One of the strangest recurring moments in the Spanish invasion of the Americas was the reading of the Requerimiento, the Requisition, a document which both proclaimed possession of a territory and converted its natives into subjects of the Spanish Crown; all resistance, therefore, could be called rebellion. The natives were supposed to be present at the reading, although it seems they weren't always. Even when they were, of course, they would have no way of grasping the language or even the gist of the proclamation. What was needed was that the words should be spoken, not that they should be understood; and the person who always was present was a notary. Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, the defender of the American Indians, said in the 16th century that he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at the procedure, and two Colombian Indians are reported by Hugh Thomas as saying, in 1515, that the Pope must have been drunk when he divided between the Spanish and the Portuguese so much land which wasn't his to give.

LRB 26 May 1994 | PDF Download