Volume 3 — Slavery Among the Natives
Reading edition
Sacred Royal Catholic Majesty:
By one of your royal decrees, dated Madrid, May 18, 1572, your Majesty commands me to send you an account of the slaves that exist in these parts; and how, and with what justification, they are slaves. What has been ascertained about them, to the present time, in this island is as follows:
Some are slaves from their birth. Their origin is not known, because their fathers, grandfathers, and ancestors were also slaves. But although the reason for their slavery is not known, we may believe that it was for some one of the causes here named. Some are captives in wars that different villages wage against each other, for certain injuries and acts of injustice, committed either recently or in ancient times.
If any one is guilty of a grave crime—that is, has committed murder or adultery, or given poison, or any other like serious matter—although there may be no proof of it beyond the suspicion of the principal person against whom the hurt was done, they take for their slaves, or kill, not only the culprit but his sons, brothers, parents, relatives, and slaves.
If any one who is left an orphan come to the house of another, even of a kinsman (unless it be his uncle, Page 262paternal or maternal), for food only, its inmates enslave him. Likewise in time of famine and distress, during which they may have given relatives food only a few times, they have sold the latter for their slaves.
Many also become slaves on account of loans, because these loans continue to increase steadily every three or four months; and so, however little may be the sum loaned them, at the end of little more or less than two years they become slaves. And now, sacred Majesty, if it be forbidden, in those places where the Spanish live, to acquire slaves in any shape or manner—those who were made slaves and were slaves before we came here and are slaves now, and whom the natives buy and sell among each other, as merchandise or other profitable wares that they possess—without them this land cannot be preserved. This, your Majesty, is all known here of the slaves that I have been able to find out, having diligently sought and made the acquaintance of persons who know their language and customs.
Guido de Lavezaris Page 263