Queridxs penitentes,

Earlier this week, I was searching my university's special collections database trying to come up with a project idea for this class on digital methods in history. I put in my favorite colonial author, Bartolomé de las Casas, just to see if we had anything of his.

Las Casas was a Dominican friar who is known for his Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (English | Spanish), which is just what it says on the tin. It's not the most historically reliable account of the Spanish colonization of the Americas, but it is the most morally forceful, and that's what he wanted it to be. The document was initially prepared in 1542 for the Consejo de Indias, which was basically the Spanish empire's committee on Indian affairs. It was effective: the Consejo enacted the New Laws in response to Las Casas' presentation. Among other things, they put an end to the encomienda system of indigenous enslavement (legally, anyway; there was great resistance in New Spain, and a straight-up civil war in Perú). Ten years later, Las Casas published the document, as well as several other moral treatises in rapid succession. One was an account of the famous Valladolid debate, where he had debated other scholars on the morality of the colonization of the Americas.

And then there's this other little one. Just thirty-eight pages. Long title, not particularly famous. "Aqui se co[n]tiene[n] vnos auisos..." ("Here's some advice...") It looks like dry theology from 1552 and of course that's exactly what it is. Turns out we have a copy in our special collections, though, so I thought I'd click through and read on.

Turns out this document is Las Casas' manual for the confessors of conquistadores, encomenderos, and merchants involved in the enslavement of indigenous people. I'd seen manuals like this before—Spanish friars prepared "textbooks" for their fellow missionaries all the time, whether it was a fresh translation of the rites of confession in Tzotzil or a detailed refutation of K'iche' myths for use in catechesis in Guatemala. (If you want to hear more about that...let me know because I could go on forever.) But I'd never seen anything prepared for the purpose of ministering to Spaniards in the Americas, let alone anything that acknowledged the moral weight of their actions there, and trying to work out what repentance would look like for them.

In summary, here are Las Casas' twelve rules for the confessors of conquistadores:

Rule 1: Call in a notary to detail the penitent's material profit from immoral trade.

Rule 2: Assess the penitent's sorrow for his sins, to include his responsibility for the damnation of those he killed and robbed of time for repentance, and his responsibility for not just the acts committed by his own hands but what he obliged others to do.

Rule 3: Have the penitent provide an inventory of his possessions so that you might consider their origins and the ethical implications of how he acquired them.

Rule 4: In the case of a deathbed penitent, disregard the claims of heirs: "none of these conquistadores has a single maravedí (coin) that is his own." The wife and children of the penitent may be given "alms" at the confessor's discretion, but they do not have an "inheritance," which implies rights that they do not have to this property.

(coin) that is his own." The wife and children of the penitent may be given "alms" at the confessor's discretion, but they do not have an "inheritance," which implies rights that they do not have to this property. Rule 5: If the penitent is not dying, ensure he actually intends to change his life. He must do restitution before he can be given absolution.

Rules 6–8: These detail how material restitution is to be made, and why.

Rule 9: Those who have enslaved Indians must publicly free them.

Rule 10: Those who have had children by enslaved Indians must publicly free them, too.

Rule 11: The merchants must recognize that the arms trade is a mortal sin, for they have enabled the mortal sins of others.

Rule 12: While you've got a notary, make the penitent promise not to simply repent of what they've done in New Spain and then take up with these same sins again in Perú. (That civil war was still going on.)

Finally, there is an appendix justifying these rules "by natural and divine law."

But the project is "digital history," right, and this document is already online—so what am I going to do with it? Here's what I'm thinking: it is incredible that Las Casas so directly connects restitution with absolution in 1552, when the question of reparations for slavery incites total chaos in the discourse in 2018. It's a text that is designed to be applied, not read. It is designed to appeal to the conscience of the colonizer by making plain what he has gained in the world and lost in his soul. So, why not let it do what it was designed to do? Why not make it...playable? I don't know what that's gonna look like yet, but I'm excited about it. Let me know if you've got ideas.

Hasta la próxima,

Catherine

reading: Mexico's fake presidential candidate | the Maya math revolution | how hedge funds created a narrative of Latin American corruption

listening: side-eyeing a story about ayahuasca in the Amazon

watching: the new season of One Day at a Time, a sitcom about a Cuban-American family

The US gun problem is also South America’s gun problem:



Of 10,000 illegal guns seized by Brazil’s federal police since 2014, the single biggest source (15%) was the United States - usually assault rifles compared with low-calibre handguns from elsewhere.https://t.co/Vn6SCZji4y — Laurence Blair (@LABlair1492) 15 de enero de 2018

hemispheric headlines: the Honduran president was sworn in amid protests, Argentine president Mauricio Macri said something obnoxiously racist, the Pope messed up in Chile, and Brazil's former president Lula da Silva is either off to jail or the presidency.

street view: US-Mexico border at Tijuana

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