Contenido

Las primeras compilaciones de leyes indianas se hicieron desde la segunda mitad del siglo , y llevaban el nombre de "Cedularios". Para el desarrollo previo a una Recopilación de las Leyes de Indias de carácter general, fueron de vital importancia las contribuciones de Diego de Zorrilla"), Rodrigo de Aguiar y Acuña"), Juan de Solórzano y Pereyra y Antonio de León Pinelo. Siendo relevantes la recopilación de 1563 sobre las leyes dictadas para la Nueva España, por orden de fecha (empezando por 1525), realizada durante la gestión del virrey Luis de Velasco (por orden de Felipe II de España en 1560), tras ser encomendada tal labor a la persona de Vasco de Puga"), el fiscal de la Real Audiencia de México, imprimiéndose en la Ciudad de México con el nombre de "Cedulario de Vasco de Puga")", junto a la colaboración del redactor Diego de Zorrilla"), la revisión de Rodrigo de Aguiar y Acuña") y la publicidad de Antonio de León Pinelo a los 4 primeros libros para ayudar a su revisión. Proyecto similar intentaría el Virrey del Perú, Francisco de Toledo, aunque sin poder terminarse.[4]​.

Sin embargo, la persona de Juan de Ovando y Godoy obtendría una importancia irremplazable por ser quien empezó el movimiento codificador del Derecho Indiano, como consecuencia de su visita al Consejo de Indias en 1571, del cual hizo esfuerzos por mejorar su eficiencia de tal institución cuando obtuvo la Presidencia en ambos Consejos, del de Indias y el Consejo de Hacienda (siendo algo excepcional para la Historia del Imperio español).[7]​ Sobre la base de esos trabajos, que eran de alcance parcial, a mediados del siglo se inició la elaboración de una recopilación de todas las leyes aprobadas por el monarca español y el Consejo de Indias para América.[35]​ La labor de ordenamiento y compilación demoró más de cuarenta años, finalizando en 1680 con la promulgación de la Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias. Destacó en su cabeza la Ley I del Título X, del Libro VI (referido al buen tratamiento de los Indios), una promulgación, del rey Carlos II de España, que proclama lo siguiente sobre el respeto a los indígenas:[7]​.

Royal Decree of Charles II

Finally, Mr. Fernando Paniagua concluded the arduous work, aided by the bases that he inherited from the project of his predecessors, and it was published on May 18, 1680 by King Charles II of Spain, named "Compilation of the laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies".[4]​.

The Royal Decree consists of 330 pages, promulgated on November 1, 1681.

Further Development and Application

Shortly after its promulgation, the compilation of 1681 was presented with a need to update itself in the face of the numerous legislation that had been enacted during and after the development of the compilation.[4] Over the years, an immense amount of legislative material promulgated after the Compilation was accumulated, which made it necessary to make new compilations of laws, which only had a partial scope and did not cover all Indian legislation. Furthermore, the Compilation and the additions that were made to it during the century do not cover the entire Indian legislative corpus, since they leave out the provisions adopted by the colonial authorities in America.[36][3]​.

On June 6, 1803, a Royal Decree would be issued to protect the archaeological and monumental heritage, including that of a historical nature for the Indies.[37]​.

For Manuel Fraga, doctor in Law and professor in Political Law and Theory of the State and Constitutional Law, the Laws of the Indies "above all the fragilities of all human works constitute a monument of those that honor their authors."[38]​.

With respect to compliance with Indian laws in Latin American society, although there are cases of non-compliance due to political corruption, they do not demonstrate that they were systematically violated or lacked effectiveness, while the margin of error in the application of the law would not have been different from that of contemporary Spanish Justice, and it is documented that abuses that became known to the royal authorities were constantly punished. Furthermore, there are cases recorded in which few friars of the Lower clergy could prevail against powerful figures of colonial society (including the armies of the Spanish Conquistadors) by simply invoking royal orders, enforcing Indian laws with minimal effort and under the protection of local institutions, equipped with coercive measures (such as the Residency Trial) to enforce the rules.[39]​.

The long distance of the viceroyalties with the Court was not a problem for their implementation and supervision of the laws. For this, the role of the authority of the Catholic Church and its religious Orders was important, which had an important role in the social organization of the viceroyalties (because they had a lot of collaboration with the high civil authorities, they had duties not only of evangelization, but also of observance of the law) and were places of shelter and security for the Indian, sanctioned by Pope Paul III and his threat to excommunicate those who did not respect the rights of the Indian. Highlighting characters such as Bernardino de Minaya") or Toribio de Benavente.[40]​.

Also of great importance were the reports that were constantly made to the Crown about the situation in America, causing very important figures for the Spanish state to be punished (with prison or death), such as the conquistadors Christopher Columbus, Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco de Carvajal, who were replaced by other officials appointed by the monarchy to ensure compliance with the Indian laws, such as Nicolás de Ovando, Pedro de la Gasca, and Diego Centeno. At the same time, notable figures in the viceroyalties, such as Hernán Cortés, would be prosecuted for multiple complaints through the Residency Trials, and would only be acquitted after defending themselves against multiple charges and accusations in trials that took about 20 years. That rigor towards the Spanish-American figures of power would be applied to ordinary settlers and subjects.[40] This generated a Legalistic culture "Legalism (Western Philosophy)") among the viceregal society (prioritizing the legal security of registered actions) and it was common for the colonial authorities to be accompanied by legal defenders or lawyers at their service, since they were aware that their actions had to conform to the laws of the Indians, since they would be subjected to rigorous trials of the royal power at any time, serving as a deterrent to non-compliance with the law by knowing the very serious repercussion that such an act could have (especially the punishment of dishonor before the Kingdom and God, since it generated an unbearable burden of bad reputation that closed job opportunities and a psychological terror among Nobles accustomed to Honor), the strongest penalties being the deprivation of liberty or the seizure of property.[41]​.

They are divided into 9 books where the following issues are discussed:

• - Book 1: Refers to religious matters, such as the royal patronage, the organization of the Church, culture and teaching.

• - Book 2: Discusses the structure of the Indian government with special reference to the functions and competence of the Council of the Indies and the audiences.

• - Book 3: Summarizes the duties, competence, powers and functions of viceroys, governors and soldiers.

• - Book 4: Concerns the discovery and territorial conquest. It sets the standards for population, land distribution, public works and mining.

• - Book 5: Legislates on various aspects of public law, jurisdiction, functions, competence and powers of mayors, magistrates and other minor officials.

• - Book 6: Deals with the situation of the indigenous people, their social condition, the regime of encomiendas, taxes, etc.

• - Book 7: Summarizes the aspects related to police action and public morality.

• - Book 8: Legislation on income and financial organization.

• - Book 9: Refers to the Indian commercial organization and the means of regulating it, with special reference to the Casa de Contratación.

In turn, based on the principle of Indian writers that the law starts from facts and not ideas, the following rules were established for compliance with the laws of the Indies:[4]​.

• - Natural law (the Metaphysical essence of the law by the mere fact of being real people in a natural Order of justice) is above positive law (the written law in matter "Matter (philosophy)"), which is deduced from natural law to capture a framework of formal justice "Form (philosophy)").

• - Tradition (Customary Law), based on certain requirements of Morals, takes precedence over the law.

• - A future law corrects one of the past.

• - A law enacted for one case must also be applied to those that are analogous or similar.

• - The special law takes precedence over the general law.

● The Law of 8 hours:.

By Law VI of 1593, King Philip II of the House of Austria decrees in his domains that:[43]​[44]​[45]​[46]​.

• - In the second volume, book III, title VI, Law VI (“That the workers work eight hours each day distributed as appropriate”), this day is established for work in the development of fortifications and factories; formally, the day was applied to the construction of forts and palaces of the Spanish Crown.[47]​.

