The Transatlantic Las Casas: Historical Trajectories, Indigenous Cultures, Scholastic Thought, and Reception in History 9004425144, 9789004425149

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The Transatlantic Las Casas

Studies in the History of Christian Traditions Editor in Chief Robert J. Bast (Knoxville, Tennessee) Editorial Board Paul C.H. Lim (Nashville, Tennessee) Brad C. Pardue (Point Lookout, Missouri) Eric Saak (Indianapolis) Christine Shepardson (Knoxville, Tennessee) Brian Tierney (Ithaca, New York) John Van Engen (Notre Dame, Indiana) Founding Editor Heiko A. Oberman†

volume 198

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​shct

The Transatlantic Las Casas Historical Trajectories, Indigenous Cultures, Scholastic Thought, and Reception in History

Edited by

Rady Roldán-​Figueroa and David Thomas Orique, O.P.

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: “Perlarum insula ob unionum copiam sic dicta.” In Girolamo Benzoni, Americae pars quarta. Sive, Insignis & admiranda historia de reperta primùm Occidentali India à Christophoro Columbo (Frankfurt am Main: J. Feyerabend, for Theodor de Bry, 1594). Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Roldán-Figueroa, Rady, editor. | Orique, David Thomas, O.P., 1959- editor. Title: The transatlantic Las Casas : historical trajectories, indigenous cultures, scholastic thought, and reception in history / edited by Rady Roldán-Figueroa and David Thomas Orique O.P. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2023. | Series: Studies in the history of Christian traditions, 1573-5664 ; volume 198 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022039003 (print) | LCCN 2022039004 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004425149 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004515918 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Casas, Bartolomé de las, 1484-1566–Influence. | Casas, Bartolomé de las, 1484-1566–Philosophy. | Indians, Treatment of–New Spain–History–16th century. | Church work with Indians–Catholic Church. | Evangelistic work–Latin America–History–16th century. | Missionaries– Spain–Biography. | Scholasticism–Latin America. | Latin America– Intellectual life–History–16th century. | New Spain–Intellectual life. Classification: LCC E125. C4 R65 2023 (print) | LCC E125. C4 (ebook) | DDC 972/.02–dc23/eng/20220823 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022039003 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022039004

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface. issn 1573-​5 664 isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​4 2514-​9 (hardback) isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​5 1591-​8 (e-​book) Copyright 2023 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-​use and/​or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

David would like to dedicate this volume to important people who have inspired him immensely during this process of editing and writing this volume, especially Dr. Peter DeBlasio

…

Rady would like to dedicate this book with much affection to his sister, Ruby Roldán Figueroa

∵

Contents  Preface xi  Acknowledgments xiii  List of Figures and Tables xiv  Abbreviations xv  Notes on Contributors xvi  Introduction: The Past and Present of Lascasian Studies 1 Rady Roldán-​Figueroa and David Thomas Orique, O.P.

Part 1 Trajectories of Las Casas’s Heritage: New Spain and Peru  1  The Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government: Late Sixteenth-​Century New Spain and the Impact of Las Casas 19 John F. Schwaller 2  “Multiplicarse ha la tierra de gente y de fruto”: Gender and Re-​production in Las Casas’s and Guaman Poma’s Biopolitical Projects (1516, 1615) 35 Paola Uparela 3  (Mis)Appropriating the Authoritative Bishop of Chiapa: Calancha and His Translators as Readers of Las Casas 61 Dwight E. R. TenHuisen

Part 2 Las Casas and Indigenous Cultures: Caxcan and K’iche’an Maya  4  Francisco Tenamaztle, Bartolomé de las Casas and the Role of Translation in the Construction of a Legal Case Before the Consejo de Indias (1555–​1556) 87 Rubén A. Sánchez-​Godoy 5  Books and/​as Idols: Affective Discourse in Early Colonial Dominican and Maya Writings 113 Garry Sparks

viii Contents 6  Las Casas and the Divine Social Orders of the Indigenous Americas 148 Frauke Sachse

Part 3 Bartolomé de las Casas and Political and Moral Theology 7  The Pontifical Theocracy of Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. (1484–​1566) 171 Ramón Darío Valdivia Jiménez 8  Prudentia: Thomas Aquinas Interpreted by Bartolomé de Las Casas 197 Thomas Eggensperger, O.P. 9  Moral Uncertainty and Doubt in the Affairs of the Indies: Vitoria, Las Casas, and Medina on Difficult Cases of Conscience 211 Víctor Zorrilla 10  “No Greater nor More Arduous Step”: Lactantius, Las Casas, and Continuity in Christian Rhetoric about Conversion 226 Laura Ammon 11  Reason and the Monstrous: Las Casas’s Appeal to the imago dei 244 Timothy A. McCallister

Part 4 Bartolomé de las Casas and Early Modern Philosophy 12  Hospitality or Property? The Natural Right of Communication and the “New World” 267 Natsuko Matsumori 13  The Epistemology of Bartolomé de Las Casas: An Introduction 283 David Thomas Orique, O.P. 14  Bartolomé de las Casas and the Foundation of Latin American Philosophy 308 Mario Ruiz Sotelo

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15  Las Casas’s Apologética historia sumaria and His Vision of the Other 330 Luis Mora Rodríguez

Part 5 Historical Receptions of Las Casas: Utopians, the Black Legend, and Revolutionaries 16  Political Hermeneutics of Utopias in Europe and the Americas: Thomas More, Bartolomé de las Casas, Vasco de Quiroga 355 María Cristina Ríos Espinosa 17  The 1516 Project for the Colonization of the Indies: The Simulacrum of a Utopia 385 Vanina M. Teglia 18  Beyond the “Black Legend”: The Reception History of Las Casas in Late Sixteenth-​Century England 403 Rady Roldán-​Figueroa 19  Enlightenment and Revolutionary Uses of Las Casas from Charlesvoix to Pancho Villa 433 Andrew L. Wilson  Lascasian Bibliography 449  Index 519

Preface The year 2022 marks the 500-​year anniversary of Las Casas’s entrance into the Order of Preachers, an event that some scholars refer to as his “second conversion.” This denominated “conversion” was the culmination of an intimate relationship that Las Casas developed with the community of Dominican friars in Hispaniola. As is known, the Dominicans played a critical role in the early stages of the conquest and colonization of the Americas, and they were charged with the evangelization of the Indigenous people; accordingly, the friars learned many new languages and endeavored to translate complex Western Christian concepts into numerous sophisticated autochthonous religious cosmovisions. In Las Casas’s missiological method—​emblematically seen in his De unico vocationis modo—​he proposed peaceful and persuasive evangelization as well as principles governing the christianization of the Indigenous. As a Friar Preacher, he traveled with his confreres throughout the circum-​ Caribbean, observing, learning, and writing about the different cultures in the region—​knowledge he later used in his advocacy. In particular, after returning permanently to Spain in the 1550s, the then Bishop Las Casas employed his broad understanding of the Indies as he refined his copious writings demanding justice for the Indigenous people. Las Casas was a complex figure who transcended his times in many ways, but he was also constrained by them. For instance, in this advocacy, Las Casas—​as a diocesan cleric—​proposed the use of African slave labor in the region. In his Memorial de remedios of 1516, he recommended the importation of enslaved Africans to ameliorate the plight of the Indigenous people. In doing so, Las Casas voiced commonly held proto-​racist views about the supposed physical strength and the assumed disease resistance of Black people from Africa. Later in life, as a Friar Preacher, he expressed profound remorse for and denounced vigorously his earlier policy recommendation. In his labors, Las Casas continued to draw on the Dominican intellectual tradition, as he sought to articulate theological, philosophical, juridical, and political responses to Spanish imperialism. In fact, his increasingly deeper understanding of this tradition arguably permitted him to transition from being merely an agent of the Spanish empire to becoming one of its most fierce critics. This second volume of Lascasian scholarship signals Las Casas’s continued relevance and the importance of his thought five centuries later. In fact, cultivating a deeper understanding of him is crucial to better appreciating a period that sealed the trajectory of world history for centuries to come. The vibrancy and dynamism of the scholarly conversations generated around the figure

xii Preface of Las Casas reflected in this new volume are mirrored in the contributions gathered in the first one: Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion (Brill, 2019)—​a collaborative effort of selective noteworthy contributions from the first International Conference held at Providence College in 2016. Interestingly, disciplinary specialists working in a variety of fields brought their expertise to bear on Las Casas’s ongoing relevance and unfolding thought, resulting in a rich collection of essays. As a result, the first volume was organized into three areas of scholarship: “Las Casas in the Context of European Expansion”; “Las Casas: Law and Philosophy”; and “Las Casas and Peripheral Catholicism.” Another fruitful result of the first conference was the creation of a network of scholars from Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States who were interested in the life, labor, and legacy of Las Casas. Inspired by this inaugural success, the organizers of the initial gathering and the editors of the first volume arranged for another conference at Providence College in July 2019—​an event that surprisingly surpassed the 2016 gathering on many levels, including the participation of an even wider range of multidisciplinary Lascasianists. Although the first conference and the resultant publication were exceptional, the second exchange of views and the quality of presentations are arguably superior; the fruits of that exchange are hereby presented to the reader.

Acknowledgments In the course of the development of this written project, we enjoyed both the support and company of a number of people. For the second conference in 2019 (held concurrently with the iii International Conference of the History of the Dominican Order in the Americas), a number of organizations and people deserve our gratitude: on campus, the Administration, Academic Media Services, College Events Residence Life, Mission and Ministry, Marketing and Communications, Safety and Security, Physical Plant, and Sodexo Catering. These entities provided invaluable financial support, logistical effort, and intellectual work in order to host so many international scholars. Individuals of particular importance to mention include: from Providence College, Brian J. Shanely, O.P., President; Kenneth R. Sicard, O.P., Executive Vice President; James Cuddy, O.P., Executive Vice President; Justin Brophy, O.P.; John Vidmar, O.P.; Lisa Medieros; Tara Baxter; Joanne McNamara; Deidre Driscoll-​Lemoine; Joseph F. Carr; Kristen A. Lainsbury; Lauren Dykas; Jana L. Valentine; Kevin Hillery; Lisa L. Zawacki; Robert Deasy; Paulo Lebre; Candace Maciel; Shan Mukhtar; Shannon Moore; Carly M. Martino; Mary Erameh; Jesus Madonaldo; Emily T. Ascherl; Michael Santos; Theresa Clancy; Chris McCormack; Kara Berlin-​ Gallo; and, from beyond Providence College, we especially thank Dolores Poelzer, M.M., O.P., PhD, Humboldt State University; and Pedro Quijada, PhD, University of Minnesota; and, of course, we also thank all those who (many from great distances) attended and participated in presenting their scholarship.

Figures and Tables Figures 2.1  Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, “Fraile dominico muy colérico y soberbioso,” 645 [659]. Source: Det Kongelige Bibliotek 36 2.2  Guaman Poma, 961 [975]. Source: Det Kongelige Bibliotek 39 2.3  Guaman Poma, 606 [620]. Source: Det Kongelige Bibliotek 45 2.4  Guaman Poma, 694 [708]. Source: Det Kongelige Bibliotek 45 2.5–​6  Guaman Poma, 1132 [1142] and 1147 [1157]. Source: Det Kongelige Bibliotek 52 2.7–10 Guaman Poma, 503 [507]; 576 [590]; 585 [599]; and 647 [661]. Source: Det Kongelige Bibliotek 55 2.11–​12  Guaman Poma, 215 [217] and 654 [668]. Source: Det Kongelige Bibliotek 56 5.1  Redirection of Maya affective discourse by Vico toward religious books 147 6.1  Organization of K’iche’ branches and social groups 155 6.2  Idealized line of succession in Utatlan following Las Casas’s model 158 18.1  Frans Hogenberg, De Spaanse furie te Antwerpen in 1576. Ware Kontrafactur Der statt Antorff sambt Darin verloffnen hanndlungen anno 1576 den 4 novembris (1577). Source: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 412 18.2  “Massacre of Queen Anacaona and Her Subjects.” Theodori de Bry and Ioannis Saurii, Frankfurt, 1598. Source: Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library 414

Tables 6.1  Kaweq ruler list extracted from the Popol Vuh 156 18.1  A growing pre-​critical canon of Lascasian texts 423 18.2  Intellectual micro-​transfers: The case of González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables de la China 429

Abbreviations a hs (1967)

Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria: cuanto a las cualidades dispusición, descripción, cielo y suelo destas tierras, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman, 2 vols. (Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1967). Apología (2000) Bartolomé de las Casas, Apología o declaración y defensa universal de los derechos del hombre y de los pueblos (Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de Educación y Cultura, 2000). Historia de las Indias (1995) Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, 3 vols. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995). o .c. Bartolomé de las Casas, Obras completas, ed. Paulino Castañeda Delgado, 14 vols. (Madrid: Alianza, 1988–​1998). o .e. Bartolomé de las Casas, Obras escogidas de fray Barto­ lomé de las Casas, ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela Bueso and Emilio López Oto, 5 vols. (Madrid: Atlas, 1957–​1961).

Notes on Contributors Laura Ammon is Associate Professor of Religion at Appalachian State University. She has written on the history of the comparative study of religion and on the role of sixteenth-​century missionary documents in the development of theories of religion. Her work is published in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History and the Journal of Implicit Religion. Her most recent book with co-​author archaeologist Dr. Cheryl Claassen, Religion in Sixteenth-​Century Mexico: A Guide to Aztec and Catholic Beliefs and Practices was published in 2022 by Cambridge University Press. Thomas Eggensperger, O.P. is a Dominican friar of the German province of Teutonia; he has studied theology, philosophy, and Spanish, and earned a doctorate and a master’s degree in theology. His doctoral thesis centered on Las Casas and his political philosophy. Friar Eggensperger has also authored a biography as well as various articles about Las Casas. Currently he is a professor of social ethics at the “Campus fuer Theologie und Spiritualitaet Berlin" (CTS) as well as a guest professor at the “Catholic University of Eichstaett.” He is the director of the Institute M.-​ Dominique Chenu Berlin. Natsuko Matsumori is Associate Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Shizuoka, Japan. Since receiving her Ph.D. in Political Science at Complutense University of Madrid, she has held, among other positions, the following: Assistant Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University; Invited Professor at the University of Salamanca and at Keio University; Collaborative Researcher at Kyoto University and at the National Museum of Ethnology; Visiting Scholar at Harvard University and at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History and Legal Theory; and Screening Committee Member at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. She researches scholastic influence on the formation of early modern political thought. Her principal publications include: The School of Salamanca and the Affairs of the Indies (Routledge, 2019); From Barbarism to Order (University of Nagoya Press, 2009, Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities), and Civilización y barbarie (Biblioteca Nueva, 2005).

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Timothy A. McCallister (JD, PhD, University of Virginia) is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Auburn University. His research explores the impact of religious and scientific ideas on early modern Spanish letters. His publications include articles on the role of grace, the sin nature, and empiricism in the literature of Miguel de Cervantes. He is currently working on a monograph that explores the nature of the sacred in Cervantes. Luis Mora Rodríguez is Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Costa Rica. He is the author of Bartolomé de las Casas: conquëte, domination, souveraineté, published by the Presses Universitaires de France (puf). He is interested in Latin-​American decolonial theory and Caribbean philosophy. David Thomas Orique, O.P. is a Professor of Colonial and Modern Latin American as well as Iberian Atlantic World History, and the Director of Latin American and Latina/​o Studies at Providence College. Besides a doctorate in history, he holds master’s degrees in theology, history, and Spanish literature. In addition to having lived, traveled, and conducted research in Spain and Portugal, as well as other European countries, he has engaged in investigative activities in nineteen Latin American nations. Friar David’s publications include, among others: “To Heaven or Hell: An Introduction to the Soteriology of Bartolome de las Casas” (2016); “A Comparison of Bartolome de las Casas and Fernão Oliveira: Just War and Slavery” (2014); “Journey to the Headwaters: Bartolome de las Casas in a Comparative Context” (2009); and To Heaven or to Hell: Bartolomé de las Casas’s Confessionary Roadmap to Justice and the Afterlife (Penn State University Press, 2018). He was also an editor for the Oxford Handbook of Latin American Christianity (2020) as well as Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion by Brill Publishing (2019). María Cristina Ríos Espinosa holds a PhD in philosophy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (unam, 2006). She is a recipient of the Medal for Academic Merit awarded by the unam School of Philosophy and Literature (2007). She completed research at the School of Philosophy of the Complutense University of Madrid (2005). She holds a master’s degree in philosophy from the unam (2001), and she has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Panamerican University (1997). She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Mexican Association of Aesthetic

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Studies (amest, 2011 to present). She specializes in political philosophy, aesthetics and political hermeneutics, and is a full-​time research professor at the School of Art and Culture at the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana and is the Academic General Director of the University of the Incarnate Word Center (CIW), Campus Mexico (2021 to present). She is a member of the Philosophical Association of Mexico (2004 to present) and a member of the National System of Researchers of the National Council for Science and Technology (conacyt). She is the editorial coordinator of Cuadernos amest #2 and #3 and co-​author of Cuadernos amest #1, #2, and #4. She coordinated and co-​authored the book Reflexiones en torno al ser del arte (Mexico City: Ibero-​American University, 2013), and published the book Revolución de Independencia e identidad cultural (amest, 2013). Rady Roldán-​Figueroa holds a ThD and specializes in early modern global Christianity, global Catholicism, Baptists, and the history of Christian spirituality. He is the author of The Ascetic Spirituality of Juan de Avila (1499–​1569) (Brill, 2010) and The Martyrs of Japan: Publication History and Catholic Missions in the Spanish World (Spain, New Spain, and the Philippines, 1597–​1700) (Brill, 2021), and co-​ editor of three additional volumes: with Bill Pitts, Collected Works of Hanserd Knollys: Pamphlets on Religion (Mercer University Press, 2017); with Doug Weaver, Exploring Christian Heritage: A Reader in History and Theology (Baylor University Press, 2nd rev. ed., 2017); and, with David Orique, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion (Brill, 2019). He has published over thirty-​eight articles and book chapters. Mario Ruiz Sotelo holds a graduate degree in sociology from the Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, and a master’s degree and a doctorate of Philosophy from the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He is a full-​time professor and senior researcher at the College of Latin American Studies of the same faculty, a Professor at the Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales and a Professor at the Postgraduate in Philosophy and the Postgraduate in Latin American Studies. He has taught at the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana. He is a member of the National System of Researchers. He authored the book Crítica de la razón imperial. La filosofía política de Bartolomé de las Casas (Mexico City, Editorial Siglo xxi, 2010) as well as more than twenty articles in various books and specialized journals. In 2006–​2007, he received from the Mexican Philosophical Association its National Philosophy Award for the best master’s thesis.

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Frauke Sachse directs the Pre-​Columbian Studies program at Dumbarton Oaks. She was assistant professor for Anthropology of the Americas (Altamerikanistik) at the University of Bonn, where she taught courses on the ancient and colonial Americas, general and linguistic anthropology, and K'iche' Maya. Sachse holds a PhD in Linguistics from Leiden University and an MA in Anthropology, Archaeology, and English from the University of Bonn. Her research interests concern the languages, linguistics, Indigenous histories, and religions of Mesoamerica, with a current focus on aspects of translation and the hermeneutics of missionary and Indigenous text sources from Highland Guatemala. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the Library of Congress, Dumbarton Oaks, and the Princeton University Library. Rubén A. Sánchez-​Godoy is an Associate Professor of Spanish American Literature in the Department of World Languages and Literatures at Southern Methodist University. His research focuses on Bartolomé de las Casas and the representations of the African captives and their descendants in the Iberian Atlantic from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century. His research explores the process of production, appropriation, and transformation of those representations as part of an early critique of Atlantic slavery that precedes and overcomes the conceptual framework of the enlightened northern European abolitionism. Sánchez-​Godoy recently published his book El peor de los remedios: Bartolomé de las Casas y la crítica temprana a la esclavitud Africana en el Atlántico Ibérico (Pittsburgh, PA: Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2016), and the article “Nomadism and Just War in Fray Guillermo de Santa Maria’s Guerra de los Chichimecas (México 1575 –​Zirosto 1580)” in Política Común (2014). John F. Schwaller is Professor Emeritus at the University at Albany (suny) and editor of The Americas. He is known for his work on the secular clergy in early colonial Mexico, Nahuatl language manuscripts, and a history of the Catholic Church in Latin America. Among his recent books are a study of the Stations of the Cross in Colonial Mexico (Oklahoma 2022), a study of the Aztec month of Panquetzaliztli (Oklahoma 2019), and a study of the landing of the Cortés expedition at Veracruz (Texas 2014). He assisted Stafford Poole on an English translation of a confessional manual written by the Third Provincial Council of Mexico (1585). For many years, he served as an academic administrator at various universities, including Florida Atlantic University (as Associate Dean),

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the University of Montana (as Associate Provost and Associate Vice President), the University of Minnesota, Morris (as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Dean), and the State University of New York at Potsdam (as President). He is also the former Director of the Academy of American Franciscan History. In 1987, he founded the discussion list Nahuat-​l, which is now part of the H-​Net family of lists known as H-​Nahuatl. Since 2010, he has also served as the editor of the discussion group H-​Latam. Garry Sparks is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. His research focuses on anthropological and ethnohistorical understandings of theological production in the Americas, especially of Christianities in Latin America, and particularly among Indigenous peoples. His previous publications include two books, The Americas’ First Theologies (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Rewriting Maya Religion: Domingo de Vico, K’iche’ Intellectuals, and the Theologia Indorum (University Press of Colorado, 2019). With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Academy of Religion, he is currently working on critical translations of the complete Theologia Indorum from K'iche'an Maya manuscripts. Vanina M. Teglia completed her PhD in colonial American literature at the University of Buenos Aires (uba), where she has been a professor and researcher at the Institute of Hispanic American Literature (ilh) since 2007. She has also been a researcher at CONICET since 2016. Her research interests lie in utopian representations of the sixteenth-​century chronicles of the Indies and, recently, on myths and marvelous elements in contact and colonial American literature. She has won numerous prestigious fellowships from such entities as conicet, the Fulbright Commission, griso, the ANPCyT, the John Carter Brown Library, the Huntington Library and awards from LASA and Iberoamericana/​Vervuert publishing house. She has published several book chapters and papers on colonial literature in peer-​reviewed journals, as well as scholarly editions of Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación, Cristobal Colon’s Diario, cartas y relaciones, and Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevísima relación. She has completed a book on the controversial utopias of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Bartolomé de las Casas—​forthcoming. Dwight TenHuisen received his PhD in comparative literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-​Champaign in 2005 with specializations in early modern colonial

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literature in Spanish, German, and Portuguese. He is a professor of Spanish and German at Calvin University, where he has taught a range of language, culture, and literature courses at the undergraduate level; since completing graduate training, he has also directed multiple semester programs for undergraduates in Spain as well as short-​term programs in Brazil and the Philippines. He has written on the hagiographic discourse in Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación, Staden’s Wahrhaftige Historia, and Mendes Pinto’s Peregrinação, as well as on the transformations of the hagiographic discourse, the domestication of alterity, and the elimination of self-​representation in the reception of these authors in the context of early modern confessional geographies. His current project is to examine Antonio de la Calancha’s Cronica moralizada in the context of early modern Augustinian evangelization strategies and of networks in a global context. Paola Uparela is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida. She holds a PhD in Spanish (2019) and an ma in Latin American and Iberian studies (2015) from the University of Notre Dame, and a ba in literature (2010) from the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Her research includes colonial and transatlantic studies, cultural studies, gender, sexuality and queer studies, visual culture, and biopolitics. Her book manuscript examines the colonial emergence of the visual regimes of the female body in medicine, literature, and art, and on the historical, material, and symbolic violence that made the female body ultra-​visible, intelligible, and reducible to the sexual and reproductive organs and functions. She was recognized with the Victoria Urbano Award by the Association of Gender and Sexualities Studies (2018), the Feministas Unidas Essay Prize (2019), and the LASA -​Culture, Power & Politics Section Award (2022), for her work on Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s representation of Indigenous nudity (1615), and his claim against mestizaje and sexual violence. Uparela has published in journals such as H-​Art, Hispanic Issues, Revista Iberoamericana, A contracorriente, and Lingüística y Literatura. Ramón Darío Valdivia Jiménez holds a PhD from the Lateran University of Rome (2008) and a J.D from the University of Seville (2020). Currently, in addition to attending a parish in Seville, he teaches at the Faculty of Theology “San Isidoro de Sevilla” and at the Center for Higher Studies of the Fundación San Pablo-​CEU Cardenal Spínola. His publications are aimed at studying and reflecting on bioethical problems and the influence of Bartolomé de Las Casas in the philosophical and legal fields. His published monographs include Called to the Peaceful Mission. The

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Notes on Contributors

Religious Dimension of Freedom in Bartolomé de Las Casas (Madrid: CSIC-​ University of Seville-​Diputación de Sevilla, 2010); Bartolomé de Las Casas (Madrid: Fundación Enmanuel Mounier, 2012); and, The Birth of Modernity: Justice and Power in the Thought of Bartolomé de Las Casas (Comares, Granada, 2021). Andrew L. Wilson is a Professor of Church History at Japan Lutheran College and Seminary. He received his PhD in church history from Princeton Theological Seminary with a focus on Las Casas and the question of African slavery. He has published dozens of book reviews and articles on subjects as varied as late antiquity and evolutionary anthropology. His award-​winning book, Here I Walk, narrates his 1,000-​mile pilgrimage to Rome in the footsteps of Martin Luther. Victor Zorrilla holds a PhD in philosophy from the Universidad de Navarra (2009) and teaches the history of political thought at the Universidad de Monterrey (México). His research has focused on the debates concerning Indian rights and the justification of conquest in early modern Spain. His publications include a book on Las Casas’s notion of the state of nature, El estado de naturaleza en Bartolomé de las Casas (Pamplona, 2010), and several articles on Las Casas, José de Acosta, Juan de Silva, and other Spanish authors. He is currently researching the adaptations of the just war theory in sixteenth-​century Spanish American thought.

Introduction: The Past and Present of Lascasian Studies Rady Roldán-​Figueroa and David Thomas Orique, O.P. After a long hiatus, Lascasian studies has reemerged as a focal point of interdisciplinary dialogue and conversation. The occasion offers us a unique opportunity to reflect on Lascasian studies as a scholarly endeavor with distinctive academic integrity. While a number of related questions ought to be visited, the reflection must begin with a basic premise: namely, the focus of Lascasian studies is the figure of Bartolomé de las Casas. However, how narrowly this premise should be construed is an open question. Should Lascasian studies be limited to his ideas and the intellectual traditions that informed him? Should Lascasian studies include the historical contexts in which he labored and/​or the people and groups with whom he interacted? Should the theological (viz., anthropological, soteriological, missiological, and ecclesiological) and philosophical (viz., metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and political) dimensions of his thought and their nexus with the larger epochal trends of modernity be entertained? Alternatively, what about the implications of his thought for present-​day questions related to international law, human rights, and globalization? Clearly these questions, and others imaginable, will also have a bearing on particular methodological questions and even broader theoretical ones. Can Las Casas’s own methodological habits inspire and inform methodological approaches in the field? Can we still learn from his style of argumentation? Should Lascasian studies be wedded to specific approaches or perspectives? Or, in a scholarly tradition that has been clearly and explicitly marked by such concerns, should a commitment to issues of social justice be accepted as an axiomatic principle? What has arguably occurred, however, is that Lascasian studies has reached a point of maturity. Our objective in the first volume’s essay “Introduction: Three Waves of Lascasian Scholarship” was to historicize the trajectory and evolution of research around the figure of Bartolomé de las Casas.1 In doing so, we demonstrated that there is a history to Lascasian studies. Certainly, more can be said about this history; we did not pretend to offer a definitive survey of 1 David Thomas Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, “Introduction: Three Waves of Lascasian Scholarship,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David T. Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 1–​25.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_002

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this field. However, we intended to narrate in broad strokes the evolution and change that Lascasian studies has undergone since the nineteenth century. Interestingly, other scholars have responded in their own way to the need to sum up the state of Lascasian scholarship and to somehow provide an overview of where the field has been, where it is, and where it is going.2 In what follows, we offer readers a series of initial “signposts” to guide and indicate the level of maturity of Lascasian studies as a collective academic endeavor. We offer these “signposts”—​based on scholarship gathered in the first, and now in the second volume—​as observers of the field and without pretensions of defining it. Our hope is to elicit a larger conversation about the present state of Lascasian studies.

