Las Casas
Las Casas and
the Great Debate
We are going to read and analyze Las Casas argument(s) on behalf of the
Indians. Your goal is to understand these arguments. These arguments
were given in the course of the Great Debate mentioned in your
introduction to Las Casas and in Benjamin Keen 's fine article about Las
Casas. Essentially Las Casas managed to get the Spanish government to
consider the treatment of Indians in the new world. Las Casas speaks
against brutal wars carried on by the Spanish ostensibly to convert the
heathen Indians, but which really were a means for breaking resistence,
taking lands, houses goods and slaves. Las Casas is also arguing against
the forced labor system -- a system of slavery -- which the Spanish
imposed on the Indians. His opponent, Juan Gines de Selpulveda spoke on
behalf of the legitimacy of all of these practices which had been going on
from the beginning of the conquest. What an extraordinary debate
indeed!
In order to understand Las Casas' arguments you need to understand the
strategy which he uses to argue against his opponent Juan Gines de
Sepulveda. Sepulveda had returned from Italy where he had studied with
the greatest of contemporary Italian scholars of Aristotle. Sepulveda
proposed to apply Aristotle's arguments from the Politics that
there are natural slaves to the native peoples of the Americas. If the
Spanish stood to these native peoples as natural masters to natural
slaves, then it would be moral for them to seize the lands, properties
and persons of these people. Sepulveda was in fact justifying the
colonists who were doing just that. This is why Aristotle plays an
important role in the debate. We should also remember that this is the
Renaissance. We might think using Aristotle to argue about such a matter
would be rather odd. But, if you live in an era when classical models
have enormous importance, it becomes quite sensible to use an ancient
doctrine about slavery to try to justify a new form of slavery.
Before we get to Las Casas' arguments against the natural slavery
theory, we should start at the beginning of the reading. You have already
read the first few pages of the reading in which Las Casas describes
Spanish atrocities which he personally witnessed. In the next part of
the reading Chapters 1-4 of In Defence of the Indians we get Las
Casas' response to Juan Gines de Sepulveda in the "Great Debate" of
1550.
In Defence of the Indians
In Chapter 1, Las Casas sets the scene. He tells us about the kinds of
atrocities which have been committed, the motivation for committing them,
some of the views of those who would justify these brutal activities, and
some of the objections which he has to these justifications. There are two
of these objections which are quite notable. On Pg. 26 Las Casas raises
objections on the basis of theology. On. Pg. 27 he asks what good can
compensate for all the evils committed in the eyes of God. Then he asks
how these people could love the Spanish, become their friends and thus
accept their religion when the Spanish are committing horrific crimes
against them. In this section there is an appeal to the Golden Rule. Then
comes a rejection of the claim that the wars which are waged to subjugate
the native peoples are just. Finally Las Casas says that his defence will
contain two main topics.
Las Casas then begins his argument against Sepulveda and his followers.
He says that now "as a sort of assault on the first argument for
Sepulveda's position, we should recognize that there are four kinds of
barbarians, according to Aristotle, St. Thomas and other doctors. Why is
it that barbarians and kinds of barbarians are important? It is because
Aristotle says that the Greeks regarded the non-Greeks (barbarians) as
natural slaves. The question then becomes whether the natives of the
Americas are of the same character, so that they too might be considered
natural slaves. For the most part, the reading in our booklet supplies all
that you need to know about Aristotle's theory of slavery. Nonethless, I
have written a brief account of it.