Spanish Requirement of 1513

Common card · No. 398686

The Spanish Requirement of 1513 (Requerimiento) was a declaration by the Spanish monarchy of Castile's divinely ordained right to take possession of the territories of the New World and to subjugate, exploit and, when necessary, to fight the native inhabitants. The declaration was written by Juan López de Palacios Rubios, jurist of the Council of Castile, and made on behalf of Ferdinand II of Aragon and his daughter, the Queen regnant Joanna of Castile. The Requerimiento (Spanish for "requirement", as in "demand") was read to Native Americans to inform them of Spain's rights to conquest. The Spaniards thus considered those who resisted as defying God's plan, and so used Catholic theology to justify their conquest.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Diego Muñoz Camargo, Indigenas Tlaxcaltecas, Public domain