A long-established but too-little-known reappreciation of the Spanish crown and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1490-1573) on the Amerindians of New Spain

      "It is a commonplace to blame the Spanish conquest for the ills of modern Latin America.  But this argument bows to the discredited mythology of nationalist historians, who interpreted three centuries of Spanish rule as a time of retrograde oppression.  In reality the conditions of . . . most of [contemporary] Latin America, stem from the liberal reforms implemented in the nineteenth century by republican governments that abolished a well-established set of Spanish legislative measures.  These measures succeeded in creating a moral climate in which the Spanish crown was constantly reminded of its obligations towards the indigenous peoples, so much so that the latter felt empowered to fight for their rights all the way to the pinnacle of the judicial system.  It was the abolition of this system in favor of the 'universal' rights of 'man', in the abstract, that left Latin American communities defenceless against speculators for whom money was the only criterion.
     "Historians have been aware of this for decades. . . .
     As for "the old nationalist mythologies, whose only hero was the Dominican friar and 'Defender of the Indians', . . . For some time now historians have been aware that Las Casas was not a lone voice writing in a cultural vacuum, but part of a broad and vibrant intellectual milieu, keenly supported by the crown and reaching a famous high-point at the junta of Valladolid in 1550-1.
     "Nationalist historians still have the upper hand in the interpretation of this event, almost invariably and misleadingly described as a 'debate' in which Las Casas merely refuted the feeble attempts of Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda to justify the conquests with the help of Aristotle's idea that some human beings were 'slaves by nature'.  Sepúlveda on the Spanish Invasion of the Americas:  Defending empire, debating Las Casas is a long-overdue and thoroughly welcome corrective to this widespread opinion.  It includes carefully annotated translations of several key works that have never appeared in English. . . .  Nowhere in these works does Sepúlveda endorse the enslavement of indigenous peoples.  Nor does he support their forced conversion to Christianity.  It is true that, in the dialogue [Democrates secundus] (written at the time when he was translating Aristotle's Politics), he applies the philosopher's notion of natural slavery to justify subjugation; but this is quite likely the reason why a license to publish the work was never granted, which also explains why Sepúlveda moderated this argument over time, and ultimately abandoned the controversial language of natural slavery altogether.
     "Readers of this erudite volume will witness the cartoonish villain depicted in the bulk of the literature crumbling to pieces.  As one should expect from a talented linguist and renowned collaborator of the Italian Aristotelian Pietro Poponazzi, Sepúlveda's arguments are nuanced and often brilliantly constructed. . . .  His finely grained arguments thus presented important challenges to Las Casas and other critics of Spain's invasion of the Americas, and they did so in a much more dynamic and constructive way than the simplifications still prevalent in the literature would have us believe."

     Fernando Cervantes, reviewing We, the King:  creating royal legislation in the sixteenth-centurty Spanish New World (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Sepúlveda on the Spanish Invasion of the Americas:  Defending empire, debating Las Casas (Oxford University Press, 2023), in "The right to be heard:  the Spanish crown's solicitude for its Amerindian subjects, Times literary supplement no. 6307 (February 16, 2024):  8.