In Defense of the Indians: The Defense of the Most Reverend Lord, Don Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, of the Order of Preachers, Late Bishop of Chiapa, Against the Persecutors and Slanderers of the Peoples of the new World Discovered Across the Seas

Alonso De Zorita’s career as a Spanish judge in the Indies in the years 1548–1556, though not as well known as the career of Bartolomé de las Casas and other pro-Indian reformers, merits serious study. The arrival of Zorita and his subsequent actions as an administrator and legist represent one example of the serious efforts of the Crown in the 1540’s to impose royal control over a quasi-feudal class of conquerors and pobladores which had from the early sixteenth century entrenched itself in the New World. Moreover, Zorita was not only a jurist who attempted to implement the New Laws of 1542–43, but an inspired humanitarian who took an active interest in the native civilizations of the New World and questioned the relations that had evolved and created “a Hispano-Indian society characterized by the domination of the masses by a small privileged minority…” His ardent defense of the Indians against the charge that they were “barbarians” included a relativist line of argument that anticipated Michel de Montaigne’s celebrated comment that “everyone calls barbarian what is not his own usage.” In addition, his inquiries into native history, land tenure and inheritance laws may be considered “in effect exercises in applied anthropology, capable of yielding a vast amount of information about native customs and society” and is an example of what Europe saw or failed to see in the sixteenth century when confronted with a strange new world.

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Bartolome de Las Casas and the Tradition of Medieval Law

Church History ◽

10.2307/3163383 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 39 (2) ◽

pp. 149-161 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Kenneth J. Pennington

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Steady Flow ◽

New World ◽

Las Casas ◽

Bartolome De Las Casas ◽

Medieval Law

As a defender of the Indians and an opponent of the methods used by the Spanish conquistadors, Bartolomé de Las Casas was as controversial a figure in the sixteenth century as he has been in the last four hundred years of historiography. Las Casas' fight to preserve the freedom of the Indians has gained for him not only devoted admirers, but also angry detractors.1Las Casas was not the only Spaniard who defended the Indians, but his efforts are the best known. He labored for fifty years before death finally halted the steady flow of polemics from his pen. However, he was not just a sheltered academician like Vitoria, but he actively championed the rights of the Indians by working and living among them in the New World.

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Church and Commonwealth in the Catholic World

10.1093/oso/9780199674886.003.0005 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 89-110

Author(s):

Sarah Mortimer

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

New World ◽

Las Casas ◽

Bartolome De Las Casas ◽

The Status ◽

Political Communities ◽

The University ◽

The Relationship ◽

Juan Gines De Sepulveda ◽

The Church

Early in 1532, the Catholic professor Fransisco de Vitoria lectured his students ‘On the Power of the Church’ at the University of Salamanca. Efforts like this to defend the status of the Church led, perhaps paradoxically, to a new appreciation of the state’s foundations and its basis in the order of nature. Vitoria was anxious to protect the authority of the universal Church, he also believed that there should exist a multiplicity of civil powers, each with its own integrity and degree of autonomy. While there could only be one true Church, there could and should be many commonwealths; he, like many others, was sceptical of imperial ambitions in the temporal sphere. His thinking, and that of other Catholics like Bartolomé de Las Casas, generated a critique of political or temporal empire that would gather momentum as reports of Spanish cruelty in the New World began to circulate. Yet there were also Catholics, like Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, who embraced the pursuit of empire and sought to defend it, often using classical ideas but adapting them to current circumstances. As this clash of beliefs unfolded, it came to include lengthy reflection on power, natural rights and authority, including the influential work of Fernando Vázquez de Menchaca. At the heart of the debate was a question about the relationship between a universal natural law and the particular rules and commands of specific communities, be they the Catholic Church or localized political communities.

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