The formula of "the law is obeyed, but it is not fulfilled" was an aphorism mentioned very frequently during the application of Indian law. This has generated, in modern legal historiography (influenced by Positivism or Rationalism), a belief that the American authorities were in constant rebellion with the mandates of the Metropolis, and that only the Indian laws were complied with, on rare occasions, despite bad rulers who avoided their application as much as possible, giving an image that colonial Latin America was a place with total discredit of the laws and an example of Political corruption in Hispanic countries. However, that would be a misunderstanding of the true meaning of that political formula (caused by a modernist view of such an aphorism that belonged to a legal order different from that used by judicial processes of contemporary times), where the law was one more element of several that constituted the legal order of the Indian reality, and by which, the legislator respected the duty to comply with the norms of natural law, but not the positive laws that could have been decreed by the mental ignorance of some jurist. with the American reality (largely due to communication problems due to long distances or imperfect reports of the situation), being illegitimate laws insofar as they did not adapt to local customs or social needs in the concrete reality. Although there were cases of malicious breaches of the law to delay or forget the issuance of a law, this phrase would rather be the vindication of a right in the executors of the law to omit compliance with some illegitimate mandate, based on an opposition that has just grounds, since all authorities (such as the king and his officials) had the power to amend an erroneous decision. Being complementary to the fundamental right of the subjects (subject to the law) to make use of the resource of supply so that a law that is just and necessary is fulfilled or established, with which psychological protection was given to the governed subjects, and guarantees to the governors of being able to review laws that could contradict the needs of the community or suffered from vices contrary to natural law (but always all at the request of the interested parties, not by arbitrariness, to fulfill the pact between vassal and sovereigns with mutual benefits). Being synthesized by the phrase of Calderón de la Barca, in his work Life is a Dream, in which the phrase "In what is not fair the law must not obey the King" is mentioned. This custom would have strong bases in the Siete Partidas, in which the following was found about the control of legality:[48]​.

Failure to obey a law, due to rebellion of the subjects or malice of the executors of the law, was considered an illegal action and could be penalized as a crime. Only opposition to a law that was regulated by law was legitimate (contrasting the decree with concrete reality), while it was legal to oppose laws that could harm the common good or cause greater damage than those they seek to remedy. The power to suspend any law would be based on avoiding injustice, but always having to recognize its compliance as an obligation to recognize the legitimate authority of the king and his officials (then, never ignoring the authority of the legitimate power of the legislators, nor ignoring the jurisdiction of the kingdom), and rather, allowing the Spanish monarchy to amend its mandates and make them more fair and viable in the face of laws and decrees that were against the law and the parties involved.[49]

However, unlike peninsular Spain, in the Indies it was prohibited to invoke the formula of "it is obeyed, but it is not complied with" if it was understood as the "suspension of a rule until the king's response arrived" (practiced in medieval Castilian law to communicate to the king that a royal decree was unjust, did not conform to the law or had a formal procedural defect, waiting for his response to repeal it or enact a new law to revise it),[50]​ it was only permitted failure to comply with a law that could lead to irreparable or scandalous damage, or if the document was based on an erroneous narration of the facts, it being mandatory to add one of these reasons (and substantiate it according to the facts) to request the suspension of a law from the Council of the Indies. That greater restriction on the American authorities, compared to the Castilian ones, was due to the constant complaints of non-compliance with royal decrees in the first years of conquest, causing special strengthening of legal documents to protect the Laws of the Indies.[51]​.

En el Virreinato de la Nueva España, se aplicaron Leyes específicas, con el fin de regular la vida y el trabajo.

En materia de trabajo se dictaron disposiciones que trataban de beneficiar a los indígenas, llamados naturales en esa época. Los intereses económicos de las clases altas se vieron perjudicadas si éstas disposiciones se aplicaron en su integridad.

Los siguientes puntos serían aplicados:.

• - Proteger a los menores, Ley 3.ª, Título 13°, Libro VI.

• - Reglamentar la duración del contrato de trabajo a 8 horas diarias, convirtiendo a España en el primer país del mundo en aplicar la jornada de 8 horas, adelantándose a Inglaterra por más de 200 años, Ley 13.ª, Título 13°, Libro VI.

• - Trato humano y justiciero en las relaciones obrero-patronales, Ley 13.ª, Título 5°, Libro VI.

• - Obligación de hacer los pagos puntualmente cada semana, con dinero y no en especie, Ley 12.ª, Título 15°, Libro VI.

• - Libertad de trabajo Además, se desarrollaron ciertos derechos regionales análogos a los poseídos por los españoles de Europa (y que aun no se habían generalizado en la península), como la Ordenanza de Intendentes de 1786,[52]​ por el que se otorgaba a los indios el derecho para escoger anualmente (en los pueblos cabeceras) sus propias autoridades.[4]​.

Además, los indígenas tenían la protestad de escribirle al Rey de España con sus lenguas nativas (predominantemente el Náhuatl como lengua franca, pero también el Mixteco, Zapoteco "Zapoteco (idioma)"), etc) con solicitudes para mantener sus tierras, su estatus, e incluso un salario perpetuo (sobre todo los que descendían de Indios auxiliares de la conquista). La nobleza indígena llegó a recibir asesoramiento y lograron ser tratados como un noble más del Reino de Castilla, solicitándole a los funcionarios del imperio español que símbolos debían tener sus Escudos "Escudo (heráldica)") familiares, según su propia tradición indígena. Por ley, era tolerado y hasta promovido el uso de las lenguas nativas en las dinámicas de la sociedad colonial. Los españoles a su vez, tuvieron que recurrir a los especialistas indígenas para poder realizar alguna obra de infraestructura, y tenían un deber por ley de realizar obras de Servicio público a los súbditos de las comunidades indígenas (como el Acueducto del Padre Tembleque para transportar agua al pueblo de Otumba), del mismo modo que se hacía con los súbditos europeos.[53]​ Aquel ennoblecimiento de los indígenas, y el reconocimiento de las aristocracias locales, simbolizaba las bases de la ley indiana en un pacto social entre los caciques indígenas y los Reyes Católicos para el desarrollo de un orden social favorable a los súbditos indígenas por la protección del monarca español.[54]​.

Al desarrollarse la organización territorial de Nueva España, las leyes establecía que, siempre que los indios estuvieran al día con sus documentos legales, se pueda lograr una exoneración del tributo indígena o solicitar mercedes. Sobre todo, se reconocía a los indios el título de sus tierras, estando protegidos contra los intentos de usurpación de algunos españoles, por el que se darían varias disputas, por el que a través de sus autoridades (alcaldes y caciques) hacían llegar sus reclamos y denuncias ante las autoridades de la Real Audiencia. Además, las autoridades virreinales siempre debían realizar una investigación, antes de conceder alguna propiedad, para conocer si las tierras solicitadas podían perjudicar a los vecinos de la zona.[55]​.

Por otra parte, se desarrolló una política sanitaria con los indios, dándose ordenanzas y reales cédulas para fundar instituciones hospitalarias con un fin de atender específicamente las necesidades físicas de los indios, destacando el Hospital real de indios de México"), que a su vez ayudo a la evangelización de los indios y la reestructuración de sus comunidades, así como combatir las Epidemias traídas por las enfermedades de los europeos. Usualmente quedaron bajo la administración de los Dominicanos, Agustinos y Franciscanos.[56]​.

Aunque se intento hacer un aumento drástico del tributo indígena, la Junta Superior de Real Hacienda de Nueva España declaró que no podía ser intención del rey el condenar a los naturales en una situación infeliz, "sino que se les exija el tributo que sus fuerzas puedan soportar con la suavidad y dulzura que tanto recomiendan las leyes", realizándose reducciones de carga fiscal para la República de indios al argumentarse que habría consecuencias graves de aumentar los impuestos sin que incrementase al mismo tiempo los jornales (sueldos) de los indios.[57]​ El proceso para determinar los tributos a pagar por los indios, en una cantidad justa, se realizaba de 3 maneras:[58]​.

1. • La visita: Consistía en conocer las posibilidades económicas de los indígenas.

2. • La cuenta: Consistía en saber su número.

3. • La tasación: Trataba de fijar la clase y cuantía de los impuestos.

In the Philippines

The laws were brought by the 1st bishop in the Philippines, Domingo de Salazar (disciple of Bartolomé de las Casas). He insisted that the gospel, far from dispossessing the pagans, should perfect them along with what they already had. Therefore, the freedom and right of the indigenous tribes to govern themselves, in peace and justice, should not be impeded by the Spanish Crown if certain conditions were established (that of spreading the Gospel and putting its message into practice at a political level, being a duty according to the Royal Patronage of the Indies and Thomistic Natural Law). In the words of José Rizal, this explained why in the following 300 years, the indigenous Filipinos accepted Spanish authority, because they were treated humanely thanks to the Laws of the Indies. Thus, the Spanish friars in the Philippines would protect the indigenous people from the pretensions of the Encomenderos, voluntarily allowing themselves to be recruited into the Army of the Spanish Monarchy and some government offices agreed to include them. However, imperfections arose after the attempts of the Spanish Empire in the Bourbon Reforms to secularize their domains to have better control over the church, relegating the clergy composed of natives from power functions after the Expulsion of the Jesuits and the Independence of Mexico, which would generate problems that would not be resolved until the Independence of the Philippines.[59]​.

