“Just War” and Enslavement in 16th-Century Araucania

In November 1542 the Spanish Crown passed the “New Laws” outlawing Indigenous slavery in the Spanish Empire. Yet, the laws left legal justifications for the enslavement of indigenous peoples, most significantly “just war.” Thus, territories not yet fully conquered were still open to some forms of indigenous enslavement. These locations included Nueva Galicia, Rio de la Plata, Florida, and Chile; peripheral locations where war and conflict were the status quo. My paper, and current project follows the transfer of the Indigenous slave trade from the circum-Caribbean (the core of the Spanish Empire for most of the 16^th century) to the Southern Cone of South America after 1542. There the trade continued in present day Chile and Argentina as an essential component of the over a hundred years conflict, the War of Arauco. Due to the difficulty faced by Spanish conquistadors and friars alike in Chile, the constant conflict created the perfect rationale for the enslavement of thousands of Indigenous peoples (and the enslavement of hundreds of Spaniards as well). The decades of war also pushed disparate indigenous cultures to become one, the Mapuche who maintained their independence into the 19^th century. This paper examines the beginning of this process, studying how the Araucanian groups reacted to the threat of enslavement and Spanish incursion using both written and archaeological sources. Despite the southern cone’s location at the edge of the Spanish Empire, the experience of the Araucanians provides a novel and unique lens through which to study slavery and colonization.