Requerimiento

Conquistadors in Vera Cruz

found themselves a radical ruse.

If pillaging was muy, muy lento,

they just whipped out Requerimiento.

 

Composed in fifteen seventeen,

this document was ultra-mean.

It won more scraps than Robert E. Lee,

was deadlier than DDT.

 

Suppose you met an Aztec mob

that wasn’t happy to be robbed,

and far from handing on a platter

its gold and silver, wives and daughters,

was minded to contest the matter,

 

Requerimiento got unrolled.

In legal Latin, gooks were told

with lots of quid and quod and quaem,

exactly what was sought of them.

 

The royal writ was read aloud

to help the puzzled Aztec crowd.

So none may later look askance,

the dinks got every sporting chance.

 

All the Aztecs had to do

(clause forty-nine of section two)

was pay the pope an entry fee,

accept infallibility,

 

and send some gold to line his coffers.

Who could baulk at such an offer?

Clause fifty-eight -- the Spanish king

must get his cut of Aztec bling.

 

They’re hazy over “king” and “Spain”?

We’ll have long decades to explain.

They don’t respond?  It simply means

we blow them all to smithereens.

 

The finer points can wait till later.

Non-compliance means they’re traitors.

We read the thing, so now we’re free

of all responsibility

 

for theft or damage, flood or fire,

and if perchance it should transpire

that they don’t dig what’s going down,

why, take it up with Cross and Crown.

 

Thank God it’s not like that today.

Before we step into the fray,

we tell them they’re a “conflict zone”,

and send in laser-guided drones.

 

If they accept their crude religion

is now a dead and pointless pigeon,

and take divorce and teenage moms,

then we won’t use our cluster bombs.

 

There’s other stuff here, on our list "

like Coca-Cola, lobbyists,

The Dukes of Hazzard, John McCain,

obesity and acid rain …

 

at least we don’t do like before,

and sell them, as we wade ashore

to occupy their ancient land

some junk they’ll never understand.

 

 

Author's Note

Requerimiento -- Spanish law required the conquistadors to read this Latin text aloud, whenever they were confronted by American indians. If the indians didn't comply (how could they?) the Spaniards were free to kill, cripple and confiscate.
muy, muy lento -- very, very slow