Laws of the Indies

Based on what I have read in the Laws of the Indies, it seems as though these laws were made as a front to cover the colonial Spanish when they went to invade the America's and plan settlements.

They begin by establishing ransom and peace offering rules, that in exchange for commerce and peace, the colonizers would like to gain information from the natives about the quality of the land, etc. Another mandate is "try not to damage the Indian population", which, obviously, is a rule that was not followed.  They did want to find land that would have "willing" natives to "preach the Gospel" because "this is the principle objective for which we mandate that these discoveries and settlements be made." Right away we see that the Spaniards were looking for a place that they could take advantage of the natives, convert them to Christianity and have them work for their Catholic institutions and willingly sacrifice their previous lives for it.

It is also clear that they wanted to establish land control quickly. They were to find a suitable place for a capital, near water, and near neighbouring cities that could easily be demolished to take advantage of their materials for creating buildings within the capital. They also note how the land is to be built upon: first, they were to find vacant land that could be occupied without doing harm to the Indians or Natives or with their free consent. Then, they were to divide the land into squares, streets and building lots, beginning with the main square that could branch out and intersect main roads. This does sound similar to how precontact Mesoamerican cities were set up: a giant grid plan with a main city square in the center, containing the plaza and marketplace. I am curious as to how they adopted this plan, and if it was from Latin American cities, because the text also notes how European cities were set up according to a "regular" plan from the 11th century until the end of the 15th century, which is when the discovery of the America's occurred. After that, the plan for the "orthogonal grid" was followed, perhaps alluding to the idea that they may have adopted the grid plan from Mesoamerican cities.