Spain issued the Spanish Requirement of 1513 ("Requiremento"), a document that was intended to inform indigenous peoples that "they must accept Spanish missionaries and sovereignty or they would be annihilated." It was supposed to be read to indigenous peoples so that they could accept or reject the proposal before any war against them could be waged: "the "Requiremento" informed the natives of their natural law obligations to hear the gospel and that their lands had been donated to Spain." Refusal by indigenous peoples meant that, in the Spaniard's eyes, war could 'justifiably' be waged against them. Many conquistadors apparently feared that indigenous peoples, if given the option, would actually accept Christianity, which would legally not permit invasion of their lands and the theft of their belongings. Legal scholars Robert J. Miller, Jacinta Rura, Larissa Behrendt, and Tracey Lindberg record that this commonly resulted in Spanish invaders reading the document aloud "in the night to the trees" or reading it "to the land from their ships." The scholars remark: "so much for legal formalism and the free will and natural law rights of New World Indigenous peoples."