Global indios: the indigenous struggle for justice in sixteenth-century Spain

Abstract

In 1501, just eight years after Columbus’s First voyage, Queen Isabel declared that indios (Indigenous people from the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas) were “Castilian free vassals who should be treated well and pay tribute to the crown” (p. 2), a law that would be followed by the Queen’s decree two years later that allowed indios caribes (cannibals) to be captured as slaves in a “just war”. This contradictory treatment of the diverse peoples of what we now call the Americas is the subject of Nancy van Deusen’s astonishing account of how indios became a highly contested legal category in 16th century Spain. Hundreds of thousands of peoples were forcibly relocated or “deracinated” from their traditional territories, many branded on the forehead with “R” for “rescate” (rescue) (rescued from captivity among other indios) or “G” for “guerra” (war) (taken as prisoner of a “just war”). Some were kept in bondage for the rest of their lives—2,000 lived as slaves in Spain. Individuals from this last group are remembered in the book under review.

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