New Laws of 1542

The New Laws, also known as the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians, were issued on 20 November 1542 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, ruling as King Charles I of Spain, and governed the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Following denunciations and calls for reform from individuals such as the Dominican friar Bartolome de las Casas, the laws were intended to prevent the exploitation and mistreatment of the indigenous peoples of the Americas by the encomenderos, by limiting their power and dominion over groups of natives. Blasco Nunez Vela, the first Viceroy of Peru, enforced the New Laws and was opposed by a revolt of encomenderos, dying in 1546 at the hands of the landowning faction led by Gonzalo Pizarro; although only partly successful because of colonist opposition, the laws did result in the liberation of thousands of indigenous workers who had been held in a state of semi-slavery.