[xi] Among the growing body of literature focusing on crime and criminal justice in early modern Europe, the practice of punishment has not attracted much interest. There still are few books that treat the changing methods of dealing with criminals. The basic works in this field are Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure (1939) and Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1979). To these standard accounts can be added the recent works by Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850 (1978), Nicole Castan, Justice et repression en Languedoc a l'époque des Lumières (1980), and Michael Weisser, Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe (1979). The early history of incarceration has been studied by J. Thorsten Sellin, Pioneering in Penology: The Amsterdam Houses of Correction in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1944) and William Callahan, "The Problem of Confinement: An Aspect of Poor Relief in Eighteenth-Century Spain" (1971). Also there is the article by U. R. Q. Henriques, "The Rise and Decline of the Separate System of Prison Discipline" (1972).

The galleys as a penal institution are the subject of several accounts. For France, there is the impressive work by Paul Bamford, Fighting Ships and Prisons: The Mediterranean Galleys of France in the Age of Louis XIV (1973), as well as an older study by Paul Masson, "Les galères de France" (1937). André Zysberg's [xii] article, "La société des galériens au milieu du XVIIIème siècle" (1975) represents another important contribution. As for the Spanish galleys, the principal work remains that of Félix Sevilla y Solanas, Historia penitenciaria española (la galera), apuntes de archivo (1917). Additional information can be found in Gregorio Lasala Navarro, Galeotes y presidiarios al servicio de la Marina de Guerra de España (1979), and I. A. A. Thompson, "A Map of Crime in Sixteenth-Century Spain" (1968).

Aside from the galleys, penal servitude has remained a relatively unexplored field of investigation with the exception of the work of J. Thorsten Sellin, who has studied it on a comparative basis. ⁽¹⁾ In Spain, as in other Mediterranean countries, penal servitude, derived from the opus publicum of antiquity, has a long and important history. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, convicted criminals were sentenced to terms at hard labor on the galleys and in the mercury mines of Almadén and the military presidios in North Africa. After the abolition of the galleys in 1748, penal labor in the form of presidio sentences became the most common form of punishment.

Despite its significant place in the evolution of penal institutions in Spain, the history of penal servitude remains to be written. The Spanish penologists Rafael Salillas and Fernando Cadalso included brief accounts of it in their general surveys of Spanish penal history published in 1918 and 1922, respectively, but it has never before been the subject of a book-length study. ⁽²⁾ The purpose of this work is to provide that account by examining the origins and development of penal servitude in early modern Spain with special reference to the changing purposes for which penal labor was intended to serve. Its principal theme, with Foucault's model as a point of reference, is the evolution of punishment in Spain from the harsh capital and corporal penalties of the Middle Ages to penal servitude, one of the most characteristic methods of punishment in the early modern era, and finally, after a series of eighteenth-century reforms, to incarceration and rehabilitation. In this respect, events and developments in Spain were part of a European-wide evolution of penal systems and theories of punishment. This work also emphasizes the fact that Spain's heavy imperial commitments necessitated the extensive use of galley and presidio service. Whereas in other European countries [xiii] the mobilization and coercion of felons was stimulated by measures to deal with poverty, the motivating factor in Spain was manpower needs generated by war and empire.

The first part of this book covers the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when penal servitude was seen primarily as retribution. The second part covers the eighteenth century, when the still predominant punitive and utilitarian aspects of the penalty began to be joined with the aim of rehabilitation. In addition, the book presents quantitative analyses of the crimes for which the prisoners were convicted, the geographical and occupational origins of the prisoners, and statistics on sentences, releases, deaths, and escapes. These data provide important insights into the patterns of crime in early modern Spain and the socioeconomic setting in which the offenders operated. Furthermore, the book takes note of the slaves who worked alongside the convicts on the galleys and in the naval arsenals, where penal servitude and slavery coexisted for centuries. Finally, it describes the transfer of the presidio system to Spanish America and the establishment in the eighteenth century of a network of penal institutions embracing the Spanish empire.

This work is the result of several years of research in the Spanish archives. I am grateful to the staffs of the following archives for their courtesy and assistance: the Archivo General de Simancas, the Archivo Histórico Nacional, the Archivo de Indias, the Museo Naval, and the Archivo de Villa. I also wish to thank the Research Foundation of the City University of New York for funds to complete research for this study.

A portion of chapter 1 appeared in altered form in the Journal of European Economic History 1 (1982): 197-217. A portion of chapter 2 appeared in altered form in Societas -- A Review of Social History 3 (1973). A portion of chapter 8 was published in an earlier version in the Hispanic American Historical Review 58 (February, 1978) copyright © 1978, Duke University Press (Durham, N.C.). I am grateful to the editors of the journals for permission to use this material.

1. J. Thorsten Sellin, Penal Servitude: Origin and Survival, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 109 (Philadelphia, 1965); and Slavery and the Penal System (New York: Elsevier, 1976).

2. Rafael Salillas, Evolución penitenciaria en España, 2 vols, (Madrid: Imprenta de la Revista de Legislación, 1918); Fernando Cadalso, Instituciones penitenciarias y similares en España (Madrid: José Góngora, 1922).