Note 58 — Chapter V · THE SEMI-JUDICIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS OF THE AUDIENCIA.
Reading edition
The king, on August 9, 1609, wrote to the audiencia, asking for information concerning the truth of a certain report which had come to him regarding a custom practiced among the natives before the arrival of the Spaniards, and which was said still to be in operation. It had been asserted that the children of a free man and a slave woman would be half-slave and half-free, and the progeny of these children by subsequent marriage would be classed as a fourth, an eighth, or a sixteenth slave or free. It was said that the natives recognized varying degrees of freedom and slavery. The king, in the letter above referred to, expressed a desire to know the truth of these reports, and he ordered the audiencia to instruct him fully concerning these alleged practices and customs. He called attention to the existing law which forbade Spaniards to hold slaves, and he requested information as to how great a hold this barbarous custom had upon the natives, and how it might be eradicated with the least possible inconvenience and loss.58