Iberian Christian Nationalism and El Requerimiento
Today I’ve thought and written about sixteenth-century forms of Spanish Christian Nationalism. For me, this is a matter of biological and ecclesiastical family history. In the name of Christ, the Pope, and Spain, my Spanish ancestors conquered and subjugated my Taíno ancestors on Boriken (modern-day Puerto Rico). And they used a specific imperial, legal tool to accomplish these evil deeds: El Requerimiento, “The Requirement.”
El Requerimiento legally codified what scholars such as Robert Chao Romero and Lorenzo Veracini call the “we can conquer them in order to convert them” mentality pulsating throughout sixteenth-century Spanish Christian Nationalism. After sketching a narrative from creation to the establishment of supreme Papal authority, the legal text describes how the Pope donated the East Indies to Spain’s monarchy. It then commands Indigenous peoples to submit to Spanish rule and Christian instruction under threat of military invasion, enslavement, and subjugation.
If you do not do this [accept Spanish rule and the Christian faith], however, or resort maliciously to delay, we warn you that, with the aid of God, we will enter your land against you with force and will make war in every place and by every means we can and are able, we will then subject you to the yoke and authority of the Church and Their Highnesses [Spanish Monarchy]. We will take you and your wives and children and make them slaves, and as such we will sell them, and dispose of you and them as Their Highnesses order. And we will take your property and will do to you all the harm and evil we can, as is done to vassals who will not obey their lord or who do not wish to accept him, or who resist and defy him. We avow that the deaths and harm which you will receive thereby will be your own blame, and not that of Their Highnesses, nor ours, nor of the gentlemen who come with us.
My Spanish ancestors read this evil document to my Taíno ancestors. Even Jonah would blush at this “call” to repent.
My Spanish ancestors were supposed to read this text a mi familia de Boriken before determining if they had to vanquish los Indios. Frequently, however, they “read it” to commence their blatant, violent pursuit of land, wealth, power, and racial privilege. As historian Lewis Hanke recounts:
The Requirement was read to trees and empty huts when no Indians were to be found. Captains muttered its theological phrases into their beards on the edge of sleeping Indians settlements, or even a league away before starting the formal attack, and at times some leather-lunged Spanish notary hurled its sonorous phrases after the Indians as they fled into the mountains. Once it was read in camp before the soldiers to the beat of the drum. Ship captains would sometimes have the document read from the deck as they approached an island, and at night would send out enslaving expeditions, whose leaders would shout the traditional Castilian war cry, “Santiago!”
My Iberian family would call upon St. James to ensure the success of their pillaging my Taíno family. This is my family history. This is Church history. This is the history of Christian Nationalism. Let us not forget it. And let us work to resist and remediate its ongoing consequence and novel manifestations. Saludos y’all.
