{ "id": "carcelage-y-costas-de-los-presos-en-las-indias", "type": "entity", "name": "Carcelaje: the jail's fee economy in the Laws of the Indies, and the prisoners the code exempted from paying it", "summary": "A colonial jailer in the Indies was paid by his prisoners. Thirteen laws of libro VII, título VI of the Recopilación legislate against what that produced — gifts, irons loosened or tightened for money, wine sold above price — cap his fees to a published arancel, and exempt the poor, the banished and the Indians. The same título orders a different custody for gentlemen. Read from the 1791 impression, folios 372-373.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "colonial-law", "law-of-the-indies", "legislation", "legal-history", "criminal-justice", "criminal-law", "access-to-justice", "due-process", "poverty", "poor-relief", "corruption", "anti-corruption", "recopilacion", "spanish-empire", "americas", "indigenous-rights", "sixteenth-century", "seventeenth-century", "castes", "price-regulation" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "related", "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "carceles-y-carceleros-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "visita-de-carcel-en-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "indios-presos-por-deudas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "abogado-y-procurador-de-pobres-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "protector-de-indios" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "personas-miserables-in-the-law-of-the-indies" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "juzgado-general-de-naturales" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "escribanos-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "agravios-cotidianos-prohibidos-a-los-indios" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "penas-de-los-indios-en-la-recopilacion" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "juicio-de-residencia" } ], "questions": [ "What was carcelaje in the Spanish Indies?", "Did poor prisoners have to pay jail fees in colonial Spanish America?", "Were Indians exempt from jail fees under Spanish colonial law?", "How was a colonial Spanish jailer paid?", "Did rank affect where a prisoner was held in the Spanish Indies?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "The jailer of a Spanish colonial jail was not a salaried officer but a fee-taker, and the código says so by regulating his tariff rather than his wage. In the fourth impression of 1791, leyes x to xxij of libro VII título VI \"De las Cárceles, y Carceleros\" run across the two leaves printing folios 372 and 373. This entry carries leyes x to xv, xviiij, xxj and xxij; leyes xvj, xvij, xviij and xx of the same run, which protect poor prisoners specifically, are already carried by visita-de-carcel-en-las-indias from a reading of 2026-08-13 and are read again here only to keep the sequence intelligible.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "The central prohibition reaches the irons themselves. Ley x, \"Que los Carceleros no reciban de los presos, ni los apremien, suelten, ni prendan\" (margin \"El mismo Ordenanza 315. de 1596. y en la 283. de Audiencias\"), forbids the alcaydes and carceleros to take \"dones en dineros, ni especies de los presos\", to press them, or to give \"soltura en las prisiones, mas, ni ménos de lo que deben\" — that is, to loosen or to tighten a prisoner's fetters by any amount other than what is due — and to arrest or release anyone \"sin mandamiento\". The penalty is to incur the prohibition laid on judges who take gifts, and the other penalties established in law.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "The nightly round is ordered in person and backed by the harshest sanction in the título. Ley xj, \"Que los Alcaydes, y Carceleros visiten las Cárceles, presos, y prisiones todas las noches\" (margin \"El mismo Ordenanza 309. de 1596\"), requires them to inspect \"por sus personas á los presos, prisiones, puertas y cerraduras de toda la Cárcel\", so that through their fault nobody escapes, on pain that there be executed on them \"la que el preso, ó presa mereciere, ó el interes que debiere pagar, conforme á derecho\" — the jailer serves the sentence of the prisoner he let go.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "The código bars the jailer from any commercial or social dealing with the people in his custody, and names a fund of prisoners as a beneficiary of the fine. Ley xij (margin \"El mismo Ordenanza 312. de Audiencias de 1595\") forbids the alcaydes and carceleros to deal or contract with prisoners \"por ninguna forma, directe, ni indirecte\", or to eat or gamble with them, on pain of sixty pesos and forfeiture of what was traded or staked, applied in thirds \"á nuestra Cámara, Denunciador, y pobres de la Cárcel\". The poor of that jail are a standing payee of the código's own penalties.