Laws of Burgos

The Laws of Burgos, promulgated on 27 December 1512 in Burgos in the Crown of Castile, were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spaniards toward the Indigenous people of the Americas. They forbade the enslavement of the indigenous people and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism, and they were created after friars and Spanish academics pressured King Ferdinand II of Aragon and his daughter, Queen Joanna of Castile, to protect the rights of the natives of the New World following the conquest and colonization of the West Indies, where the common law of Castile did not fully apply. The laws, originally restricted to Hispaniola and later extended to Puerto Rico and Jamaica, authorized and legalized the encomienda system, grouping Indians to work under a colonial estate-holder for a salary while capping each establishment's size at 40 to 150 people, and they set a detailed regime of work, pay, provisioning, housing and diet, exempting women more than four months pregnant from heavy labor.