Signposts of Lascasian Studies

Contrast between the ways in which Las Casas’s life and thought have been historically appropriated on the one hand, and current trends in Lascasian scholarship on the other, is illuminating. The reception history of Las Casas is quite vast, and still far from fully mapped, as will be seen in the pages of this volume. The reception of Las Casas is characterized by the many unacknowledged and hidden instances of references to him. Scholars still have to unearth the ways that Las Casas was appropriated and used in a variety of historical contexts. For instance, Juan Durán Luzio documented how Michel de Montaigne (1533–​1592) appropriated Las Casas’s Brevísima for his own Essais.3 According to Durán Luzio, Montaigne formed his opinion about the Spanish conquest not from his reading of Francisco López de Gómara’s triumphalist Historia general de las Indias, as has been generally accepted. Instead, Montaigne saw the conquest through the lens of Las Casas’s bleak and dreary Brevísima.4 Durán Luzio shifted the direction of scholarship on the topic by recovering the historical significance of Montaigne’s reliance on Las Casas while simultaneously drawing on López de Gómara—​two figures with different perspectives on the Spanish empire. In fact, while the former evolved from a reformer of the empire to a critic that undermined its ideological foundations, the latter promoted a providentialist glorification of Spanish imperialism. 2 See, for example, Lawrence A. Clayton, “On Lascasian Studies,” H-​net Online, accessed June 14, 2021, https://​www.h-​net.org/​revi​ews/​show​rev.php?id=​31181; Santa Arias and Eyda M. Merediz, “Introduction,” in Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008), 1–​5. 3 Juan Durán Luzio, “Bartolomé de las Casas y Michel de Montaigne: escritura y lectura del Nuevo Mundo,” Revista chilena de literatura 37 (1991):7–​24. 4 Durán Luzio, “Bartolomé de las Casas,” 9.

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Other examples of appropriation further clarify, and complicate, the development of Lascasian studies. The French ecclesiastical historian Louis Ellies Dupin (1657–​1719) anticipated some trends that characterized eighteenth-​ century French encyclopedism. His Nouvelle Bibliothèque des auteurs ecclésiastiques consisted of sixty volumes published between 1686 and 1719, with various posterior editions.5 Dupin included Las Casas in his extensive collection of ecclesiastical authors.6 In addition to a biography, Dupin also commented on some of Las Casas’s writings and even reproduced some selections. Dupin’s treatment certainly constituted an important point of reference in the diffusion and dissemination of knowledge about Las Casas. However, Dupin viewed him within the larger context of the history of Christian literature. His “entry”—​or short essay—​on Las Casas has to be seen in the context of his larger effort to systematize the practice and discipline of ecclesiastical literary history—​something far from a systematic effort to elucidate the contents of Las Casas’s thought and its entanglement with his historical context. The trajectory from more general (and, in some cases, uncritical) appropriations of Las Casas to a self-​conscious effort to turn Las Casas into an object of study was complex and far from an unbroken linear progression. In fact, over time, Las Casas’s thought has been approached in diametrically different ways. For example, there was a fundamental difference between the gathering of Las Casas’s writings that took place by order of Philip ii in the 1570s and the effort to collect and publish his writings that occurred in the nineteenth century: the first was an effort to control and even censure Las Casas’s views on the Spanish imperial enterprise in the Americas, while the latter was an effort to organize and disseminate his writings. Starting in 1571, Philip ii initially ordered that all of Las Casas’s writings found at the time in the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid be gathered and placed under the custody of the Consejo de Indias. The king’s intention was to inventory them and to determine what might and what might not be published.7 Later, in 1579, the king instructed the historian

5 “Dupin, Louis Ellies (1657–​1719),” The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. F. Cross and E. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Accessed July 6, 2021, from https://​ www-​oxfo​rdre​fere​nce-​com.ezpr​oxy.bu.edu/​view/​10.1093/​acref/​978019​2802​903.001.0001/​ acref-​978019​2802​903-​e-​2182. 6 Louis Ellies Dupin, Nouvelle Bibliothèque des auteurs ecclésiastiques (Amsterdam: Pierre Humbert, 1710), 16:64–​73. 7 “… para que se sepa lo que son y se impriman los que se deban publicar.” Lewis Hanke and Manuel Giménez Fernández, Bartolomé de Las Casas, 1474–​1566: Bibliografía crítica y cuerpo de materiales para el estudio de su vida escritos, actuación y polémicas que suscitaron durante cuatro siglos (Santiago de Chile: Fondo histórico y bibliográfico José Toribio Medina, 1954), n. 469, as quoted in Isacio Pérez Fernández, Inventario documentado de los escritos de fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 1981), 10.

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Juan López de Velasco (1530–​1598) to assume custody of Las Casas’s writings, which he obtained from the president of the Consejo de Indias, Juan de Ovando y Godoy (1530–​1575). This time López de Velasco was ordered not to “release them without royal order.”8 At that sixteenth-​century juncture, Philip ii’s stately impulse was to control the circulation of Las Casas’s writings. In doing so, he was guided by imperial policy concerns, and not necessarily by an interest in Las Casas’s thought. The result was that his works were not reissued in print within Spain until the seventeenth century. Censorship was insufficient to prevent the circulation of Las Casas’s compelling ideas and scathing criticism. Las Casas’s writings circulated in the Americas as well as in Europe in the form of fragments, complete manuscript copies, or in translated selections of his writing. Rolena Adorno, for instance, demonstrated that Guamán Poma de Ayala had access to and quoted from Las Casas’s Doce dudas.9 Chapters in this volume demonstrate the circulation of his thought in different contexts and moments, ranging from colonial New Spain and Peru to the Low Countries and late sixteenth-​century England, through early eighteenth-​century France (as illustrated with our earlier reference to Dupin), and the regions of Latin America during the Wars of Independence. However, the circulation of Lascasian ideas was both fragmented and selective. This is why we can clearly see in the work of Juan Antonio Llorente (1756–​ 1823) and Antonio María Fabié Escudero (1832–​1899) an important turning point in Lascasian studies, characterized by an incipient effort to collect and disseminate Las Casas’s writings.10 Llorente and Fabié continued this labor in their own way during what James Turner called the “philological turning” of the nineteenth century.11 For both, the recovery of Lascasian sources was the sine qua non of the historical rediscovery of Las Casas. As such, under the hegemonic intellectual dominance of positivist historiography, Lascasian studies came into being. And yet, as important as this moment was, Lascasian studies 8

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“… cronista y cosmógrafo Juan López de Velasco conserve en su poder las obras en latín y en romance del obispo de Chiapa sobre las Indias, que le fueron entregadas por orden del licenciado Juan de Ovando, y no las entregue sin orden real.” Hanke and Giménez Fernández, Bartolomé de Las Casas, n. 474; as quoted in Pérez Fernández, Inventario documentado, 10. Rolena Adorno, The Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 41; Rolena Adorno, “Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala: An Andean View of the Peruvian Viceroyalty, 1565–​1615,” Journal de la Société des américanistes 65 (1978): 121–​143. Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, “Introduction,” 3–​9. James Turner, Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 197.

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remained wrapped in European decimononic political debates and, in Fabié’s case, pseudoscientific racist views.12 More importantly, very soon the budding field of Lascasian studies became engulfed under a larger and more encompassing trend, namely the emergence of turn-​of-​the-​century Hispanismo. Scholars from Fredrick B. Pike to Diana Arbaiza agree on the chronological span of Hispanismo, setting the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of the cultural movement between 1892 and 1936.13 According to Pike, the main characteristic of Hispanismo was an “unassailable faith in the existence of a transatlantic Hispanic family, community, or raza (race).”14 Summarizing a growing body of research on the topic, Arbaiza described Peninsular Hispanism as a “manifestation of Spanish nationalism inextricably linked to the idea of empire that absorbed the cultural specificities of the former colonies as well as those of Iberian communities.”15 In fact, Hispanismo informed some of the leading works of anti–​Las Casas literature produced in the twentieth century. Constantino Bayle’s España en Indias (1934) and Ramón Menéndez Pidal’s El padre Las Casas: Su doble personalidad (1963) were predicated on a nationalist reading of Spain’s former imperial “glory.”16 From this perspective, Las Casas was derided for his contribution to the Black Legend and its concomitant dismissal of Spanish putative “civilizational achievements” in the Americas. Hispanismo had an almost unexplainable and astounding capacity to define the contours of Lascasian studies. A clear indication of the hold of Hispanismo can be seen in the work of Isacio Pérez Fernández, O.P., for whom the likes of Bayle and Menéndez Pidal offered a perennial backdrop for his own defense of Las Casas. Interestingly, Pérez Fernández saw a continuation between both works and criticized them for their nationalism.17 He called Bayle’s book an example of “foolish and unbridled patriotism.”18

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Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, “Introduction,” 8–​9. Frederick B. Pike, Hispanismo, 1898–​1936. Spanish Conservatives and Liberals and their Relations with Spanish America (Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971); Diana Arbaiza, The Spirit of Hispanism: Commerce, Culture, and Identity across the Atlantic, 1875–​1936 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020). 14 Pike, Hispanismo, 1. 15 Arbaiza, The Spirit of Hispanism, 8. 16 Constantino Bayle, España en Indias: nuevos ataques y nuevas defensas (Vitoria: Editorial “Illuminare,” 1934); Ramón Menéndez Pidal, El padre Las Casas: Su doble personalidad (Madrid: Espasa-​Calpe, 1963). 17 Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias, ed. Isacio Pérez Fernández (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 2000), 935. 18 “… ejemplar de patriotismo desbocado e insensato.” Casas, Brevísima (2000), 935.

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However, the hold of Hispanismo has been largely surpassed and no longer defines Lascasian scholarship. In fact, we propose some initial signposts based on the scholarship gathered in this volume—​not only for the present, but also for the future of Lascasian studies. First, Lascasian studies involves more than just the study of the Brevísima. To borrow an expression from Hart, the Brevísima has been the “nexus and crux,” but not just of the “representation and misrepresentation of Las Casas.”19 Instead, the Brevísima has tended to be the almost exclusive point of entry of scholars working from a variety of disciplines to the world of Lascasian scholarship. Moreover, the Brevísima has not only been the point of entry but also the culmination of serious engagement with the Dominican thinker on the part of too many scholars. Almost without exception, cursory treatments of Las Casas have been exclusively based on the Brevísima, which in fact represents a very small part of Las Casas’s works. In contrast, Lascasian studies calls for a sustained engagement with the full corpus of his writings in conversation with their historical context.20 Second, Lascasian studies calls for greater critical awareness of the ways that disciplinary boundaries have served to limit and circumscribe scholarly engagement with Las Casas’s thought. Hence, Lascasian studies has steadily moved away from partisan trends that depict Las Casas with broad rhetorical strokes that result in either hagiographical or demonographical accounts. While a focus on the life and times of Las Casas can contribute to the perpetuation of Eurocentric historiographic narratives, our hope is that an intentional embrace of interdisciplinarity will contribute to the decentering of Lascasian studies—​a possibility that is illustrated in this volume. A great deal of earlier scholarship on Las Casas was filtered exclusively through academically differentiated disciplines, primarily within literature and history. This has tended, intentionally or unintentionally, to narrow the language and the lens in which Las Casas has been studied and understood. While such narrower foci have offered some better understanding of aspects of his life and labor, he has been either extolled or derided for reasons stemming from these tapered academic divides. In contrast, Lascasian studies ought to be interdisciplinary—​as is well illustrated in the present volume. The complexity of Las Casas’s corpus of writings, the variety of historical contexts in which it was produced, the diversity of people with whom he interacted, and 19 20

Jonathan Hart, “Las Casas in French and Other Languages,” in Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas, ed. Santa Arias and Eyda M. Merediz (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008), 224–​234 (225). For more on this topic, see David Orique, The Unheard Voice of Law in Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias (New York: Routledge, 2021).

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the multiplicity of ways he has been appropriated require intensive collaboration, debate, and dialogue among scholars trained and formed in distinctive academic disciplines. Interdisciplinary collaboration does not mean unquestioning agreement with or reverence to longstanding orthodoxy. To the contrary, interdisciplinary cooperation at its best generates and enlivens debate. One important source of debate in recent Lascasian studies has been generated by the criticism of postcolonial thinkers. Consequently, the contributions of these scholars to Lascasian studies are important to acknowledge. In this sense, we are grateful to Santa Arias’s insightful review of the first volume, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. (2019). Arias correctly observed a gap in our essay “Introduction: Three Waves of Lascasian Scholarship,” regarding “critical interventions fueled by the mid-​1980s postcolonial turn, subaltern studies, and the decolonial approach.”21 One of the scholars omitted in that context, but who belongs in this present overview of Lascasian studies, is Luis Rivera Pagán. His contribution was an incisive critique of Christian theological complicity with the violent conquest of the Americas, while demonstrating the relevance of conscious scrutiny of theological texts for colonial Latin American historiography.22 Another example is the work of Daniel Castro, cited in this volume, who has become a point of reference for scholars interested in the complex colonialist alignments that shaped Las Casas’s career.23 Lastly, Diego A. von Vacano has added a nuanced critique of Las Casas that further enriches the field of Lascasian studies.24 In tandem with the growing interdisciplinary self-​awareness of Lascasian studies are the transient networks of scholars that make interdisciplinarity happen. Hence, our third signpost relates to the function of intellectual networks. There is an intellectual history of Lascasianism that is still to be written. Such a history would include the scholarly collaborations that have incrementally forged Lascasianism into a field of study with academic integrity. Part and 21 22

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Santa Arias, “Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion,” Hispanic American Historical Review 101.2 (2021): 314–​316. Luis N. Rivera-​Pagán, Evangelización y violencia: la conquista de América (San Juan: Editorial cemi, 1990); idem, A Violent Evangelization: The Political and Religious Conquest of the Americas (Louisville: Westminster/​John Knox Press, 1992); idem, Evangelización y violencia: la conquista de América (San Juan: Publicaciones Gaviota, 2020). For other works, see the bibliography at the end of this volume. Daniel Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007). Diego A. von Vacano, The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity, and Latin America /​ Hispanic Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer of an earlier version of this book for pointing this out.

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parcel of these networks are friendships, as well as honest disagreements, that lend vibrancy to the academic endeavor. Currently, traces of many of these personal links can only be found in prefaces or footnotes. However, the time has come for a historiographical exploration of the connections and exchanges that existed between Lewis Hanke and figures like Agustín Millares Carlo and Manuel Giménez Fernández, as well as Helen Rand Parish and Harold E. Weidman, or Marcel Bataillon and André Saint-​Lu. The underpinnings of robust academic collaborations are often laid in gatherings and conferences, many of them of an international character. Events of this type have proven decisive for the consolidation of Lascasian studies, which leads us to our fourth and last proposed signpost: the transnational character of Lascasian studies. Some of the pivotal events in the history of the field include the international Las Casas conference that was held at the University of California, Berkeley, on January 22–​23, 1985, over which Helen Rand Parish presided. Another important event was the Congreso Teológico Internacional held in Lima in 1992. The congress was sponsored by the Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas, under the leadership of Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P., and with the participation of Helen Rand Parish and Rolena Adorno. Through meetings like this, as well as the new series of international conferences held at Providence College in 2016 and 2019, the transnational character of Lascasian studies has been firmly established. Notably a considerable amount of work on Las Casas has not only been limited to the Brevísima but also stems from specific traditions of national historiography that have been contoured by very particular religious and ethnic self-​understandings. In contrast, Lascasian studies increasingly operates with a transnational perspective. Hence, Lascasian studies calls for greater critical awareness about the ways in which modern “national” or “nationalistic” historiography has framed Las Casas’s life and thought. Consistent with the signposts already identified, this volume brings together the voices of an unprecedented international array of scholars who bring variegated fields of expertise to the study of Las Casas. Their research increases our understanding of classic topics in Lascasian scholarship such as his constructive use of scholastic thought. Moreover, the chapters of this volume also add new understanding in areas that have rarely been studied, such as his entanglement with numerous Indigenous cultures or the revolutionary appropriation of Las Casas during the period of Latin American independence. Interestingly, fifteen of the nineteen chapters are from scholars who were not present at the first conference, namely: Jonathan F. Schwaller, Paola Uparela, Dwight E. R. TenHuisen, Rubén A. Sánchez-​Godoy, Garry Sparks, Frauke Sachse, Laura Ammon, Natsuko Matsumori, Mario Ruiz Sotelo, Luis Mora Rodríguez, Thomas Eggensperger, O.P., Timothy A. McCallister, María Cristina

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Ríos Espinosa, Vanina M. Teglia, and Andrew L. Wilson. From the range of university affiliations in addition to its domestic and international reach, this volume brings together a unique, cosmopolitan collection of contributors. The aim of this volume is to probe aspects of the Lascasian transatlantic legacy. To this end, the book’s five parts address different aspects of this legacy: historical trajectories, Indigenous cultures, scholastic philosophy, modern theology, and reception in history. The first, “Trajectories of Las Casas’s Heritage: New Spain and Peru,” made up of three chapters, examines the legacy of Lascasian ideas in two geographic contexts—​two areas significantly impacted during the early conquest and colonization. In Chapter 1, “The Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government: Late Sixteenth-​Century New Spain and the Impact of Las Casas,” John F. Schwaller examines the conflicted influence of Las Casas’s legacy on the legal and policy efforts in early colonial New Spain. The trajectory of Las Casas’s legacy was conflictual, since his unique and prolonged presence in New Spain challenged the colonial order. In particular, his legacy is seen in the written correspondence and public actions of the eighth and the eleventh viceroys of New Spain—​don Luis de Velasco, the Younger, and Marques de las Salinas—​as well as in relationship to the direct moral obligations of the New Laws on Native life and labor. In Chapter 2, “ ‘Multiplicarse ha la tierra de gente y de fruto’: Gender and Re-​production in Las Casas’s and Guaman Poma’s Biopolitical Projects (1516, 1615),” Paola Uparela compares the Indian management plans of Las Casas’s Memorial de remedios para las Indias (1516) and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615) to examine the intersection of colonialism and biopolitics. In Las Casas’s approach, the monarch was responsible for the well-​being of Indigenous life and health for the sake of royal wealth. Guaman Poma’s proposal was a similar version of the Lascasian plan, but in the Andean context. For both, Indigenous women’s bodies were foundational to produce workers, who in turn produced wealth for the monarch. Chapter 3, “(Mis)Appropriating the Authoritative Bishop of Chiapa: Calancha and His Translators as Readers of Las Casas,” by Dwight E. R. TenHuisen, points to the trajectorial impact of Las Casas’s thought—​such as in references directly found in the Brevisima, “una apología,” and “su memorial”—​mentioned in Calancha’s Crónica moralizada del orden de San Agustín en el Perú. TenHuisen assesses the scope and depth of Lascasian discourse in this Augustinian friar’s text—​written in Peru and published in Barcelona (1638)—​as well as how Calancha’s order received and recognized the importance of Lascasian references in their confrere’s chronicle thirty-​five years later in Augustinian

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translations into Latin (Antwerp, 1651), French (Toulouse, 1653), and Dutch (Antwerp, 1671). The second part of this volume, “Las Casas and Indigenous Cultures: Caxcan and K’iche’an Maya,” brings together contributions in three chapters to explore how Las Casas and Lascasian ideas interacted with native inhabitants of New Spain. In Chapter 4, “Francisco Tenamaztle, Bartolomé de las Casas and the Role of Translation in the Construction of a Legal Case before the Consejo de Indias (1555–​1556),” Rubén A. Sánchez-​Godoy examines the 1555 document of the bishop of Chiapa on behalf of an Indigenous leader deported from Jalisco and Zacatecas (New Spain) to Iberia. This document denounced injustices that the Spaniards committed against Tenamaztle and his community, as well as requested the restitution of freedom to him and his people. Importantly, he also demanded the reestablishment of his Native authority. In return, Tenamaztle promised to serve the king, pay tributes, and promote Christianity. The document offers insight into an Indigenous leader’s fight for justice by employing Spanish legal means with Las Casas’s help. Two prominent tensions explored in the chapter are: (1) Las Casas’s use of his earlier language and jargon in translating the leader’s call for justice, and (2) Tenamaztle’s efforts to represent and maintain agency as a resilient and organized community leader. In Chapter 5, “Books and/​as Idols: Affective Discourse in Early Colonial Dominican and Maya Writings,” Garry Sparks argues that Las Casas cited the K’iche’an Mayan term k’ab’awil as confirmation that Mesoamericans had an idea of and relationship with the divine prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries. Sparks demonstrates how philosophical differences between the nominalist intellectual outlook of the Franciscans and the Thomistic realism of the Dominicans shaped underlying linguistic debates and their implications for translations of core Christian theological concepts. Sparks’s intertextual analysis of period sources in K’iche’an languages elucidates the impact of Las Casas’s theology in the region beyond his tenure there. Chapter 6 constitutes another fine example of engagement with K’iche’an sources. In “Las Casas and the Divine Social Orders of the Indigenous Americas,” Frauke Sachse analyzes Las Casas’s interpretation of the social order and political systems of Highland Guatemala. At the time of the Spanish conquest, Utatlán was the dominant power in the multilingual and multiethnic highlands as well as one of the major political entities in post-​classic Mesoamerica. Las Casas played a crucial role in the “pacification” of the region by means of evangelization. His Dominican confreres left Maya rulers in power in exchange for their acceptance of the new faith and Spanish authority. The new political arrangement depended on specific assumptions about political authority and legitimate rule. Sachse reviews the documentary sources related to the system

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of political rule in Highland Guatemala and compares Las Casas’s account of the Reino de Utatlán in the Apologética historia sumaria with the system of socio-​territorial organization and governance described in Indigenous text sources, including the Popol Vuh. The author concludes that this pre-​conquest system of social order had its origin in Ancient Maya society and that Las Casas supported its continuation in the colonial era. Composed of five chapters, the third part—​“Bartolomé de las Casas and Political and Moral Theology”—​engages the more obvious dimensions of Las Casas’s Dominican identity through his employment of scholastic thought. Chapter 7, “The Pontifical Theocracy of Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. (1484–​1566),” by Ramón Darío Valdivia Jiménez, introduces how pontifical theocracy—​a religious and legal instrument used since the twelfth century to impose papal power on the temporal order—​served to legitimize the Alexandrine Bulls of Donation. Las Casas challenged this ideology when his opponents denounced his Confesionario in the Council of the Indies. Valdivia Jiménez argues that Las Casas defended himself by recourse to medieval theory in three 1552 published writings: the Treinta proposiciones muy jurídicas, the Tratado comprobatorio del imperio soberano and, in a marginal way, the Principia quaedam. In the eighth chapter, “Prudentia: Thomas Aquinas Interpreted by Bartolomé de las Casas,” Thomas Eggensperger studies the virtue of “prudence” in Las Casas’s Apologética historia sumaria (­chapters 40–​48), as interpreted according to Aquinas’s Summa theologiae (ii–​i i 45 et sqq). Las Casas’s goal was to prove that the “indios” were individuals with “ratio” and “intellectus.” Accordingly, Las Casas focused especially on the distinction between “prudentia monastica,” “prudentia oeconomica,” and “prudentia politica.” Aquinas’s teaching (drawn from Aristotle’s) constituted Las Casas’s foundation to demonstrate the ability of the “indios” as individuals capable of socialization and community life. Eggensperger asserts that Las Casas’s method is a provocative example of how actual debates in the sixteenth century reflected high medieval theory. “Moral Uncertainty and Doubt in the Affairs of the Indies: Vitoria, Las Casas, and Medina on Difficult Cases of Conscience,” Chapter 9, by Víctor Zorrilla, considers sixteenth-​century Spanish theologians’ frequent references to matters of conscience concerning the dilemmas caused by the Spanish conquest and domination of the Americas. In the introduction of his Relectio de indis, Francisco de Vitoria contended that individuals of moral and intellectual authority ought to be consulted when addressing complex moral situations. Las Casas researched such matters from a practical point of view when he addressed slavery, restitution, and war. In his commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, professor Bartolomé de Medina, a pioneer of probabilism,

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addressed these issues from a theoretical perspective when dealing with the concepts of dominium and restitution. Zorrilla discusses and places difficult ethical cases employing Medina’s and Las Casas’s approaches in the context of Spanish imperial politics. Chapter 10, “‘No Greater nor More Arduous Step’: Lactantius, Las Casas, and Continuity in Christian Rhetoric about Conversion” is Laura Ammon’s contribution in which she sustains that Bartolomé de las Casas’s legacy, as a defender of the Indians, is in part grounded upon his intellectual position in the great debate with Juan Ginés Sepúlveda. Ammon argues that Las Casas drew upon Greco-​Roman writers and Church fathers to bolster his argument about the humanity, civilization, and culture of Indigenous Americans. Of particular interest to Ammon is Las Casas’s use of Lactantius—​a fourth-​century theologian, who directed his writings at pagans and who preserved much of their literature and learning, while arguing for their conversion to Christianity. Another point of overlap with Las Casas was Lactantius’s eager anticipation of the imminent return of Christ based on the conversion of the known world to Christianity. Ultimately, Ammon demonstrates how Las Casas’s particular historical moment caused him to both amend and transcend Lactantius and so create a new understanding of the peoples of the New World and set a new standard for human rights in Christian theology. In the eleventh chapter, “Reason and the Monstrous: Las Casas’s Appeal to the imago dei,” Timothy A. McCallister shows that Las Casas’s scriptural understanding of the imago dei is intimately connected to a Thomistic interpretation that equates it with the human capacity of intellectus, or understanding. A commitment to the rationality of all humans enables Las Casas to defend the inherent capacity of Amerindians to be civilized. McCallister probes Las Casas’s invocation of the imago dei doctrine in the Apologética historia sumaria and demonstrates that Las Casas adds a divine guarantee to his insistence on human universal rationality, while anticipating and fending off objections to his theological approach. Concomitantly, Las Casas’s equation of the imago dei with human understanding constrains the scope of his defense. These limitations are most apparent when he addresses the mentally impaired, or “hombres mentecaptos,” whom he labels as “monsters of nature” (“monstruo de la naturaleza”). McCallister concludes that Las Casas explicitly links the concept of human dignity with his theology of the imago dei and that, in turn, both belong to the larger trajectory of philosophical and theological treatments of human dignity. In this sense, Las Casas’s interpretation of dignity as honor above all terrestrial creatures provides historians with an instructive marker for the development of the early modern conception of the self.

