Issued in 1542 by the Spanish Crown, the New Laws of the Indies were meant to regulate the behavior of Spanish colonists in the Americas. In 1524 the king of Spain, Emperor Charles V, established a governing body to manage the expanding Spanish Empire in the Americas: the Council of the Indies. The Council was a powerful legislative and executive body that wrote laws, regulated commerce, and directed the administration of colonial governments in the Spanish territories. As Spanish conquistadors pushed further into the Americas, the Council heard frequent and insistent complaints about the exploitation of the Indigenous peoples. These complaints were most frequently voiced by members of the Catholic clergy, men who saw both the inhuman violence practiced by the conquistadors and the horrors of the forced labor systems common in the Americas.