Leyes de Burgos
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The document known as the Leyes de Burgos was promulgated on January 27, 1512 in Burgos, Spain. It enumerated a number of laws for the government of the indigenous peoples of the recently discovered New World. The cause of its creation was the juridical problem that had arrisen from the conquest and colonization of the Indies, where the common law of Spain was not applied.
The scope of the laws were originally restricted to the island of Hispaniola, but were later extended to Puerto Rico and Jamaica. They authorized and legalized the colonial practice of creating encomiendas, where Indians were grouped together to work under colonial masters, limiting the size of these establishments to a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 150 people. However, they also established a minutely regulated regimen of work, pay, provisioning, living quarters, hygiene, and care for the Indians in a highy protective and humanitarian spirit. Women more than four months pregnant, for example, were exempted from work.
The document finally prohibited the use of any form of punishment by the encomenderos, reserving it for officials established in each town for the implementation of the laws. It also ordered that the Indians be catechesized, outlawed bigamy, and required that the huts and cabins of the Indians be built together with those of the Spanish. It respected, in some ways, the traditional authorities, granting chiefs exemptions from ordinary jobs and granting them various Indians as servants.
To poor fulfillment of the laws in many cases lead to inummerable protests and claims. In fact, the laws were so often poorly applied that they were seen as simply a legalization of the previous poor situation. This would create momentum for reform, carried out through the Leyes Nuevas in 1542.es:Leyes de Burgos
