Native Vassals: Chinos, Indigenous Identity, and Legal Protection in Early Modern Spain

This paper examines the unique experiences of various people from Asia who appealed to Spanish courts for their freedom in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, based on the defense that vasallos (vassals or subjects) of the Crown could not be enslaved.  Their stories raise significant questions regarding the malleable nature of ethnic identity in the Early Modern period, when a man from Indonesia could call himself an Indio (Indian) in direct reference to the indigenous peoples of the Americas and as such claim vassal status.  Outcomes were mixed, but some individuals did receive justice by availing themselves of a legal tradition that evolved to uphold Spanish colonialism.  Indian slaves were problematic for the Spanish Crown in part because it based its colonial claims on the East and West Indies on protecting Christianized subjects.  The Crown’s courts both determined the nature of vassalage and sought to protect property rights in the growing Spanish Empire.  As the final arbiters between freedom and slavery, the courts became a source of hope for people who demanded acknowledgement of their status as subjects rather than chattel.  The stories discussed here reveal the contested and ambiguous nature of slavery in the Spanish Empire and the tension between the need for elites to protect their property and the Crown’s colonial project.