Home > Juan Gines de Sepulveda
Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda ( 1494 - 1573) was a Spanish philosopher and theologian. He was the adversary of Bartolome de las Casas in the Valladolid Contreversy in 1550. The Valladolid Controversy was organized by king Charles V to give an answer to two question whether the Native Americans were humans or not. Sepúlvada defended the position of the colonists. According to him the natives should not be treated as humans, but as natural slave s. "Those whose condition is such that their function is the use of their bodies and nothing better can be expected of them, those, I say, are slaves of nature. It is better for them to be ruled thus." He said the natives are "as children to parents, as women are to men, as cruel people are from mild people". He wrote this in Tratado Sobre Las Justas Causas de La Guerra (The Reasons for the Just War among the Indians). He based most of his ideas on the Bible, which says "He who is stupid will serve the wise man." (Proverbs 11:29). Las Casas also hased his ideas on the Bible. According to Las Casas Jesus had power over all people in the world, especially those who never heard of Christianity. Sepúlveda and Las Casas agreed with the fact that the natives shouldn't be ruled by their own laws. Las Casas thought they should be governed just like any other people in Spain, while Sepúlveda thought they should become slaves. Nowadays Sepúlveda's opinions would be considered highly racist, though in the 16th century they weren't extraordinary. At the end of the debate, Charles V adopted Las Casas' opinion, but many of the atrocities in the Americas continued.Sepúlveda was also the first one to translate some of Aristotle's works into LatinAlternative meanings: See Latin (disambiguation Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and ma.
See Also
- Black LegendThe Black Legend (in Spanish, leyenda negra is the depiction of Spain and the Spaniards as bloodthirsty and cruel, greedy and fanatical, in excess of reality. This term was invented by Julian Juderias in his book La leyenda negra y la verdad historica The
- Just War
- Spanish colonization of the AmericasSpanish colonization of the Americas began with the arrival in the Americas of Christopher Columbus in 1492. He had been searching for a new route to the Asian Indies and was convinced he had found it. Columbus was made governor of the new territories and
Gines de Sepulveda, Juan
Gines de Sepulveda, Juan
