[tirant]

Even by Spanish colonial standards? Those colonial standards were not at all low, they were more advanced than any of their equivalent European counterparts. Any native people were considered children of god, due to their Catholic view, and us such viewed as free people. And those were the first laws proposed already in 1513 in Burgos. More advanced laws came some decades later by Bartolomé de las Casas.

In reality the settlers were not supervised and the laws were not always followed, but they were expected by the Government back in European Spain.

[AlotOfReading]

That's whitewashing the realities, but in any case the comparison was with modern sensibilities rather than early modern Europeans'.