History Sets You Free



THE ROLE OF LAS CASASThe most influential of the supporters of native rights was Bartolomé de Las Casas. La Casas, a son of a small merchant, left for Hispaniola, in the Caribbean, with the governor, Nicolás de Ovando in 1502. As a reward for his participation in various expeditions, including the bloody conquest of Juana by Velazquez in 1513, he was given an encomienda. He soon began to convert the natives on his encomienda, serving as teacher of religious education. Although during his first 12 years in the New World Las Casas was a willing participant in the conquest of the Caribbean, he did not remain unsympathetic to the treatment of the natives. In his most famous writings, ‘A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies’ 1542, Las Casas attacked the system of encomiendas as unjust and tyrannical. Las Casas's petitioning influenced Charles I's announcement of the New Laws on 20 November 1542.357886025844500-36068024955500332994023368000THE NEW LAWS 1542The New Laws also known as the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians, were issued on November 20, 1542, by King Charles I of Spain. The New Laws enforced new limits on the encomienda system, including banning all forms of native slavery and the eventual abolition of new encomiendas. The New Laws stated:The natives would be considered free persons, and the encomenderos (colonists) could no longer demand their labour. The natives were only required to pay the encomenderos (colonists) tribute, and, if they worked, they would be paid wages in exchange for their labour.The sending of natives to work in the silver and gold mines was forbidden, unless it was absolutely necessary.Colonists found guilty of mistreating their natives would lose their encomienda.The natives be taxed fairly and treated well. Public officials and churchmen with encomienda grants be returned immediately to the Crown.That encomienda grants would not be hereditarily passed on, but would be cancelled at the death of the individual encomenderos (colonist).Individuals responsible for the civil war in Peru, between Pizarro and Almagro, are stripped of their encomiendas.The New Laws of 1542 were designed to protect the natives and to restrain the encomenderos. A viceroy for Peru and audiencias in Lima, were officially established to create a more effective governmental and legal system to introduce the New Laws. CONSEQUENCES OF THE NEW LAWSReaction of the Colonists- The view of many colonists was that the natives were naturally inferior and, therefore, they could treat them as they wished. So when colonists learned that their encomiendas could be confiscated if found guilty of having taken part in the civil disturbances of Francisco Pizarro and Almagro, great unrest followed. This led to a violent rebellion in Peru, led by Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco’s brother, against the viceroy and the Spanish crown. Pizarro headed protesting landowners who took to arms in order to "maintain their rights by force". The rebellion led to the death of Viceroy Blasco Nú?ez Vela of Peru in 1546, who had attempted to impose the New Laws.-7048509271000Reaction of the viceroy of Mexico-Unlike, Blasco Nú?ez Vela, the first Viceroy of Peru who enforced the New Laws, resulting in his death in 1546, Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), was unable to enforce these laws. Convinced that the New Laws would only lead to economic chaos and drive the Spaniards to rebel, Mendoza suspended the New Laws. Nevertheless Mendoza did try to improve the life of the Indians by limiting their abuse in the mines by fixing the hours of work, by ordering payment for the labour of free Indians, and by protecting Indian lands from seizure. Reaction of the Spanish Crown - Although at first the New Laws strengthened royal control by regulating the number of Indians who could be forced into work by officials and landholders, Charles had to cancel the New Laws. Faced with the unexpectedly violent reaction and outcry among the colonists, Charles I became alarmed and was convinced that the immediate abolition of the encomienda system would bring economic ruin to the colonies. In 1545, the rule stating that the encomienda system would no longer be passed down through generations was withdrawn, and the place of the encomienda system was again secure. Due to the distance between the Spanish crown in Spain and the administration the New World, Charles was unable to maintain his control over the area, the viceroys and the colonists. EXTRACTS TAKEN FROM LAS CASAS’S A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES’, 1542The great kingdoms and provinces of Peru“In 1531 another great villain journeyed with a number of men to the kingdoms of Peru. He set out with every intention of imitating the strategy and tactics of his fellow-adventurers in other parts of the New World but, as time went on, his cruelty came to outstrip even that of his predecessors, as he criminally murdered and plundered his way through the region, razing towns and cities to the ground and slaughtering and otherwise tormenting in the most barbaric fashion imaginable the people who lived there. Throughout the territory, his wickedness was on such a scale that nobody will ever really learn the full extent of it until all is revealed on the Day of Judgment. Indeed, it would be impossible to depict in all their ugly and horrendous detail the outrages and atrocities I shall now describe.”“I testify that I saw with my own eyes Spaniards cutting off the hands, noses and ears of local people, both men and women, simply for the fun of it, and that this happened time and again in various places throughout the region. On several occasions I also saw them set dogs on the people, many being torn to pieces in this fashion, and they also burned down houses and even whole settlements, too numerous to count. It is also the case that they tore babes from the mother's breast and played games with them, seeing who could throw them the farthest. I was a witness to other outrages and to hair-raising barbarities, so many and so various that to list each and every one of them individually would be the work of a lifetime.”“I can vouch for the truth of the story that they made a practice of summoning caciques and other local leaders, ensuring them of their good will and offering them every assurance of safe conduct, and then seized them as soon as they appeared and burned them.”“Only a few days ago they murdered a great queen, the wife of an Inca, by impaling her on a number of bamboo shoots. Her husband134 is the puppet king installed quite improperly by the Spanish who had earlier seized him, and they murdered his wife in this fashion (and some say she was with child) quite without cause and simply in order to cause him grief.” ................
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