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Whereas, it has become evident through long experience that nothing has sufficed to bring the said chiefs and I* to a knowledge of our Faith (necessary for their salvation), since by nature they are inclined to idleness and vice, and have no manner of virtue or doctrine (by which Our Lord is disserved). (…) at the time the I* go to serve them [the Spaniards] they are indoctrinated in and taught the things of our Faith, after serving they return to their dwellings where, because of the distance and their own evil inclinations, they immediately forget what they have been taught and go back to their customary idleness and vice.

Quote: Southern Methodist University, 1512-1513. Gesetze von Burgos. Picture: Wikimedia

Excerpt from the Burgos Laws through which the Spanish Crown regulated the behaviour of Spaniards towards the colonised peoples of the Caribbean.

There were strict hierarchies in the Spanish colonies in America. For example, the Burgos Laws of 1512/1513 stipulated that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were subject to Spanish feudal lords, but should not be considered slaves. In order to exploit them as workers, the Spanish crown meticulously regulated their working and living conditions. They wanted to make sure that they would not reproduce their own ways life and at the same time would not be subjected to excessive violence by feudal lords. However, by 1550, 50-90 percent of the estimated 80 to 100 million inhabitants of Latin America had been killed by warfare, enslavement and diseases (National Geographics 2011 & The Guardian 2019).

*Eduardo Galeano (1973): Open Veins of Latin America. Five centuries of the pillage of a continent. New York: Monthly Review Press. *National Geographic (06.12.2011): "Massive Population Drop Found for Native Americans, DNA Shows" *The Guardian (31.01.2019): "European colonization of Americas killed so many it cooled Earth's climate"

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