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Abstract
My interest in the 1537 papal bull Sublimis Deus by Paul III, which forbade the enslavement of the indigenous people, brought me to the New Laws of 1542. These New Laws reformed the Council of the Indies, created the viceroyalty of Peru, terminated the encomienda system, and also forbade the enslavement and abuse of the indigenous people. Encomenderos like Bernal Díaz del Castillo demanded the encomienda as a retribution for their sacrifices in the wars of conquest, even asking for its perpetual succession for their descendants. Many conquistadors felt frustrated with the king for taking away the encomiendas, to the point where some thought about breaking their vassalage. Intellectuals of the period, like Francisco López de Gómara, wrote with concern to the king of Castille about this crisis of vassalage from prominent conquistadors that even offered the crown of Peru to Gonzalo Pizarro. Simultaneously, in Paraguay during the middle of the rebelion against the govervor Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Pero Hernández, in his relación of 1545, alerted the king that Domingo de Irala and his followers wanted to take the land for themselves after having found gold and silver. Years later, in 1561, Francisco Vázquez wrote his relación about the rebellion of Lope de Aguirre during the expedition in search of El Dorado, where the marañones named Don Fernando de Guzmán Prince of Peru and later wrote a letter of denaturalization to King Philip II. In this dissertation, texts from that period will be analyzed to demonstrate that there was a crisis of vassalage to the king of Castille among some of the early conquistadors that were taken seriously by some authors. The works stidied in this dissertation are: the manuscript of Guatemala by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, published in 1933, Verdadera y notable relación del descubrimiento y conquista de la Nueva España y Guatema. Historia general de las Indias y Conquista de México, by Francisco López de Gómara, the relación by Pero Hernández written in 1545 in Asunción, Paraguay, and finally, the relación by Bachiller Francisco Vázquez in search of El Dorado.