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "Gambling and the sale of wine inside the jail are regulated rather than simply banned, and the price is fixed. Ley xiij (margin \"El mismo Ordenanza 316. de 1596\") forbids the jailers to let prisoners gamble money \"ni otras cosas, sino fuere para comer\" — staking food is allowed, staking money is not — and forbids selling wine to the poor; and where wine is sold \"porque así convenga\", it must be \"al precio justo y comun, y no mas\". The same law bars taking carcelaje money from the poor, on pain of repaying it fourfold to the Cámara.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "The fee itself is capped by a published tariff. Ley xiiij, \"Que los Carceleros lleven los derechos conforme á los aranceles\" (margin \"El mismo allí\"), orders that all jailers keep the aranceles \"y lleven los derechos, ajustándose á ellos, y no mas, como está ordenado\". The code does not abolish the charge; it concedes that the office lives on it and fixes the schedule. Every exemption in the título is an exemption from this tariff, not from a tax.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c7", "text": "The counterpoint is printed in the middle of the run, not elsewhere. Ley xv, \"Que la carcelería sea conforme á la calidad de las personas, y delitos\" (margin \"El Emperador D. Cárlos y la Emperatriz Gobernadora en Ocaña á 25 de Enero de 1531. El mismo en Madrid á 11 de Diciembre de 1534. D. Felipe III allí á 4 de Junio de 1620\"), orders viceroys, presidents, audiencias and justices that when they order the arrest of \"algun Regidor, ó Caballero, ó persona honrada\" they assign the custody \"conforme á la calidad, y gravedad de sus personas y delitos\", in the public jails or in the houses of alguaciles, porteros or ministros, or those of the ayuntamiento, and not in the galleys unless the man is a soldier serving in them. Rank is an express ground of differential custody in the same título that forbids charging the poor a real.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c8", "text": "Three laws stop the fee from converting a finished sentence into continued imprisonment. Ley xvj (margin \"El Emperador D. Cárlos en Valladolid á 4 de Septiembre de 1551\") orders that prisoners already discharged not be held for the fees or costs owed to justices and escribanos if they are poor or swear they cannot pay; ley xviiij that a man sentenced to banishment who wishes to go and serve it \"sea luego suelto de la prision, y no detenido por las costas y derechos, no habiendo otra causa\"; and ley xx that a prisoner on whom a corporal penalty has been executed — \"de azotes, vergüenza pública, ó clavar la mano, ó semejantes\" — not be returned to the jail for anyone's fees, but released \"luego donde se acabare la execucion\".", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c9", "text": "Indians are exempted by a law of their own, and the exemption is wider than its occasion. Ley xxj, \"Que los Indios no paguen costas, ni carcelage\" (margin \"D. Felipe IIII en Madrid á 7 de Marzo de 1627. En el Pardo á 26 de Enero de 1628\"), orders that of \"los Indios presos porque se embriagan\" the justices, alguaciles and carceleros take no costs, derechos or carcelaje — and then adds \"ni las paguen por esta, ni otras causas, como está ordenado\". The recital is drunkenness; the operative clause covers every cause, and refers back to an earlier order the leaf does not identify.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c10", "text": "The título closes its fee run with a bare cross-reference. Ley xxij has no text of its own beyond its rubric, \"Que se guarde la ley 92. tít. 15. lib. 2. sobre no presentarse en la Cárcel por Procurador, y dar inhibiciones\" — a pointer to the rule on appearing at the jail through a procurador, in the book of the código that governs the audiencias. The law it points to was not opened here and no claim rests on its content.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c11", "text": "Read together, the prohibitions are a map of the practice, and that reading is this corpus's rather than the leaf's. A statute forbidding a jailer to take gifts, to adjust irons for payment, to trade, eat or gamble with prisoners, to sell wine above price, to strip the clothes of a poor man, to demand a surety from a fellow tradesman, or to take a flogged man back inside for his fee, is a statute written against things that were being done. Each law names a specific transaction, which is what distinguishes it from a general exhortation; but nothing on these leaves says how often any of it happened, and neither law cites a case.