with set free. This decree likewise included the prisoners taken in the last Jalisco war, as there was no right to make them slaves. Full-grown men taken prisoners and held in slavery, if the possessors could not show that they had been captured in a just war and after all the requirements of the royal ordinances on the subject had been fulfilled, were to be at once liberated, the burden of proof being laid on the masters; brands or bills of sale or other titles of possession were to go for nothing in such cases, the presumption being that those Indians were free vassals of the king.[1]
The colonists came forward with their opposition stronger than before. Old arguments were revived; they begged and threatened and wailed. The king's officers were firm, and one hundred and fifty thousand male slaves, besides great numbers of women and children, were set at liberty. It was a grand consummation, a most righteous act; and when we consider the times, the loss of revenue to the crown, the unpopularity, nay, the absolute danger of the movement in regard to the colonists, and also that it was voluntarily done, we cannot but bless the religion which manufactures consciences productive of such results.[2]
Another important injunction was embodied in a cédula of September 21, 1551, from Prince Philip, who now governed Spain, forbidding the viceroy and audiencias to keep Indians in their service unless for fair wages. All demands of personal service as tribute were to be discontinued; the king and council knew that the natives preferred to pay their tribute in money, and not in labor, and this preference hereafter was to be respected. The viceroy, oidores, and
- ↑ If any such natives had been allotted to the crown for its fifths and sold, the sale money was to be returned to the purchasers out of the royal treasury and the natives freed. Other natives held as slaves, not as the result of war, and claiming their freedom, were to be listened to, and their cases adjudicated according to the existing laws. The decree was to be circulated far and wide, that it might become known to all Indians; the Franciscan friars were also directed to instruct the Indian slaves to demand their liberty. Puga, Cedulario, 124-8, 144-5, 154, 186, 209; Órdenes de la Corona, MS., ii. 16, with autographs of Prince Maximilian and Queen Juana.
- ↑ 'Quedando del todo sin esclavitud, y molestia.' Vetancvrt, Trat. Mex., 8.
