What were the two sides of the Valladolid debate?

What were the two sides of the Valladolid debate?

Las Casas represented one side of the debate. His position found some support from the monarchy, which wanted to control the power of the encomenderos. Representing the other side was Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, whose arguments were used as support by colonists and landowners who benefited from the system.

Why was the Valladolid debate important?

And second, and more important to the context of world in U.S. history, the Valladolid debate was the first European debate about the morality of European colonization of new lands, and not only the colonization of those lands, but how the populations in those new lands should be treated.

What did Sepúlveda argue?

Sepulveda argued against Las Casas on behalf of the colonists’ property rights. Sepulveda rationalized Spanish treatment of American Indians by arguing that Indians were “natural slaves” and that Spanish presence in the New World would benefit them.

What is Bartolome de las Casas best known for?

Bartolomé de Las Casas, (born 1474 or 1484, Sevilla?, Spain—died July 1566, Madrid), early Spanish historian and Dominican missionary who was the first to expose the oppression of indigenous peoples by Europeans in the Americas and to call for the abolition of slavery there.

How was religion used in the Spanish colonies?

The King of Spain and the Catholic Church ruled Spanish settlements throughout its empire. Both government and religion increased power by collecting great wealth from Spain’s many colonies worldwide and converting the natives of those lands to the Catholic faith.

How did Sepúlveda justify the mistreatment of the Amerindians?

The text justified theoretically following Aristotelian ideas of natural slavery the inferiority of Indians and their enslavement by the Spaniards. He claimed that the Indians had no ruler, and no laws, so any civilized man could legitimately appropriate them.

What did Juan de Sepúlveda do?

He was the adversary of Bartolomé de las Casas in the Valladolid Controversy in 1550 concerning the justification of the Spanish Conquest of the Indies. Sepúlveda was the defender of the Spanish Empire’s right of conquest, of colonization, and of evangelization in the so-called New World.

What did Bartolome de las Casas speak out against?

After participating in the conquest of Cuba, Las Casas freed his own slaves and spoke out against Spanish cruelties and injustices in the empire. He argued for the equal humanity and natural rights of the Native Americans.

What did Bartolome de las Casas believe?

Las Casas sought to change the methods of the Spanish conquest, and believed that both the Spaniards and indigenous communities could build a new civilization in America together.

What role did religion play in Spanish colonial society?

Religion played a huge role in Spanish settlements in that it was the social glue that held a settlement together.

How did colonialism affect Christianity?

Christianity is targeted by critics of colonialism because the tenets of the religion were used to justify the actions of the colonists. For example, Toyin Falola asserts that there were some missionaries who believed that “the agenda of colonialism in Africa was similar to that of Christianity”.

What does Sepúlveda say about the barbaric things the natives do?

He claimed that the Indians had no ruler, and no laws, so any civilized man could legitimately appropriate them. In other words, Sepúlveda considered the Indians to be pre-social men with no rights or property.