Rights of Native Peoples in the New World Post Conquest: A Spanish Perspective

• In Event: Natural Law and Natural Rights

Abstract

In the aftermath of their conquest of the New World the Spanish monarchy was left with a complicated question: how does one rule over a group of people that is completely different from them? Before this time political communities were, for the most part, fairly homogenous. As a result, European political philosophers did not have to consider a racial dimension to their writings. This is a void which Spanish political philosophers like Bartolome De Las Casas filled through their written accounts of early Spanish colonization. He and other Spanish missionaries of the day, saw first hand the atrocities committed by the conquistadors and wrote extensively in opposition of the cruel treatment of the indigenous peoples. What I am interested in researching is how De Las Casas’ writings attempted to reconcile the differences between the white colonizers and indigenous peoples of the New World. Specifically, how he brought the indigenous people into the cannon of political and human rights as known by European philosophers.

In my preliminary research I have found that there is a distinct lack of scholarly work on De Las Casas. Of the work that is available, a great deal of it is in Spanish. Thus, one of my research goals is to use my bilingual skills to add to English language scholarship on De Las Casas. Additionally, I hope to add to the existing academic conversation on the concept of the rights of man by contributing an interpretation of De Las Casas’ work.

Author

• Diego Alejandro Lopez, University of Houston