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c12", "text": "What is missing is the enforcement. This corpus holds no arancel de carcelaje from any audiencia of the Indies, no jailer fined the sixty pesos of ley xij or the quatrotanto of ley xiij, no prisoner recorded as released under leyes xvj to xx, and no Indian recorded as exempted under ley xxj. The twelve laws are evidence of what the Council of the Indies thought was wrong with its jails and of what it ordered done; they are not evidence that any of it was done.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-vii-titulo-vi-carcelage" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [], "faqs": [], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "industry_observation", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": true, "winning_edge": "The fee-funded jail is a commonplace of early modern European history and is almost always illustrated from England, where the \"garnish\" and the gaoler's tariff are well documented. The Spanish Indies had the same institution and legislated against it in detail, and that legislation is not in the English-language literature: the standard accounts of colonial Spanish American justice discuss the audiencia and the visita de cárcel and never reach the título that prices the jail. This entry prints it from the leaves of the 1791 fourth impression — the ban on loosening or tightening a prisoner's irons \"mas, ni ménos de lo que deben\"; the jailer made to serve the sentence of the prisoner he let escape; the fine payable in thirds to the Cámara, the denouncer and \"pobres de la Cárcel\"; wine sold inside the jail at \"el precio justo y comun, y no mas\"; the fees capped to a published arancel; the flogged prisoner released where the punishment ended rather than taken back inside; and the Indians exempted from costs and carcelaje by a law of 1627 whose operative clause reaches every cause, not only the drunkenness it recites. And it keeps on the record what a defensive account would cut: that the código never abolishes the fee, only schedules it; that ley xv orders a custody matched to the rank of a Regidor, a Caballero or a persona honrada in the same breath; that the audiencia's own officials were exempted before the poor; and that nothing in this corpus shows one of these laws enforced.", "confidence": 0.85, "last_verified": "2026-10-06", "media": [], "x": {}, "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/carcelage-y-costas-de-los-presos-en-las-indias", "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/carcelage-y-costas-de-los-presos-en-las-indias.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "Carcelaje: the jail's fee economy in the Laws of the Indies, and the prisoners the code exempted from paying it", "description": "A colonial jailer in the Indies was paid by his prisoners. Thirteen laws of libro VII, título VI of the Recopilación legislate against what that produced — gifts, irons loosened or tightened for money, wine sold above price — cap his fees to a published arancel, and exempt the poor, the banished and the Indians. The same título orders a different custody for gentlemen. Read from the 1791 impression, folios 372-373.", "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/carcelage-y-costas-de-los-presos-en-las-indias", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-10-06", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, libro VII título VI 'De las Cárceles, y Carceleros' — leyes x to xxij on the printed folios 372 and 373: ley x 'Que los Carceleros no reciban de los presos, ni los apremien, suelten, ni prendan' (margin 'El mismo Ordenanza 315. de 1596. y en la 283. de Audiencias'), whose whole text reads 'MAndamos que los Alcaydes, y Carceleros no reciban dones en dineros, ni especies de los presos, ni los apremien, ni dén soltura en las prisiones, mas, ni ménos de lo que deben, ni los prendan, ó suelten sin mandamiento, pena de incurrir en la prohibicion de los Jueces que reciben dádivas, y las otras penas en derecho establecidas'; ley xj 'Que los Alcaydes, y Carceleros visiten las Cárceles, presos, y prisiones todas las noches' (margin 'El mismo Ordenanza 309. de 1596'), whose whole text reads 'MAndamos que los Alcaydes, y Carceleros visiten, y requieran por sus personas á los presos, prisiones, puertas y cerraduras de toda la Cárcel, de forma que por su culpa no se vaya alguno, pena de que se executará en ellos la