Al respecto de las Leyes de Indias en el Perú, destaca la buena recepción (en el derecho indiano) de múltiples instituciones originadas por la tradición jurídica de los indígenas, por ejemplo: cajas de comunidad") (basado en la Reciprocidad andina")), el contrato de yanaconaje"), la mita o trabajo por turnos, la comunidad organizada de los Ayllus (con sus implicaciones en la propiedad de la tierra), y el aprovechamiento de la organización del Imperio incaico, sobre todo por las Reformas hechas por el virrey Francisco de Toledo.[4]​ Entre esas instituciones que rescataron los españoles, estaba también los Tambos "Tambo (arquitectura)"), los cuales, tras el grave deterioro que sufrieron por las guerras del siglo , se emitirían reales cédulas para que funcionen como en tiempos de Huayna Cápac.[60]​ También se mantuvieron instituciones incaicas de carácter tributario, como los tocuirico bajo una reformulación colonial en el que velarían por la “pureza de costumbres, la limpieza de las casas y las calles del pueblo, la estricta observancia de la moral sexual, la prohibición de comer todos juntos en la plaza, en vez de hacerlo cada uno en su casa como hombres de razón, el control de la asistencia a la instrucción religiosa, etc", los quipus con el fin de contabilizar el inventario del ganado de la comunidad y la planificación urbana de las reducciones de indios, los chasquis bajo un modo de actuar que llegara hasta el Río de la Plata para ser informantes y traer correo sobre las provincias mas lejanas de la capital virreinal. Se busco mantener Pragmáticamente ciertas "Leyes del Inca" que ayudaran al buen gobierno, en cuanto a la vigilancia y control del orden social, entre esas disposiciones estaban las categorías de yanaconas, mitayos"), hatunrunas.[61]​.

En materia de garantía para condiciones sociales de vida digna, los virreyes peruanos, tras recibir informes de maltratos y explotación a los trabajadores de la Sociedad política indiana, hicieron múltiples esfuerzos por acatar el cumplimiento de las leyes indianas y el respeto al Derecho natural del indio y mestizo como persona humana:[62]​[63]​[64]​[65]​.

• - En 1664, el virrey Diego de Benavides consolido en el Virreinato del Perú la jornada de trabajo público (9-10 horas), el salario mínimo, y las excepciones al trabajo por sexo, edad y residencia. Así mismo ordenó que se clausurarán y destruyeran numeroso obrajes informales donde se explotaban a los indígenas por más de 14 horas y donde eran obligados a trabajar incluso niños.

• - En los años 1668-1670, el virrey Pedro Fernández de Castro vuelve a restructurar el sistema laboral de los indios en las minas, haciendas y obrajes, para evitar que se les explote y abuse de ellos. También prohíbe que "los dueños de plantaciones, ingenios, minas y obrajes" obliguen a los niños huérfanos a trabajar en contra de su voluntad.

• - En 1680, el virrey Melchor de Liñan ordenó que obligatoriamente los empleadores (mineros, encomenderos, hacendados, ganaderos y obrajeros")) deben de expedir contratos laborales para todos sus trabajadores. El Gobernador también establece que los "miserables indios", que no estén sujetos a las mitas, tienen la libertad de cambiar de trabajo, si su emperador no cumple con pagarles su salario o les exija horas de trabajo adicionales que no hayan estado fijados en su contrato. En 1681 ordenó también la destrucción de varios obrajes que no cumplían con las ordenanzas y encarcela a muchos dueños de ingenios.

• - En 1687 el virrey Melchor de Navarra prohibió que los empleadores de las haciendas y obrajes pagarán a sus trabajadores con utensilios, alimentos o cualquier tipo de mercadería, estableciendo que se les debía de pagar sus salarios correspondientes acordes a las tarifas establecidas por el gobierno.

En el ámbito económico, los Cacique e indios pequeño burgueses eran poseedores de un poder real que dio pie a conflictos en defensa de sus derechos, y el de los indios tributarios a su servicio. Además lograron disfrutar del derecho a la posesión y administración de minas para su explotación, pese a que tal sector estuviera controlado en su gran mayoría por gremios de españoles, los cuales poseían mejor maquinaria y poseían de una gran cantidad de mitayos. Aunque les fue difícil competir con los mineros españoles y criollos, de todos modos las autoridades indígenas si lograron beneficiarse del sector minero, sobre todo en el siglo durante la era Habsburgo. Con los Borbones la minería se volvió un sector de subsistencia para los indígenas. Adicionalmente a los indios mitayos que debían de enviar a las minas de manera obligatoria, muchos indios caciques además alquilaron a sus indios jornaleros ante los gremios de mineros españoles, por precios muy altos que rondaban los 200 a 340 pesos por temporada. Incluso controlaron el sector del transporte de minerales para su procesamiento, ganando aproximadamente 40-100 pesos por viaje.[22]​[23]​.

Además, dentro del fuero militar") del Ejército Real del Perú, hubo una estricta obediencia a las leyes indianas para evitar los abusos y los crímenes de guerra, debido a que se la presentaban múltiples problemas entre las personas que integraban la institución militar, de carácter socializante y moralizadora (estos problemas se debían a que la mayoría de ellos eran personas de oficios diferentes, formación desigual, costumbres diversas, hablantes de varios idiomas y con casta étnica "Castas (americanas)") diferente). Siendo así, se debía lidiar con los robos, asesinatos, lesiones corporales, pleitos callejeros, etc de crímenes comunes entre el fuero militar; y entre las presentes por el fuero civil, se presentaba el adulterio, la falta de pago para mantener a hijos no reconocidos (sobre todo alimentación), injurias y la “normal” deserción (sea soldados veteranos o milicianos). A quienes se probara culpables de sus denuncias, recibían múltiples castigos (indistintamente a si eran blancos "Blanco (persona)"), criollos, indios, mestizos, castizos "Castizo (casta)"), negros "Negro (persona)"), mulatos, o pardos "Pardo (casta)")), como ser puesto por días en un Cepo o ser sentenciado a realizar forzadamente el servicio de obras públicas por años.[66]​ Los oficiales blancos y mestizos que quisieran obligar a siervos (mayormente negros e indios) a trabajar sin salario, e incluso inculparlos de robos o daños a su propiedad, igualmente pasaban por el fuero militar por delitos de abuso ante la Real Auditoría de Guerra, teniendo estos además un rol de nivelar las relaciones de poder dentro de la sociedad estamental entre nobles y siervos.[66]​.

Notable cases of application of the Indian Laws in Peru

• - The denunciation of the archbishop of Popayán, Juan del Valle, in 1548, that abusive taxes were charged to the Indians. Sending the clergyman Luis Sánchez to present the complaint to the Council of the Indies. Those complaints were repeated by various members of the clergy such as Francisco Morales (1561), Bartolomé de la Vega") (1563), Francisco Falcón") (1567). Although there were proposals to exempt the Indians from paying taxes based on their status as minors, in the end it was established that only tax burdens that were immoderate could be prohibited, since it was argued that there would be harm to the Indians if they did not pay tax burdens that would allow them to finance the maintenance of their social infrastructure.[61]​.

• - During the decades of 1570 and 1580, the Inca nobles, who were direct descendants of the emperors of Tahuantinsuyo, would enter into litigation with the chiefs and communities of their 4 who had been their subjects who were called "privileged Incas" (because they did not come from panacas, but were Curacas of the towns conquered by the Incas or who obtained titles for their services in the Spanish conquest). These panaca Inca nobles wanted their nobility to be recognized as something of a hereditary nature and to be given privileges of being free from paying taxes, going so far as to unite all the Inca nobles in a single block, while the privileged Incas (the chiefs of Condesuyo, the Canches, Collasuyo, Andesuyo, Chinchaysuyo) opposed such claims in the viceregal courts, arguing that they were almost All fiscal burdens would fall on them and their communities if the descendants of the Incas were exempt from personal services and republican tasks. Thus, the Incas went to learn Castilian law (especially appealing to the hidalgo-pechero dichotomy), obtain witnesses, attorneys and defenders before the Cortes, signed powers in the legal forum and testified before corregidors, interpreters and protectors of Indians. It was all due to the fact that the viceroy Francisco de Toledo ordered, through the Royal Treasury, that many nobles be listed as tributary Indians when he saw that the majority of Cusqueños did not pay tribute by claiming that they were free Indians, ordering the registration of the Cusqueños of the city in the service of the King or some private individual, but coming into conflict with previous ordinances of the Royal Court of Lima, which in 1564 had established that “the Indians who “If they prove and appear to be children and descendants of Topa Ynga Yupangui, they are allowed to live freely wherever they are without paying tribute or other services, but rather to enjoy freedom.” Such a dispute would be transferred from the Royal Court to the Council of the Indies itself. Finally, after presenting their arguments and evidence through the attorney Miguel Ruiz"), Fernando de Jaén"), Cristóbal de Molina and other representatives, managed to annul Toledo's provision by demonstrating that they had already been recognized as Hidalgos, and that only Indians outside the Inca panacas (be they Hatunruna Indians or their chiefs) had to pay tribute, as had been done in the time of the Incas.[67]​.

