King Carlos IV Issues a Decree Requiring Masters to Catechize Slaves in Spanish America: May 31, 1789

This text comes from our book, Lands of Hope and Promise.

The royal policy for New Spain, from the very beginning of its New World settlement, was to break down the barriers that segregated European settlers from the American natives. To unite all Americans as equal subjects of the crown, the royal government encouraged intermarriage between Spaniards and natives. And Spaniards and Indians did intermarry. From this intermingling of the races—what the Spanish called mestizaje—came a new racial type, the mestizo, or man of mixed European and Indian blood. After a time, the mestizos formed the largest single class in Spanish American society.

A Spanish painting from the 18th century depicting a mixed race family—the man, a Spaniard, and the woman, an Indian

Yet, despite mestizaje, Spanish American society was clearly divided into racial classes. The most influential and powerful group was the European-born Spaniards, called peninsulares, chapetones, or gauchupines. These controlled all the higher offices of government in Spanish America. Below the peninsulares were the criollos, or creoles, who were pure Spaniards, but born in America. The creoles were, on the whole, excluded from the highest political offices, though they occupied the less influential and powerful ones. After a time the creoles, who were often rich, were able to buy their way into higher offices and some (though not many) served as viceroys. Yet, because for the most part they could not attain to the highest offices, the creoles came to resent the power wielded by the peninsulares. That the peninsulares adopted superior airs rankled the creoles.

The creoles, however, deemed themselves superior to the mestizos. Even so, in population growth, the mestizos soon outnumbered the ruling classes and even began to occupy many of the lowest offices, such as elective offices in the pueblos.

Next in the social order after the mestizos were the Indians. Though considered full subjects of the king, Indians were often treated like a subject race. Among other abuses, both encomenderos and lower government officials charged Indians exorbitant prices for goods or forced them to buy useless items. As we showed in Chapter 2, the Spanish crown attempted to protect the Indians and to abolish the encomienda system. The problem was, how could the Spanish king enforce his laws across the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean? Much of this enforcement rested on the viceroy, and some viceroys sincerely tried to protect the Indians. Luis de Velasco, who was viceroy of New Spain from 1550 to 1564, freed some 160,000 Indians from forced labor service. He established the Tribunal de Santa Hermandad (the Court of the Holy Brotherhood) to protect Indians. Among the inquiries of royal visitors, when they inspected the conduct of officials, was how they treated the Indians. Many officials were removed from office because it was discovered that they had mistreated the natives.

A Spanish illustration depicting Indians suffering from smallpox

Transplanting Indians from their native lands or segregating them on reservations was never part of Spanish policy in America. Neither was extermination. Though thousands of Indians died under Spanish rule, this was largely because they lacked immunities to European diseases. Smallpox, measles, whooping cough, scurvy, and influenza devastated Indian tribes; in some cases, as on some Caribbean islands, disease wiped out the entire native population. On the other hand, the Spanish conquest largely obliterated one ancient source of native death—inter-tribal war.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the crown again tried to reform the encomienda system. Laws passed in 1612 and 1620 decreed that all encomiendas that had lapsed or had terminated (for instance, if an encomendero had no heir) would become crown property. The Bourbon king, Felipe V (1700–1746), finally in 1720 abolished the whole system in law, though it continued to exist in practice. To remedy this, King Carlos III (1759–1788) placed an official called the alcalde mayor over the Indians. However, because these alcaldes began to behave just like the encomenderos, the king abolished the office in 1786 and appointed royal representatives called sub-delegates to handle Indian affairs. King Carlos III tried to abolish the selling of useless goods at high prices to Indians, and the crown encouraged Indians to become independent landowners (a policy that was disastrous, as we shall see).

Black African slaves were worse off than Indians in Spanish America. Every year, from 1600 to 1750, about 3,000 black slaves, legally, and 500, illegally, were imported to Spanish America. By 1808, black slaves numbered about 700,000 out of a population of 15 million. In many parts of Spanish America, slaves suffered cruel treatment, which inspired a number of slave revolts. A master held absolute power over a slave and could punish him with mutilation or even death for slight offenses. Such treatment, however, violated the Spanish Laws of the Indies that sought to rein in the power of slave-owners and decreed that slaves had a right to own property. The law declared the Church had to catechize black slaves and administer the sacraments to them, including sacramental marriage. Just as with Indians, Spaniards intermarried with blacks, from which unions came another social group, the mulattos. The zambos, or sambos, came from intermarriages between blacks and Indians.

Black African slaves processing sugar on Hispaniola, a 1595 engraving by Theodor de Bry with modern coloring

The frequent neglect of the Laws of the Indies in Spanish America caused King Carlos IV to issue another decree on May 31, 1789. The king required masters to teach their slaves the Catholic faith and give them elementary instruction in reading and mathematics. Slaves were to be worked only from sunrise to sunset and to be free from labor on holy days. The law said masters had to see that their slaves were properly fed, clothed, and sheltered and had to care for the sick, infirm, and children. Slaves were now to be tried only in civil court, and every year masters had to submit reports to the government on how their slaves were faring.

Since slaves could buy their freedom, Spanish America came to have many free blacks. Communities of free blacks could be found in Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, and Colombia. Some black slaves from English territory fled to Spanish lands. In 1687 six men, two women, and one infant escaped from South Carolina to San Agustín in Florida. When their masters demanded their return, the Spanish authorities refused. Having been baptized, said the Spanish, the slaves were now free. The freed slaves married, were hired by the government, and settled in a township. In 1738, Manuel de Montiano y Sopelena, the governor of Florida, proclaimed freedom for all slaves who fled from the Carolinas, and thus many Carolina blacks came to Florida. When the governor settled them in their own town, called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (“Royal Favor of St. Teresa of Mose”), the gratitude of these former slaves expressed itself in the formation of a militia in which they pledged to “defend, to the last drop of their blood, the Crown of Spain and the holy Catholic Faith.”