Delitos y Penas en el Nuevo Mundo

Resumo

The present work seeks to outline the imposition and application of criminal law in the discovery, conquest and colonization of the New World. More precisely, as it was a new territory with its own specific conditions, it is of interest to understand the question surrounding the configuration and execution of punitive power overseas. From the very first days after the arrival of Columbus in the Antilles, serious problems of coexistence would ensue that led to the emergence of punitive instruments. Likewise, criminal law would be invoked with greater or lesser justice in contacts and, where applicable, in conflicts with the indigenous peoples. Progressively, after the colonization of new spaces, a more stable consolidation of the juridical-criminal institutions would take place. All of this is intended to show some of the main threads of what constituted the exercise of ius puniendi beyond the territorial limits established up until that time by the Hispanic Monarchy.