Las leyes de Indias a día de hoy suelen ser un tema de gran importancia a la hora de impartir clases de la Facultad de derecho de múltiples universidades de Hispanoamérica y España en la actualidad.[79]​.

Por su parte, durante el proceso de Desamortización, junto a la expropiación de las tierras comunales de los indígenas tras las Independencias de Hispanoamérica, hubo múltiples descendientes de Caciques, como representantes de las comunidades campesinas afectadas, realizando actos de reclamación por el derecho a la propiedad de sus tierras, hecho con base en las Leyes de Indias y el derecho indiano.

Mexico

For example, in Mexico, it is mentioned that in times of the Second Mexican Empire, Indian communities still appealed to the courts based on Indian legislation. This was influenced by a constant concern against Creole landowners who wanted to appropriate their communal lands from the Indians after the confiscation policies adopted by Benito Juárez when he won the Reform War (by which the indigenous communities would be left unprotected before the law and their lands outside of expropriation), wanting the return of institutions of the Old Regime such as the Protector of Indians, rather than being unprotected in equality before the law with the whites. This meant that over time, the empire of Maximilian of Mexico distanced itself from Republican Mexican Liberalism, to the extent that it approached the Protectionist measures demanded by social conservatives, inspired by Indian Law and the Laws of the Indies (and even some positions of the utopian Socialism of the rural proletariat, since Maximilian was influenced by Victor Considerant), instead of yearning for the assimilation of the Indian through the political destruction of the indigenous community. (as would end up happening in future Mexican governments when promoting Peonage) as a means to obtain the social transformation desired by the bourgeois-liberal revolutionaries, who considered that a differentiated legal category such as "Indian", understood as a subject of law without the same duties and rights equal to the "whites" (the latter less protected by the law), implied a delay in the transition from subjects to citizens in national development.[80]​ For this reason, more and more laws would be decreed. distant from the liberal ideology, such as the laws of July and September 1865 that reestablished the legal personality of the indigenous communities (abolishing Equality before the law), the agrarian law of September 16, 1866 (the most radical) that granted land to the indigenous communities that lacked legal property and ejido, continuing the law of June 26 on repartimientos (citing the New Spain period) and restoration of the community lands (annulling the transition to a liberal regime of private property) which said the following:[81]​.

By July 1866, there was an increasingly conservative and reactionary "Reaction (political)" turn in Maximilian's government. This was due to the measures suggested and taken by the political advisors that Emperor Maximilian had, while they noted that the indigenous, and in general the common Mexican, clung to traditionalist New Spanish ways of life "Political Traditionalism (Spain)"), being stubborn with their customs, in which they perceived themselves as a traditional community society that sought to be alien to the Modernization project of the liberal and Individualist-egalitarian model, which came mostly from the Europeanizing Creole elites, and for which the indigenous people did not appear to be willing to follow, showing indifferent or even opposed attitudes to the notions of Equality before the law, while they wanted their inherited differences to be recognized by the legal recognition of their distinction as "Indian" in the jurisdictions of the Indian political society of the Spanish imperial era (in fact, even in those times quite a few appeals were made in the government according to the Partidas of Alfonso especially in terms of communal property and its legal existence as an indigenous community, to subsist and exist as such, compared to the political community of the Creole or the mestizos, and not wanting recognition of just being a Mexican/citizen-owner (which is why the complaints of several indigenous peoples made reference to Royal Decrees).[82]​ Thus, according to Jean Meyer, Maximilian acted, rather than as a liberal, as a Enlightened despot (closer to Bourbon Reformism), who would try to take advantage of the elements of Tradition and Modernity, taking extreme measures that contradicted classical and economic Liberalism, drinking from the "old" Indian legislation, or the "modern" proposal of socialism, in addition to the ideas of Cameralism (very popular in the Germanic states) that gave importance to small peasant property compared to the lordly latifundia, expressed in the Urbarium Code of 1767") (which established the plots of the Hungarian peasants and prohibited their lord from seizing them).[83] But this did not imply the end of the confiscations, not renouncing the liberal and enlightened desire to overcome feudal communal property with modern private property as a natural and absolute right (compared to the traditional conception of a secondary natural right), together with the idealized conception of the indigenous in Mexican liberalism as that of a potential owner who would be transformed into a citizen and owner of his plot who would be able to legally defend his property by himself, like any other criollo or mestizo in the Social Contract; only avoiding what happened in modern Mexica of leaving the indigenous outside the law, as a vulnerable subject and without defense mechanisms against the landowners and speculators, seeking to favor the Indian over the landowner through mechanisms of protection for the "needy classes")"[84] (which granted them a protective board on April 10, 1865 to favor the dispossessed classes of the empire)[85][86]​ in said social transition.[87]​ Finally, with the fall of the second Mexican empire, Mexican elites would make efforts to repress indigenous traditionalists and force them to accept liberal policies.

Peru and Bolivia

During the entire century and part of the century, there was intense litigation between the indigenous communities and the recently independent governments (such as the Republic of Peru or the Republic of Bolívar) due to the difficulties that the Contractualism of the Philosophy of Liberal Law had to recognize the historical rights of the rural communities (mostly Indo-mestizo peasants) to the indigenous Territories, which were based on the Pactism and Iusnaturalism of Indian Law (a series of ancestral pacts mostly oral laws that the Laws of the Indies recognized as valid by the principle of Uti Possidetis and without the need to formalize them in a Title of Property, only ratifying a Natural Right that was considered implicit and superior to positive Law). This would lead the indigenous people to adopt traditionalist positions politically, being hostile to the liberal movement and adhering to the movements of "legitimist counterrevolutions" (such as the royalist Army in America) in order to keep the Laws of the Indies in force and their legitimate protest in reaction to the republican and constitutionalist social contract.[88][89]​.

On the other hand, in Bolivia the struggle of the chief Santos Marka T'ula (of the Ayllu Qallapa), the notary Leandro Condori Chura") and the movement of proxy chiefs") during the end of the century and beginning of the century would be important, through which they sought to recover and prevent the usurpation of their communal lands from the indigenous ayllus in La Paz, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and other places that were being expropriated by the Republic of Bolivia (which He began to classify them as national assets without an owner that could be put up for sale). Thus, they began a legal battle (led by the Aymara leader, Santos Marka T'ula) before the Bolivian government, appealing to viceregal legality, in which it was appealed that King Philip II of the House of Austria had recognized (based on natural law) the communal possession of those of the indigenous ayllus (reductions and communal properties) that were being disputed, since those had been purchased by their former chiefs, who Until the end of the viceregal period they sent money (pesos in gold and silver) for their maintenance, and therefore they could not be deprived of them under any circumstances. The leaders (chiefs elected by the community) turned to the viceregal documents of the 16th-19th centuries, especially those that came from the time when the viceroy Francisco Álvarez de Toledo ruled.[90]​[91]​.

The Creole oligarchies of Bolivia carried out a whole series of tricks to dismiss the struggle of the indigenous chiefs, which included destroying viceregal documents, as well as accusing the chiefs of being conspirators, foreign agents, rebels, traitors to the country, seditionists, among other negative qualifiers that were already common against the indigenous people who dared to confront the power of the landowners in the context of Gamonalism. They even arbitrarily arrested the leaders of the ayllus, such as Marka Tola himself on several occasions, threatening them several times in order to obstruct the legal process and disappear their documents, later arguing that they were forgeries or that they did not have sufficient evidence.[92]​.

