Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (11 June 1494 – 17 November 1573) was a

Spanish Renaissance The Spanish Renaissance was a movement in Spain, emerging from the Italian Renaissance in Italy during the 14th century, that spread to Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries. This new focus in art, literature, quotes and science inspired ...

humanist, philosopher, and

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Biography

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1557) Epistolarum libri septem

In 1533 and 1534 Sepúlveda wrote to

Desiderius Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...

from

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

concerning differences between Erasmus's Greek

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

and the

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 ( von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old ...

. He was the adversary of

Bartolomé de las Casas Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...

in the

Valladolid Controversy The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of an indigenous people by European colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it was ...

in 1550 concerning the justification of the Spanish Conquest of the Indies. Sepúlveda was the defender of the

Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...

right of conquest The right of conquest is a right of ownership to land after immediate possession via force of arms. It was recognized as a principle of international law that gradually deteriorated in significance until its proscription in the aftermath of Worl ...

, of colonization, and of

forced conversion Forced conversion is the adoption of a different religion or the adoption of irreligion under duress. Someone who has been forced to convert to a different religion or irreligion may continue, covertly, to adhere to the beliefs and practices which ...

in the so-called

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

. He argued on the base of

natural law Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...

philosophy and developed a position which was different from the position of the

School of Salamanca The School of Salamanca ( es, Escuela de Salamanca) is the Renaissance of thought in diverse intellectual areas by Spanish theologians, rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work of Francisco de Vitoria. From the beginning of the 16th cen ...

, as represented famously by

Francisco de Vitoria Francisco de Vitoria ( – 12 August 1546; also known as Francisco de Victoria) was a Spanish Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian, and jurist of Renaissance Spain. He is the founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Sala ...

. Sepúlveda translated several of

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

's works into

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

(e.g. '' Parva naturalia'' 1522, ''Politics'' or ''De re publica'' 1548).

Spanish colonization of the Americas

The Valladolid Debate was organized by King

Charles V Charles V may refer to: * Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) * Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain * Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise * Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690) * Infa ...

to give an answer to the question whether the

indigenous peoples of the Americas The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...

were capable of self-governance, during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Sepúlveda defended the position of the colonists, although he had never been to America, claiming that some

Amerindian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...

s were "natural slaves" as defined by

in Book I of ''

Politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

''. "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 these natives are "as children to parents, as women are to men, as cruel people are from mild people". These assertions in regard to some but not all Amerindians were made in ''Democrates alter de justis belli causis apud Indos'' (''A Second Democritus: on the just causes of war with Indians'') Rome, 1550. 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

, God 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 said that Amerindians ought to enjoy the same freedoms as any other people because, in his view, no Amerindians lacked the ability to rule themselves.

Works

Sepúlveda, Juan Ginés de – Liber gestorum Aegidii Albornotii, 1521 – BEIC 15166464

* * ''Gonsalus sive de appetenda gloria'', 1523. * ''De fato et libero arbitrio'', Roma, 1526. * ''Cohortatio ut bellum suscipiat in Turcas'', 1529. * ''De ritu nuptiarum et dispensatione'', Roma, 1531. * ''De convenientia militaris disciplinae cum christiana religione qui inscribitur Democrates'', Roma, 1535. *
Alexandri Aphrodisiei Commentaria in dvodecim Aristotelis libros De prima philosophia, interprete Ioanne Genesio Sepulveda
', Parisiis, Dimon de Colines, 1536. * ''De rebus gestis Caroli V'' * ''De rebus gestis Philippi II'' * ''Democrates secundus sive de iustis belli causis ...'', 1544. *''Apologia pro libro de justis belli causis'', 1550. *''Epistolarum libri septem'', 1557. * *''De regno libri III'', 1570. * *

', 1892.

Notes

Bibliography

* * * Nájera, Luna.
"Myth and Prophecy in Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda’s Crusading "Exhortación"
in ''Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies'', 35:1 (2011). Discusses Sepúlveda's theories of war in relation to the war against the Ottoman Turks. *Nájera, Luna.

' in '' Hispanic Review'', Vol. 80.3, 2012. Outlines Sepúlveda's argument that the virtues prized by the military profession, such as fortitude, magnanimity, and the appetite for glory, are compatible with and even inherent in Christian doctrine. Examines underlying implications of that argument from a gender studies perspective.

External links