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Indian treaties were signed by ceremonies and enforced by force
Source: Situado and Sabana #82
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The separate contracts which underlay and legitimated conquest were sealed by solemn ceremonies, each one marking a change of status. The act of homage-kissing the king's hand in the person of the governor's, a ceremony repeated yearly-followed the oath of fealty by which one became a vassal. Performing the act of submission, a rebel cacique threw himself at the governor's feet to beg for mercy and acknowledge his new status as someone whose vassals were now subject to forced labor. The act of baptism was a public acceptance of the yoke of the doctrine and the law of God, as well as, in many cases, a personal rite of passage. Treaties of trade or of peace were solemnized by the native calumet ceremony, which Europeans called "smoking the peace pipe," and reciprocal gifts. Homage, surrender, baptism, the calumet all were acts in evidence of contract: the signatures of a preliterate society. Whatever record was being made by the attendant notary was not to validate the contract but to attest that it had been validated in his presence. The notarized treaties of peace or trade that survive in the Florida legajos, the acts of homage or submission, records of mission foundings, declarations of just war, and lists of chiefs appearing before the governor to receive presents-all are the legal evidences of contracts which Spaniards called into existence and on occasion enforced. Those researchers who are obliged to rely on official archives learn to recognize the formulaic source for what it was: a paper trail designed to provide a particular official with an ironclad defense should higher authorities ever question his actions in office. This kind of inquiry happened frequently, for each mission advance into new territory was followed sooner or later by a "secondary war," or uprising, which the Spanish then put down by force. The cacique who rose in rebellion committed a breach of contract for which he could be sent into exile, deposed from office, or stripped of his inherited privileges over lands and people. Those who followed his lead forfeited the status of Christians conquered by the gospel and entered the ranks of "nations" conquered by the sword, liable to forced labor. Whole towns could be relocated to serve this open-ended sentence. Whether or not a total war could be declared against Indians who had submitted and then rebelled was a matter of dispute, but the fact that they were rebellious vassals was not. One could be in a state of rebellion without committing acts of violence. Those who withdrew from the king's realms, singly or in a body, likewise repudiated the covenant, for the social contract as Spaniards understood it was irrevocable. Obedience once given could not be withdrawn. Although the missionaries sometimes sided with the rebels against the governor and appealed native grievances to the Crown, the Spanish system included no provision for secession. The Indian system did. Between 1680 and 1706, Indian commoners would secede from the provinces of Florida in overwhelming numbers, walking away and not coming back. (Bushnell SS)
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