Contenido

Las primeras compilaciones de leyes indianas se hicieron desde la segunda mitad del siglo , y llevaban el nombre de "Cedularios". Para el desarrollo previo a una Recopilación de las Leyes de Indias de carácter general, fueron de vital importancia las contribuciones de Diego de Zorrilla"), Rodrigo de Aguiar y Acuña"), Juan de Solórzano y Pereyra y Antonio de León Pinelo. Siendo relevantes la recopilación de 1563 sobre las leyes dictadas para la Nueva España, por orden de fecha (empezando por 1525), realizada durante la gestión del virrey Luis de Velasco (por orden de Felipe II de España en 1560), tras ser encomendada tal labor a la persona de Vasco de Puga"), el fiscal de la Real Audiencia de México, imprimiéndose en la Ciudad de México con el nombre de "Cedulario de Vasco de Puga")", junto a la colaboración del redactor Diego de Zorrilla"), la revisión de Rodrigo de Aguiar y Acuña") y la publicidad de Antonio de León Pinelo a los 4 primeros libros para ayudar a su revisión. Proyecto similar intentaría el Virrey del Perú, Francisco de Toledo, aunque sin poder terminarse.[4]​.

Sin embargo, la persona de Juan de Ovando y Godoy obtendría una importancia irremplazable por ser quien empezó el movimiento codificador del Derecho Indiano, como consecuencia de su visita al Consejo de Indias en 1571, del cual hizo esfuerzos por mejorar su eficiencia de tal institución cuando obtuvo la Presidencia en ambos Consejos, del de Indias y el Consejo de Hacienda (siendo algo excepcional para la Historia del Imperio español).[7]​ Sobre la base de esos trabajos, que eran de alcance parcial, a mediados del siglo se inició la elaboración de una recopilación de todas las leyes aprobadas por el monarca español y el Consejo de Indias para América.[35]​ La labor de ordenamiento y compilación demoró más de cuarenta años, finalizando en 1680 con la promulgación de la Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias. Destacó en su cabeza la Ley I del Título X, del Libro VI (referido al buen tratamiento de los Indios), una promulgación, del rey Carlos II de España, que proclama lo siguiente sobre el respeto a los indígenas:[7]​.

Royal Decree of Charles II

Finally, Mr. Fernando Paniagua concluded the arduous work, aided by the bases that he inherited from the project of his predecessors, and it was published on May 18, 1680 by King Charles II of Spain, named "Compilation of the laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies".[4]​.

The Royal Decree consists of 330 pages, promulgated on November 1, 1681.

Further Development and Application

Shortly after its promulgation, the compilation of 1681 was presented with a need to update itself in the face of the numerous legislation that had been enacted during and after the development of the compilation.[4] Over the years, an immense amount of legislative material promulgated after the Compilation was accumulated, which made it necessary to make new compilations of laws, which only had a partial scope and did not cover all Indian legislation. Furthermore, the Compilation and the additions that were made to it during the century do not cover the entire Indian legislative corpus, since they leave out the provisions adopted by the colonial authorities in America.[36][3]​.

On June 6, 1803, a Royal Decree would be issued to protect the archaeological and monumental heritage, including that of a historical nature for the Indies.[37]​.

For Manuel Fraga, doctor in Law and professor in Political Law and Theory of the State and Constitutional Law, the Laws of the Indies "above all the fragilities of all human works constitute a monument of those that honor their authors."[38]​.

With respect to compliance with Indian laws in Latin American society, although there are cases of non-compliance due to political corruption, they do not demonstrate that they were systematically violated or lacked effectiveness, while the margin of error in the application of the law would not have been different from that of contemporary Spanish Justice, and it is documented that abuses that became known to the royal authorities were constantly punished. Furthermore, there are cases recorded in which few friars of the Lower clergy could prevail against powerful figures of colonial society (including the armies of the Spanish Conquistadors) by simply invoking royal orders, enforcing Indian laws with minimal effort and under the protection of local institutions, equipped with coercive measures (such as the Residency Trial) to enforce the rules.[39]​.

The long distance of the viceroyalties with the Court was not a problem for their implementation and supervision of the laws. For this, the role of the authority of the Catholic Church and its religious Orders was important, which had an important role in the social organization of the viceroyalties (because they had a lot of collaboration with the high civil authorities, they had duties not only of evangelization, but also of observance of the law) and were places of shelter and security for the Indian, sanctioned by Pope Paul III and his threat to excommunicate those who did not respect the rights of the Indian. Highlighting characters such as Bernardino de Minaya") or Toribio de Benavente.[40]​.

Also of great importance were the reports that were constantly made to the Crown about the situation in America, causing very important figures for the Spanish state to be punished (with prison or death), such as the conquistadors Christopher Columbus, Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco de Carvajal, who were replaced by other officials appointed by the monarchy to ensure compliance with the Indian laws, such as Nicolás de Ovando, Pedro de la Gasca, and Diego Centeno. At the same time, notable figures in the viceroyalties, such as Hernán Cortés, would be prosecuted for multiple complaints through the Residency Trials, and would only be acquitted after defending themselves against multiple charges and accusations in trials that took about 20 years. That rigor towards the Spanish-American figures of power would be applied to ordinary settlers and subjects.[40] This generated a Legalistic culture "Legalism (Western Philosophy)") among the viceregal society (prioritizing the legal security of registered actions) and it was common for the colonial authorities to be accompanied by legal defenders or lawyers at their service, since they were aware that their actions had to conform to the laws of the Indians, since they would be subjected to rigorous trials of the royal power at any time, serving as a deterrent to non-compliance with the law by knowing the very serious repercussion that such an act could have (especially the punishment of dishonor before the Kingdom and God, since it generated an unbearable burden of bad reputation that closed job opportunities and a psychological terror among Nobles accustomed to Honor), the strongest penalties being the deprivation of liberty or the seizure of property.[41]​.

They are divided into 9 books where the following issues are discussed:

• - Book 1: Refers to religious matters, such as the royal patronage, the organization of the Church, culture and teaching.

• - Book 2: Discusses the structure of the Indian government with special reference to the functions and competence of the Council of the Indies and the audiences.

• - Book 3: Summarizes the duties, competence, powers and functions of viceroys, governors and soldiers.

• - Book 4: Concerns the discovery and territorial conquest. It sets the standards for population, land distribution, public works and mining.

• - Book 5: Legislates on various aspects of public law, jurisdiction, functions, competence and powers of mayors, magistrates and other minor officials.

• - Book 6: Deals with the situation of the indigenous people, their social condition, the regime of encomiendas, taxes, etc.

• - Book 7: Summarizes the aspects related to police action and public morality.

• - Book 8: Legislation on income and financial organization.

• - Book 9: Refers to the Indian commercial organization and the means of regulating it, with special reference to the Casa de Contratación.

In turn, based on the principle of Indian writers that the law starts from facts and not ideas, the following rules were established for compliance with the laws of the Indies:[4]​.

• - Natural law (the Metaphysical essence of the law by the mere fact of being real people in a natural Order of justice) is above positive law (the written law in matter "Matter (philosophy)"), which is deduced from natural law to capture a framework of formal justice "Form (philosophy)").

• - Tradition (Customary Law), based on certain requirements of Morals, takes precedence over the law.

• - A future law corrects one of the past.

• - A law enacted for one case must also be applied to those that are analogous or similar.

• - The special law takes precedence over the general law.

● The Law of 8 hours:.

By Law VI of 1593, King Philip II of the House of Austria decrees in his domains that:[43]​[44]​[45]​[46]​.

• - In the second volume, book III, title VI, Law VI (“That the workers work eight hours each day distributed as appropriate”), this day is established for work in the development of fortifications and factories; formally, the day was applied to the construction of forts and palaces of the Spanish Crown.[47]​.

