Spanish Requirement of 1513

The Spanish Requirement of 1513 ("El Requerimiento") was a declaration by the Spanish monarchy of its divinely ordained right to take possession of the territories of the New World and to subjugate, exploit and, when necessary, to kill the native inhabitants. The Requirement was read in Spanish to Native Americans to inform them of Spain’s rights to conquest. Those who subsequently resisted conquest were considered to harbor evil intentions. The Spaniards thus considered those who resisted as defying God’s plan, and so used Catholic theology to justify their killing.

Historical context

Throughout the sixteenth century Europeans, quickly subjugated native peoples plundering of their lands and wealth. Europeans justified this oppression with the view that natives were not Christian and therefore savage and not deserving to posess the New World.

In Spain itself in 1492, the Moorish population of Granada had been given the choice by the first Archbishop of Granada, Hernando de Talavera: become Christian, or leave the country. In a letter to his religious brothers, Cardinal Cisneros, Talavera's successor, would celebrate the “peaceful domination” of the Moors of the Albaicin, a neighborhood of Granada, praising converts, lauding killing and extolling plunder.

To the King and Queen of Spain (Ferdinand II of Aragon, 1479–1516 and Isabella I of Castile, 1451–1504), the exploitation and killing of indigenous peoples was justified by natural law, embodied in the medieval doctrine of “just wars”, which had historically been a rationale for wars against non-Christians, particularly the Moors, but which would now be applied to Native Americans.

Legal justification

Concerned that Spain ensure control of the natives in the newly conquered Americas, the “Reyes Católicos”, Ferdinand and Isabella, consulted theologians and jurists for religious and legal justification of Spain’s conquests. The treatment of the Native Americans was at first rationalized on the grounds that they were cannibals; any means of subjugation were acceptable. However, some of Christopher Columbus’s tactics with Native Americans had resulted in uprisings. In 1500, the king and queen again sought advice; the Native Americans were declared to be "free vassals". Despite their elevated status, the Native Americans remained subject to conquest in "just wars".

In 1511, Fra. Montesinos, spokesman for the Dominican Order in Spain, began preaching against the exploitation of the Native Americans as workers (“la mano de obra de los españoles”) while they were also subject to persecution. King Ferdinand offered a new justification. The enslavement of Native Americans was required because they were pagans, but this did not prevent their conversion to Christianity, nor however, in practice, did it mitigate their slaughter.

The Junta of Burgos of 1512 marked the first in a series of ordinances (“Ordenanzas sobre el buen tratamiento de los indios”) with the ostensible goal of protecting the Indians from excessive exploitation; natives could celebrate holidays, be paid for their labor and receive "good treatment". Similar legislation was adopted by the Junta of Valladolid in 1513 and the Junta of Madrid in 1516. However, none of the laws stopped the abuse; few were charged with illegal exploitation, and punishment was rare.

The Role of religion

The commercial exploitation of the New World and the enslavement of native populations to that end was justified on spiritual and religious grounds. In the conquest of the Americas, the Christian duty to evangelize non-believers took form of forced conversion of Indians and other pagans, at the hands of Roman Catholic priests. The European concept of Christianity was also used to justify the state’s policy of enslavement of Indians for profit, and the killing of those who resisted.

To the European mind, the lands of the New World belonged to no one, least of all to their inhabitants, and could therefore be seized. Moreover, since the native population was non-Christian, Europeans’ Christian religion conferred upon them the right, indeed the obligation, to take possession of the lands and the peoples in the name of God and the throne.

More particularly, Catholic theology held that spiritual salvation took precedence over temporal and civil concerns. The conversion of pagan natives to Christianity was the rationale for and legitimized Spain’s conquests. The Pope, being the recipient of divine authority and having the obligation to propagate the faith, empowered Spain to conquer the New World and convert its peoples. Thus “informed” by the Spanish, the Indians had to accept the supremacy of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown. The state was authorized to enforce submission, by war where necessary.

