Global Indios: The Indigenous Struggle for Justice in Sixteenth-Century Spain

Narrating Native Histories

by Nancy E. van Deusen

In the sixteenth century hundreds of thousands of indios—indigenous peoples from the territories of the Spanish empire—were enslaved and relocated throughout the Iberian world. Although various laws and decrees outlawed indio enslavement, several loopholes allowed the practice to continue. In Global Indios Nancy E. van Deusen documents the more than one hundred lawsuits between 1530 and 1585 that indio slaves living in Castile brought to the Spanish courts to secure their freedom. Because plaintiffs had to prove their indio-ness in a Spanish imperial context, these lawsuits reveal the difficulties of determining who was an indio and who was not—especially since it was an all-encompassing construct connoting subservience and political personhood and at times could refer to people from Mexico, Peru, or South or East Asia. Van Deusen demonstrates that the categories of free and slave were often not easily defined, and she forces a rethinking of the meaning of indio in ways that emphasize the need to situate colonial Spanish American indigenous subjects in a global context.
 

Genres: History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 10, 2015

About the author

Nancy E. van Deusen is Professor of History at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. She is the author of Between the Sacred and the Worldly: The Institutional and Cultural Practice of Recogimiento in Colonial Lima and The Souls of Purgatory: The Spiritual Diary of a Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Ursula de Jesús.

Reviews

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 16th century was rather complicated in terms of slavery and Indians in the Spanish Empire. In 1501 Columbus sent a boatload of Taíno slaves to his sponsor, Queen Isabella. In response, the Queen arrested Columbus, freed the slaves, declared all Indians to be free Spanish subjects; this was reinforced by the Laws of Burgos in 1512. Then in 1513, the Crown ordained the Requirimiento, ordering that all any Indians who did not immediately accept the proclamation of Christianity and vassalage to were subject to just war and subsequent slavery. This horrified many people, including the Pope, who in 1537 issued the Bull Sublimus Deus that proclaimed that Indians were free by nature, truly human, and vassals rather than slaves. The Spanish temporarily banned slavery in 1530, and then reinstated it for just war and ransom in 1534 while re-emphasizing that women and children could not be taken as slaves. Finally, in 1542 the New Laws prohibited slavery, established audiencias to investigate abuses and protect Indians, and allowed Indian slaves to take their cases to court and sue their masters for their freedom. This book is the story of those Indians.

The Introduction explores these laws, the scope of the book, and the nature of the court cases that ensued. The reason why Indians still had to file court cases was that there were a few loopholes that slaveowners could use. They could argue that the “indio” slaves were not actually indio, but rather of African lineage; they could also argue that the slaves were not free free indios from the Spanish Empire, but rather came from beyond the Spanish Empire (most often from Portuguese domains). In spite of these arguments, 95% of the court cases ended in liberty for the indio slaves. Courts sometimes added further penalties, such as payment of back-wages, fines for illegal branding. The indio communities often supported each other in their litigations by serving as witnesses and gather evidence for each other.

Chapter 1 explores the cases of two groups of related women who petitioned for their freedom. Both were denied initially; one group one on appeal, and one did not. The chapter elaborates on how plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses conspired, fabricated, contradicted, and conflated in order to argue for or against liberty, and what sorts of arguments were constructed to demonstrate that a given slave was an india who should be freed, or a non-india who was permissible to hold as a slave.

Chapter 2 expands on the microhistories of many indio slaves. How did slaves first become enslaved? What was the journey like between their place of capture and their household of bondage? What was their work like, their living conditions, their mistreatment? And finally, how did they manage to file suite after 1542? This also explores how different people viewed slavery. How was slavery with a pitiful wage different from, say, being a servant with a pitiful wage? Did slaves and masters view each other as family? What sorts of relationships developed between the people in a community that contained indio slaves? This also reminded me of some slavery narratives that I had not considered – human trafficking under false pretenses, outright kidnapping, migrant labor that degraded into slavery, and even false and illegal branding.

