RACE, LAW AND INSTITUTIONS IN THE COLONIAL ANDES
GABRIELA RAMOS (UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE)
20 January 2019

Špork Palace (303)
Hybernská 3
Prague 1

Spanish claims to sovereignty over the Americas (also
called “the New World”) involved the need to count on a
legal framework to deal with unknown societies and their
customs. The Papacy granted the Spanish Crown the right
to take possession of the newly “discovered” territories
with the condition that their inhabitants would be
brought to the fold of the Catholic Church. These
circumstances set Spanish colonisation apart from other
experiences of colonialism in global history, as the
Spanish crown had as a duty securing the conversion of
the indigenous people of the New World to Christianity.
Spanish material interests notwithstanding, relations
between rulers and ruled were established within legal
and religious obligations. This presentation discusses
how, as the Spanish state made use of the law to define
the status of the indigenous people, categorised them as
“wretched”, thus deserving royal protection. My research
on the links between religion, health, and the body in the
colonial Andes has taken me through the study of the
legal framework and institutions set up to regulate
relations between sovereign and subjects. Regarding the
sovereign, prevalent ideas and practices about his role in
early modern Spain were extended among the peoples
of the New World. As for the ruled, the Spanish monarchy
used both old and new criteria to define who they were
and decide what was their place in society. Spanish
colonialism applied in the New World categories that
gradually led to ideas and customs fixing social and
cultural inequalities.

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