Human Plunder: The Role of Indigenous Slavery in Francisco de Montejo's Conquest of Yucatán, 1527–50

A large host of both Spaniards and Mesoamerican indigenous allies from previously conquered provinces often accompanied expeditions of conquest as willing participants and auxiliaries with the hopes of rewards and spoils.  In many regions outside of central Mexico and Peru, the hopes of easy rewards and ready spoils of war rested not on gold and silver bullion, but rather on other types of plunder: Human Plunder in the form of Indigenous slaves taken in war.  In few other expeditions of conquest in the New World did the invading army rely more on human plunder than in Francisco de Montejo’s three expeditions of conquest in Yucatán.  Moreover, Montejo’s use of indigenous slavery became so abusive by the decade of the 1540s, that its condemnation by Fray Bartolome de las Casas and others played a central role in the development of changing royal legislation that led to the eventual prohibition of Indian slavery. This paper will examine the development and nature of Indigenous slavery and its role in financing and profiting the conquistadors who joined Francisco de Montejo’s conquest of Yucatan (1527-1545).