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The fourth part of the volume, “Bartolomé de las Casas and Early Modern Philosophy,” comprises four chapters that explore the philosophical dimensions of Las Casas’s thought. In Chapter 12, “Hospitality or Property? The Natural Right of Communication and the ‘New World’,” Natsuko Matsumori examines issues related to globalization as found in early modern thinkers focused on the affairs of the Indies, in particular Las Casas and other figures associated with the School of Salamanca. Natsuko Matsumori considers the confrontation of two concepts, hospitality and property, by elucidating the natural right of communication as the common ground for both positive and negative attitudes toward globalization. This right permit everyone to transit across, trade in, and migrate to everywhere—​unless one does harm. Natsuko Matsumori’s chapter addresses two ideological streams about international hospitality: those who prioritized the right of communication (Vitoria, Grotius, Kant, etc.) and those who prioritized the right of property (Pufendorf, Vattel, etc.). The stream that emphasized the right of state or property was already shown by Las Casas and Molina, and implicitly criticized Vitoria’s communication theory. Accordingly, this chapter demonstrates the significance of Las Casas in relation to modern discourses on communication, hospitality, and property, which has been relatively ignored. The thirteenth chapter by David Orique, “The Epistemology of Bartolomé de las Casas: An Introduction,” presents Bartolomé de las Casas’s theory of knowledge in light of the epistemological challenges generated by European contact with new places and peoples. His epistemological response to the unjust conquest and violent Christianization of the Americas was formed by his humanistic and canonistic studies, by his philosophical and theological training, and by his life-​long experiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Las Casas’s epistemological synthesis, Orique argues, is well reflected in his Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias. In this treatise, Las Casas draws on the meta-​ narrative of divine providence (eternal law) as exemplar and governance of all creation. Throughout the Brevísima relación, he applies the tripartite hierarchy of divine, natural, and human law as the epistemological foundation of his pervasive condemnation of the evils and harm done to the Indigenous peoples. Orique identifies the three major epistemological propositions that Las Casas made in this treatise: 1) all humans and all nations are ontologically equal; 2) natural rights to life, liberty, and ancillary rights are derived from natural law, and are violated by conquests, encomiendas, and enslavement; and 3) evangelization must be the primary reason for the Spaniards’ presence, be peaceful in method, and oriented toward the goal of salvation. Mario Ruiz Sotelo’s chapter fourteen, “Bartolomé de las Casas and the Foundation of Latin American Philosophy,” posits the existence of a third

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school of scholasticism that originated and flourished alongside the schools of Paris and Salamanca. According to Ruiz Sotelo these schools discussed the intertwined issues of European power over the “discovered” territories as well as the anthropological nature of their inhabitants. However, the “American School” emerged in response to the pressing question of the role of America in modernity. A great deal of discussion centered around the anthropological nature of the inhabitants of America. The School of Paris claimed that they were savages, slaves by nature, and therefore, power over them fell to the Europeans who could dominate them, as they had done since 1492. The School of Salamanca gave the benefit of the doubt to the “discovered” peoples but admitted that, if their impolitic character was proven, they should be subjected. The American School, in contrast, recognized a common ontological level around the human condition, thus affirming a universally based anthropological nature. Ruiz Sotelo contends that the founder of this school was precisely Bartolomé de las Casas. This chapter emphasizes that the novelty of Las Casas’s proposal is that it starts from the otherness of the “discovered” people, which he manages to formulate from his own reality, thus breaking with the ethnocentrism of the other philosophical schools. In Chapter 15, “Las Casas’s Apologética historia sumaria and His Vision of the Other,” Luis Mora Rodríguez draws upon a seminal Lascasian text to ponder some of the interpersonal ethical dimensions of Las Casas’s thought. In the Apologética, Bartolomé de las Casas developed an extensive comparative study of ancient cultures, such as Greek and Roman ones, in order to demonstrate that Indigenous peoples represented highly developed civilizations. Mora Rodríguez addresses three main questions in order to explain Las Casas’s vision of the Other. First, he studies the natural conditions that Las Casas established to justify the development of human intellectual capacities. Then, he presents the Dominican friar’s historical and social analysis of Indian political and religious life. Finally, Mora Rodríguez explains and criticizes some of the postcolonial readings of the Apologética, in order to more clearly situate Las Casas’s intentions. Part five, “Historical Receptions of Las Casas: Utopians, the Black Legend, and Revolutionaries,” examines in four chapters the reception of Bartololmé de las Casas’s thought. Chapter sixteen, “Political Hermeneutics of Utopias in Europe and the Americas: Thomas More, Bartolomé de las Casas, Vasco de Quiroga” by María Cristina Ríos Espinosa, compares the political, economic, and social organization of utopias in the Americas, particularly the models of Las Casas and Vasco de Quiroga. According to Ríos Espinosa, Las Casas’s Memorial de remedios para las Indias (1516) and Quiroga’s Reglas y ordenanzas para el gobierno de los hospitales de Santa Fe de México y Michoacán (1532) and

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his Informe en derecho (1535) show important interconnections. These utopian blueprints, Ríos Espinosa contends, also influenced political practices in New Spain. She makes two important assertions. First, through an analogical hermeneutic analysis of three sixteenth-​century utopian models—​those of Las Casas, Thomas More, and Quiroga—​Ríos Espinosa demonstrates a dialectical interplay across the Atlantic in which Las Casas influenced More, and both of them influenced Quiroga. Second, she argues that these models suggest the emergence of a new version of modernity that was utopian in style, which would no longer be a mere replica of European culture in Amerindia, but something unprecedented. Vanina M. Teglia also visits Las Casas’s reform projects of Spanish colonialism in chapter seventeen, “The 1516 Project for the Colonization of the Indies: The Simulacrum of a Utopia.” Teglia proposes that Bartolomé de las Casas’s 1516 Memorial of the remedies inverts colonial mimesis, which in a typical colonial situation is commonly adopted by a subaltern. In other words, Teglia argues that Las Casas imagined a colonial community in which the subaltern does not imitate the culture of the conqueror in order to survive. Instead, peasant colonizers from Castile were expected to feign equality and similarity with the Indians. Las Casas’s models, according to Teglia, suggested that peasants were to create an environment giving Amerindians the appearance of freedom in order to mitigate the impact of acculturation and to provide a means for evangelization. Interestingly, Teglia points out that the Lascasian community also expresses loathing for the greed of the hidalgos, conquerors, and rulers, while expressing love for the Indians and the Castilian peasants. In chapter eighteen, “Beyond the ‘Black Legend’: The Reception History of Las Casas in Late Sixteenth-​Century England,” Rady Roldán-​Figueroa offers a nuanced assessment of the reception of Las Casas’s ideas in late sixteenth-​ century England. Drawing on recent scholarship about the sack of Antwerp of 1576, Roldán-​Figueroa argues that the attack, also known as the “Spanish Fury,” provides the context that explains why Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevisima relación was first translated into Brabantic, French, and even English language. Roldán-​Figueroa contends that the history of reception of Las Casas’s writings in late sixteenth-​century England has to be dissociated from the traditional focus on the Black Legend. Instead, closer attention should be given to the imperialist policies of the Spanish Habsburgs in the Low Countries and their impact in England as the backdrop for the reception of Las Casas in English translation. Moreover, Roldán-​ Figueroa demonstrates the complexity of this reception and sustains that in addition to the English translation of the Brevísima published in 1583, a number of other Lascasian texts were also available in English translation, thus contributing to the formation of a pre-​critical

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canon of Lascasian texts. He also advances the notion of “intellectual micro-​ transfers” as a modality of the circulation of ideas. The volume closes with the contribution of Andrew Wilson. In his chapter, “Enlightenment and Revolutionary Uses of Las Casas from Charlesvoix to Pancho Villa,” Wilson expands the horizons of Lascasian scholarship by examining the appropriation of Las Casas in the Spanish American wars of independence. According to Wilson, a century of revolutions and emancipations brought new attention to the sixteenth-​century friar and bishop, and a burgeoning postcolonial consciousness shed light on his unrepentant (albeit benevolent) colonialism. Who dusted off Las Casas, and why? That is the subject of Wilson’s chapter, which is based on texts from lumières (such as Guillaume-​Thomas Raynal and Cornelius De Pauw), Mexican agitators (viz., Servando Teresa de Mier, O.P.), French revolutionaries (for example, Henri Grégoire), and Las Casas’s modern publishers. Wilson contends that the sixteenth-​century Dominican has long been instrumentalized as a far-​seeing political prophet, and is still largely portrayed as a foil for his less enlightened compatriots. Retelling the origins and outlines of Las Casas’s modern resurrection will enable scholars to see more clearly the intellectual baggage accumulated around him and will open up pathways eclipsed by his enlightened champions—​and their disappointed heirs.

pa rt 1 Trajectories of Las Casas’s Heritage: New Spain and Peru

∵

­c hapter 1

The Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government: Late Sixteenth-​Century New Spain and the Impact of Las Casas John F. Schwaller Las Casas was without doubt one of the central figures in the development of royal policy towards the natives of the New World in the sixteenth century.1 But discussions of his legacy tend to highlight the New Laws of 1542 as the culmination of his efforts. Nonetheless, a close look at policy and policymakers at the end of the sixteenth century shows that his impact had staying power. The Lascasian position did not leave the halls of power with his death, but rather became a sort of litmus test against which policies would be evaluated. None of us is so naïve as to assume that his position always carried the day, or even that it was persuasive, but the fact that local policymakers felt obliged to pay lip service to its general arguments speaks volumes about its impact. At the same time, colonial officials who embraced the tenets of Las Casas’s concern for the protection of the natives also acted in ways that caused a modern observer to question the degree to which those officials had actually internalized the basic concept of the humanity of the natives. This chapter considers the impact of Las Casas on the actions and policies of one mid-​colonial figure—​don Luis de Velasco, the younger. Velasco had a career that was quite simply unlike any other figure from colonial Latin America. Born to a petty noble family in Spain, his father also served as Viceroy of New Spain from 1550 to 1564. The younger don Luis was only about twelve when his father left for Mexico. Quite importantly for his early career path, don Luis had traveled to England for the marriage of Phillip to Mary Tudor. He was a lesser member of the entourage and served as a page to his older brother, don

1 For more on Las Casas’s understanding of humanitarianism and just war, see the following chapters: Claus Dierksmeier, “Globalization Ethics in the Sixteenth Century? Why We Should Re-​read Francisco de Vitoria,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David T. Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 197–​217; Daniel R. Brunstetter, “Las Casas and the Concept of Just War,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. (2019), 243–​259; Víctor Zorrilla, “Just War in Las Casas’s Tratado de las dome dudes,” in Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., 243–​259.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_003

20 Schwaller Antonio de Velasco, who was one of the nobles in the close circle surrounding the prince. The younger Velasco stayed with the court upon their return to Belgium after Philip became king of Spain. Don Luis was inducted into the noble order of Santiago by Philip in Brussels. In 1560, young don Luis sailed off to New Spain with his sister, who had been contracted in marriage to the richest man in New Spain—​Francisco de Ibarra, the founder of the immensely rich Zacatecas silver mines. In Mexico, don Luis himself would marry doña María de Ircio—​the daughter of the half-​sister of the first viceroy. Thus, these two noble families were united in marriage. After the death of the elder don Luis, the son was responsible for putting down the so-​called Cortés Conspiracy—​an attempted revolt by encomenderos who were angry over the New Laws. In recognition of his services, the king granted an exceptionally large annual pension to young don Luis, equal to about 10,000 pesos per annum. These grants were, in reality, an encomienda.2 He was transformed overnight into perhaps the wealthiest man in the kingdom. For many years he lived in Mexico, where he continued secret correspondence with the king regarding conditions in the colony. In the late 1570s, he returned to Spain to take care of matters related to the deaths of his mother and brother. The king made him ambassador to Florence. Then, upon hearing of rumors of another possible uprising in New Spain, Phillip ii appointed Velasco as viceroy in his own right. Velasco served first as viceroy of New Spain from 1589 to 1595. The king then promoted him to be viceroy of Peru, where he served from 1596 to 1604. Quite unlike any other viceroy, at the conclusion of his service in Peru Velasco retired to his estates in Mexico, not in Spain. He lived as a private citizen in Mexico until 1607. In his later years, a series of crises led the monarch to move the viceroy of New Spain to Peru, and then he needed someone to take over instantly in Mexico; as such, Velasco became viceroy for a second term from 1607 to 1611. The king granted him the Spain-​based title of Marqués de las Salinas del Río Pisuerga, while his daughter and grandson became the Condes de Santiago Calimaya, a Mexico-​based title. In 1611, Velasco was appointed the president of the Council of the Indies and a member of the governing council of the military-​religious order of Santiago. He died in Madrid in 1617 at the ripe age of 83. A close examination of Velasco’s policy towards the natives reveals Las Casas’s possible influence. At the outset, note that Velasco was an equivocal 2 The details of don Luis’s early life are found in: John F. Schwaller, “The Early Life of don Luis de Velasco, the Younger: The Future Viceroy as Boy and Young Man,” Estudios de Cultura Novohispana 29 (2003): 17–​47.

Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government 21

figure regarding Native rights. Nevertheless, the viceroy held what was perhaps the largest encomienda in New Spain; his grant was not subject to the New Laws, and his heirs controlled the encomienda until independence as part of the holdings of the Condes de Santiago Calimaya. As will be seen, while he promoted policies that upheld the basic Lascasian principle of humanity for the natives, many of his practical decisions had quite the opposite effect. The appointment of Velasco as viceroy caused more than a bit of a stir. Never in the history of the colony had the king chosen a person who was so well known to the leading colonists. Velasco was related by marriage and, in a few instances, by blood to a wide swath of the New Spanish elite. The Archive of the Indies holds a score of letters written from local notables to the king and to his private secretaries about the appointment. Velasco’s cousin, don Antonio de Vivero, a very rich owner of a sugar estate, wrote to the private secretary to the king, Juan de Ibarra, who in turn was probably a kinsman of Velasco’s brother-​in-​law, praising the appointment of such a learned man.3 The leading merchants of the colony also added their voices to the throng.4 Diego de Ibarra, uncle of the miner, also wrote Juan de Ibarra (probably a kinsman), adding his praise for Velasco and also noting that the arrival of the new Dominican prior, Fr. Andrés de Ubilla, was an additional cause for joy.5 For Velasco’s part, in several letters sent to leading institutions he returned the favor, noting that he was not coming as a governor but as a son returning home. Quite simply because of his decades-​long experiences in the colony, Velasco brought with him a very different perspective regarding many issues. Likewise, he was a personal acquaintance of the king. He had been hand-​picked by Philip to take on the viceregency of New Spain. He was determined to do the king’s bidding as best he could, but always in light of local conditions, which he knew better than anyone. 1

Notes from Villamanrique and Velasco’s Response

Upon taking office in Mexico, Velasco emphasized his experience in the colony in his official reply to the issues offered by his predecessor, the Marquis of Villamanrique, don Álvaro Manrique de Zúñiga. Unfortunately, the record contained only Velasco’s side of the exchange. The document briefly outlined Villamanrique’s issues, to which Velasco offers his own insights in this 3 agi Mex, 112, doc. 10, 22 Feb. 1590. 4 agi Mex, 112, doc. 12, 25 Feb. 1590. 5 agi Mex, 112, doc. 15, 28 Feb. 1590.

22 Schwaller report back to the king and Council of the Indies. In the seventeenth section of Velasco’s reply, which deals with policies having to do with the distribution of Native labor, don Luis concluded his critique of Villamanrique by outlining his own vision for the treatment of the natives. Important among these was a pledge to not demand that natives work more hours than was normal. His goal was the protection and benefit of the natives (“el bien y conservación de estos naturales”). As he learned from his father during his government, Velasco opined that this must be the will of God and of His Majesty. He further stated that his hope was to emulate his father and to strive to serve the crown.6 In other sections of Velasco’s reply, additional nuances are present about the treatment of the natives. In one specific instance, Velasco, in support of the audiencia, countermanded an order of his predecessor having to do with the payment of tribute in corn. Villamanrique seems to have proposed resorting to tribute payment in kind because of an agricultural crisis that had afflicted the colony. However, one goal of the late sixteenth-​century labor allocation system was to move natives into a cash economy by forcing them to pay tribute in money, not goods. This calls into question the true humanitarian aspects of Villamanrique’s policy. In times of agricultural difficulty, it might well have been even more difficult for the natives to acquire the needed grain rather than the cash. Consequently, Velasco blocked the order—​as the high court had requested—​ostensibly because of the burden it placed on the natives.7 In a more important decision, Velasco stopped a Villamanrique effort to collect tribute in advance. Generally, tribute was collected from the previous year. In order to increase revenues to the crown, Villamanrique had ordered a forward-​looking collection. However, Velasco pointed out that this placed an unwarranted burden on the natives, especially given the history of pestilence and Native mortality. In essence, tributes would have been paid in advance for natives who died. Velasco argued that the fragile economic condition of the natives simply did not allow for this. He also worried about the logistics and some corrupt practices that had emerged in the collection. Some of his reservations also pertained to collecting tribute either annually or every three months. He envisioned that, after having collected a retrospective tribute, the local officials would turn right around and collect the future one, and merely say that the demand was for a special aid (socorro) for the monarch.8 Since 6 agi, Mex. 22, doc. 24, 8 Oct. 1590, item 17; also found in Lewis Hanke, ed., with Celso Rodríguez, Los virreyes españoles en América durante el gobierno de la casa de Austria, 5 vols. (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1976–​1977), 2:94–​95. 7 agi, Mex. 22, doc. 24, 8 Oct. 1590, item 13; also found in Hanke, Los virreyes, 2:93. 8 agi, Mex. 22, doc. 24, 8 Oct. 1590, item 14; also found in Hanke, Los virreyes, 2:93–​94.

Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government 23

an important part of the tribute system was the need for periodic recounts of the Native population to ensure that a fair tribute was being paid or collected, Velasco proposed no innovations in the system except that officials who knew the region well should be given the commissions.9 The reality of the forward-​ looking tribute collection was that in the year it was implemented, the total remittances would double, since natives would be paying for the previous year and the current year. Thereafter, the collections would decrease, as the Native population also decreased, although tribute would be collected from natives who died during the year. One of the most significant issues confronting the viceroy was the question of how to react to raids by the nomadic and semi-​nomadic peoples who occupied the northern frontier. From several sources we know that in his instructions to Velasco, Villamanrique wrote that instead of increasing the army, he had reduced the number of soldiers, and then used the funds saved to purchase goods to attract and pacify the natives. The policy had proven so successful that the entire frontier had been pacified. He also ordered that natives from central Mexico settle in seven key villages in the region. This project of pacification and resettlement followed up on one initiated by Velasco’s own father nearly fifty years earlier. In the end, not only had Villamanrique achieved the long sought-​after peace, but he had saved hundreds of thousands of pesos for the royal treasury.10 Villamanrique pursued a simple policy: no expeditions could be mounted against the Chichimeca without express authorization. Enslavement of the natives was categorically prohibited. The military’s primary task would be the defense of the royal roads between the Spanish cities and the mining districts. Villamanrique also attempted to diminish the importance of the presidios and other fortified encampments; however, this did not succeed. He also adopted the policy of attracting the frontier natives into polity with the Spanish through the provision of gifts and supplies: food, clothing, and tools. In spite of rumors to the contrary, by the end of Villamanrique’s term of office in 1589, the northern frontier had calmed significantly. It now fell to Velasco to maintain the peace and build upon the efforts of Villamanrique. Velasco understood that just because the frontier was peaceful, that did not mean that the pacification of the Chichimeca had miraculously 9 10

agi, Mex. 22, doc. 24, 8 Oct. 1590, item 19; also found in Hanke, Los virreyes, 2:95–​96. Phillip W. Powell, Soldiers, Indians, and Silver: The Northward Advance of New Spain, 1550–​1600, second printing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 187–​190. Villamanrique justified his actions in a memorial written after the end of his service: Hanke, Los virreyes, 1:302–​303.

24 Schwaller occurred. In his reply to Vilamanrique’s suggestions, Velasco noted simply that the pacification of the north was a thorny issue. His greatest immediate concern was that the men who had been released from the Spanish forces as part of the demilitarization of the region were now a floating population and liable “to get up to no good.” The impact of those men had already been felt in New Vizcaya, where Luis de Carvajal was governor and where possible rebellion was rumored.11 Another critical piece of royal policy towards the natives had to do with the regulation of factories and sweatshops, generically called obrajes. Velasco noted that the key to the safe operation of the factories was that someone of confidence, jointly appointed by the viceroy and audiencia, visit them regularly. That person was Doctor Santiago del Riego—​someone in whom Velasco had great confidence. He argued against closing the factories because of the great damage that would do to the economy, especially since they produced the cloth used by most of the colony for clothing. Closing the factories would also displace many blacks and mulattos who also worked in them, which potentially could be of even greater concern, especially because Velasco complained that there were already too many unemployed people.12 Thus, his policy focused on maintaining the health of the overall economy rather than on protecting the humanity of the individuals engaged in the labor of the obrajes. 2

Correspondence with Mendieta

Among others who greeted Velasco on his arrival back to New Spain was the Franciscan friar Jerónimo de Mendieta. Mendieta has gained fame in modern times because of his work as the chronicler of the Holy Gospel Province of the Franciscans in New Spain for which he produced the Historia eclesiástica indiana. In this work, John Phelan perceived a yearning for the early days of evangelization and a recognition of the increasing complexity of the times. Mendieta was attempting to reconcile his expectation of the millennium while he saw the early missionary fervor stalling out. In 1590—​as the doctrinero of the parish of Tepeaca, Mendieta was an important member of the order, being that he was elected guardian of the convents of Mexico and Tlaxcala, and also served on the governing tribunal (difinitorio) of the Franciscan Province.13 In 11 12 13

agi, Mex. 22, doc. 24, 8 Oct. 1590, item 20; also found in Hanke, Los virreyes, 2:96. Carvajal, of course, would later be arrested and convicted by the Inquisition as a judaizer. agi, Mex. 22, doc. 24, 8 Oct. 1590, item 2; also found in Hanke, Los virreyes, 2:96–​97. Agustín de Vetancurt, Teatro mexicano, 4 vols. (Madrid: Porrúa Turanzas, 1961), 4:120–​121.

Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government 25

that same year, Mendieta sent a series of letters both to Velasco and to the bishop of Tlaxcala about a wide variety of topics. However, very few of the people to whom Mendieta wrote replied to his letters; as such, records contain only Mendieta’s side of the exchange about the topics, and very few of the viceroy’s letters. For example, between December 1590 and August 1592, Mendieta sent a total of ten letters to Velasco. Fortunately, three of the viceroy’s replies are extant. Some of the content of the other replies can be inferred from Mendieta’s responses and subsequent questions. Most of the letters between them deal with issues concerning the treatment of the natives of New Spain. Mendieta also wrote to console the viceroy on the departure of his children to Spain. Indeed, one of the conditions that Phillip ii made in appointing Velasco was that the viceroy’s children would have to abandon their home in Mexico and reside in Spain.14 The opening salvo of letters dates from Velasco’s arrival in December 1589. The first group of missives joins many others in welcoming the viceroy to New Spain. Mendieta does suggest that the two of them had contact in the past, since he wrote: “I have and always have had a particular obligation with reference to the things of Your Lordship.”15 The next letter that Mendieta sent to Velasco in early January outlined the various issues that were affecting the parish of Tepeaca, located just east of Puebla, where Mendieta was stationed. Fray Jerónimo’s first complaint was that Spaniards who resided in proximity to the natives took such a great advantage of them and that they were being bled dry (“andan tan encarnizados en chupar la sangre unos de otros”). To resolve this, Mendieta suggested the appointment of better men as local magistrates. As viceroy, Velasco also repeated an order that Spaniards could not live in the Native villages.16 Furthermore, Mendieta recommended that the natives be encouraged to regularly attend Mass. For the friar, the magistrate was to protect Native land from incursions and thefts by Spaniards. He should also prohibit the imprisonment of Native workers in factories (obrajes). Muleteers and teamsters should be prohibited from having natives travel with them, since they kidnapped children and others to carry to distant regions. Spaniards who took up the enforcement of laws and decrees

14

15 16

Joaquin García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2 vols. (Mexico: Imprenta de Francisco Díaz de León, 1892), 2:111–​112. The children moved to Spain, a country they did not know since they were born and raised in Mexico. In seeking to isolate the viceroy from the local social networks in which his children might operate, the royal order also ignored the fact that by marriage, and blood, Velasco was related to many of the leading New Spanish families. “… a la particular obligación que yo siempre a las cosas de V. A. he tenido y tengo.” García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:101. agn, Ordenanzas, 4, exp. 71, fol. 68, 1591.

26 Schwaller on their own, without real authority, should be punished. The royal magistrates should maintain an up-​to-​date census for the Native communities in their districts, especially for the labor quotas, so that specific Native groups were not overworked. Moreover, the labor distribution had become a significant problem—​forcing natives to go upwards of fifteen leagues to work, while abandoning crops nearby in need of laborers.17 This litany of complaints does not differ in most regards from any number of letters written by friars about the conditions of the natives in the late sixteenth century. Velasco was aware of many of these and he sought to address some of them in his administration. He supervised a visitation of the obrajes but tended to side more with the larger economic forces than with the immediate issue of the protection of natives. In his later viceregal term, from 1604 to 1611, he provided for a larger daily wage and some additional compensation for natives as they traveled to their work assignments, particularly those working in the mines and sugar mills.18 After these initial letters that touched on the broad spectrum of issues confronting the natives, Mendieta began to send letters to Velasco that focused on a few issues in a somewhat greater depth. Writing in February 1591, Mendieta warned the viceroy of the difficulties created by disruptive natives who pursued lawsuits on a wide variety of issues. In his preamble to the complaint, Mendieta shared his own biases and assumptions about natives. He implied that they were fractious, easily confused, easily led astray by confidence men, and too easily allowed access to justice. The friar concluded that the lawsuits served no purpose other than to keep their respective communities in a state of anxiety. The obvious racism of these opinions is shocking to current sensibilities. At the same time, Mendieta thought that he was acting for the benefit of the natives in his argument to limit the number of lawsuits raised by natives and by those who claimed to speak for them.19 In June 1591, Mendieta wrote again, indicating that he had received Velasco’s letter from Chiconautla.20 Mendieta reported on the expedition of Tlaxcalan natives to the region of the far north beyond the mines of Zacatecas, which was under the leadership of Rodrigo del Río—​a frontier captain recruited by Velasco. As will be seen later, Velasco intended to settle the sedentary Tlaxcalans among the hostile natives of the far north to serve as a model for the 17 18 19 20

García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:103–​105. agn, Ordenanzas, 1, fol. 131r–​131v and 134v, 5 Jan. 1610. García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:109–​111. One can only wonder what the viceroy was doing in Chiconautla, a village due north of Mexico between Ehecatepec and Teotihuacan. It would have been some five leagues from Velasco’s private estates located in Tultitlan.

Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government 27

northerners. Mendieta was very supportive of the move and praised Velasco for having ordered it.21 Not quite a year later, Mendieta again wrote to Velasco in May 1592 from Xochimilco. This letter continued to address the expedition of Tlaxcalan natives up to the northern frontier; it also recorded Mendieta’s reaction to an unfortunate incident in the village of San Andres—​also known as New Tlaxcala and located thirty leagues west of Zacatecas. The settlement was attacked by a coalition of three different groups who killed many residents and captured the women and children.22 Given the hostility of the natives on the frontier, Mendieta now feared for the success of his plan. The friar complained at length about the nomadic people of the north and suggested that they be punished for their actions—​that they be enslaved and put to work in the mines. Mendieta clearly drew a distinction in his own mind between the natives of central Mexico and those of the north. The former were good and peaceful, while the latter were evil and barbarous. The humanist friar even argued that the crown would never succeed in war if it were financed through taxes and tributes borne by the natives—​in this instance, the natives of central Mexico—​since a new tax of four reales had recently been imposed there on the natives.23 The very next day the viceroy replied from Mexico. He expressed his sorrow over the events at San Andres. He lamented that the incident could have a negative effect on the long-​term goal of peace on the frontier. Noting that the largest group of natives, known as the Guachichiles, did not rise up as part of the rebellion, it seemed to him that they were firm supporters of peace, since they even offered to pursue the rebellious natives. Velasco found it hard to comprehend what had triggered such an excessive reaction against the Tlaxcalans. Accordingly, he did not respond to Mendieta’s calls for a violent reaction against the rebels. Instead, he proceeded to discuss the issue of taxation on the natives. About this, Velasco pointed out that the king and his Council had considered all of the arguments, and that he was obliged to enforce the new level of taxation on the natives. At the same time, he appreciated Mendieta’s point of view and would take it under advisement. In a postscript, Velasco explained that the new tax of four reales was not tribute money, but rather a temporary levy to strengthen Spain’s defense of the Indies. The four-​real tax was imposed on all natives—​both those in encomiendas and those under the 21 García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:113–​ 114. See also Andrea Martínez Baracs, “Colonizaciones tlaxcaltecas,” Historia Mexicana 43.2 (1993): 195–​250. 22 Phillip W. Powell, Mexico’s Miguel Caldera: The Taming of America’s First Frontier (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977), 166–​167. 23 García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:114–​115.

28 Schwaller royal crown, and on mulattos and free blacks. The money from the tax was destined to provide funds for the protection of the Indies, such as galleons and cannons for the Atlantic fleets to troops and provisions for the many frontier wars.24 Velasco promised to listen to many people and to forward their opinions to Spain.25 Indeed, Velasco did include comments such as those shared by Mendieta in his dispatches back to Spain. This exchange demonstrates that Mendieta was no bleeding-​heart religious when it came to all the natives. On the one hand, he clearly picked and chose what groups to support and which to oppose. On the other hand, like a skilled politician, Velasco explained both the royal policy and his own vision, issues which he did not wish to engage. In late July 1592, the two had another exchange of letters on the topic of the levy of four reales. Mendieta, in Xochimilco, reaffirmed his opposition to the imposition of the tax. In his letter, Mendieta noted that before, he had discussed the tax broadly in the Native community, and had had a conversation with the local Native leaders. They were not as opposed to the tax as Mendieta thought they should be, or so it seemed. The Native leaders reasoned that if the project was so important to the monarch that he had to ask humble natives in New Spain, it must be very important indeed. For Mendieta, the Native leaders did not seem to notice the burden that this placed on them, which he characterized as slavery. Moreover, the friar compared the tax to the slavery of the Israelites, and he hoped that the necessity outweighed the suffering that taxation imposed on the natives. Mendieta again praised Velasco and sympathized with the difficulty of his job. But the friar reiterated his central point: that asking natives to work a few weeks twice a year was one thing (the repartimiento), but to make continual demands on them by taxing them at every turn was simply intolerable—​especially when some crown officials treated the natives more poorly than slaves.26 Velasco replied to this missive the very next day from Mexico City. He thanked Mendieta for his words of encouragement and expressed how grateful he was for his help. Velasco wrote that if it were in his power to remove all personal service requirements from the natives, he would gladly do it. Unfortunately, Velasco believed that it would be the destruction of New Spain, since the whole colony depended on the work of the natives. Of course, he also added that he could not do that without the express permission of the monarch. Based on the opinions of wise men, well versed in the needs of the 24 25 26

José Toribio Medina, La imprenta en México, vol. 1 (Santiago de Chile: Impreso en casa del autor, 1907–​1912), 290, item 114. García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:115–​116. García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:117–​118.

Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government 29

colony, clearly to Velasco, natives could be asked to provide service under strict regulations to protect them from injury or exploitation, and he would do all in his power to alleviate their suffering. Lastly, if Mendieta were to collect information about personal service, Velasco would gladly present it to the king in the hope of reducing the obligations.27 This stance by Velasco reflects a somewhat enlightened position. He recognized the importance of Native labor for the colony’s economy, but he also recognized that excessive labor demands and other impositions were harmful in the long term. His position appears to be very pragmatic. He held several different goals in mind as he evaluated the costs and benefits of specific programs. He attempted to balance these conflicting demands. In keeping with his promise to Mendieta, during the period in which the two had been exchanging letters regarding the additional taxation, Velasco had been sending his own letters to the king. Starting in March 1592, Velasco complained to the monarch about excessive taxation on the natives. In particular, he also commented on the costs of the congregación program. This program had as its goal the resettlement of widely distributed Native villages into larger, more centralized towns. Velasco complained that much of the cost of the program was being borne by the natives themselves. Similarly, he complained that natives were being forced to pay for notaries and secretaries when they raised suits, even though these costs were supposed to be absorbed by the crown.28 Taken as a whole, Velasco frequently complained about the demands placed on the natives that he clearly felt were excessive. He repeated his position often enough; he clearly sought a quick resolution of the issues.29 In another letter from March 1592, filled with notices of having received various communications from the crown, Velasco turned his attention to the additional ­taxation. He noted that if things became difficult in the tax collection or implementation, the viceroy and judges of the court would resolve the issues as best they could. This seems to be a veiled warning to the crown that what the king wanted was not going to be easy to implement.30 Velasco continued to repeat his complaints about demands placed on the natives. In a letter to the crown in February 1593, the viceroy even went so far as to suggest that tribute simply should be increased to two reales a year, and then all additional taxes and fees that were levied should be withdrawn. Velasco 27 28 29 30

García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:119. Woodrow W. Borah, Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-​Real (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). agi, Mexico 22, doc. 80, 23 Mar. 1592. agi, Mexico 22, doc. 81, 25 Mar. 1592.

30 Schwaller held that the numerous demands made on the natives created a system that had become extremely complicated—​a matrix of taxes, levies, and tributes that was very problematic for the natives.31 Rather than have several different levies for differing amounts on slightly different populations, Velasco argued in favor of a simple head tax on all that would then be divided among the various funds. Clearly Velasco’s complaints did not have a positive effect on the monarch, since none of the discrete taxes were abolished. The last exchange of letters between Velasco and Mendieta occurred on August 4, 1592. Mendieta continued to criticize the policy of forced labor. He confronted Velasco with the argument that wise men had—​within limits—​ approved the system. The friar declared that every horrible thing done in the world had some support among learned men. With that cry of exasperation and in no uncertain terms, he condemned any violence against the natives. The demands that the natives work in wheat fields to produce bread simply condemned them to perpetual labor, and not just during planting and harvest. From Mendieta’s point of view and building on that issue, the friar went on to complain that natives were forced to work on distant churches and cathedrals. For him, this was doubly irritating since the natives would receive no benefit for their effort. Lastly, Mendieta admonished the viceroy about the censuses done in Native villages upon which the labor drafts were based. For example, in Xochimilco, the census was taken by a man named Farfán, who was the relative of a high court justice. Because of the pestilence that killed villagers, there were 1,600 fewer natives in the village than the census recorded. Yet the labor drafts and tribute demands were based on the larger number. The friar asked Velasco to allow Alonso de Nava to conduct a new census.32 Velasco replied to Mendieta that very same day. He thanked the friar for the wise counsel that he had provided. The viceroy repeated that he did not have the authority to do what Mendieta asked in terms of moderating the levels of taxation. Nonetheless, he would humanely do what he could to alleviate the suffering. He would specifically investigate the work on the cathedral. He promised to listen carefully to natives who would come to him with complaints and petitions.33 As can be seen from the exchange of letters with Mendieta, several key elements of the royal policy towards the natives emerged. This policy, as suggested by Mendieta, was different for sedentary natives versus the nomadic groups of the north. The sedentary inhabitants of the central region lived in 31 32 33

agi, Mexico 22, doc. 106, February 25, 1592. García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:120–​122. García Icazbalceta, Códice Mendieta, 2:122–​123.

Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government 31

their own communities, paid an annual head tax or tribute, were required to provide labor services for the good of the colony, and now had an additional tax levied on them for the protection of Spanish territories from interlopers. Mendieta felt that the tax and tribute impositions on the sedentary natives were excessive. But at the same time, the friar condemned the nomadic natives of the northern frontier to nearly perpetual servitude if they did not comply with his notions of polity. For his part, the viceroy was specifically charged with the protection of the natives, with seeing to their physical and spiritual well-​being, and for supervising the legal system to check abuses. In Velasco’s replies, we see that he attempted to chart a middle course between being a benign governor or a stern commander. In the correspondence, Velasco comes off as a wary politician, promising to investigate and to pass the information on to the king. He made some decisions to protect the natives, but at the same time he was careful not to overtly oppose the monarch. Arguably, from what has been presented above, one can see the long-​term impact that Las Casas had on the basic questions of governance in the colony in the decades after his death. Velasco also recognized that the welfare of the natives was one of his prime assignments. He saw this duty as having two very distinct faces. On the one hand, the natives were to be protected because it was the law and the Christian thing to do; the instructions that he received from the crown reiterated this duty. But at the same time, on the other hand, his success as a viceroy was predicated on the prosperity of the colony. He had to plot a course that would maximize royal revenue and minimize royal expenditures. He also had to be aware of the many elements of the local economy. Access to labor was a central concern to each and every colonist, and the natives were the largest single source of labor. Thus, Velasco had to balance his responsibility to protect the natives while he worked to stimulate the economy. 3

Chichimeca War

The issue of the war against the natives of the north was among the thorniest that confronted Velasco. As seen from his exchange with Mendieta, it was difficult to be magnanimous with both the sedentary and the nomadic groups of the region. On the one hand, all natives deserved royal protection. Yet those of the central region were sedentary; they had been pacified and had lived under Christian polity for seventy years. On the other hand, the natives of the northern frontier were nomadic and not easily reduced to towns and villages for ease of administration and Christianization. Unique among viceroys, however, Velasco had experience in the frontier war. In 1583, following the death of the

32 Schwaller viceroy, don Lorenzo Suárez de Mendoza, Conde de la Coruña, the high court appointed Velasco as the captain general of the Spanish forces in that very war. He served from July 1583 until March 1584, when he was wounded in the face, partially losing sight in one eye, which he eventually recovered. As a result, everyone from the king down to the local high court justices had reason to appreciate Velasco’s opinion about the conduct of the war.34 As viceroy, Velasco concurred with Villamanrique about the best way to pursue the war. They both found that it was far more economical to provide the natives with gifts of food and clothing than to fund armies to ride out against them. Although Villamanrique had endorsed the use of missionaries among the natives as an additional tool of pacification, he had not followed through on that particular aspect of the war-​related policy. In contrast, Velasco worked actively with the religious orders and secular clergy to see that missionaries were sent into the field. Even when there were breaches in the peace, Velasco loathed ordering punitive raids and argued that, although the culprits might be easily found and punished, the armed response by the Spaniards might well trigger a more massive reaction from other wary Native groups—​if they witnessed a Spanish punitive raid.35 Velasco’s father had initiated the practice of sending natives from central Mexico to serve as colonists along the frontier. Villamanrique also sought to send sedentary natives from the central region to the north, but he left Mexico for Peru before he could implement the action. The younger Velasco followed through on this policy—​one inaugurated by his father—​by negotiating with the rulers of Tlaxcala to send groups of colonists from their communities into the northern territories. The purpose of this internal migration was to establish settlements of sedentary agrarian natives as an attraction to the nomadic groups. The nomadic and semi-​nomadic peoples had not yet embraced agriculture, and thus were more difficult to govern by Spaniards, who were used to people living on farms and in villages. Indeed, the nomadism bedeviled the Spanish! They were always looking for other motives in the movement of the Native groups.

34 35

Velasco’s report to the private secretary of the king can be found in: agi, Mexico, 107, doc. 38, Velasco to Ledesma, 22 April 1584. There probably is no greater indication of how peaceful the Chichimeca frontier had become during Velasco’s viceregency than the fact that he does not mention it in his instructions to his successor. Instead, he discusses events in New Mexico and Sinaloa, areas that opened up once the Chichimeca frontier had been pacified. Hanke, Los virreyes, 2:99–​114.

Conflicted Humanitarianism of the Spanish Colonial Government 33

In the implementation of the complex frontier program, Velasco avoided one of the costly mistakes that had so troubled Villamanrique. Velasco received clear permission and authority from the crown to take military control over the entire northern frontier—​including the forces located in the northeast in the territories of the Audiencia of New Galicia and the region of New Vizcaya, territories which were semi-​independent from viceregal control. Prior to Velasco, troops along the frontier were controlled by different administrative units. This created a situation in which there was no coordination of activity. In one sector, the Spanish might be waging war by fire and sword, while within a few leagues, different Spanish officials would be welcoming nomadic peoples with open arms. In another break with Villamanrique, Velasco returned to the support of the presidios—​outlying military forts—​so that an armed force would be in reserve should full-​scale war break out again. Villamanrique believed so strongly in a policy of peaceful encounter that in order to fund it he had to disband the frontier armies. By the end of Velasco’s first term as viceroy, the pacification of the north was well established. Although minor skirmishes broke out from time to time, the broad strokes of the policy initiated by Villamanrique and perfected by Velasco finally brought about the longed-​for peace. One can only assume that because of his long experience in New Spain, and his service as a military commander in the field, Velasco understood that all-​out war was neither practical nor effective. Instead, he enhanced policies that his father initiated: namely, an attraction to Spanish culture through missionaries, the use of Native allies to pacify other Native groups, and the keeping of peace through strategically stationed forts with Spanish troops. Neither Friar Jerónimo de Mendieta nor don Luis de Velasco are representative of all friars or of all royal administrators. But in this exchange, dating from the first few years of Velasco’s first term as viceroy, one can get a feel for how each approached general themes regarding policy toward the natives. Mendieta clearly sympathized fully and completely with the natives of his parishes. He was a fierce advocate for the Indians of central Mexico, where he had spent his entire career. But Mendieta had little sympathy for natives who did not live in villages, and with whom he had little to no immediate experience. Velasco was far more pragmatic. While he openly embraced the legal notion of the protection of the natives, his actual policies were very nuanced. As a politician, he had to manage the reality of the situation in which he found himself. He was entirely dependent on the king. The Spanish king was an absolute monarch. Failure to follow a royal decree could result in being deposed, banished, or even executed. Consequently, Velasco had complete power in New Spain. His decrees were law. But he could not veto or countermand the king’s

34 Schwaller policies. As a result, Velasco had to operate within the structures and strictures of royal policy while attempting to bring about the changes he felt were best for the colony. In arriving in New Spain as viceroy—​having lived all of his adult life in the colony—​through his actions, Velasco demonstrated that he supported the abstract principles of Las Casas. While looking into the viceroy’s heart or fully understanding his thinking was impossible, the reality was that he plotted a middle course between the protection of the natives and the economic development of the colony. The encomiendas were not abolished on his watch, although many disappeared during his viceregency. In one of the supreme ironies of history, Velasco himself was one of the most prominent encomenderos of the colony—​and his family would enjoy those rents for a century and a half. However, it is not clear how he collected tributes during this period, since the New Laws prohibited government officials from holding encomiendas. The fact that his grant was directly given to him by the king in recognition of his services and those of his father might have meant that they legally constituted a different institution. The correspondence between Mendieta and Velasco, and the subsequent actions of the viceroy, clearly demonstrate that an important legacy of Las Casas was central to considerations at the highest levels of power. After the efforts of Las Casas to protect the natives, and the incorporation of many of his ideas into law—​such as in the New Laws—​the principle of protecting the natives of the Americas became a core tenet of government. Clearly these principles were frequently abrogated, but officials at least had to stop and explain why they might act in a manner not directly seen to be in the best interests of the natives. Velasco did act to protect the natives of the colony. He appointed judges to investigate the workhouses and sought to reform them. He moderated the effects of the tribute and labor system, especially among natives sent to the mines and sugar mills. He acted in moderation, seeking to improve conditions where he could without completely overturning what he saw as the essential industries of the colony. In the end, we must admit that he was a politician—​ and a successful one. He moved from one position of authority to another position of authority with the full faith and confidence of the monarch. For the period, that was no mean feat.

­c hapter 2

“Multiplicarse ha la tierra de gente y de fruto”: Gender and Re-​production in Las Casas’s and Guaman Poma’s Biopolitical Projects (1516, 1615) Paola Uparela In 1615, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (c.1534–​1615) denounced the mistreatment of the Indians of Peru at the hands of Spanish authorities and priests. In the extensive letter to King Philip iii, better known as El Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, the Indigenous Peruvian intellectual accused the religious elite of exploiting the labor of Indian women and of abusing them sexually.1 In one of the drawings illustrating the chronicle (Figure 2.1), a Dominican friar pulls the hair of a woman who is holding her baby on her back; the woman cries inconsolably as she is forced to work on the loom. Guaman Poma regrets the lack of alternatives or “remedies” under a colonial government that exploited the labor of Indians thus causing their humiliation, and ultimately killing them after causing much suffering. In 1516, a century earlier, the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–​ 1566), in his Memorial de remedios para las Indias, proposed a series of remedies to preserve the Indians’ life, health, and well-​being, and to protect them from labor exploitation and from death. Las Casas’s proposal never became a state policy and, as the case of Guaman Poma demonstrates, the abuses continued. Although Las Casas devoted part of his work to the defense of the Indians of Peru, he did not visit the Andes. Las Casas and Guaman Poma never met. However, Guaman Poma somehow knew about Las Casas’s 1516 Memorial and proposed an updated version that both appropriates and subverts it. This chapter explores the connections between two colonial projects surrounding the administration of Indian populations separated by a century: Bartolomé de las Casas’s proposal of remedies (1516) based on the study of Carlos Jáuregui and David Solodkow (2018), and the project of “good government” (1615) by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. Jáuregui and Solodkow propose, in an illuminating way, the study of the intersection between colonialism and 1 For an overview on women in colonial Latin America, see Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 9th ed. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 216–​238.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_004

36 Uparela

­f igure 2.1 Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, “Fraile dominico muy colérico y soberbioso,” 645 [659] Note: All references to Guaman Poma’s El Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno have the author’s original and truncated pagination followed by the correction with the missing page numbers in square brackets, according to the 1980 edition by John Murra, Rolena Adorno, and Jorge Urioste. s ource: det kongelige bibliotek

biopolitics. According to their theses, Las Casas’s 1516 Memorial is a biopolitical project that “alleges that the life of the Indigenous population is the responsibility of the sovereign and that the good of the crown passes through that of its subjects.”2 Guaman Poma, in his Corónica, proposed something similar: a form of soft colonialism for the Andean context by means of a detailed project that would begin by preventing the extinction of Indians and the multiplication of mestizos in favor of the production and the prosperity of the kingdom. Despite some important differences between the two authors, for both the bodies of Indigenous women were mainly (re)producers; as well as forming part of the labor force, they were expected to be the producers of Indians that would in turn become workers. Their bodies served as colonial proletariat-​ generators, and ultimately, wealth-​producers for the benefit of the kingdom. Progeny (prole) and laborers (proletariado)—​reproduction and production—​ are key points in both proposals. While in English “prole” is a pejorative word for a working-​class person, in Spanish prole (Lat. proles) retains the meaning 2 Carlos A. Jáuregui and David Solodkow, “Biopolitics and the Farming (of) Life in Bartolomé de las Casas,” in Bartolomé de las Casas O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 127–​ 166 (128).

Multiplicarse ha la tierra de gente y de fruto

37

of progeny as offspring. I use prole in the Latin sense to call attention to projects whose teleologies are the generation of progeny alongside the multiplication of laborers (proletariat). As such, in both projects, the administration of female bodies and reproduction is a res publica. 1

“Humanitarian Repartimiento” (Distribution) /​“Recogimiento” (Seclusion)

Jáuregui and Solodkow’s proposal begins by questioning the history of Michel Foucault’s biopolitical notion for whom this form of “governmentality” was traceable from the eighteenth century. Jáuregui and Solodkow put forth Las Casas as a paradigm of colonial biopolitics, not only of the well-​known Las Casas but also concerning the young Las Casas in his 1516 Memorial de remedios para las Indias: The strikingly modern Lascasian project anticipates the biopolitical reasoning of the nineteenth century. However, for Foucault, classical sovereignty is manifested with the sovereign having the life of his subjects at his disposal, whereas in the Lascasian order, sovereign power is constituted as the sovereignty that fosters life, and governmental reasoning consists of intervening in the “life” of others and not allowing them to die.3 While in 1516 Las Casas was concerned about the deaths of Indigenous people due to the Spanish authorities’ abuses, Guaman Poma, in 1615, reports not only the continuation of mistreatment and deaths but also what the historian David Cook calls the “demographic collapse” of Indian Peru.4 Las Casas and Guaman Poma proposed policies to the king not only of “not allowing them to die,” but further, as I argue, of not allowing the Indians to disappear by multiplying them through the administration of the Indigenous population, their bodies, and their sexual and reproductive life. While Bartolomé de Las Casas uses the genre of “memorial of remedies” to argue before the king, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala—​at eighty years of age and in the Andean mountains—​had no access to the king. Therefore, Guaman

3 Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 132. 4 Noble David Cook, Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520–​1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

38 Uparela Poma recreates a dialogue between the characters “Ayala the Author” and the “King” (Figure 2.2) using—​as Rocío Quispe-​Agnoli points out—​his “writing as remedy.”5 In the imagined conversation, the “king” is very interested in understanding what has caused the decrease in the Indigenous population, and asks the “author” “how will the Indians multiply?”6 Guaman Poma imagines a king who is specifically interested in the demographic crisis of the Indians—​a king of whom Las Casas himself would have dreamed. Las Casas’s project, like that of Guaman Poma, corresponds to a type of sixteenth-​century utopian writing where, according to Santa Arias, history is narrated while questioning colonial power.7 Ultimately, the fictional dialogue with the king recreated by Guaman Poma is one of those “other scenes” of displacement—​of which Homi Bhabha speaks—​wherein the oppressed Indian can subvert the colonial-​imperial order and directly propose to the king a type of soft colonialism—​one that lets them live and work restfully and also allows Indians to have hard-​working and faithful progeny, thus making them worthy of the same rights.8 In his Memorial, Las Casas assigns to the king the “pastoral role […] of rescuing the Indigenous flock” and justifies the intervention of the monarch in the life of the population.9 As Jáuregui and Solodkow clearly explain, the Memorial proposes the implementation of a form of peaceful colonialism based on 1) policies to multiply and to care for the Indians by means of nutrition, rest, health, and sexual reproduction; 2) economic policies for labor extraction from proper conditions in the fields and in the mines, without depending on forced labor; and 3) policies to create and foster good Christians—​what these critics have called “pneumo-​politics.”10 For Las Casas, caring for life is as much about the body as it is about the spirit: “without health, there is no earthly life, and without bodily life, there can be neither work nor spiritual salvation.”11 The remedies proposed by Guaman Poma focus on the same issues that concerned Las Casas and can be grouped into four areas of reform: 1) political reform: Indigenous jurisdiction and government in the name of the king; 2) agrarian 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

All translations into English are by the authors, unless otherwise indicated. Rocío Quispe-​ Agnoli, La fe andina en la escritura: resistencia e identidad en la obra de Guamán Poma de Ayala (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 2006), 237–​260. Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, ed. John Murra, Rolena Adorno, and Jorge Urioste, 3 vols. (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno, 1980), 963 [977]. Santa Arias, Retórica, historia y polémica. Bartolomé de las Casas y la tradición intelectual renacentista (New York: University Press of America, 2001), 64. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004), 153, 143. Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 128. Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 129. Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 132.

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­f igure 2.2 Guaman Poma, 961 [975] s ource: det kongelige bibliotek

reform: housing, land, and food for the Indians; 3) labor reform: increased production without forced labor; and 4) positive segregation: Indians grouped by “recogimientos,” far from the Spaniards. The 1516 Memorial de remedios para las Indias, as Jáuregui and Solodkow remark, proposes the revision of the Laws of Burgos (1512–​1513) in order to transfer the encomienda to the clergy, who were supposed to be experts in evangelization.12 Las Casas’s political reform consisted of transferring the administrative power of the encomienda to the clergy and then appointing stewards and procurators in the republic of Indians.13 Las Casas does not talk of abolishing the repartimiento, but he proposes administrative-​legal reforms leading to a system of “humanitarian repartimiento.”14 This system’s structure would consist of Indigenous agrarian communities with their caciques organized around the Spanish urban centers, all being economically interconnected: “from the Indians who are repartidos [distributed] to the places, towns, or cities of the Christian Spaniards who are near the mines, gathering four or five or six caciques with all their people to be together, that there should be a 12 13 14

Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 136. Bartolomé de las Casas, “Memorial de remedios para las Indias,” in O.E., 5:5–​27 (6, 12). Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 137.

40 Uparela thousand souls and to make a town for them.”15 According to Las Casas, this sort of juntamiento (gathering) of the Indians involved a simultaneous repartimiento (partition) between Indians and Christian Spaniards, which should work as a simulation of freedom. Las Casas maintains that with such a repartimiento it “would seem to them that they have liberty.”16 Guaman Poma does not accept the mere illusion of freedom that the Lascasian repartimiento offered and Vicky proposes changing the system of repartimiento to what he calls “recogimiento” with mining and agricultural jurisdictions populated and exclusively managed by Indians but under the sovereignty of the king.17 Using the same scholastic concept of natural law, Guaman Poma defended the idea that it was the responsibility of each society to govern in its original place: “That you have to consider that everyone is under God and thus the Spaniards belong to Castile, and the Indians to the Indies, and Blacks to Guinea. That each of these are legitimate owners.”18 Thus, the king had to transfer all administrative positions from the Spaniards to the Indians to end corruption and abuse. Here, of course, Guaman Poma does not align with Las Casas. Guaman Poma’s recogimiento brought together scattered Indians and incorporated them into an Indigenous social, political, and economic structure. Nancy van Deusen explains that at the time of Guaman Poma, in Peru, recogimiento was “a theological concept, a virtue, and an institutional practice” associated with the recovery of the honor of abused, divorced, disinherited, poor, marginalized women from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and classes.19 Josefina Muriel de la Torre stated that the recogimiento, as an institution, could be classified in two ways: protection (voluntaries) and correction (disciplinary or penal).20 Guaman Poma uses this notion, associated with exclusive spaces for women, to regroup the Indians under a good government that would give them back their honor. Las Casas defends the organization of the republic of Indians and proposes to “order the Indians to be separated [“sean partidos”] in such a way that there should be a number of them remaining in their village, always those who were

15 16 17 18 19 20

Casas, “Memorial,” 15. Casas, “Memorial,” 15. Carolina Jurado, “Las reducciones toledanas a pueblos de indios: aproximación a un conflicto,” Cahiers des Amériques latines 47.2004 (2017): 123–​137. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 915 [929]; Rolena Adorno, Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), 24–​27. Nancy E. van Deusen, Between the Sacred and the Worldly: The Institutional and Cultural Practice of Recogimiento in Colonial Lima (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2001), xi, 5. Van Deusen, Between, 9.

