{ "id": "libertad-de-los-indios-de-chile", "type": "entity", "name": "The Chile slavery laws of the Recopilación (libro VI, título II)", "summary": "The título of the Indies code headed \"De la libertad de los Indios\" is where Spanish law made exceptions to its own principle, and where it took one back. Its laws forbid selling an Indian \"porque son de su naturaleza libres\", licence the enslavement of Carib and Mindanao captives, recite the case for enslaving the Mapuche — then revoke it, order those already sold out of Chile brought home, name the three devices that kept the trade alive, and record that Chile's governor had suspended it.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "americas", "chile", "colonial-law", "law", "legislation", "slavery", "indigenous-rights", "indigenous-peoples", "spanish-empire", "seventeenth-century" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "related", "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "new-laws-of-1542" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "encomienda" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "valladolid-debate" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "protector-de-indios" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "republica-de-indios" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "coartacion" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "instruccion-sobre-el-trato-de-esclavos-1789" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "ovalle-historica-relacion-de-chile" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "nunez-de-pineda-cautiverio-feliz-1673" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "parlamentos-de-chile" } ], "questions": [ "Did Spanish law ever allow the enslavement of American Indians?", "When was the enslavement of Mapuche war captives abolished?", "What did the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias say about slavery in Chile?", "What were the \"guerra viva\", \"servidumbre\" and \"usanza\" in colonial Chile?", "Did Spain order enslaved Indians returned to their own lands?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "The título states a principle in absolute terms. Libro VI, título II is headed \"De la libertad de los Indios\", and its ley xj (D. Felipe III en Aranjuez á 26 de Mayo de 1609) forbids that Indians be lent, passed from one Spaniard to another, or alienated \"por via de venta, donacion, testamento, paga, trueco, ni en otra forma de contrato\", together with obrajes, ganados, chacras or minas or without them, or that they or their service even be mentioned in the deeds owners grant for such estates, \"porque son de su naturaleza libres, como los mismos Españoles\". The penalties are graded by rank: a contravener of low condition incurs public shame and perpetual exile from the Indies; one whose quality does not permit those penalties loses the Indians, becomes incapable of receiving any repartimiento of the kind, and pays two thousand ducados in thirds — two parts to judge and denouncer, \"y la tercera para los Indios contenidos en la escritura, ó contrato\". The deeds themselves are annulled and revoked, the escribanos before whom they passed are deprived of office and fined the same sum, and justices who dissimulate such an offence incur as much again and exile from the Indies. (Read at PA204.)", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "The same título carries the exceptions, and they are printed beside the principle rather than hidden from it. Ley xij (D. Felipe II á 4 de Julio de 1570; D. Felipe III en Madrid á 29 de Mayo de 1620) holds that in the district of the Philippines it \"ha parecido eficaz remedio declarar por esclavos á los que fueren cautivos en la guerra\" of Mindanao, with a distinction the law insists on: Mindanaos who are \"puramente Gentiles\" are not to be given as slaves; those \"de nacion, y naturaleza Moros\" who come to other islands to teach their sect or to make war on Spaniards or on Indians subject to the crown may be; but Indians who have received the sect \"no los harán esclavos, y serán persuadidos por lícitos, y buenos medios, que se conviertan\". Ley xiij (D. Felipe II en Madrid á 25 de Enero de 1569) gives the vecinos of the Islas de Barlovento licence to make war on the Caribs who come to infest them under arms \"y comen carne humana\", and to enslave those they capture, \"con que no sean menores de catorce años, ni mugeres de qualquiera edad\". (Read at PA204-PA205.)", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "Ley xiiij recites the case for enslaving the Mapuche at length before answering it. Headed \"Sobre la libertad de los Indios de Chile, y que á ella sean restituidos\", and carrying a chain of dates — D. Felipe III en Ventosilla á 26 de Mayo de 1608; D. Felipe IIII en Aranjuez á 13 de Abril de 1625; en Madrid á 9 de Abril de 1662 y á 1 y 5 de Agosto de 1663; D. Cárlos II y la Reyna Gobernadora — it opens by narrating that every possible means had been tried to reduce the natives of the provinces of Chile by gentle and peaceful persuasion, that they used them so badly that the peace was broken, that in all instances they gave it \"falsa, y fingida\", that they took arms against Spaniards and against friendly Indians, laid waste forts, towns and cities, profaned temples, killed religious and vassals, took captive whom they could, and persisted many years in obstinacy, \"por que merecieron ser dados por esclavos, como gente perseguidora de la Iglesia, y Religion Christiana\". The law prints the argument for slavery in the crown's own voice. (Read at PA205.)", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "Then the same law revokes it, and states a reason of state for doing so. \"Y Nos usando de toda piedad, y clemencia, tuvimos por bien de remitir, y perdonar este delito, y concederles graciosamente, que no pudiesen ser cautivos, presos, molestados, ni acusados por él, ni sus tierras ni otros qualesquier bienes, tomados, ni embargados.