{
  "id": "freedom-of-marriage-in-the-laws-of-the-indies",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Freedom of indigenous marriage in the Laws of the Indies (libro VI, título IX)",
  "summary": "A law of 1618, compiled into the code of the Indies, strips an encomendero of his encomienda if he obstructs the marriage of any Indian man or woman held in it, and orders parish priests not to marry couples an owner brings in without first finding out whether the women come frightened or in full liberty. It sits in a title whose other laws forbid him to live in the town, keep Indian women in his house, run an obraje there or send anyone to the mines.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "colonial-law",
    "law",
    "human-rights",
    "colonial-institutions",
    "americas",
    "spanish-empire",
    "indigenous-peoples",
    "marriage"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "veracruz-speculum-coniugiorum"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "encomienda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "new-laws-of-1542"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "republica-de-indios"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "protector-de-indios"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "juzgado-general-de-naturales"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "concilio-provincial-mexicano-iii-1585"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "avisos-para-los-naturales-1769"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "coartacion"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "instruccion-sobre-el-trato-de-esclavos-1789"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Could indigenous people in Spanish America choose whom to marry?",
    "What happened to an encomendero who interfered with his Indians' marriages?",
    "Did Spanish colonial law protect indigenous women living in Spanish households?",
    "What did the Laws of the Indies forbid an encomendero to do?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "The text is read here from the fourth impression of the Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, Madrid 1791, tomo segundo, libro VI título IX, \"De los Encomenderos de Indios\". The laws carry their own marginal provenance — the emperor, the governors, Philip III and Philip IV, with dates and ordinance numbers — so each provision can be dated independently of the compilation that gathers them.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-encomenderos-libro-vi-titulo-ix"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The central provision is ley xxj, given by Philip III at Madrid on 10 October 1618, ordenanzas 82 and 83. It opens with the abuse: \"SUelen hacer los Encomenderos contradiccion á los casamientos de sus Indios, con pretexto de que los defienden, y que algunos Jueces Eclesiásticos los nombran por defensores, materia escrupulosa, y digna de la prohibicion prevenida generalmente por todo derecho\". The pretext named is protection: the encomendero blocked the marriage while claiming to be the couple's defender, and some church judges had been appointing him as such.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-encomenderos-libro-vi-titulo-ix"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The remedy is the loss of the grant itself. \"Y porque es justo, que el Matrimonio, y sus contrayentes gocen de toda libertad, ordenamos y mandamos, que qualquier Encomendero, que impidiere Matrimonio de Indio, ó India de su encomienda, incurra en perdimiento, y privacion de la encomienda, y el Juez Secular proceda á castigar este delito.\" The penalty is not a fine; it is forfeiture of the encomienda, with a criminal prosecution on top.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-encomenderos-libro-vi-titulo-ix"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "The same law tries to close the other route, by which an owner arranged marriages rather than blocking them. Parish priests are charged \"que no casen Indios con Indias de una misma encomienda, ó casa, quando el dueño de ella se los llevare sin hacer particular averiguacion, si las Indias van atemorizadas, ó con plena libertad, pues por ninguna via, directè, ni indirectè, es bien que el Encomendero, ó persona, que tiene India en su casa, tenga facultad, ni hable en impedir su Matrimonio, ni aun en casarla sin su voluntad\". The clergyman is made to test the woman's consent before the marriage, against the man who brought her.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-encomenderos-libro-vi-titulo-ix"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "The law then extends itself to women and to non-encomenderos. Because \"las mugeres exceden mucho en esto\", it is ordered to bind those who hold encomiendas as well; those who hold none incur a penalty of one hundred pesos and are never again to be permitted the service of any Indian woman, \"aunque las Indias quieran\", the same rule holding for men who are not encomenderos. The extension is the tell: the practice was not confined to the grantees.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-encomenderos-libro-vi-titulo-ix"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "A much older law in the same title attacks the household arrangement that made the interference possible. Ley xx, given by Charles V at Toledo on 4 December 1528, orders that encomenderos not keep in their houses Indian women of their repartimiento nor make use of them for anything: \"dexénlas estar, y residir con los maridos, é hijos, aunque digan, que las tienen de su voluntad, y las paguen\", on penalty of one hundred gold pesos for each woman, every time the contravention is proved. Consent asserted by the householder, and wages paid, are expressly refused as a defence.