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Bartolomé de Las Casas.
18 May 1680: The ultimate blueprint for empire building is published
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18 May 1680: The ultimate blueprint for empire building is published

The 'Recopilación de las Leyes' was a major milestone in colonial history, bringing together all of the laws which regulated interactions between settlers and natives, and how new settlements should be created

Daryl Finch

Friday, 18 May 2018, 17:45

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Throughout the 400 years of Spanish presence in the Americas and the Philippines, interactions between settlers and natives threw up complications that Castilian law was not equipped to deal with. As a result, a new legal solution needed to be found.

Through the 'Leyes de Indias' (the Laws of the Indies), a series of decrees issued by the Spanish crown, an attempt to regulate social, political and economic life across the empire was made.

The Laws of Burgos (1512) and the New Laws (1542) established norms for the early colonies, including forbidding the maltreatment of the indigenous people and endorsing their conversion to Catholicism. The system of 'encomiendas' was also created, where the native people were grouped together to work under a colonial head of the estate for a salary.

However, a series of abuses and a problem with levels of compliance led to the so-called Valladolid debate which took place during 1550 and 1551. This was the first moral discussion over the rights and treatment of a colonised people ever to take place in Europe. A number of views about the way natives should be integrated into colonial life, their conversion to Christianity and their rights and obligations were exchanged by some of the great theologians of the time, including Bartolomé de Las Casas, the most persistent defender of the Indians during the early years of the Spanish conquest .

The ideas that Las Casas presented during the great debate influenced the development of the Laws of the Indies and the rights of Indian peoples over the next 300 years.

French historian, Jean Dumont, described the Valladolid debate as a major turning point in world history, the dawn of human rights. Ultimately, however, abuses continued, even after indigenous people were placed officially under the protection of the Crown.

Further laws were passed in 1573. These were considered the first wide-ranging guidelines towards design and development of communities and included 148 ordinances to aid in locating, building, and populating settlements.

Heavily influenced by Vitruvius' Ten Books of Architecture and the theories of Leon Battista Alberti, they codified the city planning process and established a blueprint which would be taken around the world.

It was decided, for example, that towns should be built in an elevated position, around a central Plaza Mayor (main square), from which twelve straight streets are built in a rectilinear grid. The style of buildings, the ordinance said, should be all of one type for the sake of the beauty of the town.

However, due to the vast quantity of laws which had been passed over more than a hundred years of colonisation, on 18 May 1680 under Charles II, the 'Recopilación de las Leyes' (Compilation of the Laws) was published.

This became considered the classic collection of the laws and was a major milestone in colonial history. While on the one hand it was criticised for depriving indigenous people a responsible role in government, its inconsistencies, excessive attention to ceremonial matters and virtually unenforceable commercial regulations, it was nonetheless the most comprehensive law code ever instituted for a colonial empire and established progressive and humane principles, even if they were ignored.

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