Chapter 3 details the exploits of Gregorio Lopez, a jurist on the Council of the Indies who in 1543 legally emancipated over 100 slaves. Gregorio was originally chosen to lead the 1543 inspection because he was a brilliant jurist who was also new to the Council, and therefore had no prior relations or ulterior motives with the House of Trade. The conditions were surprisingly balanced towards slaves – if owners refused to appear in court or present documents, they faced a massive fine and all slaves were emancipated; if the documents were missing or forged, the slaves were emancipated; masters could not sell or transport slaves during the court proceedings, or they would face stiff fines; if the master placed the slave in grave abuse or life-threatening danger, the slave could be seized and removed from the master’s custody during the trial; all cases were conducted summarily – “quickly and without a lengthy trial” (104. In 1536, Queen Isabel had already decreed that slaves could only be taken as war captives in a just war, and that even these would require a letter from the viceroy, governor, member of the court, or chief justice, documents proving the circumstances of the captivity, inspection and branding by a royal official, proof that the slave was over 14 when they were captures (and was not a woman), inspection before leaving a New World port, and inspection upon arriving in Spain. If any of these steps were missing, the slave was to be immediately freed, and these requirements were applied retroactively; this had the further impact of shifting the burden of proof from slave to master. The New Laws of 1542 outright banned Indian slavery altogether, which obviously greatly strengthened Gregorio’s ability to liberate slaves. After his several-month inspection, in 1543 Gregorio persuaded the Crown to issue a decree banning all indio slaves from Castile, and further banning that indios be forcibly removed from their provinces of origin; both carried a massive fine, and the cost of returning indios to their homes. However, many slaves did not pursue litigation, were whisked away by slavers from other European nations, or were hidden from the authorities. In 1544, the newly-appointed Bishop of Chiapas, Bartolomé de las Casas, waited in a Dominican monastery with 50 missionary friars to embark on his last voyage to the Americas. While there, he noted that he was overwhelmed by illegally-held indio slaves who hoped that he could save them and bring them home; the Bishop sent a report to the Emperor Charles V. There was a second inspection in 1549, lead by Hernán Pérez with Diego Patonja as the Procurador de Indios (Prosecuting Attorney for the Indians). Diego actively advised his clients to plead freedom from birth, by naturaleza, and by ingenio, and also enocuranged litigants to seek payment of back-wages.

Chapter 4 focuses on the physical evidence of paper trails, branding, and depositions that were used in the court cases, and how the same pieces of physical evidence were interpreted in different ways by plaintiffs and defendants.

Chapter 5 concerns just war and the opening arguments made by indio plaintiffs in the courts. An opening argument usually went something like “While being in my native place [estando en mi naturaleza] a Spaniard took me by deceipt [engaño] to the Spanish kingdoms,” (148). The focus of Indian arguments was always around being born free in a particular homeland, and much of the surrounding court case involved demonstrating that they were native to this area and vassals of the Spanish Crown. “Naturaleza” referred to the condition of being born free, as a native indio in a particular locale. There were three counter-arguments that the slave-owning defendents could bring – indio caribe, rescate, and buena guerra. A gaping exception to many anti-slavery laws was the “indios caribes” or Caribs, originally mentioned in 1504 as acceptable for slavery. “Carib” was often extended to a wide range of supposedly cannibalistic peoples by the 1530s, including the Chichimeca in northern Mexico, La Charca in Bolivia, and Chile. “Rescate” was a second category, where Spaniards could “rescue” Indians who were already slaves in their indigenous societies by ransoming (buying) them and “rescuing” them from paganism. Just war is the final, self-explanatory justification.

Chapter 6 focuses on the language used to identify indios, and distinguish them from other categories. The three colors used were blanco, negro, and loro; confessional faith was another frequent category, especially in regards to limpieza de sangre. Nación was an imagined corporate community; naturaleza was a specific, often idealized homeland. Calidad was based on a wide variety of physical featues – skin, hair, and head shape are obvious, but it also included physical features such as gestures, style of moving or walking, facial expressions, demeanor, and clothing. Language could be complicated. In theory, indio plaintiffs could demonstrate their origin by speaking their native language. In practice, this faced some challenges – people enslaved in their youth might not recall their native tongue, or if they were polyglots who understood the “wrong” language (for example, demonstrating familiarity with Portuguese or with Konkani), they might weaken their case.

Finally, Chapter 7 regards transimperial indios – that is, indios who had originated from the Poruguese domains in Brazil and the Indian Ocean. The author examines three case studies – slaves from the Moluccas, Rio de la Plata, and Pegu.

This was a fascinating book that shifted the focus on Indian slavery from big names like Bartolomé de las Casas to the hundreds of individual slaves who testified against their masters and the judges and procurators who supported them. I had never heard or even considered slaves having this kind of legal agency, and I think it is extremely important that their stories are told. Just be aware – this is a book about slaves describing their own sufferings, so this is a rather dark and emotionally challenging book.

[sophia]

Although I think I found the content of "On Savage Shores" more interesting, this is undoubtedly the best book of the three that I've read. Van Deusen is an accessible writer while remaining an uncompromising scholar. This book definitely requires more background knowledge but is so worth it!

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is dry, academic, legalistic, and narrowly focused, but all of these points are in its favor. Global Indios is a book about indigenous peoples living in Spain and how their lives were affected by systems of slavery and removal from their homelands. It is depressing stuff.

The author makes sure to focus on Indios themselves and not just the Spaniards who helped them. This is commendable and humanizing. I feel the author managed to extract the voices of indigenous litigants from the court cases she uses.

Although this book is narrowly focused, using only court cases from Seville, they reveal something about mechanics of empire, slavery, and ethnicity. The title of one of the chapters, “All the World in a Village,” describes this book well.

[vicente elizondo · Rating 5 out of 5]

sense making in a dream of possession

[dax · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the questions this book asks

[Huck Lanier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enlightening and historically impressive