The Requerimiento: How Spain Legalized Conquest

The Rise of Colonialism: How Europe Divided the World — Fexingo History · May 7, 2026 · 4m · transcript

In 1510, Spanish conquistadors began reading a strange legal document before attacking indigenous villages. The Requerimiento was a declaration of war written in Spanish, read aloud to people who couldn't understand it, demanding submission to the Pope and the Spanish crown under threat of enslavement or death. This episode explores the bizarre origins of this document, its author Juan López de Palacios Rubios, and how it was used—and mocked—during the conquest of the Americas. We look at the 1513 expedition of Pedrarias Dávila to Panama, where the document was first deployed, and the…