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needed, to make their own farming.”21 Note, once again, that Lascasian repartimiento implied partir amongst the Indians—​separating them instead of gathering them. As Karen Graubart points out, this “creative coexistence” of Indians and Spaniards in cities, supposedly separated by the two republics “for the sake of the preservation of the Indian populations,” was ultimately a source of the economic and social problem since “the trade and labor that passed between them was of fundamental importance to both.”22 For Guaman Poma, any form of colonial organization dividing the Indigenous population according to the needs of colonial production or extraction centers administered by Spaniards, whether it was the repartimiento, the Republic of Indians, or the reducción, was part of the “bad government” because those forms allowed the Spaniards’ corruption and exploitation of the Indians. In fact, Viceroy Francisco de Toledo’s system of reducciones (1569–​1581) consisted of the “forced resettlement of Indians from scattered hamlets in Spanish-​style towns” and implied another form of “forced local migration.”23 According to Cook, among the reasons that forced Indians to isolate themselves from their towns was their mistreatment in the mita.24 In this sense, emigration, “even if it meant giving up access to one’s traditional croplands, became not only appealing but also a means of survival.”25 Graubart notes that other factors that “led to increased migration” were “the new opportunities offered by urban areas where Spaniards, black, Indian, and mixed-​race residents lived and worked together, sold to and robbed one another, had illicit sexual relations, and coexisted in all the ways proscribed by colonial law, which futilely declared two separate and unequal republics.”26 Indeed, migration left the mines and the crops depopulated and produced a labor crisis, but at the same time it meant the exile of Indians and the appropriation of lands by the settlers. While Las Casas’s project would be achieved through a more apparent than effective type of freedom for the Indians, Guaman Poma’s project of recogimiento grouped a population divided by conquest and colonization 21 22

Casas, “Memorial,” 21. Karen B. Graubart, “Indecent Living: Indigenous Women and the Politics of Representation in Early Colonial Peru,” Colonial Latin American Review 9.2 (2000): 213–​235 (225). 23 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 250; Francisco de Toledo, Ordenanzas de don Francisco de Toledo, virrey del Peru, 1569–​1581, ed. José Durand (Madrid: Juan Pueyo, 1929). 24 The mita work was “coerced and vastly undercompensated, and it severely disrupted Native Andean substance patterns.” Kris Lane, Potosi: The Silver City That Changed the World (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), 72. 25 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 210. 26 Graubart, “Indecent,” 225; Laura Lewis, “The ‘Weakness’ of Women and the Feminization of the Indian in Colonial Mexico,” Colonial Latin American Review 5.1 (1996): 73–​94 (78).

42 Uparela and gave autonomy to the Indians over their jurisdictions. In turn, this system would keep the Indians separate from the Spaniards’ vices and bad habits; it would recover the labor force represented in the “absent” Indians; and it would drive the Indians away from the Spaniards’ houses or towns, effectively ending the births of mestizos. In other words, Guaman Poma’s recogimiento implied a sort of moral, fiscal, and social regeneration of the colony: moral, because it would remove the negative vices and ensure “good Christians”; fiscal, because the fugitive, exiled, homeless, orphan, and outsider Indians would be reintegrated as a labor force and would pay taxes to the king; and demographic, because women, without the option of sexually interacting with either European or African men, would only procreate with Indians, as we will see in the next section.27 2

Mestizaje (Miscegenation) /​Multiplication of Indians

Las Casas and Guaman Poma are interested in the bodies of Indigenous women in terms of production (due to their strength for work) and reproduction (for the capacity to generate offspring), which, in biopolitical terms, is also a matter of production: generating prole and proletariat (progeny and laborers) to generate wealth. Las Casas insists on the organization of villages and of all family nuclei according to Christian principles: “That those men who are twenty or twenty-​five years old and older get married and have their wives, and women their husbands, and that they do not allow them to cohabitate, but live marital lives, being first instructed to procreate children and multiply.”28 Note that Las Casas not only talks about bearing children but also about multiplying the population. Curiously, Guaman Poma uses this term to refer to his demographic policies: “the Indians absent from this kingdom will gather, live restfully and be Christians and multiply according to Christianity and service of God and Your Majesty.”29 Here, we can appreciate that, after the reunification in the Indian town, what followed was the reproduction and multiplication of the Christian, hard-​working, loyal progeny. The notion of multiplication of the population, like the Christian notion of the multiplication of loaves according to the Gospel, has a certain miraculous connotation. The multiplication of the

27 28 29

Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 964 [982]–​980 [998]. Casas, “Memorial,” 18. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 969 [987].

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population was only possible within a long-​term biopolitical project focused on organizing Indigenous peoples, caring for women and children, and regulating their work. In 1516, Las Casas warned about the disappearance of the Indians, but in 1615 Guaman Poma witnessed the real de-​Indianization of Peru. Las Casas regrets that “most of the Indians are dead and there is no vestige of them or of part of them, nor would it be possible to have them anymore.”30 A century later, Guaman Poma cautioned that “where there were a thousand souls, there is no longer a hundred.”31 Guaman Poma was not wrong; prominent demographic anthropologists have set the numbers for Peru’s catastrophic depopulation. According to Henry Dobyns and Paul Doughty, the population of Peru went from approximately 16 million before the conquest to 8.3 million by 1548, and around 2.7 million in 1570.32 Nathan Wachtel states that by 1590, only 1.3 million Indians remained.33 We may argue about the methods of calculating the population in the sixteenth century, but not about the real and devastating decline of the Indigenous population in the Andes. Historians agree that the main reasons for such a catastrophe were the cyclical epidemics (especially on the coast) and the overexploitation of work (in the mountains). According to Cook, by 1620, “the population of the southern highlands comprised approximately 50 percent of all the Indian inhabitants of Peru. There were almost 600,000 Indians living in the southern highlands in 1570; in 1620 there were 350,000, of a total estimated 670,000 Indians in all of Peru.”34 Although Las Casas and Guaman Poma both talk about the necessity of multiplying the population, there is a radical difference in the conception of the ideal population in both biopolitical utopias. While Las Casas advocates for a mestizo society as a result of procreation between the Indians and the descendants of “labradores” (farmers) sent from Spain, Guaman Poma is mestizo-​ phobic.35 For Las Casas, mestizaje would provide civilization, harmony, and, of course, more people and greater production:

30 31 32

Casas, “Memorial,” 14. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 965 [983]. Peter F. Klarén, “Historical Setting,” in Peru: A Country Study, ed. Rex A. Hudson (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1992), 16–​17. 33 Nathan Wachtel, Los vencidos: los indios del Perú frente a la conquista española (1530–​1570) (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1976), 153. 34 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 246. 35 Paola Uparela, “Mirada, poder y genitalidad: Cuerpos coloniales y la emergencia visual del género” (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 2019), 113–​126.

44 Uparela [Indians and Spanish farmers] will mingle with each other, marrying one’s sons with the daughters of the others, etc. And so, the people and the produce of the land will multiply [“multiplicarse ha la tierra de gente y de fruto”], because these people will sow all the forms of groves and legumes […] and Your Highness will be served of everything and his incomes will grow and be increased.36 As we see, the harvest was not only that of the land worked, but that of the population; as the mestizos were increasing in number, there would be more “fruto” [produce] in the king’s coffers. On the other coast, and a century later, Guaman Poma considered the mestizos as agents of colonial oppression and injustice. He writes: “Your Majesty has no use for mestizos, [who are good] only to [bring about] troubles, fights, deceits, and thefts.”37 The pregnancy of the Indigenous women and the birth of mestizos were, for Guaman Poma, colonizing strategies: the mestizos were children of the “legitimate owners” of the land but also of the despoilers. Guaman Poma includes in his chronicle a “Sermón del padre cura” wherein the cleric indoctrinates Indigenous women in matters of reproduction: “If a yana [sexually] forces you, you give birth to a bear. If a mulatto [sexually] forces you, you would give birth to a monkey. If a Spaniard [sexually] forces you, you give birth to a very beautiful baby.”38 The priest tries to convince women to fornicate with Spaniards to reproduce a “pretty” progeny, instead of giving birth to wild or monstrous creatures. For Guaman Poma, the new mestizo population was multiplying itself by the dozen; this was the reason for the extinction of the Indians. To provide an example of this new population, Guaman Poma literally introduces “half a dozen” of “mesticillos and mesticillas,” children of a priest, loaded in sacks, who are taken to the city to beg (Figure 2.3). Guaman Poma’s project contradicts Las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1552) and his proposal of taking the right to the encomienda from encomenderos (due to their committing heinous crimes and their ignorance of Christian doctrine) and transferring this right to the priests. In 1516, while Las Casas trusted the priests, he warned about the importance of always having two priests in the same village, so that each could serve as the confessor of the other.39 Guaman Poma proposes that the king not 36 37 38 39

Casas, “Memorial,” 7. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 978 [996]. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 610 [624]. Casas, “Memorial,” 9.

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­f igure 2.3  Guaman Poma, 606 [620] s ource: det kongelige bibliotek

45

­f igure 2.4  Guaman Poma, 694 [708] s ource: det kongelige bibliotek

remunerate priests in any way and instead subject them to a quasi-​permanent fast and penance “without collecting tribute or owning or meddling in justice, but all prayer and humility and alms without treasure.”40 In his Brevísima, Las Casas uses images of “ferocious beasts,” “demons,” “very cruel tigers and lions,” and “rabid wolves” to refer to the conquistadors and encomenderos who committed “carnicería pública de carne humana” (“public human slaughter”) against the Indians (referred to as “ovejas mansas”).41 In a similar way, in 1516, Las Casas recognized the urgent need to put an end to some of the Caribbean repartimientos for their being a “carnicería de Indios” (“Indian slaughterhouse”): He refers to Asunción, La Española, and San Juan.42 Guaman Poma 40 41 42

Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 962e [981]. Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias de Bartolomé de las Casas, ed. Vanina Teglia and Guillermo Vitali (Buenos Aires: Editorial Corregidor, 2017), 63, 143, 150, 171. Casas, “Memorial,” 10–​11.

46 Uparela retakes these Lascasian tropes and offers an illustration that completes the bestiary by including the priests. Unlike Las Casas, Guaman Poma saw in the “religious men,” dangerous animals “feared by the poor Indians of this kingdom.”43 In Figure 2.4, the mythological serpent with claws and wings represents the corregidor, the lion represents the encomendero, and the fox represents the “father of the doctrine,” among others. Guaman Poma reviews the Lascasian insistence that the Indians “procreate children and multiply,” and, reformulating the Memorial of 1516, he recommends that they reproduce, but only amongst themselves.44 Guaman Poma is concerned about the growing mixed-​blood population. As Karen Graubart explains, mestizaje first worked as “a boon to the Spaniards who made alliances with wealthy Inca women (and to the state, which also received access to this wealth).” However, later, this was perceived “as a drain on production and a symptom of cultural decay. The children of these alliances were legally freed from tribute and attached themselves to Spanish and Indian communities where they were seen as a social problem.”45 For Guaman Poma, mestizaje was the product of the Indigenous women’s concubinage with Spaniards (and also the result of rape)—​a situation that worsened with the forced displacement from the countryside to urban centers (as we saw earlier). Las Casas did not realize that by promoting mestizaje between Spanish farmers and Indians, the Indigenous population would decrease. Cook remarks that in 1620, the estimated Indigenous population of the Central Highlands was approximately 125,000 people (20% of the population of Peru).46 Guaman Poma was not the only one concerned with the diminishing number of Indians in his time. At some point, with fewer Indians in the Central Sierra and more mestizos that were not obligated to work in the mines, Spanish officials complained about the “growing labor shortage around the indispensable mercury mine of Huamanga” in Guaman Poma’s home region.47 Unlike the recogimiento of the time that was exclusively for women, despite their race or social class, for Guaman Poma the recogimiento would be the space exclusively for Indians despite their gender. Sharply, Guaman Poma realizes the historical consequences of the mestizaje promotion, which are clearly in contradiction with the Lascasian proposal; accordingly, Guaman Poma vehemently insists on the radical segregation of the recogimiento in order to stop 43 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 694 [708]. 44 Casas, “Memorial,” 18. 45 Graubart, “Indecent,” 226. 46 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 209. 47 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 209.

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the mestizaje and to multiply the population of Indians. For him, interracial sex is not only abusive and immoral, but a product of tyranny: the Spaniards corrupt, humiliate, and cause the deaths of Indians, multiply the mestizo population, and destroy the res publica. The reason for the kingdom’s ruin was the annihilation of the Indians. The remedy would then be a positive segregation policy to avoid both dishonor and mestizaje. For Guaman Poma, if the king does not stop mestizaje, “there is no remedy in this kingdom.”48 3 “[A]‌las mujeres se le pague su trabajo, queriendo ellas aceptar de hacello” [“Women Should Be Paid for Their Work, Wanting to Accept from Doing It”]49 The well-​being policies were essential for multiplying the population and for guaranteeing the Indians housing, shelter, food, fair wages, decent working conditions, and periodic prolonged rest. In this, Guaman Poma seems to parrot Las Casas almost verbatim. Both propose the concept of “serving restfully” (“holgar,” “servir descansadamente”), which would be achieved by a rotation between work in the fields and in the mines, combined with frequent breaks. Las Casas proposes eight-​month breaks, and Guaman Poma proposes breaks ranging from two months to one year, depending on the type of work.50 Additionally, Indians were to be provided proper food (for Las Casas: a “modern diet, rich in calories and proteins, low in sodium”) and proper medical care.51 As we will see in this section, these two biopolitical projects also proposed a focus on a sector of the population not directly related to mine extraction: women, especially pregnant women, and children. Las Casas and Guaman Poma agreed that physical rest was essential for the Indians because they were often overworked and left to die. Indeed, the Indigenous population in the mountains decreased from 1,045,000 people to 585,000 between 1570 and 1620, a period wherein the population of the coast went from 250,000 to 87,000 inhabitants.52 In addition to flooding, landslides, and accidents within the mines, other factors that contributed to the high death rate were “pneumonia and other bronchial and respiratory tract infections” as well as poisoning, since “Indians inhaled the dust [released into 48 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 964 [982]–​980 [998]. 49 Casas, “Memorial,” 22. 50 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 962 [976]; Casas, “Memorial,” 20. 51 Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 156–​158. 52 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 318.

48 Uparela the air of the mine] which contained four dangerous substances: mercury vapors, arsenic, arsenic anhydride, and cinnabar.”53 Juan Polo de Ondegardo y Zárate (1500–​1575), the corregidor of Charcas (1549–​1550), and Cuzco (1558–​ 1560), who had to deliver reports and give advice to Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás, O.P. (1499–​1570, bishop of Charcas and Las Casas’s friend), tried to regulate work in the mines through a series of ordinances (1562).54 Ondegardo discussed the physical exploitation to which the Indians were subjected and dictated the new measures, which involved the weight of loads carried, fair boundaries around time and distance, as well as wages and fines.55 For example, the Indians were forced to carry an overweight load of lead along a five-​ mile journey spanning two days, while only receiving a daily wage. To correct these abuses, Ondegardo ordered that: 1) the loads should be measured so that each weighed up to two arrobas (50 pounds in total); 2) the cargo should be handed to the Indians outside of the mine so that they did not have to enter a dangerous space; and 3) the Indians should only carry one load per day. If the encomendero did not comply with the ordinance, he would have to pay a fine of four pesos for each Indian he exploited.56 Instead of permitting further exploitation or focusing on measures and fines, for Las Casas, as for Guaman Poma, the king had to rotate the workers between the mines and the fields to ensure their rest and health. Aside from the demographic problem presented by the mestizaje and the deaths of Indians due to epidemics and forced labor, Guaman Poma mentions other causes of the depopulation, such as executions and suicides. Forced labor, displacement, and abuse “increased dependence on alcohol and coca [which] contributed to suicides among the natives.”57 According to Guaman Poma: “from so much injury and damage [the Indians] hang themselves” and “want to die once rather than see themselves in so much damage.”58 Under the motto “the Indians have to rest, the mines have to work,” Guaman Poma proposes that the Indians work in semi-​annual rotations.59 Similarly, Las Casas proposes that

53 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 205–​206. 54 Carlos García Miranda, “Los informes de Juan Polo de Ondegardo: producción y recepción crítica,” Letras 86.123 (2015): 125–​39 (126–​127). 55 Juan Polo de Ondegardo, “Ordenanzas de las minas de Guamanga,” in Colección de libros y documentos referentes a la historia del Perú (Lima: Imprenta Sanmarti, 1916), 139–​160. 56 Ondegardo, “Ordenanzas,” 146–​147. 57 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 253. 58 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 963 [977]. 59 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 970 [988], 964 [982].

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[h]‌alf of them split to collect gold for two months, and after […] they will be able to enjoy two more, and the other half of the Indians who are left will go to work and serve at that time, so that half of them are in the mines continually taking gold and the other half idling, and this up to eight months.60 In addition, Las Casas argues that no Indians should sleep on a “hard floor,” and that they “should not go out to serve anywhere without a hammock wherein they can sleep.”61 Both intellectuals propose that the king allow the Indians to enjoy months for leisure and rest, which was necessary to ensure their efficient performance, and thus increase production, reproduction, and wealth. One of Las Casas’s most important projects in his 1516 Memorial is that of the “Hospital of the King,” extensively studied by Jáuregui and Solodkow.62 Las Casas’s hospital contradicts some notions of the era and becomes a paradigm of the biopolitical institution; it goes from being the place for (good) dying (associated with charity and mercy) to becoming the place for curing the ailing: “because sick Indians should be remedied, helped and cured of their diseases, and they should not perish due to lack of care and of medicine, as they have perished up to now.”63 A century later, Guaman Poma insists that the king consider the need for hospitals wherein “any Indian or black or Spaniard who knew how to heal the persons who had inhaled mercury vapors [“al azogado”] heal them, and [the king] pay them and so [the Indians] will multiply.”64 Guaman Poma, who sometimes associates healing with mercy, does not formulate a “pneumo-​political” project beyond the goal that all Indians would

60 61 62

63 64

Casas, “Memorial,” 22. Casas, “Memorial,” 19. Las Casas’s hospital “responded to medical needs such as ventilation, illumination, and medical care with special consideration devoted to modern hygienic technologies such as the use of individual mattresses and linens. Moreover, Las Casas’s ideas were in tune with growing regulation and control by the crown of the medical professions, the operation of pharmacies, and the safety of medicines. Furthermore, in the ‘Hospital of the king’ the doctor is a public official whose function is the care of the population’s health. […] Las Casas envisioned a health factory with a number of healthcare providers (doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, nurses and assistants) and adequate facilities (a well-​equipped pharmacy, kitchen, beds, utensils, clothes, etc.), all for the salvific intervention into the biological life of the Indians.” Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 151. Las Casas’s hospital “was to be an institution to promote health and a governmental tool, unlike the medieval charitable hospital and the hospital for pilgrims.” Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 151; Casas, “Memorial,” 19. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 964 [982].

50 Uparela be good Christians.65 Unlike Las Casas, who articulates “farming lives” with saving souls, when Guaman Poma speaks of the need for hospitals, he refers to the urgency of attending to wounded and intoxicated workers, allowing them to recover, rest, and later return to their endeavors: “the sick are in the hospitals taking care, and when being healthy, they return to their villages.”66 In several images that we have seen in this chapter, Guaman Poma represents Indigenous women working with the loom and, in most cases, being mistreated by priests while they are laboring. As Graubart has remarked, the subjugation of women to the work of weaving and spinning is a colonial practice occasioned by “a radical shift in that division of labor.”67 Weaving was not exclusive to the female gender before the conquest, and “was not only a domestic but also a political task.”68 According to Graubart: Whatever the specific evolution of these processes, by the mid-​sixteenth century Spanish policy makers were discovering indigenous women’s potential for commodity production. Dr. Gregorio González de Cuenca […] called specifically for widows and single women to make clothing, to be marketed by their caciques, and to be paid.69 Regardless of the gender of the weaver in the pre-​Hispanic period, the reality is that the colonial mita and the waged labor tied the male workforce to the mines, especially for long periods of time; subsequently, “female labor was perceived as an underexploited commodity.”70 Colonial administrators, former caciques, and priests, among others, intended to put an end to “female laziness” and “immorality” by “busying Indian women with weaving for market.”71 Many colonial officers took advantage of the possibility of a larger-​scale textile production. According to Guaman Poma, priests had, in their own homes, many Indigenous women of all ages whom they exploited by making them weave, cook, sell chicha, etc. Guaman Poma reported that:

65 66 67

See Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 129. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 976 [994]. Karen B. Graubart, “Weaving and the Construction of a Gender Division of Labor in Early Colonial Peru,” American Indian Quarterly 24.4 (2000): 537–​661 (537). 68 Graubart, “Weaving,” 540–​541. 69 Karen Graubart, With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550–​1700 (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press: 2007), 37; see 31–​38. 70 Graubart, “Indecent,” 546. 71 Graubart, With Our Labor, 38. See Graubart, “Indecent,” 546; Lewis, “The ‘Weakness’,” 74–​77.

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Since the mentioned priests of the mentioned doctrines spin and weave, they urge widows and single women […] to make them work without paying, and in [doing] this the indigenous women become great whores and there is no remedy, and they no longer want to marry because they are after the priest or the Spaniard; and thus, Indians do not multiply in this kingdom, but mestizos and mestizas, and there is no remedy.72 In addition to making Indigenous women live in their houses to work, priests lived with many women in concubinage; some were raped, some were left pregnant, and were sexually exploited in exchange for favors or money; others were used as procuresses (or celestinas) to secure younger women.73 Las Casas and Guaman Poma are concerned about the living conditions of women and children and their involvement in the economic system. As Ondegardo would later do in Huamanga, Las Casas proposes ways to regulate women’s labor in terms of salary, quantity of goods produced, and time spent working. He even goes so far as to propose the use of “hourglasses in order neither to rest nor work excessively, since there are no other clocks there.”74 If for Las Casas the farmers alternated labor with the Indians to ensure everyone’s rest, for Guaman Poma the farmers would be the Indians themselves, regardless of gender. Las Casas proposes a mestizo society—​a product of the Spanish farmers’ descendants and Indians procreating. However, as seen, Guaman Poma is opposed to interracial sex, so there was no place in his system for Spanish farmers. In his drawings (Figures 5 and 6), we see Indigenous women actively working the land with their partners marked with the label “labrador” (farmer). Las Casas mentions some ways in which Indigenous women could work, starting with spinning cotton, knitting shirts and weaving hammocks, making pots and kitchen utensils, and working as cooks for the community and in the hospital.75 In the case of spinners and weavers, Las Casas remarks that women had to do their work in “their space and they should not be rushed in their jobs, as it was happening, that a large number of women have died, making them spin or weave all day without getting up from their place, and not feeding them.”76 Las Casas is emphatic that women’s labor should always be remunerated and chosen voluntarily; women had to be paid for each pound or arroba 72 73 74 75 76

Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 565 [579]. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 566 [580]. Casas, “Memorial,” 21. Casas, “Memorial,” 19–​24. Casas, “Memorial,” 22.

52 Uparela

­f igures 2.5 and 2.6  Guaman Poma, 1132 [1142] and 1147 [1157] source: det kongelige bibliotek

of cotton that they spun and for each shirt or hammock that they wove. And above all, women should feel that they worked in “freedom and they have to know that they will not serve or work if they do not want to.”77 With regard to the older children, Las Casas considers the possibility of them working, but again, insists that they would be remunerated: “and the girls who wished to learn to work, or to learn other good customs, should do it and the community would pay for it.”78 The multiplication of the Indian population and the increased birth rate would not be worth the effort if the necessary care for mothers and newborns could not be guaranteed. As Cook states, the ratio of children, boys and girls, used to be higher, almost double, in the highlands than in the coastal regions (Lima in 1614: 37.4; Colca’s region in 1591: 71.2), due especially to the epidemics that hit the coast.79 However, children in the mountains were subjected to 77 Casas, “Memorial,” 22. 78 Casas, “Memorial,” 18. 79 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 252–​253.

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heavy work, and in general children, especially the very young, suffered a much higher death rate than their parents.80 Subsequently, even if more Indians were becoming pregnant, they were not multiplying: “The shrunken generation, as it passed through its years of fertility, left fewer children of its own, and that following generation also produced a small number of children”; “entire cohorts of infants and young children were wiped out.”81 Las Casas proposes that each child, from his or her birth until ten years of age, should receive a subsidy for his or her own care and growth: “the community had to provide a gold tomín to each Indian who was born, until such creatures reached the age of ten, because up to that moment the Indians had to dedicate to its care.”82 He then proposes that from the age of ten to fifteen, they would receive a tomín and a half from the community and would be cared for by their butlers and solicitors. Children and adults older or younger than their working age limit should be exempt from hard work: “that no Indian that is under twenty-​five years of age and above forty-​five were sent to take gold, because work, as it is said, is very strong and it is only suitable for men who are strong and good and tough individuals.”83 For Guaman Poma, babies had to be breastfed and had only to learn to crawl and to play; five-​year-​old children should do nothing more than play with the little ones, helping and caring for them: “to play with other children and to watch that they do not fall or burn, that to keep them well.”84 Mothers who had just given birth had to dedicate themselves exclusively to the baby: “It is very fair that the mother remains reserved for childcare and if the baby is an orphan, much more.”85 Guaman Poma goes further and establishes that “if two of them were born from one mother, their father and mother will have to devote their care to them for two years according to the law of God”—​what today we would call maternity and paternity leave or a Family and Medical Leave Act.86 While Las Casas hoped that “the clergymen […] would make the Indians work moderately […] in farming and not in mines” before their baptisms, Guaman Poma deeply distrusted the clergy.87 Guaman Poma’s complaints about the mistreatment of women and children can be illustrated in five

80 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 252–​253. 81 Cook, Demographic Collapse, 252. 82 Casas, “Memorial,” 18. 83 Casas, “Memorial,” 23. 84 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 211 [213]. 85 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 211 [213]. 86 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 211 [213]. 87 Casas, “Memorial,” 13.

