The Requerimiento
The proclamation that Spanish commanders were ordered to read to the peoples of the Americas before making war on them. It rests the Spanish claim on a pope’s donation of the islands and mainland to the crown of Castile.
The text tells its hearers that God gave the whole human race into the charge of St Peter, that one of Peter’s successors made a “donation” of the islands and mainland to the king and queen of Castile, and that they must therefore acknowledge the church and the crown. If they refuse, the reader declares, the Spaniards will make war on them, enslave them and their families and take their goods, and the deaths that follow will be their own fault.
It is cited in Christianity Crosses the Atlantic as a document of the Spanish crown that appeals to the papal grant of 1493 as a title to conquest.
Cited in
- 1493, firm date