The formula of "the law is obeyed, but it is not fulfilled" was an aphorism mentioned very frequently during the application of Indian law. This has generated, in modern legal historiography (influenced by Positivism or Rationalism), a belief that the American authorities were in constant rebellion with the mandates of the Metropolis, and that only the Indian laws were complied with, on rare occasions, despite bad rulers who avoided their application as much as possible, giving an image that colonial Latin America was a place with total discredit of the laws and an example of Political corruption in Hispanic countries. However, that would be a misunderstanding of the true meaning of that political formula (caused by a modernist view of such an aphorism that belonged to a legal order different from that used by judicial processes of contemporary times), where the law was one more element of several that constituted the legal order of the Indian reality, and by which, the legislator respected the duty to comply with the norms of natural law, but not the positive laws that could have been decreed by the mental ignorance of some jurist. with the American reality (largely due to communication problems due to long distances or imperfect reports of the situation), being illegitimate laws insofar as they did not adapt to local customs or social needs in the concrete reality. Although there were cases of malicious breaches of the law to delay or forget the issuance of a law, this phrase would rather be the vindication of a right in the executors of the law to omit compliance with some illegitimate mandate, based on an opposition that has just grounds, since all authorities (such as the king and his officials) had the power to amend an erroneous decision. Being complementary to the fundamental right of the subjects (subject to the law) to make use of the resource of supply so that a law that is just and necessary is fulfilled or established, with which psychological protection was given to the governed subjects, and guarantees to the governors of being able to review laws that could contradict the needs of the community or suffered from vices contrary to natural law (but always all at the request of the interested parties, not by arbitrariness, to fulfill the pact between vassal and sovereigns with mutual benefits). Being synthesized by the phrase of Calderón de la Barca, in his work Life is a Dream, in which the phrase "In what is not fair the law must not obey the King" is mentioned. This custom would have strong bases in the Siete Partidas, in which the following was found about the control of legality:[48]​.

Failure to obey a law, due to rebellion of the subjects or malice of the executors of the law, was considered an illegal action and could be penalized as a crime. Only opposition to a law that was regulated by law was legitimate (contrasting the decree with concrete reality), while it was legal to oppose laws that could harm the common good or cause greater damage than those they seek to remedy. The power to suspend any law would be based on avoiding injustice, but always having to recognize its compliance as an obligation to recognize the legitimate authority of the king and his officials (then, never ignoring the authority of the legitimate power of the legislators, nor ignoring the jurisdiction of the kingdom), and rather, allowing the Spanish monarchy to amend its mandates and make them more fair and viable in the face of laws and decrees that were against the law and the parties involved.[49]

However, unlike peninsular Spain, in the Indies it was prohibited to invoke the formula of "it is obeyed, but it is not complied with" if it was understood as the "suspension of a rule until the king's response arrived" (practiced in medieval Castilian law to communicate to the king that a royal decree was unjust, did not conform to the law or had a formal procedural defect, waiting for his response to repeal it or enact a new law to revise it),[50]​ it was only permitted failure to comply with a law that could lead to irreparable or scandalous damage, or if the document was based on an erroneous narration of the facts, it being mandatory to add one of these reasons (and substantiate it according to the facts) to request the suspension of a law from the Council of the Indies. That greater restriction on the American authorities, compared to the Castilian ones, was due to the constant complaints of non-compliance with royal decrees in the first years of conquest, causing special strengthening of legal documents to protect the Laws of the Indies.[51]​.

En el Virreinato de la Nueva España, se aplicaron Leyes específicas, con el fin de regular la vida y el trabajo.

En materia de trabajo se dictaron disposiciones que trataban de beneficiar a los indígenas, llamados naturales en esa época. Los intereses económicos de las clases altas se vieron perjudicadas si éstas disposiciones se aplicaron en su integridad.

Los siguientes puntos serían aplicados:.

• - Proteger a los menores, Ley 3.ª, Título 13°, Libro VI.

• - Reglamentar la duración del contrato de trabajo a 8 horas diarias, convirtiendo a España en el primer país del mundo en aplicar la jornada de 8 horas, adelantándose a Inglaterra por más de 200 años, Ley 13.ª, Título 13°, Libro VI.

• - Trato humano y justiciero en las relaciones obrero-patronales, Ley 13.ª, Título 5°, Libro VI.

• - Obligación de hacer los pagos puntualmente cada semana, con dinero y no en especie, Ley 12.ª, Título 15°, Libro VI.

• - Libertad de trabajo Además, se desarrollaron ciertos derechos regionales análogos a los poseídos por los españoles de Europa (y que aun no se habían generalizado en la península), como la Ordenanza de Intendentes de 1786,[52]​ por el que se otorgaba a los indios el derecho para escoger anualmente (en los pueblos cabeceras) sus propias autoridades.[4]​.

Además, los indígenas tenían la protestad de escribirle al Rey de España con sus lenguas nativas (predominantemente el Náhuatl como lengua franca, pero también el Mixteco, Zapoteco "Zapoteco (idioma)"), etc) con solicitudes para mantener sus tierras, su estatus, e incluso un salario perpetuo (sobre todo los que descendían de Indios auxiliares de la conquista). La nobleza indígena llegó a recibir asesoramiento y lograron ser tratados como un noble más del Reino de Castilla, solicitándole a los funcionarios del imperio español que símbolos debían tener sus Escudos "Escudo (heráldica)") familiares, según su propia tradición indígena. Por ley, era tolerado y hasta promovido el uso de las lenguas nativas en las dinámicas de la sociedad colonial. Los españoles a su vez, tuvieron que recurrir a los especialistas indígenas para poder realizar alguna obra de infraestructura, y tenían un deber por ley de realizar obras de Servicio público a los súbditos de las comunidades indígenas (como el Acueducto del Padre Tembleque para transportar agua al pueblo de Otumba), del mismo modo que se hacía con los súbditos europeos.[53]​ Aquel ennoblecimiento de los indígenas, y el reconocimiento de las aristocracias locales, simbolizaba las bases de la ley indiana en un pacto social entre los caciques indígenas y los Reyes Católicos para el desarrollo de un orden social favorable a los súbditos indígenas por la protección del monarca español.[54]​.

Al desarrollarse la organización territorial de Nueva España, las leyes establecía que, siempre que los indios estuvieran al día con sus documentos legales, se pueda lograr una exoneración del tributo indígena o solicitar mercedes. Sobre todo, se reconocía a los indios el título de sus tierras, estando protegidos contra los intentos de usurpación de algunos españoles, por el que se darían varias disputas, por el que a través de sus autoridades (alcaldes y caciques) hacían llegar sus reclamos y denuncias ante las autoridades de la Real Audiencia. Además, las autoridades virreinales siempre debían realizar una investigación, antes de conceder alguna propiedad, para conocer si las tierras solicitadas podían perjudicar a los vecinos de la zona.[55]​.

Por otra parte, se desarrolló una política sanitaria con los indios, dándose ordenanzas y reales cédulas para fundar instituciones hospitalarias con un fin de atender específicamente las necesidades físicas de los indios, destacando el Hospital real de indios de México"), que a su vez ayudo a la evangelización de los indios y la reestructuración de sus comunidades, así como combatir las Epidemias traídas por las enfermedades de los europeos. Usualmente quedaron bajo la administración de los Dominicanos, Agustinos y Franciscanos.[56]​.

Aunque se intento hacer un aumento drástico del tributo indígena, la Junta Superior de Real Hacienda de Nueva España declaró que no podía ser intención del rey el condenar a los naturales en una situación infeliz, "sino que se les exija el tributo que sus fuerzas puedan soportar con la suavidad y dulzura que tanto recomiendan las leyes", realizándose reducciones de carga fiscal para la República de indios al argumentarse que habría consecuencias graves de aumentar los impuestos sin que incrementase al mismo tiempo los jornales (sueldos) de los indios.[57]​ El proceso para determinar los tributos a pagar por los indios, en una cantidad justa, se realizaba de 3 maneras:[58]​.

1. • La visita: Consistía en conocer las posibilidades económicas de los indígenas.

2. • La cuenta: Consistía en saber su número.

3. • La tasación: Trataba de fijar la clase y cuantía de los impuestos.

In the Philippines

The laws were brought by the 1st bishop in the Philippines, Domingo de Salazar (disciple of Bartolomé de las Casas). He insisted that the gospel, far from dispossessing the pagans, should perfect them along with what they already had. Therefore, the freedom and right of the indigenous tribes to govern themselves, in peace and justice, should not be impeded by the Spanish Crown if certain conditions were established (that of spreading the Gospel and putting its message into practice at a political level, being a duty according to the Royal Patronage of the Indies and Thomistic Natural Law). In the words of José Rizal, this explained why in the following 300 years, the indigenous Filipinos accepted Spanish authority, because they were treated humanely thanks to the Laws of the Indies. Thus, the Spanish friars in the Philippines would protect the indigenous people from the pretensions of the Encomenderos, voluntarily allowing themselves to be recruited into the Army of the Spanish Monarchy and some government offices agreed to include them. However, imperfections arose after the attempts of the Spanish Empire in the Bourbon Reforms to secularize their domains to have better control over the church, relegating the clergy composed of natives from power functions after the Expulsion of the Jesuits and the Independence of Mexico, which would generate problems that would not be resolved until the Independence of the Philippines.[59]​.