\" The ground given for widening the pardon is not only mercy: the crown states that it has recognised that \"la dilatacion de el Santo Evangelio, paz, y quietud de aquel Reyno, y poblacion de la tierra\" is impeded and even made impossible \"por la esclavitud de los Indios\". The argument printed in the code is that the enslavement was defeating the crown's own objects in Chile. (Read at PA205.)", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "Ley xiiij is a restitution order and not only a prohibition. It commands the viceroys of Peru, governors, captains general and audiencias to keep and execute the orders against permitting slavery, and that all males or females \"que con pretexto de esclavitud se hubieren vendido, y sacado fuera de aquellas Provincias á la Ciudad de los Reyes, ú otras qualesquiera del Perú, se recojan, y sean reducidos á sus tierras, con efecto\" — that is, people already sold north into Peru are to be gathered up and returned. The present possessors keep their right of recourse against the sellers who sold them, but the law forecloses the obvious delay: \"teniendo entendido, que este, ni otro qualquier derecho no ha de embarazar, ni retardar la reduccion de los dichos Indios, porque se ha de executar inviolablemente, sin ninguna dilacion\". Its closing words are nonetheless provisional — all it contains is to be kept \"por ahora, y entretanto que otra cosa proveemos\". (Read at PA205.)", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "Ley xvj names the three devices by which enslavement had been kept alive after being forbidden. Headed \"Revalida las órdenes de la libertad de los Indios, y da nueva providencia en los de Chile\" (D. Cárlos II en Madrid á 12 de Junio de 1679), it records that having resolved that the Indians of Chile should enjoy entire liberty, \"se introduxo\" that those seized in \"guerra viva\" be made slaves \"por el derecho de ella\"; that by another right \"llamado de servidumbre\" Indians taken at a tender age served until twenty years and afterwards were free; and that by a third, \"llamado de la usanza\", parents, mothers and nearest relatives sold their children and kin \"en cambio de algunas alhajas, hasta cierto tiempo, como en prendas\". A law that abolishes a practice by listing the evasions it has already met is a law reporting its own earlier failure. (Read at PA206.)", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c7", "text": "The same law records, in the code itself, that the crown's officer on the spot had refused to apply it. After ordering the governor of those provinces that all Indian slaves be set at natural liberty, that prisoners — \"los Indios, Indias, y niños\" — not be sold as slaves nor taken out of the kingdom of Chile, and that those already sold be returned to it and to their own lands, the text continues: \"Y habiendo el Gobernador de Chile suspendido el efecto de esta resolucion con varios pretextos, por la buena fe de los poseedores, depositando algunos Indios en ellos, para que los tuviesen con buen tratamiento\", the matter was seen in the Council and consulted with the king, who resolved that the law be kept and executed \"precisa, y puntualmente, sin permitir ni dar lugar á que se vaya, ni pase contra lo dispuesto en ella por ninguna causa\". The abolition is then made retrospective and hereditary: henceforth under no pretext \"ó motivo de justa guerra, ú otro qualquiera\" may those apprehended in war or out of it remain slaves or be sold as such, nor those called of servidumbre or of the usanza, \"y todos los que ahora viven en esclavitud, y sus hijos, y descendientes queden con efecto libres\". (Read at PA206.)", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c8", "text": "Ley xvj also closes the pretext under which mistreatment was defended. Because it matters much that the Indians of those provinces \"sean tratados con todo amor, como vasallos nuestros, y no sean oprimidos, ni molestados\", and that their relief and preservation be cared for, the law orders that the courts proceed \"por todo rigor de derecho contra los que los hicieren malos tratamientos, aunque sea con pretexto de decir, que son enemigos, y hacen guerra\" — the war itself is refused as an excuse. Conversion and reducción are charged to the governor \"por los medios mas suaves y benignos, que se hallasen, y principalmente por la predicacion del Santo Evangelio\". (Read at PA206.)", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c9", "text": "What this object reports is the text of a printed code, which is not the same thing as what happened in Chile, and the code says as much about itself. Ley xiiij bears six dates between 1608 and 1663 and calls itself provisional; ley xvj exists in 1679 because the earlier orders had been evaded by three named devices and suspended by the governor — so the compilation is itself evidence that the prohibition had to be reissued across some seventy years. The exemptions for the Caribs of the Barlovento islands and for the Moros of Mindanao stand unrepealed on the same pages as the Chilean abolition. Nothing here shows how many people were in fact freed, or restored to their lands, and this corpus has opened no Chilean or Peruvian records that would show it. The volume read is the fourth impression of 1791, not the 1681 first edition, and the wording quoted is that impression's.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.85 } ], "takeaways": [], "faqs": [], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "industry_observation", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": false, "winning_edge": "English-language accounts of Indian slavery in Spanish America generally stop at the 1542 New Laws or treat the Recopilación as a single undifferentiated gesture, and accounts of the Arauco war usually mention the 1608 licence without the law that ended it. This object does neither. It reads one título of the code page by page and reports what is actually printed there: the principle, the two exemptions left standing beside it, the crown's own recital of the case for enslaving the Mapuche, the revocation with its stated reason of state, the order to gather up and return people already sold into Peru, the three named evasions — guerra viva, servidumbre, usanza — and the sentence in which the code records that the governor of Chile had suspended the order. It quotes the Spanish in each case, gives the page it was read on, and states plainly that a printed law is not a measured outcome.", "confidence": 0.85, "last_verified": "2026-08-16", "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/libertad-de-los-indios-de-chile", "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/libertad-de-los-indios-de-chile.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "The Chile slavery laws of the Recopilación (libro VI, título II)", "description": "The título of the Indies code headed \"De la libertad de los Indios\" is where Spanish law made exceptions to its own principle, and where it took one back. Its laws forbid selling an Indian \"porque son de su naturaleza libres\", licence the enslavement of Carib and Mindanao captives, recite the case for enslaving the Mapuche — then revoke it, order those already sold out of Chile brought home, name the three devices that kept the trade alive, and record that Chile's governor had suspended it.", "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/libertad-de-los-indios-de-chile", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-08-16", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias … Quarta impresión — Tomo Segundo (Libros IIII a VIII)", "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=Lt41mzCz8zEC&pg=PP5" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "The Chile slavery laws of the Recopilación (libro VI, título II)" } }