54 Uparela drawings: the lead-​up to a sexual rape committed by a corregidor and a priest disguised as an Indian (Figure 2.7); a confessor hitting a pregnant woman and refusing to take her confession (8); nursing mothers’ labor exploitation (1); Indigenous children being violently punished while learning the Christian doctrine (9); and labor exploitation of an elderly woman (10).88 In 1615, Guaman Poma denounced the Spanish authorities and the clergy because they raped the Indian women, impregnated them, and exploited their labor. Las Casas does not anticipate that later someone would accuse the clergymen of such abuses. For Guaman Poma, it was clear that with the recogimiento, the deaths of Indians due to labor exploitation, humiliation, and suicide would end and that more Christian Indians, faithful to the king, would be born. In several of his “good government” drawings, Guaman Poma represents Indigenous women working quietly with their looms, and even an Indigenous woman with her baby being compensated by the Indigenous council (Figures 11 and 12). Everyone would work and rest, and as a result there would be more production and wealth; and if the Indians are rich—​Guaman Poma says—​the rich will be richer.89 4

“Humanitarian Shepherding” /​“Good Government”90

After establishing a dialogue between the two colonial biopolitical projects, both emphasizing production and reproduction (Bartolomé de Las Casas’s “humanitarian shepherding” and Guaman Poma’s “good government”), each separated by a century (1516, 1615), it is imperative to ask how Guaman Poma would have had access to Las Casas’s work. In several of her works, Rolena Adorno has explored the connections between Las Casas and Guaman Poma by focusing her attention on Las Casas’s Tratado de las doce dudas (1564). Adorno identifies marked similarities—​referred to as “resonances”—​between several of the arguments of Las Casas’s Tratado and the “Conzederaciones” of

88

89 90

For studies on sexuality in Guaman Poma’s images, see Paola Uparela, “Guaman Poma y la güergüenza colonial,” Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades 44.2 (2018): 17–​36; Uparela, “Mirada, poder y genitalidad,” 70–​136; Mercedes López-​Baralt, “La estridencia silente: Oralidad, escritura e iconografía en Nueva corónica de Guaman Poma,” La torre 3.12 (1989): 609–​649. About Figure 8, see Regina Harrison, Sin and Confession in Colonial Peru: Spanish-​Quechua Penitential Texts, 1560–​1650 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), 115–​150. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 963 [977]. Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 128.

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­f igures 2.7–10  Guaman Poma, 503 [507]; 576 [590]; 585 [599]; and 647 [661] source: det kongelige bibliotek

55

56 Uparela

 f­ igures 2.11 and 2.12  Guaman Poma, 215 [217] and 654 [668] source: det kongelige bibliotek

Guaman Poma’s Corónica.91 According to Adorno, the Tratado has three ideas that Guaman Poma makes use of: First, […] all peoples—​Christian and non-​Christian—​had the right to sovereignty over their own lands. Second, the only right guaranteed to Catholic kings by the Pope had been to evangelize, not to conquer, dominate, or govern indigenous peoples. Third, the conquests had been illegal.92

91

92

Rolena Adorno, “La resonancia de las obras de Las Casas en la de Guarman Poma,” in Las Casas entre dos mundos (Lima: Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas, 1993), 210–​223; Adorno, Writing, 23–​27; Adorno, “Las otras fuentes de Guaman Poma: sus lecturas castellanas,” Historica 2.2 (1978): 137–​158; and Adorno, “El arte de la persuasión: El padre Las Casas y fray Luis de Granada en la obra de Waman Puma,” Escritura 4.8 (1979): 167–​189. Adorno, “La resonancia,” 213.

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Guaman Poma paraphrases Las Casas’s Tratado de las doce dudas and seems to replicate the Dominican’s notions of possession and authority of the Indians over their lands and of keeping the king as the supreme sovereign. The title of sovereignty in Guaman Poma is, according to Adorno, “symbolic, not jurisdictional.”93 At first glance, for Guaman Poma, the monarch had no jurisdiction, or rather, an administrative territory over which to exercise his sovereignty.94 However, more than symbolic sovereignty, as Adorno proposes, I maintain that Guaman Poma—​as Jáuregui and Solodkow argue about Las Casas—​ grants the king other functions that imply a new, or at least different, way of understanding sovereignty. A sovereign is defined here by his faithful and loyal people rather than by his lands, that is, in terms of population. Furthermore, Guaman Poma’s and Las Casas’s sovereign had to fulfill the “pastoral role” with the Indians and to provide resources for good living, “not allowing them to die”; a responsibility to regulate the life previously abandoned to forced labor, the lack of shelter, food, and medical care, in addition to disgrace and humiliation.95 Guaman Poma proposes Indigenous jurisdictions under the sovereignty of the king—​a political sovereignty that he imagines as allied to his “good government” project. At a certain point, Guaman Poma calls his text a “new chronicle and well-​being” and makes interchangeable the notion of “good government” with that of “good living,” and sovereignty with the protection and fostering of life.96 Beyond the importance of the resonances of Las Casas’s Tratado de las doce dudas, Guaman Poma did not quote Las Casas in his Corónica. So, the original concern is still valid; we do not know exactly which of Las Casas’s texts Guaman Poma may have read or how he would have had access to them. According to Adorno, Guaman Poma was aware of the literary culture and “the first books published in South America at Antonio Ricardo’s printing shop in Lima between 1585 and 1600.”97 Initially, we could affirm that Guaman Poma knew of the ideas of Las Casas through the library of some clergymen; most likely from sermons and conversations with them. Guaman Poma learned to speak Spanish with the cleric Cristóbal de Albornoz and learned to read and write with the help of Martín de Ayala, a mestizo priest, whom he refers to as his half-​brother. In addition, Guaman Poma acquired artistic 93 94 95 96 97

Adorno, “La resonancia,” 215. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 949 [963]. Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 138. Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 11 [11]. Rolena Adorno, “Bartolomé de las Casas y Domingo de Santo Tomás en la obra de Felipe Waman Puma,” Revista Iberoamericana 68.200 (2002): 769–​774 (769).

58 Uparela skills with Martín de Murúa, the priest and author of the Loyola Manuscript (depicted in Figure 2.10).98 Among the clergymen and authorities of Peru who may have known of Las Casas’s ideas, and whom Guaman Poma may have met, are Martín de Murúa, Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás, and Polo de Ondegardo. As Las Casas’s close friend, and as José Varallanos notes, Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás would have been the one who informed Las Casas about the violent conquest of Peru for the narrative of the Brevísima.99 Las Casas and Fray Domingo sent a Memorial (c.1560) to King Philip ii wherein they proposed nine remedies, including allowing the Indians some autonomy over their jurisdictions; moving them—​their families and servants—​from the towns of the Spaniards; and reducing their taxes which, in addition to being very high, were poorly administered by the encomenderos.100 According to the clerics, if the king did not implement these remedies, “he will lose and be left without a large number of faithful vassals, […] will lose all the tributes, or the majority, at least, those that the encomenderos will take out from the Indians, if the Indians survive.”101 Las Casas and Fray Domingo warned the king that if he did not remedy the damage in the Indies, he would lose his loyal vassals and never recover their economic production. As we see, there is a direct relationship between population and wealth, and between colonial prole(tariado) and production. The same advice already appeared in 1516 in Las Casas’s Memorial: “and not dying, Y.H. will have the incomes secured and the lands populated and abundant with vassals; and multiplying people, as in that land wonderfully multiplies, increasing everyday their help and profit for great utility and support of the kingdom.”102 Curiously—​less so, for us—​this idea reappears even more strongly, in a sort of “rhetoric of threat,” a century later in Guaman Poma’s Corónica: “Twenty years from now there will be no Indian in this kingdom to serve the Royal Crown and defense of our Holy Catholic faith. Because without the Indians, Your Majesty is worth nothing because, remember, Castile 98

Rolena Adorno, Guaman Poma and His Illustrated Chronicle from Colonial Peru: From a Century of Scholarship to a New Era of Reading (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen & the Royal Library, 2001), 55–​56, 64. 99 Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás was a visitor (1548), bishop of Charcas (1561), and member of Cabildo de Lima (1550) and Segundo Concilio Limense (1567), and he wrote the first grammar and lexicon of the Quechua (published in 1560). José Varallanos, Guamán Poma de Ayala: cronista precursor y libertario (Lima: G. Herrera, 1979), 112, 121n10. 100 Bartolomé de las Casas and Domingo de Santo Tomás, “Memorial del obispo fray Bartolomé de las Casas y fray Domingo de Santo Tomás,” in O.E., 5:231–​236. 1 01 Casas and Domingo de Santo Tomás, “Memorial,” 232. 102 Casas, “Memorial,” 7.

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is Castile because of the Indians.”103 Guaman Poma could have been familiar with the Tratado de las doce dudas, with Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás’ work with Las Casas, or with Ondegardo’s ordinances in Huamanga. However, in Las Casas and Fray Domingo’s Memorial there are no detailed policies to regulate and foster the well-​being and multiplication of the population. In contrast, Ondegardo, who was likely identified by Guaman Poma for his work in Huamanga, proposed a series of ordinances that seem to be more oriented toward punishing the breaches with fines than stimulating population growth.104 Las Casas and Guaman Poma insist on the need to not only prevent the Indians’ deaths, but to promote their multiplication. Guaman Poma proposes a complex and detailed project that is only comparable to the Memorial that Las Casas had made a century before. This work aims to trace the connections between two biopolitical projects separated by time and distance, as well as between Lascasian ideas surrounding Indians, intellectuals, and priests alongside corregidores, and “­idolatry” extirpators who worked with Guaman Poma.105 In spite of the fact that Guaman Poma knew Las Casas’s proposals, what is important is that he does not limit himself to merely copying or quoting them. The link between Las Casas and Guaman Poma can hardly be traced historically or geographically; it is, above all, a rhizomatic connection caused by intellectual and political contagion, and at the same time, subversion.106 This connection between Las Casas in 1516 and Guaman Poma in 1615 can only be made now, in light of the revealing and pertinent study by Carlos Jáuregui and David Solodkow about colonial biopolitics. This study addresses two political projects that did not become state policies, nor were they simply previous and imperfect versions 103 Guamán Poma, Nueva corónica, 964 [982]. About Guaman Poma’s “rhetoric of threat,” see Quispe-​Agnoli, La fe andina, 63–​75. 104 While anatomopolitics “tries to rule a multiplicity of men to the extent that their multiplicity can and must be dissolved into individual bodies that can be kept under surveillance, trained, used, and, if need be, punished,” biopolitics “is addressed to a […] global mass that is affected by overall processes characteristic of birth, death, production, illness, and so on.” Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended (New York: Picador, 2003), 242–​243. 105 Guaman Poma worked as an interpreter to Amador de Valdepeña, visitor of Toledo, and to Cristóbal de Albornoz, a clergyman known for his idolatry extirpation campaigns. Adorno, Writing, liii, 55–​56, 62. 106 “Every rhizome contains lines of segmentarity according to which it is stratified, territorialized, organized, attributed, etc., as well as lines of deterritorialization down which it constantly feels. There is a rupture in the rhizome whenever segmentary lines explode into a line of flight, but the line of flight is part of the rhizome.” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Thousand Plateaus (London: Continuum, 2004), 7, 10.

60 Uparela or precursors of biopolitics. Rather, Las Casas’s “shepherding of Indians” and Guaman Poma’s “good government” are biopolitical projects proposed to the sovereign for the administration of life in order to both produce fruto (harvest, wealth) as well as to reproduce and multiply gente (progeny/​laborers) for the kingdom. Therefore, the king ought to continue, in a broad and lasting sense, fostering the Indians’ lives by multiplying them. Acknowledgments I thank the following people and institutions for their generous contributions to the research and writing of this chapter: David Thomas Orique, O.P, Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, Karen Graubart, Carlos A. Jáuregui, David Solodkow, Vanina Teglia, Rocío Quispe-​Agnoli, Emily Hind, Joshua Lund, Juan Vitulli, María Victoria Muñoz, Julia Danner, Georgina Wilson, Alejandro Barón, and Tania Fleming; The Rothman Summer Fellowship -​UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, the Center for Latin American Studies, the Latin American and Caribbean Collection, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Florida.

­c hapter 3

(Mis)Appropriating the Authoritative Bishop of Chiapa: Calancha and His Translators as Readers of Las Casas Dwight E. R. TenHuisen Antonio de la Calancha’s lengthy Corónica moralizada del orden de San Agustín en el Peru, first published in 1638 in Barcelona by the French printer Pere Lacavalleria, is one of the best known, if not the best known, of the many conventual chronicles produced by the four principal religious orders in Lima between 1620 and 1680.1 Indeed, as Franklin Pease and Gálvez-​Peña have demonstrated, this period constituted a heyday for conventual chronicles in Lima, and the corpus stands out for both its coherence and its originality.2 A second incomplete edition of La crónica moralizada was published in Lima in 1653, and a second volume was finished by his disciple Bernardo Torres and published in 1657 under the title Crónica de la Provincia Peruana del Orden de los Ermitaños de S. Agustín nuestro padre.3 La crónica moralizada has recently gained more recognition, in large part due to the attention placed in book four on the narration of the martyrdom of Diego Ortiz in 1571—​clearly the climax of the text. Several recent studies have focused specifically on that episode in both La crónica moralizada and its historical context. For example, Ralph S. Bauer and his collaborators published English translations of important archival documents related to the death of Diego Ortiz in Voices

1 Antonio de la Calancha, Corónica moralizada del Orden de San Augustin en el Peru, con sucesos egenplares en esta monarquia, tomo i (Barcelona: Pedro Lacavalleria, 1638). 2 Franklin Pease G. Y., “Las cronicas y los Andes,” Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana 14.28 (1988): 117–​158, https://​doi.org/​10.2307/​4530​394; Carlos Gálvez-​Peña, “Historias religiosas como narrativas imperiales en el Perú del siglo xvii,” in Historia de las literaturas en el Perú: literatura y cultura en el Virreinato del Perú: apropiación y diferencia, ed. Raquel Chang-​ Rodríguez and Marcel Velázquez Castro, vol. 2 (Lima: Fondo Editorial, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2017), 303–​338. 3 Bernardo de Torres, Cronica de la Provincia Pervana del Orden de los Ermitanos de S. Agvstin nvestro padre: dividida en ocho libros por este orden. los qvatro primeros redvcidos a svma wn vn wpitome, o compendio del tomo primero, añadido al segundo, para complemento de la historia. Los otros qvatro vltimos contenidos en el tomo segundo, que es el principal desta obra, y el primero en orden (Lima: En la imprenta de Ivlian Santos de Saldaña, 1657).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_005

62 TenHuisen from Vilcabamba: Accounts chronicling the fall of the Inca Empire (1570),4 and an English translation by Andrew Redden of book four has recently been published as well.5 The Augustinian Antonio de Calancha was clearly a reader of Bartolomé de las Casas’s works. In fact, Calancha mentions the Dominican specifically by name on multiple occasions in his Crónica. In books one and two, Calancha references Las Casas’s Destruición de las Indias by name in several instances, and in book two he also alludes to “una apología” by Las Casas. Given these direct references and Calancha’s focus both on the conversion of the Indigenous and his criticism of the abuses of the Iberian conquerors, it is not surprising that a considerable percentage of the scholars who have written about Calancha’s Crónica in the last twenty years have made references to Las Casas, and have generally compared the Dominican and the Augustinian friars and their projects. However, what has not been examined as fully is how the Augustinian Calancha appropriates Las Casas’s authoritative voice. Calancha, in fact, not only manipulates Las Casas’s texts to exalt the Augustinian evangelization efforts in Peru over and against that of the Dominicans, but he also appropriates Las Casas’s words to endorse a theory of apostolic evangelization that runs contrary to the thesis that Las Casas espouses in many of his texts. Although there are some general trends in these comparisons, there is not always agreement on how the two friars compare or whether they can be compared at all. For example, in her study on “The Christian appropriation of Andean myths,” Veronica Salles Reese notes that Calancha’s “Christianizing model” was “not the model filled with the violence of the extirpation campaigns” but rather a model that “resembles the position held by Bartolomé de las Casas.”6 However, she later undermines her argument that the Augustinian criollos—​ Ramos Gavilán and Calancha—​ were different from peninsular authors, such as Acosta, Arriaga and Albornoz, whose “opinion totally opposed Las Casas’s view that the peoples of the New World had some inkling of Christian truths.” Salles Reese is a prime example of the critics who highlight the similarities between Las Casas and Calancha.7 Santa Arias, in her study on Calancha, “Escritura disidente,” also notes similarities between the Dominican

4 Brian S. Bauer et al., eds., Muerte, entierros y milagros de fray Diego Ortiz: Política y religión en Vilcabamba, s. xvi (Cusco: Ceques Editores, 2014). 5 Andrew Redden, The Collapse of Time, The Martyrdom of Diego Ortiz (1571) by Antonio de La Calancha [1638] (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2016). 6 Verónica Salles-​Reese, From Viracocha to the Virgin of Copacabana: Representation of the Sacred at Lake Titicaca (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), 189. 7 Salles-​Reese, From Viracocha to the Virgin, 188.

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and the Augustinian—​both of whom denounce the abuses and the injustices of the colonial situation. She said: “While the friars constructed, ‘the others destroyed; that is, we find the same millennial scheme of destruction and restoration that Bartolomé de las Casas popularized in his treatises and memorials to denounce the conquest and the abuses of the encomenderos and ­officials of the Spanish Crown.”8 The opposite side of the argument is equally prevalent, however. Sabine MacCormack, who published on Calancha multiple times, states in her early study that “Un agustino del siglo xviii,” namely Calancha, “did not worry about the Aristotelian question that had caught the attention of Las Casas, de Victoria, and their contemporaries.”9 Cañizares-​Esguerra also argues in his article “New World, New Stars” that although Las Casas had implied an “argument for the mental and physical superiority of Indians over Europeans” based on the salubrious and temperate environment, Calancha “could not stomach those who insisted that the Indians were in fact more intelligent than their European masters,”10 and therefore he invented a theory of separate bodies for Indians, whites, and blacks.11 As such, for both MacCormack and Cañizares-​ Esguerra, Calancha is representative of creole authors who “embraced racialist views to explain religious deviance among Andeans.”12 Calancha’s descriptions of the Indigenous government and social structures are positive in general, and he condemns both the greed and incompetence of the encomenderos and conquistadores. His treatment of Andean religion, however, certainly cannot be considered Lascasian, nor can his political stances. As several recent scholars have demonstrated, his text is thoroughly criollo and has a clear political agenda. His insistence on the demon possessions and witchcraft, as well as the need to extirpate the idolatries, falls squarely on the

8

9 10 11 12

“Mientras los religiosos construían, ‘los otros’ destruían; o sea, encontramos el mismo esquema milenarista de destrucción y restauración que popularizó Bartolomé de las Casas en sus tratados y memoriales para denunciar la conquista y los abusos de los encomenderos y oficiales de la Corona española.” Santa Arias, “Escritura disidente: Agencia criolla, vidas y milagros en la Corónica moralizada de la Orden de San Agustín en el Perú de Antonio de la Calancha,” Colonial Latin American Review 10.2 (2001): 189–​208 (192). “… no se preocupaba por la cuestión aristotélica que había llamado la atención de Las Casas, de Victoria y de sus contemporáneos.” Sabine MacCormack, “Antonio de la Calancha: Un agustino del siglo xvii en el Nuevo Mundo,” Bulletin Hispanique 84.1–​2 (1982): 60–​94 (67). Jorge Cañizares Esguerra, “New World, New Stars: Patriotic Astrology and the Invention of Indian and Creole Bodies in Colonial Spanish America, 1600–​1650,” The American Historical Review 104.1 (1999): 33–​68 (59). Cañizares Esguerra, “New World, New Stars,” 64. Cañizares Esguerra, “New World, New Stars,” 67.

64 TenHuisen side of spiritual conquest and, as MacCormack summarizes, Calancha could not “consider the possibility … that the Incans might have become Christians without being conquered.”13 Or, as she states elsewhere, “Calancha noted and regretted this subjection, but he did not think of it as a condition that could be changed.”14 For him, “Conversion simply could not be the gentle growing into Christianity that Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás had envisioned. Rather it had to be a break with the past, a radical cognitive disjuncture.”15 In his book The First America, Brading not only notes that Calancha invoked Las Casas to condemn the conquerors,16 but he also states that Calancha cited Las Casas’s Brevísima relación as the authoritative text on the Spanish conquest.17 Indeed, almost all the references in the Crónica moralizada to Las Casas are from the Brevísima relación, which Calancha generally mentions by name as Destruición de las Indias. This almost exclusive reliance on one Lascasian text suggests that while Calancha was a reader of Las Casas, he may not have widely or extensively read Las Casas; more likely, his use of the Dominican was strategically limited in Calancha’s Augustinian project. In fact, it should be noted that, despite Brading’s observation of the central importance of the Brevísima relación in La crónica moralizada, Calancha references many authors far more frequently than he does Las Casas. As MacCormack has pointed out, one of Calancha’s principal interlocutors is Inca Garcilaso,18 and Brading concurs, claiming that Calancha was “driven to undermine the authority of Garcilaso.”19 There are also multiple references to other Augustinian authors, for example, to Ramos Gavilán and Román y Zamora, as well as to the expected authors, such as Acosta, Arriaga, Betanzos, Cieza de León, Oré, etc. Interestingly, Calancha makes only one innocuous mention of Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás—​the Dominican friar who penned the first Quechua grammar in 1560 and who maintained close communications with Las Casas. In fact, with the notable exception of Gregorio García, Calancha references few Dominicans besides Las Casas by name. Brading is correct in acknowledging the central authority that Calancha cedes to Las Casas in La crónica moralizada, 13

Sabine MacCormack, Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 378. 14 Sabine MacCormack, “Ubi Ecclesia? Perceptions of Medieval Europe in Spanish America,” Speculum 69.1 (1994): 74–​100 (81). 15 MacCormack, “Ubi Ecclesia?” 95. 16 D. A. Brading, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492–​1867 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 333. 17 Brading, The First America, 326. 18 MacCormack, Religion in the Andes, 375–​382. 19 Brading, The First America, 333.

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but Calancha does so for strategic reasons that go far beyond criticizing the encomenderos. The direct references to Las Casas are fairly concentrated in Calancha’s lengthy text and are near the beginning. There are four references to Las Casas in the first half of book one and two references in the early chapters of book two. In book one, Calancha lays out the wonders of Peru and its original inhabitants, and he refutes that they were descendants of Ham or Jews. He praises the richness of the land, the healthy climate, and the abundant flora, and, in one of his more famous passages (detailed by Cañizares-​Esguerra), he argues that the inhabitants of Peru are smarter than their counterparts elsewhere. In chapters ten to twelve, Calancha recounts how the Augustinians received royal permission to undertake the trip to Peru, and in the subsequent chapters he extols the government of the Incas. This is followed by five chapters on the conquest and civil wars in Peru, in which Calancha includes the bulk of his references to Las Casas. The first reference to Las Casas in La crónica moralizada mentions Destruición de las Indias by name, as do the second, fourth, and sixth references. In the first two instances, Calancha relies on Las Casas and the Brevísima relación not only to denounce the cruelty of the conquistadores (as Brading suggests), but also to establish the earlier Franciscan presence in Peru—​an important piece of Calancha’s argument later. In book one, chapter twelve, Calancha writes: although in the year of 1543 Fray Marcos de Niza passed from Mexico to Peru with two or three companions, as the bishop of Chiapa fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Dominican, documents in the book entitled Destruction of the Indies, which he printed in Seville in 1552 at the order of the emperor. When speaking of the cruelties that conquerors did in the beginning, he puts in writing the account of Friar Marcos, which begins thus: “I, friar Marcos de Niza of the Order of Saint Francis, Commissioner for the provinces of Peru of the said Order, which was among the first friars who entered with the first Christians in said provinces, say, etc.”20 20

“… aunque el año de mil i quinientos i quarenta i tres pasó de Mégico al Perú el Padre fray Marcos de Nisa con dos o tres conpañeros, como consta del libro que el Obispo de Chiapa fray Bartolomé de las Casas Dominico inprimió por mandado del Enperador en Sevilla el año de mil i quinientos i cincuenta i dos, intitulado destruición de las Indias, donde ablando de las crueldades que en los principios obraron los conquistadores, pone a la letra la relación del Padre fray Marcos, que comiença así: Yo fray Marcos de Nisa de la Orden de san Francisco, Comisario sobre los frayles de la mesma Orden en las Provincias del Perú, que fue de los primeros Religiosos, que con los primeros Cristianos entraron en las dichas Provincias, digo, etc.” Antonio de la Calancha, Corónica moralizada, ed. Ignacio

66 TenHuisen The second reference to Las Casas continues Calancha’s theme of Spanish abuses, which appears five chapters later, in book one, chapter seventeen. Here Calancha repeats that the Brevísima relación was published as a memorial with permission from the emperor: Such great cruelties were inflicted on the Indians to which I do not refer in order not to shatter hearts. May the one who wants to be astonished (if it is not that he does not want to be grieved) see them in the book of the Bishop of Chiapa, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, entitled Destruction of the Indies …, a book that was printed as a memorial with the license of the Emperor.21 The third reference to Las Casas in book one, chapter eighteen, of Calancha’s Crónica does not reference any specific text by Las Casas, but it does continue to emphasize his authoritative voice, and even suggests that Las Casas directs the emperor’s actions: “Blasco Núñez Vela came to execute the New Laws, which the Emperor ordered at the insistence of the Bishop of Chiapa, friar Bartolomé de las Casas.”22 The fourth reference to the Brevísima relación makes clear the strategic importance of Las Casas to Calancha’s Augustinian project. In book one, chapter twenty, Calancha describes how little success the friars (of any of the religious orders) had in catechizing the Indigenous amidst the civil wars, and he turns to other authors to substantiate his claim. Calancha mentions Giralomo Benzoni specifically by name (but not his text), noting that the Milanese author of La Historia del Mondo Nuovo23 and critic of Spanish activity in the New World

21

22 23

Prado Pastor, 6 vols., Crónicas del Perú 4–​9 (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1974), 183. “Iziéronse tan grandes crueldades en los Indios, que por no quebrantar coraçones no refiero. Véalas el que quisiere admirarse (si no es que no quiera afligirse) en el libro del Obispo de Chiapa fray Bartolomé de las Casas, intitulado Destruición de las Indias …, libro que se inprimió con licencia del Enperador para memorial.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 253. “Vino Blazco Núñez Vela a egecutar las nuevas ordenanças, que a instancia del Obispo de Chiapa fray Bartolomé de las Casas ordenó el Enperador.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 270. Giralomo Benzoni, La historia del Mondo Nuouo /​di m. Girolamo Benzoni Milanese.; laqual tratta dell’isole, & mari nuouamente ritrouati, & delle nuoue città da lui proprio vedute, per acqua & per terra in quattordeci anni (Venice: Francesco Rampazetto, 1565).

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took the opportunity … to say that it should be abominated that in all these times, neither priests nor friars went to preach, nor teach the Catholic faith to the Indians, for which they made fun of our faith and said publicly, that they did not want to be Christians; scared by the evils of those who called themselves Christians, and with the vices and cruelties of those who called themselves Catholics.24 As Calancha details in the following pages, the encomenderos were the worst witnesses, for the few that lasted more than six months would pay “some old handicapped secular mestizo or Spaniard, who would tell doctrine to the Indians.”25 That teaching, according to Calancha, consisted of gathering together those whom they wanted to reach and telling them four sentences in Spanish, which would be the same as saying them in Greek.26 Ceding that Benzoni is no reliable authority and that he says this “in order to hurl his venom,”27 Calancha turns to the same trusted authority with the emperor’s approval: Among many things, the good Prelate and charitable Bishop of Chiapa, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, Dominican, puts in his book printed as a memorial to give to the Emperor, which he entitled, Destruction of the Indies, where referring to it, which presents information on everything he informs him in his Council of the Indies, being the memorial an epilogue of what the information contains.28

24

25 26 27 28

“… tomó ocasión … para decir que se debe abominar, que en todos estos tienpos, ni Clérigos, ni Frayles diesen paso para predicar, ni enseñar la Fe Católica a los Indios, por lo qual azían burla de nuestra Fe i decían públicamente, que no querían ser Cristianos; espantados con las maldades de los que se llamavan Cristianos, i con los vicios i crueldades de los que se nonbravan Católicos.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 296. “algún viejo inpedido secular mestiço o Español, que les digese a los Indios la dotrina.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 296–​297. “Juntavan a los que se les querían llegar i decíanles las quatro oraciones en Castellano, que fuera los mismo que decírselas en Griego.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 297. “por arrojar su veneno,” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 296. “… entre muchos pone en su libro inpreso en Sevilla año de cincuenta i dos el buen Prelado i caritativo Obispo de Chiapa Don fray Bartolomé de las Casas Dominico, libro que imprimió como memorial para dar al Enperador, que intituló, Destruición de las Indias, donde refiriéndole, que presenta informaciones de todo lo que le informa en su Consejo de las Indias, siendo el memorial epílogo de lo que contienen las informaciones.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 297–​298.

