Requerimiento

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The Requerimiento ( Spanish : request, warning) was a document that was read out by a public official, mostly in Spanish, when there was first contact between the natives and the Castilian troops. Probably the most used text was drafted in 1513 by the royal legal advisor Juan López de Palacios Rubios. He acted on behalf of King Ferdinand , who was reigning his daughter, Queen Johanna , in the Kingdom of Castile at the time .

Reading of a requerimiento

The reading out of an invitation to accept the Christian religion and to recognize the supremacy of the kings of Castile took place during the Reconquista . During the conquest of the Canary Islands Gran Canaria , La Palma and Tenerife there were similar rituals , whereby the texts were usually translated into the languages ​​of the old Canarians . As part of the creation of the Leyes de Burgos , the previously freely formulated request for submission was formalized. In the text by Juan López de Palacios Rubios, which was binding from 1513, the natives were asked to recognize the authority of the Pope and the Spanish kings and to convert to the Gospel in order to live as free Christian subjects of the Crown of Castile. The right to demand submission to the rule of the kings of Spain is derived theologically from the position of the Pope as God's representative. In the Nuevas Leyes de Indias of 1542, the text was replaced by another one that was more authoritative and gentler in tone, although the spirit remained the same.

If the indigenous peoples consented, their property and land were guaranteed. If they did not agree, which was mostly due to a lack of language skills, it was found that they were enemies of God and the Crown. This justified the conquering army to subsequent military actions. These usually ended with the aboriginal property being confiscated as spoils of war. The problem of indigenous slavery was regulated by various laws.

translation

In the name of the very high and very powerful and very Catholic defender of the Church, the always victorious and never defeated, the great King Ferdinand V of Spain of both Sicilies, ... and the very high and very powerful mistress, Queen Dona Juana, his very dear and very beloved daughter, our lords. I (name of the conquistador), his servant, messenger and captain, announce to you and do you know as best I can that God, our Lord, the one and eternal, created heaven and earth and a man and a woman, Whose sons and descendants we and all men of the world were and are and all will be who will come after us. ...
Over all these peoples, the Lord our God gave one who was called St. Peter the office of being the lord and superior of all men in the world, whom all should obey, who should be the head of the whole human race wherever people lived and were, and he gave him the world as his kingdom and his jurisdiction. ...
This is called Pope, that means: wonderful, highest father and preserver, because he is the father and ruler of all people.
This St. Peter obeyed those who lived in his day and made him their lord and king and ruler of the world, and all those who were chosen to pontificate after him were also recognized. It has gone on like this until now, and it will go on until the end of the world.
One of the earlier Popes, who succeeded in his place in this dignity and on the named throne as Lord of the World, made these islands and this mainland of the ocean to the named, i.e. the king and queen and their successors, as gifts with all that there is in it, as it is written in certain documents issued about it, which you can see if you want, so that Her Highnesses are kings and lords of these islands and the mainland, because of the said donation. ...
Therefore I ask you and I urge you as best I can to heed what I have told you and to take the right time to consider it and to recognize the Church as mistress and superior of the whole world and the high priest, who is called Pope, in their name and the king and queen Joan, our lords, in his place as superiors and lords and kings of these islands and the mainland due to the said donation and to consent and freedom to give these religious Fathers explain and preach to you what is said.
If you do this you will do well and you will do what you are obliged to do. But if you do not do it or postpone it in a malicious way, I inform you that, with the help of God, I will penetrate you by force and will make war on you in every way I can and will submit to you the yoke and obedience of the Church and Her Highnesses. And I will take your persons and your wives and children prisoner and make them slaves and as such I will sell them and dispose of them, as His Highness commands, and I will take your goods from you and do you all harm and evil as I can, ... and I declare that the killings and damage that will result from it are your debts and not those of His Highness nor those of the gentlemen who came with me. ...

Indigenous ritual

Not only the Spanish conquerors used a legitimizing ritual - the indigenous people in Hawiku and other pueblos also opposed Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's team by drawing lines on the ground with cornmeal that were supposed to set the conquistadors a limit that they should not cross . Transgression was answered on their part with war. In their view, this demarcation line was a sacred symbol of life. Just like the Spanish Requerimiento, however, this self-explanatory gesture was ignored.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rafael Sánchez Domingo: Las leyes de Burgos de 1512 y la doctrina jurídica de la conquista . In: Revista jurídica de Castilla y León . No. 28 , 2012, ISSN  1696-6759 , p. 16 (Spanish, [1] [accessed February 10, 2018]).
  2. ↑ Antonio Rumeu de Armas: La conquista de Tenerife 1494-1496 . Cabildo Inular de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1975, p. 248 (Spanish, [2] [accessed June 28, 2016]).
  3. ^ Rafael Sánchez Domingo: Las leyes de Burgos de 1512 y la doctrina jurídica de la conquista . In: Revista jurídica de Castilla y León . No. 28 , 2012, ISSN  1696-6759 , p. 27 ff . (Spanish, [3] [accessed February 10, 2018]).
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Reinhard: The submission of the world . Global history of European expansion 1415–2015 (=  historical library of the Gerda Henkel Foundation ). CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-68718-1 , p. 312 .
  5. ↑ Juan Lopez de Palacios Rubios: Requirimiento, 1513 . Indiana University.
  6. ↑ Tony Horwitz: The true discoverers of the New World - from the Vikings to the Pilgrim Fathers Pieper Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-492-25462-5 , p. 206

literature

Rafael Sánchez Domingo: Las leyes de Burgos de 1512 y la doctrina jurídica de la conquista . In: Revista jurídica de Castilla y León . No. 28 , 2012, ISSN  1696-6759 , p. 1-55 (Spanish, [4] [accessed February 10, 2018]). Sánchez Domingo 2012