Commentary No. 031
Date: 1538, April 8. Valladolid, Spain.
Theme: Within the rural district of Santo Domingo City there were some areas with populations of 100 Spaniards and 600 “Blacks and Indians,” while sugar estates had about 100 individuals of the same categories and there was a need for constables there to prosecute and punish crimes.
Source: PARES, Portal de Archivos Españoles-- Archivo General de ndias,SANTO_DOMINGO,868,L.1, Imagen Núm: 258/588 – 259/588,F.125V- 126R.
Possibly during late 1537 or the first months of 1538, the members of the city council of Santo Domingo sent a delegate to the Spanish Court to communicate to the king that early colonial settlements of La Española like Buena Ventura and Santa Cruz de Aycagua [sic] whose districts were adjacent to that of Santo Domingo City had vanished, and as a result their lands been incorporated into the latter. Reportedly this had allowed some individuals to acquire up to 40 leagues of land, including areas with populations of “more than a hundred Spaniards and six hundred Blacks and Indians, and this without the sugar estates in each of which reside at least more than one hundred Spaniards and Blacks and other people that arrive at them from the neighboring areas out of respect for the clergy that reside in them.”
The council members requested that power be given to the council to appoint constables-judges (“alcaldes”) within the territories of their district so that these could prosecute criminals and administer justice in those areas both in civil as well as criminal matters that do not require bleeding, amputation/mutilation or flogging, which should be instead sent to alcaldes hordinarios in the case of Spanish suspects. But for accusations involving Black slaves, the council argued, the alcaldes should have full jurisdiction. Two alcaldes would be enough “for all the districts.”
The Council of the Indies recommended for the king to proceed as requested and in his letter the king authorized the Audiencia of Santo Domingo to appoint the said alcaldes “in these areas where there is mingling of Spaniards or Blacks or Indians” or in whichever way they saw fit, appointing them among residents of those places, and provided that appeals would be sent to the Audiencia.