ABSTRACT
The Greater Antilles—the large islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica—were fortified by Spaniards as they began their conquest of America. The “discovery” of America touched off a debate in Europe on the nature of the people who lived in the New World. Native Americans had never before been seen by Europeans, so they were thought—at first—to be related to, perhaps, one of the lost tribes of Israel. Nearly all of the Native Americans living in the Caribbean died of European disease and dislocation during the first 40 years of the Spaniards’ arrival in the Caribbean. The Spaniards’ penchant for legalism is clearly evident in the 1514 ordinance requiring Spaniards to read a medieval document known as “the requirement,” el requirimiento, before engaging in any conquest in the Americas. The Burgos Laws attempted, for the first time, to systematically govern the conquest of the Americas.