68 TenHuisen Calancha then quotes directly and at length from the final pages of the Brevísima relación, and the text emphasizes those words by placing them in italics: Las Casas: from the very outset, the Spanish have taken no more trouble to preach the Christian faith to these peoples than if they had been dealing with dogs or other animals. Indeed, they have done their level best to prevent missionaries from preaching, presumably because they felt that the spread of the Gospel would in some way stand between them and the gold and wealth they craved. Today, the peoples of the New World are as ignorant of God as they were a hundred years ago: they have no idea of whether He is made of wood, or of air, or of earth. The only place where the missionaries have enjoyed a modicum of success is New Spain, but we are talking here of a very small corner of the New World and, for the most part, the local people have died and still die in the blackest ignorance of the faith and without the benefit of the Sacraments.29 Calancha: Asta oy, desde sus principios, no se a tenido más cuydado por los Españoles de procurar que les fuese predicada la Fe de Jesu Cristo a aquellas gentes, que si fueran perros, o otras bestias; antes an proibido de principal intento a los Religiosos, con muchas afliciones i persecuciones que les an causado, que no les predicasen, porque les parecía que era impedimento para adquirir el oro i riquezas que les prometían sus codicias, i oy en todas las Indias no ay más conocimiento de Dios, si es de palo, o de cielo, o de tierra, que oy a cien años entre aquellas gentes, sino es en la nueva España, donde an andado Religiosos, que es un rinconcillo muy chico de las Indias, e así an perecido i perecen todos, sin Fe, e sin Sacramentos.30 The centrality of this pericope from the Brevísma relación takes on particular weight and special prominence, not only because it is italicized but also because Calancha later refers to it in his Crónica. Here, Calancha offers Las Casas as the ultimate authoritative proof that preaching of the faith and conversion of the Indians did not happen in Peru before 1552: With this only was it proven, that until the year fifty-​two, that this memorial and the information were presented to the Emperor and to Philip 29

Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Nigel Griffin (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1992), 126. 30 Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 298.

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ii, by this holy Bishop, it was not possible, nor was anything attempted regarding the preaching of the faith and the conversion of the Indians, from the year of fifty-​four, three years after our friars entered, the Emperor and King Felipe ii dispatched very favorable and gratifying charters to our religion, praising the care that our friars had in establishing the faith in the Indians and putting in order the preaching of the Gospel.31 In effect, Calancha quotes directly and at length from the Brevísma relación and the “Holy bishop” to prove that, despite the earlier presence of the Dominicans and Franciscans in Peru, there had been no successful conversions before the arrival of the Augustinians. Calancha even makes this clearer in the title of this chapter, “… and it proves that no priests nor friars tried to convert the Indians before the friars of Saint Augustine.”32 In short, in 1552 the Indians still have no knowledge of God, despite the earlier arrival of the Franciscans and Dominicans, and the conquerors are to be blamed. Calancha rests on Las Casas’s authority in both cases, never noting the irony of the fact that the Brevísima relación had been penned earlier or that he is drawing attention to the failure of the Dominican Order by quoting from the best-​known Dominican. The final two references to Las Casas in La crónica moralizada occur early in the second book. The fifth reference develops a second piece of Calancha’s argument, and it is the only instance that does not hinge on Destruición de las Indias. While he does “invoke” Las Casas in this instance, however, it is not to condemn the conquerors. The sixth, and final, reference to Las Casas brings the first argument to its conclusion, and both references in book two expose the full irony of the Augustinian’s appropriation of the Dominican “Holy Bishop” and his writings. Calancha begins chapter two of the second book stating that he “is forced by the laws of truth to prove his case with testimonies, witnesses, verification of ancient traditions, stones, signs, traces, antiquities, writings, or memorials,” 31

32

“Con esto sólo quedava probado, que asta el año de cincuenta i dos, que este memorial i las informaciones se presentaron al Enperador i a Felipe ii, por este Obispo santo, no se pudo, ni se trató cosa alguna de la predicación de la Fe i conversión de los Indios, desde el año de cincuenta i quartro, para Adelante tres años después que entraron nuestros Religiosos, despacharon el Enperador i el Rey Felipe ii, cédulas a nuestra Religión muy favorables i agradecidas, alabando el cuydado que nuestros Religiosos tenían en asentar la Fe en los Indios, i poner en orden la predicación del Evangelio.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 298. “… i prueva que ningunos Eclesiásticos, ni Religiosos trataron de la conversión de los Indios, antes que los frayles de San Augustín.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 292.

70 TenHuisen and he notes that he seeks authority so that his case will be given “credit.”33 Again, Las Casas is invoked as the voice of authority “to prove with testimonies … writings or memorials,” but in this case the source is not the Brevísima relación but rather “una apologia” by the Dominican bishop of Chiapa. The first four chapters of book two are dedicated to an exploration of the preaching of the Gospel and the portents of “the Apostle and (or) disciple” who first preached the “faith of Christ” in Peru. In the first chapter, Calancha traces writings on Christian evangelization from the time of the apostles through the early Church Fathers, and in the second chapter he turns to the many sixteenth-​century assertions that the gospel had been preached in Peru before the arrival of the Spaniards. Calancha quotes two important cronistas de Indias (chroniclers of the Indies), Peter Martyr d’Anghiera (De Orbe Novo decades octo, 1511–​1525) and Francisco López de Gómara (Historia general de las Indias, 1552), and he recounts the well-​known example of the cross on Cozumel. He recounts the Franciscan Juan de Torquemada’s affirmations in his istoria Indiana (sic) of an Indigenous belief in a white, bearded prophet, and the Dominican Gregorio García’s references in “su nuevo Mundo” to a cross that the indios venerated. Calancha summarizes this lengthy exposition on the pre-​Columbian apostle-​disciple-​prophet using the words of Las Casas to deliver his argument, stating that García, alleges to the Bishop of Chiapa, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, who in an apology affirms that information has been made among the Indians, that from ancient times they taught them the mystery of the Trinity, the birth and virginity of our Lady, the Passion of Christ, and that this had been taught to them by a person who wore a tunic down to his feet, and on them sandals, with a long beard passing these things on from one to another; and he refers to other cases with some footsteps on a rock from which he preached to them, not as proof as what was said, may it be seen in his book near the end of the fifth book.34 33

34

“… me obligan las leyes de la verdad a provar con testimonios, asentar con testigos, conprovando con antiguas tradiciones, piedras, señales, rastros, antiguedades, escritos o memoriales. La autoridad del intento para que se le dé crédito al asunto i, se lea con todo seguro la certeza deste argumento, que si algo singular con indicios no califica probança, muchas singularidades conprueva una verdad.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 714 (emphasis added). “… alega al Opisbo de Chiapa Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, que en una apología afirma averse echo información entre los Indios, de que de tiempos antiquísimos les enseñaran el misterio de la Trinidad, el parto i virginidad de nuestra Señora, la Pasión de Cristo, i que esto les avía enseñado una gente que traía la túnica asta los pies, i en ellos sandalias, con

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Calancha immediately follows this reference to Las Casas’s apologia with his summation of the previous two chapters: “Saint Thomas Apostle was the one who went to preach in these Indies of Peru.”35 He then dedicates the next several chapters, an additional fifty pages in the modern edition, to detailing Saint Thomas the Apostle’s presence in the Americas. Thus, in another irony of Calancha’s text, Las Casas becomes the authority affirming the presence of Apostle Thomas in the Americas. Calancha’s summary of Las Casas’s thoughts on Saint Thomas comes from the chapter entitled “Regarding another report that the Bishop of Chiapa writes related to the mystery of the Holy Trinity and that which an Indian from Cholula told” in García’s Predicación del Santo Evangelio en el Nuevo Mundo, viviendo los apóstoles.36 Calancha’s highlighting of this particular chapter from Predicación is telling, however, given that it is only one of twenty-​one chapters in García’s book dedicated to Saint Thomas’s presence in the New World—​the entirety of books five and six explore it. García begins that chapter stating that “The Bishop of Chiapa, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, from my order, great Defender of the Indians, and a person of much standing, writes in an Apology of his, which is handwritten and kept in the Convent of our Father Saint Dominic of Mexico,” and he closes three pages later, stating, “The Bishop of Chiapa writes this.”37 The description of Las Casas as “persona de mucho crédito” here refers back to Calancha’s opening of this chapter, “La autoridad del intento para que se le dé crédito al asunto.” That Calancha rests his case for the presence of Saint Thomas in the New World on the authority of Las Casas is also deeply ironic given Las Casas’s treatment of the subject. As García’s claims demonstrate, Las Casas was certainly aware of the theory of the Apostle having evangelized the Americas. In chapter sixty-​four of the Historia de las Indias, for example, he repeats the information

35 36

37

barba larga pasando esto de unos en otros; i otros casos refiere con unas pisadas en una peña del que les predicó, no de tanta prueba como lo dicho, véase en él hasta el fin del libro quinto.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 717–​718. “Santo Tomás Apóstol fue el que pasó a predicar a estas Indias del Perú.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 718. “De otra relacion que escriue el Opispo de Chiapa tocãte el mysterio de la Santissima Trinidad y de lo que contò un Indio de Cholula.” Gregorio García, Predicación del euangelio en el Nueuo Mundo, viuie[n]‌do los apóstoles (Baeça: por Pedro de la Cuesta, 1625), fols. 197v–​200r. “El Obispo de Chiapa, Don fray Bartolome de las Casas, de mi Orden, gran Defensor de los Indios, y persona de mucho credito, en una Apologia suya, que escrita de mano se guarda en el Conuento de nuestro Padre santo Domingo de Mexico cuenta …”; “Esto escriue el Obispo de Chiapa.” García, Predicación del euangelio, fol. 197v (emphasis added).

72 TenHuisen from Manuel de Nóbrega’s letter that describes the footsteps that the apostle left in Brazil, but Las Casas closes the chapter without comment, beyond stating simply, “All of these are words from said letter by the Portuguese preachers.”38 Las Casas refers to the same theme in ­chapter 123 of his Apologética Historia sumaria, “regarding the religious beliefs that the Indians of Yucatán professed.” He states that all that he relates about their religious beliefs is based on a letter from Francisco Hernández, and Las Casas summarizes this chapter with these words: If these things are true, it seems that in that land our faith had been notified; but as nowhere in the Indies have we found such news, since in the land of Brazil, which the Portuguese possess, it is imagined that a trace of Saint Thomas Apostle is found … Finally, secrets are these that only God knows.39 Las Casas clearly is aware of the claims surrounding Saint Thomas’s evangelization of the Americas. Although Peter Gose does not treat Calancha in his chapter “Viracochas: Ancestors, Deities, and Apostles” in his book Invaders as Ancestors, he does note that “speculation about an apostolic presence in the New World began as early as 1493”40 and that several colonial texts from Peru present “Viracocha as apostle,” e.g., the Augustinian account from Huamachuco (1561),41 Acosta (1590), Pachacuti Yamque (1613), and Guaman Poma (1615). More importantly, Gose convincingly points out that “[d]‌espite his apparent open-​mindedness about a pre-​Columbian evangelization, then, Las Casas did not and could not advocate this view.”42 Gose helpfully summarizes why Las Casas does not, in fact, claim that Saint Thomas evangelized the Americas. According to him, Las Casas asserted:

38

“Todas éstas son palabras de la dicha carta de los predicadores portugueses.” Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, O.E., 1:465. 39 “Si estas cosas son verdad, parece haber sido en aquella tierra nuestra santa fe notificada; pero como en ninguna parte de las Indias habemos tal nueva hallado, puesto que en la tierra del Brasil, que poseen los portugueses, se imagina hallarse rastro de Sancto Tomás Apóstol …. Finalmente, secretos son estos que solo Dios los sabe.” Bartolomé de las Casas, La apologética historia., O.E., 4:427. 40 Peter Gose, Invaders as Ancestors: On the Intercultural Making and Unmaking of Spanish Colonialism in the Andes (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 72. 41 Juan de san Pedro, La persecución del demonio: crónica de los primeros agustinos en el norte del Perú (1560): manuscrito del Archivo de Indias, ed. Eric E. Deeds and Luis Millones (Málaga: Algazara, 2007). 42 Gose, Invaders as Ancestors, 73.

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indigenous religions partially anticipated the true faith … He explained this convergence by the independent application of human rationality and … not the direct historical contact of a pre-​Colombian evangelization … He would have had to renounce his defence of the Indians if they were previously evangelized but rejected the true faith.43 Calancha, therefore, relies on Las Casas to espouse a theory that directly undermines Las Casas’s own argument. Other scholars who have examined Calancha’s Crónica have suggested explanations as to why he is “one of the firmest adherents of the theory of the evangelization of the Indians by an apostle.”44 Not only was it a facet of the battles between the religious orders, but it was also an important piece of his project to raise the importance of the creoles in the church. Lafaye states, for example, that the Franciscans—​the first to enter the mission field—​saw themselves as the true apostles of the Indians “who had been deprived of grace and kept in darkness for long centuries in order to be at last enlightened on a day chosen by the Lord.”45 Yet Calancha’s “solution of a prior evangelization of the Indians by one of the apostles … inevitably tended to moderate the millenarian fever of the Franciscans” and better squared with his interpretation that the consummation, which happened with the destruction of Jerusalem, meant that the evangelization of the apostles had to have been universal.46 In addition to the positioning of the religious orders against each other, Lafaye argues that Calancha’s insistence on an earlier evangelization by Saint Thomas stems from his “patriotic creole passion” and his project to place creoles on equal or superior footing with his European counterparts:47 For Calancha Saint Thomas of America has become a war-​horse in the creole crusade in favor of their dignity and equality with the Europeans … The creoles preferred Saint Thomas, who redeemed their America patria from the stigma of having lain in darkness for sixteen centuries, isolated from revelation.48

43 Gose, Invaders as Ancestors, 72–​73. 44 Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1531–​1813 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 46. 45 Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl, 47. 46 Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl, 46. 47 Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl, 184. 48 Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl, 183.

74 TenHuisen Calancha’s recourse to Las Casas on the matter of Saint Thomas is therefore doubly ironic, for not only was Las Casas unwilling to espouse a belief in an apostolic evangelization of the Indigenous in the New World, he was also not interested in promoting the superiority of the creoles. Calancha’s summary of the importance of Saint Thomas ultimately returns his reader back to the assertion, already introduced via Las Casas, that no evangelizing happened between the Apostle and the arrival of the Augustinians, making them his heirs and successors: Since these apostolic men passed by the law of Christ was not known, nor did any other traces of his Gospel remain, nor anyone who taught others to expand his memory; it was completely extinguished for more than fifteen hundred years, so much so that if the traces he said that were of the ineffable mystery of the Trinity, sacraments and ceremonies, although adulterated accommodating them to idolatry.49 Calancha is not particularly interested in explaining the Andean religious practices here. He is, however, creating a direct tie between Saint Thomas and the Augustinian order in Peru and claiming that in the intervening years, despite the earlier presence of both Franciscans and Dominicans, no evangelization occurred. And again, Las Casas establishes that link. In chapter seven, Calancha refers once more to the Brevísima relación, summarizing the lengthy pericope that he reproduced in book one and repeated the same language, logic, and conclusion: From the year of 1551, this conversion was somewhat more comfortable, because until then, as we already said in chapter seventeen of the first book, no one spoke about the law of God with these natives, as alleged by the zealous Bishop friar Bartolomé de las Casas to the Emperor, when presenting with his memorial the legal information in the year of fifty-​ one, and he had them printed in fifty-​two, where he tells him what we already said, that until that year it was not attempted by the Spanish that the Faith be preached to the Indians more than if they were dogs or beasts, and that before they hindered it; because for their greed the 49

“Desde que pasaron estos Apostólicos varones no se conoció la ley de Cristo, ni quedaron otros rastros de su Evangelio, ni alguno que enseñase a otros que dilatasen su memoria; estinquiose del todo por más de mil i quinientos años, tanto que si los rastros que dejamos dicho eran del misterio inefable de la Trinidad, sacramentos i ceremonias, aunque adulterados acomodándolos a idolatría.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 771.

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Spanish found it an impediment, persecuted the friars and disavowed their people whose state was falling down; they did not hear them due to a lack of respect; it was a crime then to indoctrinate among Christians, as it could be today among Japanese. And he tells the Emperor, that up to that year of twenty-​five, there was no knowledge of God—​if he were made of wood, or of sky—​than a hundred years earlier, and that everyone perished without Faith and without Sacraments. And the charter of the Emperor that we have just referred to says it all and in short, that for not having indoctrinated these Indians he had information that they are in their infidelity without any light of Faith. Since the year of 1552, then there were more ministers and in convents more friars.50 A few pages later Calancha concludes with what is perhaps the prime assertion of the entire Crónica: “The main fruit that has been done in this Peru in the conversion of the Indians has been and is by the friars of Saint Dominic, Saint Francis and Saint Augustine; with which it is proved, that if others were first to come, none was ahead of Augustinians in making the most of it.”51 Gálvez-​ Peña claims that Calancha’s principal effort is to place the Augustinian order at the political axis of the sovereign possession of the kingdom of Peru for the crown through an evangelization program that subjected the Native population. Gálvez-​Peña argues that by revising the chronology of the conquest and stating that the king’s dominion began at the end of the 1550s 50

51

“Desde el año de 1551, se trató con alguna más comodidad desta conversion, porque asta entonces, como ya dejamos dicho en el capítulo 17, del libro primero, no se ablava de la ley de Dios con estos naturales, como alegó el zeloso Obispo fray Bartolomé de las Casa al Enperador, presentando con su memorial las informaciones jurídicas el año de cinquenta i uno, i las mandó imprimir el de cinquenta i dos, donde le dice lo que ya digimos, que asta aquel año no se tratava por los Españoles de que se predicase la Fe a los Indios más que si fueran perros o bestias, i que antes lo estorvavan, porque para sus codicias lo allavan por inpedimento, persiguiendo las Españoles a los Religiosos i desautorizando sus personas se abatía el estado, i no les oían por falta de respeto, era delito entonces el dotrinar entre Cristianos, como lo pudiera ser oy entre Japones. I le dice al Enperador, que asta aquel año de veynticinco no avía más de conocimiento de Dios si era de palo, o de cielo, que cien años antes, i que todos perecían sin Fe i sin Sacramentos. I la cédula del Enperador que acabamos de referir lo dice todo i en breve, que por no aver dotrinado a estos Indios tenia información que se estavan en su infidelidad sin ninguna luz de Fe. Desde el año pues de 1552, avía más ministros, i en los Conventos más Religiosos …” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 792. “… el principal fruto que se a echo i aze en este Perú en la conversión de los Indios, a sido i es por los Religiosos de santo Domingo, san Francisco i san Augustín; con que se prueba, que si otros fueron primeros en venir, ninguno fue primero que los Augustinos en aprovechar.” Calancha, Corónica moralizada, 794 (emphasis added).

76 TenHuisen when the Augustinians entered Vilcabamba, the climax of the entire history is found in the Augustinian sacrifice in the form of the martyrdom of Diego Ortiz.52 However, for Calancha to make this bold claim, he needs to rely on an authority to give it “credit,” and that person “with much credit,” the witness and author of “testimonios,” “escritos” and “memoriales,” is repeatedly the Holy Bishop of Chiapa, to whom the emperor listens. That the Augustinian friar appropriates Las Casas’s words and text in order to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the Dominicans and superiority of the Augustinians in evangelizing colonial Peru is highly ironic in and of itself. That he appropriates Las Casas to promote a theory of apostolic evangelization of the Americas that directly subverts Las Casas’s own claims regarding the nature of the inhabitants of the Americas makes that bold claim all the more audacious.

The Translations

Calancha’s chronicle was important to his order, and not just in the New World; its publication history is indicative of a much wider Augustinian web. The fact that the engravings from the first edition were made in the shops of the Quelling brothers and printed by Pieter de Jode in Antwerp bear witness to that, as do the subsequent translations. A Latin version was published in Antwerp in 1651, and that was followed by a French version in Toulouse in 1653 and a Dutch version of book four, the martyrdom of Diego Ortiz, in Antwerp in 1671. These translations also demonstrate that Calancha’s readers comprehended the fundamental role that Las Casas plays in Calancha’s argument, and they present a greater understanding of the reception of Las Casas outside of the Spanish-​speaking world. In addition, there is a notable difference between the Latin and French editions with regard to Las Casas. The Augustinian presence in Antwerp was both long and deep. However, the Augustinians who translated and published the Latin and Dutch versions of the Crónica moralizada in the seventeenth century were not the Augustinians from the sixteenth century. Moreover, already by 1519 it was reported that all of the Augustinians in Antwerp had become followers of Martin Luther and that, in 1523, two monks were burned at the stake in Brussels. This effectively ended the Augustinian presence in Antwerp until they re-​established themselves after 1585 and began to build their new monastery in 1623. The decision to publish a Latin edition of Calancha’s history of the Augustinian order in Peru is thus part of the order re-​establishing itself in Antwerp. 52

Gálvez-​Peña, “Historias religiosas,” 316–​317.

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The Latin version, Historiae Peruanae Ordinis Eremitarum S. P. Augustini libri octodecim, was penned by Joachim Bruel.53 Although it includes translations of extensive sections of the Crónica, there were clear attempts to reorganize, abbreviate, and supplement Calancha’s text. Instead of 4 books with 162 chapters, the Latin edition is divided into 18 books with 137 chapters. The section dedicated to Vilcabamba and the martyrdom of Diego Ortiz, for example, is found in book thirteen (near the middle) of the Latin version rather than in book four (near the end) of the original; while the general historic order of the original text is apparent, Bruel has taken pains to consolidate and reorganize. A prime example is the treatment of Saint Thomas’s evangelization of the Americas. While this is found in the beginning of the second book in the original and serves to set up the passing of the baton to the Augustinians, the Latin version puts this material up front in book one, chapter five—​the section where the origins of the New World inhabitants, the climate, and the Incan government are described. Also included in this chapter is the first of four references to Las Casas in the Latin translation—​namely, the reference to his apologia that in the original serves to introduce the definitive identification of St. Thomas as the disciple who evangelized the Americas. Historiae Peruanae directly translates Calancha’s summary of García’s allegation—​attributed to Las Casas—​that a bearded man had shared information regarding the mystery of the Trinity, the virgin birth, and the passion of Christ: Adfirmat certè in quadam apologia zeloſiſſimus P. Bartholomaeus de las Caſas ex ordine Dominicanorum Chiapae Antiſtes ſedulâ infomatione factâ conſtare Indorum confeſſione antiquiſſimis temporibus illis annuntiata fuiſſe Sanctiſſimam Trinitatem, Virginis partum, paſſionem Chrisſti per praecones tunicis integrum uſque ad talos corpus tegentibus, & ſemi-​ calceis (ſandalias vulgus vocat) indutus, geſtanteſque barba larga. 9. Hos autem Euangelii in novo mundo praecones fuiſſe S. Apoſtolum Thomam.54

53

54

Antonio de la Calancha, Historiae Peruanae Ordinis Eremitarum S. P. Augustini Libri Octodecim: Non Tantùm Rebus Ibi per Augustinianos Egregiè Gestis, Ac Praeclaris Praeceptis Exempliśq[Ue] Vitae Saecularis Non Minùs Quàm Religiosae, Sed Ubere in Super & Amoenâ Veteris Novaéq[Ue] Peruviae Notitiâ Mirificè Referti, Tractatur Enim de Origine Perüanorum, Eorum Moribus, Regimine, Religione, Qualitatibus Terrae, de Eorum Subiectione per Hispanos Ac de Hispanorum Bellis Civilibus Similibusque Rebus Quàm Plurimius, Quarum Breviarium Index Exhibet, trans. Joachim Bruel (Antwerp?: Apud Guilielmum Lesteenium via vulgo Hooghstraet dicta, sub Pellicano aureo, 1651). See notes 31 & 32 for English and Spanish translations. Calancha, Historiae Peruanae, 17.

78 TenHuisen Although somewhat abbreviated and relocated, this section faithfully follows the original and references the same sources in the same order—​thereby maintaining the importance of Las Casas’s authority in identifying Saint Thomas the Apostle. The second and third references to Las Casas appear in book three, chapter three, “De Hispanorum bellis civilibus.” Here we find the reference describing Blasco Núñez Vela’s arrival with the New Laws and the condemnation of the destruction wrought by the conquistadores “in toto novo Orbe.”55 This section twice mentions Las Casas by name, as well as his “libellum” Destructio Indiarum, which was presented to Emperor Charles V. The inclusion of Las Casas in the section detailing the chaos surrounding the civil wars follows the original as well, thus presenting him as the emperor-​approved authority who condemns the actions of the encomenderos. The final reference to Las Casas in Historiae Peruanae is another clear indication that the translator understood the pivotal role of Las Casas for Calancha. Historiae Peruanae, in fact, reproduces in Spanish the lengthy quote from the Brevísima relación that Calancha cites in his Crónica, and follows it with a Latin translation:





5. Cerrè hanc paedicationi Euangelii remoram mutuis Hispanorum tumultibus injectam doluit, doloremque suis literis teftarus est Catholicus Caesar; clarâ verò abominatione deduxit Christianae charitatis igne flagrans magnus vir Bartholomaeus de las Casas ex Ordine Dominicanorum Episcopus Chiapensis in suo , quem sub titulo Destructio Indiarum Нispali impressit , libro, quo Caesarem Senatumque negotiis Indieis praesidentem de eorum statu instruere satagebat, quem his verbis concludit. 6. Hasta oy, desde sus principios, non se a tenido mas cuydado por los Españoles de procurar, que les fuese paedicada la fè de Iesu Christo a aquellas gentes, que si fueran perros ò otras bestias … sin fè y sin Sacramentos. 7. Quae latinè sic redduntur. A principio usque in hodiernum diem …56

Taking pains to include both the original Spanish and a Latin translation, Bruel unmistakably appreciates the importance of the Lascasian references to Calancha’s argument. Although the six references to Las Casas are reduced to 55 Calancha, Historiae Peruanae, 85. 56 Calancha, Historiae Peruanae, 122. See notes 27 and 28 for full Spanish quote and English translation.

