## Metadata - Author: [[Sarah Stein Lubrano]] - Full Title:: Don't Talk About Politics - Category:: #📚Books - Read date:: [[2026-08-08]] ## Highlights > And then I think about the Spanish Requirement of 1513. The Requerimiento, as it was called, was a declaration that Spanish settlers were supposed to proclaim when they encountered new groups of indigenous people. It explained that the land they had been living on for thousands of years was actually Spanish because the pope had ‘made donation of these isles’ to the king and queen, ‘as is contained in certain writings which passed upon the subject as aforesaid, which you can see if you wish’.1 Citations available upon request! Indigenous people were asked ‘that you consider what we have said to you, that you take the time that shall be necessary to understand and deliberate upon it’ and then to acknowledge the Church, pope and king and queen as their sovereigns. If they accepted their new overlords, the Spanish colonizers claimed (untruthfully) that they would be treated well. If not, we shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them as their Highnesses may command; and we shall take away your goods, and shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can . . . and we protest that the deaths and losses which shall accrue from this are your fault. ([Location 50](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DXC313QY&location=50)) > I’ve always found this notion, that someone talking to you could sway your understanding of the structure of the universe (compared with the weight of all your own experiences, your family and relationships, your personal convictions and your previous commitments), terribly ambitious. ([Location 76](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0DXC313QY&location=76))