Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda

Who was Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda?

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda was a Spanish humanist, philosopher and theologian. In 1533 and 1534 he wrote to Desiderius Erasmus from Rome concerning differences between Erasmus's Greek New Testament, and the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209. 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. He argued on the base of natural law philosophy and developed a position which was different from the position of the School of Salamanca, as represented famously by Francisco de Vitoria.

The Valladolid Controversy was organized by King Charles V to give an answer to the question whether the Native Americans were capable of self-governance. Sepúlveda defended the position of the colonists, although he had never been to America, claiming that the Amerindians were "natural slaves" as defined by Aristotle in Book I of Politics. "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 Democrates alter de justis belli causis apud Indios. Although Aristotle was a primary source for Sepúlveda's argument, he also pulled from various Christian and other classical sources, including the Bible. Las Casas utilized the same sources in his counterargument. According to Bartolomé de las Casas, Jesus had power over all people in the world, including those who had never heard of Christianity. However, he thought that Christianity should be presented to natives as a religious option, not an obligation as Sepulveda believed. Las Casas thought they should be governed just like any other people in Spain, while Sepúlveda thought they should become slaves. Today, Sepúlveda's opinions would be considered extremely racist, though in the 16th century they were not extraordinary. At the end of the debate, Charles V adopted neither Sepúlveda's or Las Casas' arguments, and adopted Francisco de Vitoria's recommendations.