Al respecto de las Leyes de Indias en el Perú, destaca la buena recepción (en el derecho indiano) de múltiples instituciones originadas por la tradición jurídica de los indígenas, por ejemplo: cajas de comunidad") (basado en la Reciprocidad andina")), el contrato de yanaconaje"), la mita o trabajo por turnos, la comunidad organizada de los Ayllus (con sus implicaciones en la propiedad de la tierra), y el aprovechamiento de la organización del Imperio incaico, sobre todo por las Reformas hechas por el virrey Francisco de Toledo.[4]​ Entre esas instituciones que rescataron los españoles, estaba también los Tambos "Tambo (arquitectura)"), los cuales, tras el grave deterioro que sufrieron por las guerras del siglo , se emitirían reales cédulas para que funcionen como en tiempos de Huayna Cápac.[60]​ También se mantuvieron instituciones incaicas de carácter tributario, como los tocuirico bajo una reformulación colonial en el que velarían por la “pureza de costumbres, la limpieza de las casas y las calles del pueblo, la estricta observancia de la moral sexual, la prohibición de comer todos juntos en la plaza, en vez de hacerlo cada uno en su casa como hombres de razón, el control de la asistencia a la instrucción religiosa, etc", los quipus con el fin de contabilizar el inventario del ganado de la comunidad y la planificación urbana de las reducciones de indios, los chasquis bajo un modo de actuar que llegara hasta el Río de la Plata para ser informantes y traer correo sobre las provincias mas lejanas de la capital virreinal. Se busco mantener Pragmáticamente ciertas "Leyes del Inca" que ayudaran al buen gobierno, en cuanto a la vigilancia y control del orden social, entre esas disposiciones estaban las categorías de yanaconas, mitayos"), hatunrunas.[61]​.

En materia de garantía para condiciones sociales de vida digna, los virreyes peruanos, tras recibir informes de maltratos y explotación a los trabajadores de la Sociedad política indiana, hicieron múltiples esfuerzos por acatar el cumplimiento de las leyes indianas y el respeto al Derecho natural del indio y mestizo como persona humana:[62]​[63]​[64]​[65]​.

• - En 1664, el virrey Diego de Benavides consolido en el Virreinato del Perú la jornada de trabajo público (9-10 horas), el salario mínimo, y las excepciones al trabajo por sexo, edad y residencia. Así mismo ordenó que se clausurarán y destruyeran numeroso obrajes informales donde se explotaban a los indígenas por más de 14 horas y donde eran obligados a trabajar incluso niños.

• - En los años 1668-1670, el virrey Pedro Fernández de Castro vuelve a restructurar el sistema laboral de los indios en las minas, haciendas y obrajes, para evitar que se les explote y abuse de ellos. También prohíbe que "los dueños de plantaciones, ingenios, minas y obrajes" obliguen a los niños huérfanos a trabajar en contra de su voluntad.

• - En 1680, el virrey Melchor de Liñan ordenó que obligatoriamente los empleadores (mineros, encomenderos, hacendados, ganaderos y obrajeros")) deben de expedir contratos laborales para todos sus trabajadores. El Gobernador también establece que los "miserables indios", que no estén sujetos a las mitas, tienen la libertad de cambiar de trabajo, si su emperador no cumple con pagarles su salario o les exija horas de trabajo adicionales que no hayan estado fijados en su contrato. En 1681 ordenó también la destrucción de varios obrajes que no cumplían con las ordenanzas y encarcela a muchos dueños de ingenios.

• - En 1687 el virrey Melchor de Navarra prohibió que los empleadores de las haciendas y obrajes pagarán a sus trabajadores con utensilios, alimentos o cualquier tipo de mercadería, estableciendo que se les debía de pagar sus salarios correspondientes acordes a las tarifas establecidas por el gobierno.

En el ámbito económico, los Cacique e indios pequeño burgueses eran poseedores de un poder real que dio pie a conflictos en defensa de sus derechos, y el de los indios tributarios a su servicio. Además lograron disfrutar del derecho a la posesión y administración de minas para su explotación, pese a que tal sector estuviera controlado en su gran mayoría por gremios de españoles, los cuales poseían mejor maquinaria y poseían de una gran cantidad de mitayos. Aunque les fue difícil competir con los mineros españoles y criollos, de todos modos las autoridades indígenas si lograron beneficiarse del sector minero, sobre todo en el siglo durante la era Habsburgo. Con los Borbones la minería se volvió un sector de subsistencia para los indígenas. Adicionalmente a los indios mitayos que debían de enviar a las minas de manera obligatoria, muchos indios caciques además alquilaron a sus indios jornaleros ante los gremios de mineros españoles, por precios muy altos que rondaban los 200 a 340 pesos por temporada. Incluso controlaron el sector del transporte de minerales para su procesamiento, ganando aproximadamente 40-100 pesos por viaje.[22]​[23]​.

Además, dentro del fuero militar") del Ejército Real del Perú, hubo una estricta obediencia a las leyes indianas para evitar los abusos y los crímenes de guerra, debido a que se la presentaban múltiples problemas entre las personas que integraban la institución militar, de carácter socializante y moralizadora (estos problemas se debían a que la mayoría de ellos eran personas de oficios diferentes, formación desigual, costumbres diversas, hablantes de varios idiomas y con casta étnica "Castas (americanas)") diferente). Siendo así, se debía lidiar con los robos, asesinatos, lesiones corporales, pleitos callejeros, etc de crímenes comunes entre el fuero militar; y entre las presentes por el fuero civil, se presentaba el adulterio, la falta de pago para mantener a hijos no reconocidos (sobre todo alimentación), injurias y la “normal” deserción (sea soldados veteranos o milicianos). A quienes se probara culpables de sus denuncias, recibían múltiples castigos (indistintamente a si eran blancos "Blanco (persona)"), criollos, indios, mestizos, castizos "Castizo (casta)"), negros "Negro (persona)"), mulatos, o pardos "Pardo (casta)")), como ser puesto por días en un Cepo o ser sentenciado a realizar forzadamente el servicio de obras públicas por años.[66]​ Los oficiales blancos y mestizos que quisieran obligar a siervos (mayormente negros e indios) a trabajar sin salario, e incluso inculparlos de robos o daños a su propiedad, igualmente pasaban por el fuero militar por delitos de abuso ante la Real Auditoría de Guerra, teniendo estos además un rol de nivelar las relaciones de poder dentro de la sociedad estamental entre nobles y siervos.[66]​.

Notable cases of application of the Indian Laws in Peru

• - The denunciation of the archbishop of Popayán, Juan del Valle, in 1548, that abusive taxes were charged to the Indians. Sending the clergyman Luis Sánchez to present the complaint to the Council of the Indies. Those complaints were repeated by various members of the clergy such as Francisco Morales (1561), Bartolomé de la Vega") (1563), Francisco Falcón") (1567). Although there were proposals to exempt the Indians from paying taxes based on their status as minors, in the end it was established that only tax burdens that were immoderate could be prohibited, since it was argued that there would be harm to the Indians if they did not pay tax burdens that would allow them to finance the maintenance of their social infrastructure.[61]​.

• - During the decades of 1570 and 1580, the Inca nobles, who were direct descendants of the emperors of Tahuantinsuyo, would enter into litigation with the chiefs and communities of their 4 who had been their subjects who were called "privileged Incas" (because they did not come from panacas, but were Curacas of the towns conquered by the Incas or who obtained titles for their services in the Spanish conquest). These panaca Inca nobles wanted their nobility to be recognized as something of a hereditary nature and to be given privileges of being free from paying taxes, going so far as to unite all the Inca nobles in a single block, while the privileged Incas (the chiefs of Condesuyo, the Canches, Collasuyo, Andesuyo, Chinchaysuyo) opposed such claims in the viceregal courts, arguing that they were almost All fiscal burdens would fall on them and their communities if the descendants of the Incas were exempt from personal services and republican tasks. Thus, the Incas went to learn Castilian law (especially appealing to the hidalgo-pechero dichotomy), obtain witnesses, attorneys and defenders before the Cortes, signed powers in the legal forum and testified before corregidors, interpreters and protectors of Indians. It was all due to the fact that the viceroy Francisco de Toledo ordered, through the Royal Treasury, that many nobles be listed as tributary Indians when he saw that the majority of Cusqueños did not pay tribute by claiming that they were free Indians, ordering the registration of the Cusqueños of the city in the service of the King or some private individual, but coming into conflict with previous ordinances of the Royal Court of Lima, which in 1564 had established that “the Indians who “If they prove and appear to be children and descendants of Topa Ynga Yupangui, they are allowed to live freely wherever they are without paying tribute or other services, but rather to enjoy freedom.” Such a dispute would be transferred from the Royal Court to the Council of the Indies itself. Finally, after presenting their arguments and evidence through the attorney Miguel Ruiz"), Fernando de Jaén"), Cristóbal de Molina and other representatives, managed to annul Toledo's provision by demonstrating that they had already been recognized as Hidalgos, and that only Indians outside the Inca panacas (be they Hatunruna Indians or their chiefs) had to pay tribute, as had been done in the time of the Incas.[67]​.

