing to follow, showing attitudes indifferent or even opposed to the notions of Equality before the law, while they wanted their inherited differences to be recognized by the legal recognition of their distinction as "Indian" in the fueros of the Indian political society of the Spanish imperial era (in fact, even in those times quite a few appeals were made in the government according to the Partidas of Alfonso legal existence as an indigenous community, to subsist and exist as such, compared to the political community of the criollo or the mestizos, and not wanting recognition of just being a Mexican/citizen-owner (which is why the complaints of several indigenous peoples made reference to Royal Decrees). Thus, according to Jean Meyer, Maximilian acted, more than as a liberal, as an enlightened Despot (closer to Bourbon Reformism), which would try to take advantage of the elements of Tradition and Modernity, taking extreme measures that contradicted classical and economic Liberalism, drinking from the "old" Indian legislation, or the "modern" proposal of socialism, in addition to the ideas of Cameralism (very popular in the Germanic states) that gave importance to small peasant property compared to the lordly latifundia, expressed in the Urbarium Code of 1767 (which established the plots of Hungarian peasants and prohibited his lord seized these). But this did not imply the end of the confiscations, not renouncing the liberal and enlightened desire to overcome feudal communal property with modern private property as a natural and absolute right (compared to the traditional conception of a secondary natural right), together with the idealized conception of the indigenous in Mexican liberalism as that of a potential owner who would be transformed into a citizen and owner of his plot who was capable of legally defending his property for himself, like any other Creole. or mestizo in the Social Contract; only avoiding what happened in modern Mexica of leaving the indigenous outside the law, as a vulnerable subject and without defense mechanisms against the landowners and speculators, seeking to favor the Indian over the landowner through protection mechanisms for the "needy classes" (which was granted a protective board on April 10, 1865 to favor the dispossessed classes of the empire) in said social transition. Finally, with the fall of the second Mexican empire, Mexican elites would make efforts to repress indigenous traditionalists and force them to accept liberal policies.

• On the other hand, in Bolivia it would be important to fight the cacique Santos Marka T'ula, the scribe Leandro Condori Chura and the caciques movement seized during the end of the century.XIX and early centuriesXX.for which they sought to recover and avoid the usurpation of their communal lands in La Paz, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and other places in Bolivia. So they started a legal battle with the Bolivian government, resorting to the virreinal legality while it was appealed that King Philip II of the House of Austria had recognized, on the basis of natural law, the communal possession of those of the indigenous ayllus (communal reproductions and preds) that were being disputed, since those had been bought by their old caciques, who until the end of the period were deprived of money The leaders, caciques elected by the community, came to the virrenal documents of the XVI-XIX centuries, especially those that came from the time the viceroy Francisco Álvarez of Toledo ruled. The Creole oligarchies of Bolivia carried out a whole series of artifacts to dismiss the struggle of the indigenous caciques, in which it was included destroying virrenal documents, as well as accusing the caciques of being a conspirators, foreign agents, rebels, traitors to the homeland, seditious, among other prevalent negative qualifications against the indigenous who dared to confront the power of the land. They even arbitrarily arrested the leaders of the Ayllus, like Marka Tola himself on several occasions, threatening them, thus obstructing the legal process and disappearing their documents, arguing later that they were forgery or that they did not have sufficient evidence.

“On his return he brought a copy that credited Callapa’s Caciques had evidently purchased those lands of the Spanish Crown, with moneys and jobs from the myth.”

Thoa, 1984