"I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and in the name of the Pope take the King as lord of this land and obey his mandates. If you do not... with the help of God I shall enter your land against you with force, and shall make war on you in every way I can, and I shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of His Majesty, and I shall take your wives and children and make them slaves." — The Spanish Requerimiento, drafted by Juan López de Palacios Rubios (1513), read to Indigenous peoples by conquistadors
The Requerimiento was designed to:
- A
Forbid Spanish settlers from enslaving Native Americans
- B
Establish the Church of England in the New World
- C
Negotiate trade agreements with established Indigenous polities
- Dcheck_circle
Provide a legal pretext for conquest by giving Indigenous peoples formal "notice" before war
Explanation
Spanish jurists devised the Requerimiento so that conquistadors, having read aloud a demand of submission (often in Spanish, often out of earshot), could claim a "just war" against Indigenous peoples who failed to comply.