que el preso, ó presa mereciere, ó el interes que debiere pagar, conforme á derecho'; ley xij 'Que los Alcaydes, y Carceleros no contraten, coman, ni jueguen con los presos' (margin 'El mismo Ordenanza 312. de Audiencias de 1595'), whose whole text reads 'ORdenamos que los Alcaydes, y Carceleros no traten, ni contraten con los presos por ninguna forma, directe, ni indirecte, ni coman, ni jueguen con ellos, pena de sesenta pesos, y de perder lo que así contrataren y jugaren, que aplicamos por tercias partes á nuestra Cámara, Denunciador, y pobres de la Cárcel'; ley xiij 'Que los Carceleros no consientan juegos, ni vendan vino por mas de lo que valiere, ni lleven carcelage á pobres' (margin 'El mismo Ordenanza 316. de 1596'), whose whole text reads 'LOS Alcaydes, y Carceleros no consientan, ni permitan que los presos jueguen en la Cárcel dineros, ni otras cosas, sino fuere para comer, y no vendan vino á los pobres, y en caso que le vendan, porque así convenga, sea al precio justo y comun, y no mas, y no lleven dineros de carcelage á los pobres, pena de que lo pagarán con el quatrotanto, para nuestra Cámara'; ley xiiij 'Que los Carceleros lleven los derechos conforme á los aranceles' (margin 'El mismo allí'), whose whole text reads 'TOdos los Carceleros guarden los aranceles, y lleven los derechos, ajustándose á ellos, y no mas, como está ordenado'; ley xv 'Que la carcelería sea conforme á la calidad de las personas, y delitos' (margin 'El Emperador D. Cárlos y la Emperatriz Gobernadora en Ocaña á 25 de Enero de 1531. El mismo en Madrid á 11 de Diciembre de 1534. D. Felipe III allí á 4 de Junio de 1620'), whose whole text reads 'ORdenamos á los Vireyes, Presidentes, Audiencias y Justicias, que quando mandaren prender algun Regidor, ó Caballero, ó persona honrada, señalen la carcelería conforme á la calidad, y gravedad de sus personas y delitos; y guardando las leyes, los hagan poner en las Cárceles públicas ó casas de Alguaciles, Porteros, ó Ministros, ó las de Ayuntamiento, y no en las Galeras donde las hubiere, sino fueren Soldados que sirvan en ellas, ó en caso, ó lugar que no haya otra ninguna carcelería'; ley xviiij 'Que el que quisiere salir á cumplir destierro, no sea detenido por costas, ni carcelage' (margin 'El mismo'), whose whole text reads 'EL que fuere condenado á destierro, y quisiere salir á cumplirlo, sea luego suelto de la prision, y no detenido por las costas y derechos, no habiendo otra causa'; ley xxj 'Que los Indios no paguen costas, ni carcelage' (margin 'D. Felipe IIII en Madrid á 7 de Marzo de 1627. En el Pardo á 26 de Enero de 1628'), whose whole text reads 'Á Los Indios presos porque se embriagan no lleven costas, derechos, ni carcelage las Justicias, Alguaciles y Carceleros, ni las paguen por esta, ni otras causas, como está ordenado'; and ley xxij, which is a bare cross-reference and whose whole text is its rubric, 'Que se guarde la ley 92. tít. 15. lib. 2. sobre no presentarse en la Cárcel por Procurador, y dar inhibiciones'. Also read in a band on folio 373 and registered here for the sequence, although already carried by visita-de-carcel-en-las-indias: ley xvj (margin 'El Emperador D. Cárlos en Valladolid á 4 de Septiembre de 1551'), 'NO detengan los Alcaydes, y Carceleros á los presos despachados, y mandados librar de la prision por sus derechos, ó costas debidas á las Justicias y Escribanos, si fueren pobres, ó juraren que no tienen de que pagar, suéltenlos luego, sino interviniere otra causa para su prision'; ley xvij 'Que á los presos pobres no se quiten prendas por carcelage, y costas' (margin 'El Príncipe Gobernador cap. 2'); ley xviij 'Que los pobres no sean apremiados á dar fiador por costas, ni carcelage' (margin 'El Príncipe Gobernador'); and ley xx 'Que el preso en quien se executare pena corporal, no sea vuelto á la Cárcel por costas, ni carcelage' (margin 'El mismo'), whose whole text reads 'MAndamos que despues de executadas penas corporales en los presos, de azotes, vergüenza pública, ó clavar la mano, ó semejantes, no sean vueltos á la Cárcel por los derechos, ni costas de las Justicias, Escribanos, ni Carceleros; y luego donde se acabare la execucion, sean sueltos para que se vayan, excepto sino hubiere otra causa, ó razon de que el paciente no padezca mayor afrenta; y si el Alguacil lo volviere á la Cárcel, y el Carcelero lo recogiere para el efecto susodicho, incurra en pena de un ducado para los presos de aquella Cárcel'", "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=Lt41mzCz8zEC&pg=PA372" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "Carcelaje: the jail's fee economy in the Laws of the Indies, and the prisoners the code exempted from paying it" } }