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-encomenderos-libro-vi-titulo-ix"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "The marriage laws are not isolated: the title around them is a catalogue of what encomenderos were doing. Ley xiiij bars the encomendero, his wife, parents, children, kin, servants and guests from residing in or entering the towns of his encomienda, on penalty of fifty pesos, because from that presence \"resulta, que los naturales son fatigados con servicios personales, á que sin causa, ni razon los obligan\"; ley xvj of 1618 makes him answerable for all damage his household does; ley xvij of 1633 forbids him estancias within the town's bounds; ley xviij of 1621 forbids obrajes inside the encomienda or so near it \"que se pueda rezelar, que ocuparán á los Indios en servicios personales\"; ley xviiij of 1549 forbids raising pigs where the Indians have their tillage; and ley xxij of 1549 forbids anyone holding Indians in encomienda, sequestration or deposit to send them to the mines.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-encomenderos-libro-vi-titulo-ix"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c8",
      "text": "The counterpoint is a century and a half later and comes from the church side. In the Avisos that archbishop Lorenzana had printed at Mexico in 1769 for priests to read to their indigenous parishioners, item X tells fathers to marry their children \"con los puros Indios ó con Españoles, y Castizos, si pudiessen, y no se confundan con tanta variedad de castas, que perturban la paz de sus Pueblos, y tambien es causa de que pierdan sus Privilegios en los Tribunales\". Freedom of choice defended against the encomendero in 1618 coexists, in the same legal culture, with pastoral pressure towards caste endogamy in 1769 — and the reason given for it is that mixed descent cost the household its standing in court.",
      "sources": [
        "lorenzana-avisos-para-los-naturales-1769"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c9",
      "text": "What the code cannot show is how any of this ended. These are compiled royal laws, printed in 1791 from a compilation of 1680: they are strong evidence of what was commanded, and — through the abuses each law recites before commanding — of what was happening. They are not evidence of how many encomiendas were forfeited under ley xxj, how many priests made the inquiry it requires, or whether any woman was returned to her husband and children under the law of 1528. The prohibitions are documented; their enforcement is not.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-encomenderos-libro-vi-titulo-ix"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [],
  "faqs": [],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "industry_observation",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "The freedom of indigenous people to marry whom they chose is usually asserted in English as a general fact about Catholic doctrine, with no text behind it. The text is here, from the page scans of the 1791 printing: a law of 1618 that takes the encomienda away from any encomendero who obstructs the marriage of an Indian man or woman held in it, that names the pretext used — the obstructer posing as the couple's defender, with church judges appointing him — and that orders the parish priest to find out whether the women brought to him come frightened or in full liberty before he marries them; a law of 1528 refusing an owner's claim that the women in his house stay of their own will and are paid; and the surrounding title's bar on residence, estancias, obrajes, pigs and mine labour. The 1769 pastoral advice to marry within caste is set beside them rather than left out.",
  "confidence": 0.85,
  "last_verified": "2026-08-13",
  "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/freedom-of-marriage-in-the-laws-of-the-indies",
  "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/freedom-of-marriage-in-the-laws-of-the-indies.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Freedom of indigenous marriage in the Laws of the Indies (libro VI, título IX)",
    "description": "A law of 1618, compiled into the code of the Indies, strips an encomendero of his encomienda if he obstructs the marriage of any Indian man or woman held in it, and orders parish priests not to marry couples an owner brings in without first finding out whether the women come frightened or in full liberty. It sits in a title whose other laws forbid him to live in the town, keep Indian women in his house, run an obraje there or send anyone to the mines.",
    "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/freedom-of-marriage-in-the-laws-of-the-indies",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-08-13",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, libro VI título IX, De los Encomenderos de Indios — leyes xiiij to xxij",
        "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=Lt41mzCz8zEC&pg=PA267"
      },
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Avisos para que los Naturales de estos Reynos sean felices en lo espiritual, y temporal — the fourteen numbered avisos within the Avisos para la acertada conducta de un Párroco en la América",
        "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=sMREAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA392"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Freedom of indigenous marriage in the Laws of the Indies (libro VI, título IX)"
  }
}