The Spanish requirement of 1513

The European view of the inherent right to conquest and domination in the New World was captured in a declaration addressed to Indian populations known as “El Requerimiento” (The Requirement). The document was prepared by the Spanish jurist Juan López Palacios Rubio, a staunch advocate of the divine right of monarchs and territorial conquest. It was first used in 1513 by Pedrarias Dávila, a Spanish explorer who had fought the Moors in Granada and who was later to become Governor of Nicaragua.

The Spanish Requirement, issued in the names of King Ferdinand and Queen Juana, his daughter, was an admixture of religious and legal justifications for the confiscation of New World territories and the subjugation of their inhabitants. At the time, it was believed that Native Americans resisted conquest and conversion for one of two reasons: malice or ignorance. The Requirement was putatively meant to eliminate ignorance.

A member of the conquistador’s force would read El Requerimiento in Castilian before a group of Indians on the shore, who, with or without translation, remained uncomprehending. All the region’s inhabitants were thus considered to have been advised of Spain’s religious and legal rights to conquest and forewarned of the consequences of resisting. The true nature of the Spanish Requirement, however, was one of absolution; the symbolic act of reading the document relieved the crown and its agents from legal and moral responsibility for the conquest, enslavement and killing of Native Americans. Readings were often dispensed with prior to planned attacks.

As the Spanish Requirement matter-of-factly sets forth, so brazenly from five centuries’ retrospect, God created heaven and earth, and the first man and woman from whom all are descended. God directed St. Peter to establish the Roman Catholic Church. St. Peter’s descendant, the Pope, lives in Rome. The Pope has given the New World territories to the King of Castile and directed the conversion of the Indians. If they listen carefully, the Indians will understand and accept what is happening as just; if not, Spain will make war on them. Here what the document does is to create an ontology into which these new lands and their peoples fit; it is creating a place for them in the exiting Spanish and European political structure and Christian belief structure.

Text of the document

cquote|On the part of the King, Don Fernando, and of Doña Juana, his daughter, Queen of Castile and León, subduers of the barbarous nations, we their servants notify and make known to you, as best we can, that the Lord our God, living and eternal, created the heaven and the earth, and one man and one woman, of whom you and we, and all the men of the world, were and are all descendants, and all those who come after us.

Of all these nations God our Lord gave charge to one man, called St. Peter, that he should be lord and superior of all the men in the world, that all should obey him, and that he should be the head of the whole human race, wherever men should live, and under whatever law, sect, or belief they should be; and he gave him the world for his kingdom and jurisdiction.

One of these pontiffs, who succeeded St. Peter as lord of the world in the dignity and seat which I have before mentioned, made donation of these isles and Terra-firma to the aforesaid King and Queen and to their successors, our lords, with all that there are in these territories,

Wherefore, as best we can, we ask and require you that you consider what we have said to you, and that you take the time that shall be necessary to understand and deliberate upon it, and that you acknowledge the Church as the ruler and superior of the whole world,

But if you do not do this, and maliciously make delay in it, I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of their highnesses; we shall take you, and your wives, and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their highnesses may command; and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey, and refuse to receive their lord, and resist and contradict him: and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault, and not that of their highnesses, or ours, nor of these cavaliers who come with us.

External links

Calderón, Annie Badilla, Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, “La información y los textos jurídicos de la colonia (II). El poder político Latina”, "Revista Latina de Comunicación Social" 13 –enero de 1999. Recuperado el 2 de marzo de 2008 de: http://www.ull.es/publicaciones/latina/a1999c/149badilla2cr.htm

Hernández, Jesús Contreras, Universidad Central de Barcelona, “La cara India, la cruz del 92”, "Gaceta de Antropología" No. 8, 1991 Recuperado el 3 de marzo de 2008 de: http://www.ugr.es/~pwlac/G08_01Jesus_Contreras_Hernandez.html

“La Guerra justa y el requerimiento”, arteHistoria, 17 de febrero de 2008 Recuperado el 2 de marzo de 2008 de: http://www.artehistoria.jcyl.es/historia/contextos/1508.htm

Pereira-Muro, Carmen, "La ‘conversión’ de los moriscos", en "Culturas de España", 2003, p. 92.