Bartolomé de las Casas · Politics
The great debate of 1550-51 at Valladolid: Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda’s case that the Indians were Aristotle’s ‘natural slaves’ whom Spain could justly conquer, and Las Casas’s five-day refutation - the first time a European empire formally argued whether its conquests were just.
You learned that at Valladolid Sepúlveda used Aristotle’s doctrine of ‘natural slavery’ to justify conquering the Indians, and that Las Casas refuted him by denying the Indians were natural slaves, denying that sin or unbelief justifies war on them, and arguing that violence destroys the very evangel…
Leads to Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda.
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