New Laws of the Indies 1512

The legislation that took place in America To improve the treatment of indigenous people by the Spanish, it was a complex process that was marked by continuous changes within the laws. To talk about the set of laws and regulations that caused the most changes in indigenous legislation in this lesson from a Teacher, we offer you a summary of the New Laws of the Indies.

The New Laws did not come out of nowhere, but were the consequence of years of disputes between Spaniards and Americans, and the continuous search for new legislation that could protect the interests of Americans in a society that was increasingly unequal.

From the arrival of the Spanish on American soil Criticisms arose throughout the region of how Europeans treated indigenous people and, more specifically, the legislative inequality existing between the natives and the arrivals from Europe. The first attempt to change this was the Laws of Burgos, which sought to end abuses against Native Americans through the encomienda system.

The encomienda was a legal system based on medieval Spain which said that the indigenous people were in perpetual debt to the colonizers, Americans owed them work for having been converted to Christianity and for being protected by the King. Because of this, Americans were bound to the land for their entire lives, but the idea that this to end the abuses was totally useless and the colonists used the encomiendas to enslave natives.

The Laws of Burgos had resulted in failure when it came to protecting native interests, and for this reason, in the time of King Carlos I, the debate turned over whether the Spanish were too unfair to the Americans. In this situation it was key Bartolomé de las Casas, who considered the encomiendas an abuse for removing the natives from their lands and forcing them to work on the lands of others, destroying the native society.

In 1540, King Carlos I summoned many scholars to Salamanca to discuss what would be the changes to the legislation in America, attended by people of great influence such as Bartolomé de las Casas, Francisco de Vitoria, and other humanist figures and dominicas.

After the words of the thinkers, King Carlos I made the decision to change american law, creating on November 20, 1542 the New Laws or Laws and ordinances again made by her Majesty for the government of the Indies and good treatment and conservation of the Indians.

The content of the New Laws is one of the most important legislations in the history of America, serving as basis for all laws arising in the American zone in later years. For all these reasons, below we must list the numerous elements that these laws contain in order to understand it better, the main laws that were included in the New Laws of the Indies are the following:

• The government should take care of native americans, protecting them from Spanish attacks and inequality.
• It should not be enslaved Americans in any way. Americans were to be freed from slavery, unless the owner could somehow demonstrate that there is legitimacy of ownership.
• The only one capable of creating encomiendas for the natives was the viceroy, prohibiting this practice for any other person or organization.
• The lands and people given to the conquerors were to end at their death, ending with a decades-long bond.
• Change the American organisms to make the application of the legislation easier.
• The natives had to get paid for your work, although a minimum payment was not set.
• Indians had to pay taxes like the rest of the population, thus existing a total equality of all classes of citizens.
• The obligation for Indians to work in places as dangerous as mines or in the search for pearls, being a job they used to be forced into and in which hundreds of American people.

To finish this summary of the New Laws of the Indies 1512, we must talk about the main consequences that had the establishment of this legislation in the Spanish American colonies, to understand the process that these regions suffered due to the new regulations. The main consequences of the New Laws were the following:

• The politics of regions like Peru or New Spain It was closely linked to the encomienda, so the destruction of this system collided with the interests of the local elites.
• Were created Captaincies General to have another level of management in the region and not depend so much on the viceroys.
• A rebellion took place in Peru against the reforms of the encomiendas. The resistance entails a series of battles in the area in which those who had benefited from the encomiendas fought to try to maintain their status.
• In other regions such as New Spain, there were no rebellions, but there was widespread non-compliance, only with time that they began to obey the new legislation.
• The new legislation achieved over the years that the parcels will disappear.
• The New Laws served to end slavery in the Spanish colonies, although in some cases it was maintained.
• Although at first the legislation was slow, over the years it served to increase power of the government of the area.