Las leyes de Indias a día de hoy suelen ser un tema de gran importancia a la hora de impartir clases de la Facultad de derecho de múltiples universidades de Hispanoamérica y España en la actualidad.[79]​.

Por su parte, durante el proceso de Desamortización, junto a la expropiación de las tierras comunales de los indígenas tras las Independencias de Hispanoamérica, hubo múltiples descendientes de Caciques, como representantes de las comunidades campesinas afectadas, realizando actos de reclamación por el derecho a la propiedad de sus tierras, hecho con base en las Leyes de Indias y el derecho indiano.

Mexico

For example, in Mexico, it is mentioned that in times of the Second Mexican Empire, Indian communities still appealed to the courts based on Indian legislation. This was influenced by a constant concern against Creole landowners who wanted to appropriate their communal lands from the Indians after the confiscation policies adopted by Benito Juárez when he won the Reform War (by which the indigenous communities would be left unprotected before the law and their lands outside of expropriation), wanting the return of institutions of the Old Regime such as the Protector of Indians, rather than being unprotected in equality before the law with the whites. This meant that over time, the empire of Maximilian of Mexico distanced itself from Republican Mexican Liberalism, to the extent that it approached the Protectionist measures demanded by social conservatives, inspired by Indian Law and the Laws of the Indies (and even some positions of the utopian Socialism of the rural proletariat, since Maximilian was influenced by Victor Considerant), instead of yearning for the assimilation of the Indian through the political destruction of the indigenous community. (as would end up happening in future Mexican governments when promoting Peonage) as a means to obtain the social transformation desired by the bourgeois-liberal revolutionaries, who considered that a differentiated legal category such as "Indian", understood as a subject of law without the same duties and rights equal to the "whites" (the latter less protected by the law), implied a delay in the transition from subjects to citizens in national development.[80]​ For this reason, more and more laws would be decreed. distant from the liberal ideology, such as the laws of July and September 1865 that reestablished the legal personality of the indigenous communities (abolishing Equality before the law), the agrarian law of September 16, 1866 (the most radical) that granted land to the indigenous communities that lacked legal property and ejido, continuing the law of June 26 on repartimientos (citing the New Spain period) and restoration of the community lands (annulling the transition to a liberal regime of private property) which said the following:[81]​.

By July 1866, there was an increasingly conservative and reactionary "Reaction (political)" turn in Maximilian's government. This was due to the measures suggested and taken by the political advisors that Emperor Maximilian had, while they noted that the indigenous, and in general the common Mexican, clung to traditionalist New Spanish ways of life "Political Traditionalism (Spain)"), being stubborn with their customs, in which they perceived themselves as a traditional community society that sought to be alien to the Modernization project of the liberal and Individualist-egalitarian model, which came mostly from the Europeanizing Creole elites, and for which the indigenous people did not appear to be willing to follow, showing indifferent or even opposed attitudes to the notions of Equality before the law, while they wanted their inherited differences to be recognized by the legal recognition of their distinction as "Indian" in the jurisdictions of the Indian political society of the Spanish imperial era (in fact, even in those times quite a few appeals were made in the government according to the Partidas of Alfonso especially in terms of communal property and its legal existence as an indigenous community, to subsist and exist as such, compared to the political community of the Creole or the mestizos, and not wanting recognition of just being a Mexican/citizen-owner (which is why the complaints of several indigenous peoples made reference to Royal Decrees).[82]​ Thus, according to Jean Meyer, Maximilian acted, rather than as a liberal, as a Enlightened despot (closer to Bourbon Reformism), who would try to take advantage of the elements of Tradition and Modernity, taking extreme measures that contradicted classical and economic Liberalism, drinking from the "old" Indian legislation, or the "modern" proposal of socialism, in addition to the ideas of Cameralism (very popular in the Germanic states) that gave importance to small peasant property compared to the lordly latifundia, expressed in the Urbarium Code of 1767") (which established the plots of the Hungarian peasants and prohibited their lord from seizing them).[83] But this did not imply the end of the confiscations, not renouncing the liberal and enlightened desire to overcome feudal communal property with modern private property as a natural and absolute right (compared to the traditional conception of a secondary natural right), together with the idealized conception of the indigenous in Mexican liberalism as that of a potential owner who would be transformed into a citizen and owner of his plot who would be able to legally defend his property by himself, like any other criollo or mestizo in the Social Contract; only avoiding what happened in modern Mexica of leaving the indigenous outside the law, as a vulnerable subject and without defense mechanisms against the landowners and speculators, seeking to favor the Indian over the landowner through mechanisms of protection for the "needy classes")"[84] (which granted them a protective board on April 10, 1865 to favor the dispossessed classes of the empire)[85][86]​ in said social transition.[87]​ Finally, with the fall of the second Mexican empire, Mexican elites would make efforts to repress indigenous traditionalists and force them to accept liberal policies.

Peru and Bolivia

During the entire century and part of the century, there was intense litigation between the indigenous communities and the recently independent governments (such as the Republic of Peru or the Republic of Bolívar) due to the difficulties that the Contractualism of the Philosophy of Liberal Law had to recognize the historical rights of the rural communities (mostly Indo-mestizo peasants) to the indigenous Territories, which were based on the Pactism and Iusnaturalism of Indian Law (a series of ancestral pacts mostly oral laws that the Laws of the Indies recognized as valid by the principle of Uti Possidetis and without the need to formalize them in a Title of Property, only ratifying a Natural Right that was considered implicit and superior to positive Law). This would lead the indigenous people to adopt traditionalist positions politically, being hostile to the liberal movement and adhering to the movements of "legitimist counterrevolutions" (such as the royalist Army in America) in order to keep the Laws of the Indies in force and their legitimate protest in reaction to the republican and constitutionalist social contract.[88][89]​.

On the other hand, in Bolivia the struggle of the chief Santos Marka T'ula (of the Ayllu Qallapa), the notary Leandro Condori Chura") and the movement of proxy chiefs") during the end of the century and beginning of the century would be important, through which they sought to recover and prevent the usurpation of their communal lands from the indigenous ayllus in La Paz, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and other places that were being expropriated by the Republic of Bolivia (which He began to classify them as national assets without an owner that could be put up for sale). Thus, they began a legal battle (led by the Aymara leader, Santos Marka T'ula) before the Bolivian government, appealing to viceregal legality, in which it was appealed that King Philip II of the House of Austria had recognized (based on natural law) the communal possession of those of the indigenous ayllus (reductions and communal properties) that were being disputed, since those had been purchased by their former chiefs, who Until the end of the viceregal period they sent money (pesos in gold and silver) for their maintenance, and therefore they could not be deprived of them under any circumstances. The leaders (chiefs elected by the community) turned to the viceregal documents of the 16th-19th centuries, especially those that came from the time when the viceroy Francisco Álvarez de Toledo ruled.[90]​[91]​.

The Creole oligarchies of Bolivia carried out a whole series of tricks to dismiss the struggle of the indigenous chiefs, which included destroying viceregal documents, as well as accusing the chiefs of being conspirators, foreign agents, rebels, traitors to the country, seditionists, among other negative qualifiers that were already common against the indigenous people who dared to confront the power of the landowners in the context of Gamonalism. They even arbitrarily arrested the leaders of the ayllus, such as Marka Tola himself on several occasions, threatening them several times in order to obstruct the legal process and disappear their documents, later arguing that they were forgeries or that they did not have sufficient evidence.[92]​.