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four in Historiae Peruanae, it is clear that Las Casas’s authority, presence, and function are maintained in the Latin edition. The reception of Calancha’s bishop of Chiapa goes further, however. When Johannes Hoornbeeck published his (Reformed) De conversione indorum et gentilium in Amsterdam in 1669,57 arguing “that the Dutch have a specific responsibility for overseas missions,”58 he references Bruel’s Latin edition nine times and Calancha himself thrice. He understands Calancha’s Historia Peruana (sic) and Bruel’s Historia Peruana ordinis eremitarum S.P. Augustini (sic) as two separate books. Hoornbeeck also highlights the centrality of Las Casas in Calancha’s argument, noting in book one that, [Bruel] also cites from the book about Las Casas, first in Spanish, and then translated into Latin. Therefore, these lines should also be copied by us: From the beginning until the present day, the Spanish were no more concerned with the preaching of belief in Jesus Christ to these nations than if they had been dogs or other dumb animals … all of them perish without religion and Sacrament. 59 Hoornbeeck alludes to Calancha again in book two when he returns to his main argument in the chapter entitled “Where it is taught that the conversion of the heathens also pertains to us,” in which he traces the history of the evangelization that was undertaken by the apostles while simultaneously casting doubt on Calancha’s conclusions: Many people conclude from scanty information that, also in the American regions in former times, an apostle, in particular Thomas, or a disciple of Christ had preached the Gospel, and that at least there had been some knowledge of the Christian cause among them before the recent arrival of the Spaniards, if not before the first arrival of any strangers in those lands. I doubt whether this is sufficiently clear. About this, one should see Antonio de la Calancha, a Peruvian by nationality and Augustinian by religion.60 57

Johannes Hoornbeeck, De Conversione Indorum & Gentilium: Libri Duo (Amstelodami: apud Johannem Janssonium a Waesberge, 1669). 58 Johannes Hoornbeeck, Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–​1666), on the Conversion of Indians and Heathens: An Annotated Translation of De Conversione Indorum et Gentilium (1669), ed. Ineke Loots and Joke Spaans (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 39. 59 Hoornbeeck, Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–​1666), 149. 60 Hoornbeeck, Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–​1666), 325.

80 TenHuisen However, Hoornbeeck’s suspicions of Calancha’s conclusions regarding St. Thomas are not surprising, given that Hoornbeeck’s own stance on evangelization aligns with Las Casas—​a stance that is undermined by the insistence on the apostle’s pre-​Colombian presence in the Americas, as Gose articulates. The Dutch translation of the Crónica moralizada, Het wonderlyck martelie vanden salighen pater Didacus Ortiz eerste martelaer van Peru …, was published in Antwerp twenty years after the Latin version.61 As the Dutch title makes clear, this is not a translation of the entire text but rather a direct translation of the culminating sections in La crónica moralizada that are dedicated to the martyrdom of Diego Ortiz. The title page also notes that the original Spanish had been translated into Latin by Joachim Bruel and into Dutch by a F.A.K. from the Augustinian order. As there are no references to Las Casas in those sections of the original, there are no references to Las Casas in the Dutch translation. The case of Toulouse as a publication site for the French translation, Histoire du Peru, partie principale des Antipodes, ou Nouueau Monde et du grand progrez de la foy chrestienne, en la conuersion de ces peuples gentils, is important as well. In his monograph The Shaping of the French Colonial Empire, Philip Boucher states the following about the French translation that was published in Toulouse: “One of a number of Spanish works on the New World translated in the mid-​seventeenth century. The place of publication suggests that these translations were probably not part of an orchestrated campaign.”62 While they may not have been part of an “orchestrated campaign” for the French colonial empire, they were apparently part of an Augustinian campaign. Like the Augustinians in Antwerp, who became Lutherans in a city that was Calvinist for a time, Toulouse has a complicated history pertaining to the wars of religion. Although the city had begun to prosper in the early sixteenth century, it was embroiled in the Huguenot revolt in the 1560s. In fact, in 1562 three Augustinians were forced to marry Augustinian nuns, all of whom would become Protestants. The Augustinian order suffered considerably in Toulouse and eventually sold its building to the Jesuits. Like the Latin, the French edition reorganizes and abbreviates the Spanish text. Forty-​three chapters follow the general order of the original. Book four of the original, however, is placed in the middle of the material that is book three in the French, and the text rather incongruously adds the martyrdom of two friars on the Barbary Coast at the end. Histoire du Peru contains most 61 62

Antonio de la Calancha, Het Wonderlyck Martelie Vanden Salighen Pater Didacus Ortiz Eerste Martelaer van Peru (Antwerp: Jacob Mesens, 1671). Philip P. Boucher, The Shaping of the French Colonial Empire: A Bio-​Bibliography of the Careers of Richelieu, Fouquet, and Colbert (New York: Garland, 1985), entry 421.

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of the rhetorical moves of the original: they blamed the war and the conquerors for the delay in evangelization until the arrival of the Augustinians; they attributed an early evangelization to Saint Thomas. However, decidedly unlike their presence in the Latin edition, all mentions of Las Casas are removed in the French, and there is no quotation from, nor any reference to, the Brevísma relación. Given the prominence in both the original Spanish and the Latin translation, the excision of the references to and from Las Casas in the French appears deliberate, for the Histoire du Peru otherwise faithfully maintains the full contexts surrounding the Lascasian references in the original, as well as the conclusions based on the bishop’s authority. Chapter seven of the French translation has two sections. The first section details the effects of the civil war, and the second makes the now-​familiar claim that the Augustinians were the first evangelizers in Peru—​despite their late arrival: the Augustinian Religious Hermits were the first friars, who with the Mission assigned to them announced the Faith of Jesus Christ in this New World: For although it is true that friars of other Orders arrived sooner than ours in these lands, it is nevertheless certain that they did not employ themselves before the others in the conversion of the Indians, all the more so because either they were hiding in the mountains, or they were fighting with the Spaniards or against them, the whole earth being in trouble and on fire because of the ambition of the Conquerors, as we have just seen.63 In the original, Las Casas is the authority who sets up this claim, but in the French translation, he is subsumed under the general umbrella of the “Autheurs irreprochables” who support that claim. On the following page, the reader does

63

“… les Religieux Hermites Auguſtins ont eſté les premiers Eccleſiaſtiques, qui auec deüe Miſſion ont annoncé la Foy de Ieſus-​Chriſt en ce Nouueau monde: Car bien qu’il ſoit vray que des Religieux de autres Ordres arriuerent pluſtoſt que les noſtres en ces terres, il eſt toutesfois certain qu’ils ne s’employerent point auant eux à laconuerſion des Indiens, d’autant que ou ils ſe tenoient cachez dans les montaignes, ou ils combattoient auec les Eſpagnols ou contre eux, toute la terre eſtant en trouble & en feu à cauſe de l’ambition des Conquerans, comme nous ſor tons de voir.” Antonio de la Calancha, Histoire du Peru, partie principale des Antipodes, ou Nouueau Monde. et du grand progrez de la foy chrestienne, en la conuersion de ces peuples gentils (Toulouse: par F. Boude imprimeur, à l’enseigne S. Thomas d’Aquin, deuant le College des P.P. de la Compagnie de Iesus, 1653), 55 (translation of Jolene Vos-​Camy).

82 TenHuisen not find the authoritative words of Las Casas, but rather those of “all of the historians who have written on the New World”: And even if the friars had received by miracle the gift of tongues, and had been able to speak Indian, and had wanted to spill out their zeal in the instruction of these peoples, the Spaniards did not allow it, because of the great troubles in which they were embroiled and the civil disputes which they had to break up or resolve: all the Historians who have written about this new World have attested to this. Thus, it is obvious that our friars were the first doctrinaires of the Catholic Faith in Peru with a legitimate Mission.64 The removal of Las Casas is similar in the sections dedicated to Saint Thomas in the Histoire du Peru. All of chapter eight in the French version is dedicated to tracing the presence of Thomas the Apostle in the New World. Although it leaves out Calancha’s chapter detailing the references to Saint Thomas before 1500, the French follows the original quite directly, mentioning most of the sources and authors by name that Calancha includes, e.g., Martyr, Gómara, Lipsius; it even repeats lists of authors found in Calancha in this section, i.e., Thomas Bocius, Ioannes de Ponte, Ribadeneira, Gregonius Garcias, Maluenda. There are, however, notable excisions and reductions. Las Casas and the reference to his apologia, for example, are notably absent. The French version, in fact, jumps over that section from the original. However, it does reproduce quite literally the summary that immediately follows the Las Casas reference in the original: “De tout ce narré le Lecteur peut conclurre qu’il eſt veritable que l’Apoſtre S. Thomas preſcha aux peuples de ce Nouueau Monde l Euangile, & leur enſeigna les myſteres de noſtre Foy.”65 The expurgation of Las Casas from the French version, therefore, appears intentional. Never is he represented as an essential or authoritative voice for the French context, unless he is subsumed under the general “Autheurs

64

“Et quand mé me les Eccleſiaſtiques euſſent receu par miracle le don des langues, & euſſent ſçeu parler Indicn, & voulu debiter leur zele à l’inſtruction de ces peuples, les Eſpagnols ne le permettoient pas, à cauſe des grands troubles ou ils eſtoient enuelopez & des broûilleries ciuiles, qu’ils auoient à rompre ou à d’emeſler: ce que tous les Hiſtoriens qui ont écrit de ce nouueau Monde at teſtent. Or que nos Religieux ayent eſté les premiers doctrinaires de la Foy Catholique au Peru auec legitime Miſſion, ſe conuainc.” Calancha, Histoire du Peru, 56 (translation Vos-​Camy). 65 Calancha, Histoire du Peru, 68.

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irreprochables qui l’ont écrit” or “tous les Hiſtoriens qui ont écrit de ce nouueau Monde.”66 The Latin and French translations of La crónica moralizada demonstrate starkly contrasting receptions of Las Casas. The Latin version, as Hoornbeeck notes in his reading, maintains the central role of Las Casas in supporting Calancha’s claim of the primacy of the Augustinian order in Peru. Although Hoornbeeck casts aspersions on the apostolic evangelization of the Americas, he notes its importance in the Crónica moralizada and Historiae Peruanae. Yet, the Histoire du Peru stands in notable contrast, for although it maintains those central claims, it removes Las Casas as the authoritative source—​ relying instead on a more general reference to “irreproachable authors” and “historians.” Calancha’s appropriation of Las Casas, his use of the Bishop of Chiapa’s words to espouse both the primacy of the Augustinians over the Dominicans and the evangelization of the Americas by Thomas, is then somewhat “corrected,” both in Hoornbeeck’s treatise and in the French translation of the La crónica moralizada. Hoornbeeck, who generally aligns with the Dominican’s treatise on conversion, casts aspersions on Calancha’s claims regarding St. Thomas. The French translation, however, reiterates that assertion, in addition to maintaining Calancha’s audacious claim that the Augustinians were first in evangelizing Peru. Given that Calancha appropriates Las Casas to promote a theory of apostolic evangelization of the Americas that directly subverts Las Casas’s own claims regarding the nature of the inhabitants of the Americas, arguably both Hoornbeeck and the Histoire du Peru offer an important corrective to the reception history of Las Casas. 66 Calancha, Histoire du Peru, 54, 56.

pa rt 2 Las Casas and Indigenous Cultures: Caxcan and K’iche’an Maya

∵

­c hapter 4

Francisco Tenamaztle, Bartolomé de las Casas and the Role of Translation in the Construction of a Legal Case Before the Consejo de Indias (1555–​1556) Rubén A. Sánchez-​Godoy This chapter examines a document that the Bishop of Chiapa Bartolomé de las Casas penned in 1555 on behalf of Don Francisco Tenamaztle, an Indigenous leader who used to live in the limits between Xalisco and Zacatecas in the territory of New Spain, until he was accused of rebellion and deported to the Iberian Peninsula in 1552. In this document, titled “Ciertas peticiones e informaciones hechas a pedimento de Francisco Tenamaztle” (“Some Petitions and Information Presented on behalf of Francisco Tenamaztle”), the Indigenous leader denounced the injustices that he and his community endured at the hands of the Spanish conquerors and encomenderos; he asked the Spanish crown for restitution of freedom for him and his community, as well as the reestablishment of his authority as an Indigenous chieftain in his land. He pledged that if the king conceded these two petitions, he would serve the Spanish crown, pay tributes, and promote Christianity peacefully among the Indigenous population in his Native Nuchistlán. The document has undeniable value as a source of information about the way an Indigenous person sought justice and fought for freedom while navigating the Spanish legal apparatus with the assistance of Las Casas. In addition, it is possible to recognize in this document an articulation between (1) Tenamaztle’s effort to maintain his agency as leader of a community with a specific history of organization and of resilience against the abuses of Spanish conquerors and encomenderos; and (2) Las Casas’s effort to translate Tenamaztle’s aim for justice in the language and rhetoric that he previously created as part of his defense of the Indigenous populations in the Indies. Therefore, this chapter argues that Tenamaztle and Las Casas both authored this document. Overcoming their differences in terms of personal and intellectual backgrounds, these two worked together to produce a hybrid text in which Tenamaztle’s story became—​thanks to the translation and conceptual reframing provided by Las Casas—​a legible and persuasive legal case before the Consejo de Indias.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_006

88 Sánchez-Godoy In this chapter, a “hybrid text” pertains to a text in which one can simultaneously recognize the convergence in purpose on the one hand, and the persistence of two irreducible perspectives on the other. The two authors converged in a demand for justice, which Tenamaztle emphatically expressed in a personal narrative, and which Las Casas steadfastly supported, translated, contextualized, and reframed in the conceptual apparatus that he had produced as part of his defense of the Indigenous population in the Indies. However, Tenamaztle and Las Casas’s perspectives remain distinguishable in the text. Las Casas represented the Indigenous as peaceful people who had been unfairly treated by the Spanish conquerors and encomenderos, and should be peacefully Christianized. He tried to introduce Tenamaztle as a good Christian who justifiably confronted the injustices perpetrated by Spaniards on the Indigenous in Xalisco, and who would be a loyal vassal of the king once he returned to New Spain. In contrast, Tenamaztle’s narrative focused on communitarian suffering, demand for the restitution of freedom, and the urgent petition to be allowed to return to his Native land. In a few words, Tenamaztle was an Indigenous litigant demanding justice for himself and his community in a very concrete way: freedom and return to his land. Las Casas was the translator and advocate who supported him; as such, he was an emblematic figure in his defense of the Indigenous of the Indies. Since these two perspectives and purposes do not necessarily contradict each other, this chapter argues that recognizing their differences is relevant in order to understand the value of this document as the expression of an Indigenous perspective and as an examination of the kind of commitment to the defense of the Indigenous population that the bishop of Chiapa developed in the 1550s. This chapter’s approach to Tenamaztle’s document as a hybrid text implies recognizing that the document was not the product of an individual point of view. Accordingly, “Ciertas peticiones” was not a document in which we can find something like the pure or raw voice of Tenamaztle. His testimony, such as it arrived to us, was an elaborate narrative that Las Casas translated and reframed in a complex conceptual apparatus that he created for the defense of the Indigenous. However, this does not mean that Tenamaztle’s testimony was a sort of short Lascasian treatise in which the bishop discussed his views on the defense of the Native people of Xalisco. Instead, Tenamaztle’s testimony was a legal document in which the Indigenous leader was the main character; he speaks in the first person, provides specific details about himself and his community, asks for witnesses to validate his testimony, and signs the document. As will be seen, Las Casas’s presence was only marginally mentioned in the document. In summary, this chapter argues that Tenamaztle’s testimony

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is the articulation of two points of views that produced a hybrid text, which clamored for justice. To develop this statement, this chapter first discusses the information that the document provides, emphasizing how Tenamaztle and Las Casas made their case before the Consejo de Indias. This first part follows Tenamaztle’s testimony as a primary source and also provides footnote references to external sources from the sixteenth century in order to obtain some perspective about the information that the document provides. The second part examines specific passages of the document which clearly demonstrate that Las Casas not only translated but also reframed key aspects of Tenamaztle’s clamor for justice. In this second part, the translation that Las Casas proposed of Tenamaztle’s leadership is analyzed. 1

Tenamaztle’s Testimony as a Primary Source

On June 1, 1555, the Consejo de Indias in Valladolid received a document signed by Francisco Tenamaztle, a cacique or tatoan from Nuchistlán y Xalisco in New Spain.1 In this document, titled “Ciertas peticiones,” he offered an account of the injustices and mistreatments that Spanish conquerors, encomenderos, and even Spanish authorities in New Spain had inflicted on him, his family, and his community for more than twenty-​five years and, more specifically, since the arrival of Nuño de Guzmán in the region of Xalisco toward the end of the

1 Tenamaztle’s case can be found in Archivo General de Indias, México, 205, N. 1. This case has been published four times: (1) Lewis Hanke, “Un festón de documentos lascasianos,” Revista Cubana 16 (1941): 196–​203. (2) Tenamaztle, Relación de los agravios hechos por Nuño de Guzmán y sus huestes a don Francisco Tenamaztle (México: Porrúa, 1959). This edition has a short introduction and some notes by Salvador Reinoso. It is a copy of Hanke’s edition. (3) Miguel León-​Portilla, La flecha en el blanco: Francisco Tenamaztle y Bartolomé de las Casas en lucha por los derechos de los indígenas, 1541–​1556 (México: Diana, 1995), and Francisco Tenamaztle. Primer guerrillero de América, defensor de los Derechos Humanos (México: Diana, 2005), 137–​178. These two editions are similar. The only thing that changes is the title of the volume. León-​Portilla includes the information provided by the witnesses in the case. He also offers a detailed introductory study of the context in which Tenamaztle’s text is produced as well as the role of Las Casas in the advance of his case. (4) “Ciertas peticiones e informaciones hechas a pedimento de Francisco Tenamaztle,” in Augusto Carrillo Cázares, El debate sobre la Guerra Chichimeca, 1531–​1585. Volumen ii. Cuerpo de documentos (Zamora, Mich.: El Colegio de Michoacán y el Colegio de San Luis, 2000), 513–​535. Carrillo Cázares contextualized Tenamaztle’s case in the Chichimeca War. He proposes a detailed study of the case and a critical version of the whole document. For these reasons, in this essay I will follow this edition of Tenamaztle’s case.

90 Sánchez-Godoy 1520s.2 According to Tenamaztle, Guzmán, Juan de Oñate, Cristóbal de Oñate, Miguel de Ibarra, and Pedro de Alvarado committed significant injustices and cruelties against Indigenous groups of the region: they were reduced to the system of labor exploitation called the encomienda, while the Spaniards’ main motivation was to extract gold and silver.3 In his narration Tenamaztle not only included a detailed list of events that exhibited these injustices and cruelties, but he also provided an account of some strategies that he and other members of his community had employed to resist or at least to minimize the impact of the actions of Spanish conquerors and encomenderos. In his testimony, he stated that he welcomed these Spaniards when they first appeared in Xalisco. However, Nuño de Guzmán and the others attacked this region with the same cruelty that they had employed to subjugate people first in the provinces of Michoacán and Panuco, and then in Culiacán: “He [Guzmán] put me and my people as well as other chieftains and their people in the same kind of harsh captivity and serfdom that Spaniards call encomienda, assigning towns and people who lived in them to each Spaniard, like if we were beasts of the field.”4 In spite of all the injustices and cruelties committed by the Spaniards, Tenamaztle accepted the invitation of the Franciscans to be baptized, along with his family, because these friars told them that they came on behalf of the one and true God and of the fair and pious king in Castile: “As a consequence of the preaching and persuasion of those priests, I was one of the first persons who converted to Christianity and received the holy baptism, along with many other lords and regular people.”5 However, the Spaniards’ abuses persisted and 2 Miguel León-​Portilla, Francisco Tenamaztle, primer guerrillero, 29. The earliest sources about this expedition are collected in José Luis Razo Zaragoza y Cortés, Crónicas de la conquista del Nuevo Reino de Galicia (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara & inah, 1963). To identify the specific region of Xalisco in which Tenamaztle used to live (Nuchistlán and Mezquituta), see Peter Gerhard, The North Frontier of New Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 99–​104; René Acuña, Relaciones geográficas del siglo xvi: Nueva Galicia (México: Universidad Autónoma de México, 1988), 155–​173; René Castro Acuña, ed., Suma de visitas de pueblos de la Nueva España (Toluca: Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, 2013), 236. 3 Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 515. 4 “Y púsonos a mí, el dicho Francisco Tenamaztle, y a mis gentes y a otros muchos caciques y señores con las suyas, en el acostumbrado aspérrimo cautiverio y servidumbre que los españoles, repartiendo a cada español los pueblos y los vecinos de ellos, como si fuéramos bestias de campo.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 514. 5 “Yo fui uno de los primeros que, por la predicación y persuasión de los dichos religiosos, me convertí e recebí el santo sacramento del bautismo, con otros muchos señores y gentes populares.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 515.

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even increased; they continued attacking the Indigenous settlements, kidnapping people, and forcing them to work as slaves in the mines. After a while, some Indigenous people killed a few Spaniards in self-​defense and ran away to the mountains: “as the free people that we are, they decided to go to the mountains and get stronger up there to defend their lives as well as their women and children, according to the natural defense that God and nature concedes even to the beasts.”6 In retaliation for these actions, Spaniards increased and worsened their attacks on the Indigenous and, in an extreme exhibition of cruelty, they captured many chieftains in the region and hanged them.7 For this reason, Tenamaztle decided to run away to the mountains as well. To save their lives, he and a small group stayed in the mountains for nine years. In his narration, he emphasized that what he did should be considered a legitimate defense, not a rebellion: Finding no justice, or remedy, or person to complain to or to ask for justice, because all of them were our mortal enemies, they stole, attacked, oppressed, and tyrannized us, as they currently keep doing it. I decided also to run away with the few people that were still with me, to save them and myself, as natural law rules it, because if I did not do so, I was going to be hanged with the same injustice and cruelty.8

6 “Siendo gente libre, como lo somos, acordaron huirse a los montes y hacerse fuertes en ellos, por se defender a sus propias vidas y a sus mujeres e hijos, según Dios y la naturaleza concede esta defensión natural aún a las bestias.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 515. Tenamaztle is probably referring to the Indigenous uprisings that happened between 1540 and 1542 in the region of Zacatecas and Xalisco. Those uprisings and the Spanish military response to them under the leadership of the Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza are currently known as the Mixtón War. See “Relación de la conquista de Nueva Galicia, alzose año 1542.” Razo Zaragoza y Cortés, Crónicas de la conquista, 329–​343. See also Miguel León-​Portilla, Francisco Tenamaztle, primer guerrillero, 5–​10. 7 Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 515. According to the “Relación de la conquista de Nueva Galicia, alzose año 1542,” once the Spanish troops, with the support of many Mexicas, Tlascaltlecas, and Tarascos, defeated the rebels in Nuchistlán, 8,000 natives were killed or captured, 1,700 became slaves, and the old people were killed to prevent the reinitiation of any revolt. Probably, those old people are the ones that Tenamaztle remembers in his narration. 8 “No aviendo justicia ni remedio de haberla, ni persona a quien nos quexar, y a quien pedirla, porque todos eran y son nuestros enemigos capitales porque todos nos robavan y afligían y oprimían y tiranizaban, como hoy en este día lo hazen, acordé también huir con la poca gente que me quedava, por salvar a ellos y a mí como de ley natural era obligado, porque si no huyera yo también, con la misma injusticia y crueldad fuera ahorcado.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 516.

92 Sánchez-Godoy Tenamaztle stated that after those nine years hiding in the mountains, he remembered that he was a Christian, and he wanted to return to the land to live peacefully; he wanted to return to the position of authority that he had received from his ancestors.9 Therefore, he decided to go back to his land, to Christianity, and to Spanish rule; he did so with the help of the bishop of Guadalajara, Gómez de Maraver, who encouraged him to come to Mexico City and declare his submission to the viceroy—​Antonio de Mendoza.10 However, upon arrival, they found that Luis de Velasco had replaced Mendoza; far from welcoming Tenamaztle’s disposition to accept the Spanish rule, Velasco made him wait for approximately a year before making a decision on his case.11 To Tenamaztle’s misfortune, Bishop Gómez de Maraver died a few months later, which left the Indigenous lord without any significant support and in a precarious situation.12 In fact, in 1552, when Tenamaztle was considering returning to Xalisco with some friars, Viceroy Velasco decided—​with the acquiescence of the Audience of Mexico—​to deport him to the Iberian Peninsula in chains.13 After three years of living in extremely difficult conditions in Spain, Tenamaztle stated that he was finally able to address the Consejo de Indias, before whom he denounced the injustices that he and his community endured, and asked for two things from the king: first, the restoration of his freedom, as well as the freedom of the people in Nuchistlán and Misquitutla; and second, the restoration of his authority over the Indigenous community with whom he had lived. If the king would concede him these petitions, Tenamaztle promised to be a loyal vassal of the Spanish crown and, with the help of a bishop and some friars, to deliver the Christian message peacefully to other Indigenous groups that had not known about and/​or accepted the faith.14 If the king granted these two petitions, Tenamaztle would receive a letter and a royal document (real provisión) confirming and guaranteeing “with all the 9 10 11

12 13 14

If Tenamaztle ran to the mountains in 1542 and stayed nine years up there, his decision to return to Christian territory was made around 1551. Even though Tenamaztle does not mention him by his name, it is possible to recognize on the basis of the information provided by some witnesses in the case that he is talking about the bishop of Guadalajara, Pedro Gómez de Maraver, who died in 1551. Antonio Gómez de Mendoza, first viceroy of the New Spain, was viceroy of the New Spain from 1535 until he was appointed viceroy of Peru on February 20, 1550. However, he left Mexico until January 12, 1551. His successor, Luis de Velasco, arrived in New Spain on August 28, 1550. See Ciriaco Pérez Bustamante, Antonio de Mendoza. Virrey de la Nueva España (1531–​1550) (Santiago: El Eco Franciscano, 1928). It seems that Tenamaztle and Bishop Gómez de Maraver arrived in Mexico after Mendoza left. Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 516. Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 517. Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 518.

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force of the royal power” that all Indigenous groups that accept the Christian message and Spanish rule through him would remain safe in their lands: they would not be given to encomenderos for any reason; their chieftains, as well as their heirs, would maintain their territories and authority over them if they respected the sovereignty of Castile and paid tributes.15 Tenamaztle concluded his testimony by expressing that he understood what he had promised and was committed to serving the king and promoting Christianity. As such, “making that all those people [Indigenous groups from Xalisco] abandon, with the help of God and the friars, their errors and the unacceptable religion that they have had until now, because they have had no person to teach and inform them about the truth, staying for that reason in ignorance and blindness.”16 Tenamaztle’s testimony opened a legal inquiry in the Consejo de Indias. At his request, from July 1555 through September 1556, the Consejo de Indias asked for and received additional information about his testimony. This was organized by a set of eight questions in which Tenamaztle proposed to identify who he was, his ancestors, the reasons he left his land and returned to it, the moment he became a Christian, why he abandoned his land once again, the authority he held there, the recognition of that authority, and how public all this information was.17 The clear purpose of these questions was to obtain information that validated Tenamaztle’s testimony as well as his claim for justice. The Consejo de Indias first received information from three witnesses: two Franciscans—​Fray Juan de la Puerta and Fray Melchor de Medina, as well as a soldier—​Antonio Botiller, who provided a significant amount of additional information about the participation of Tenamaztle in the Mixtón War.18 The Consejo then received information and legal documentation from two authorities in New Spain—​Viceroy Velasco and oidor Gómez de Santillán, because they were involved in Tenamaztle’s deportation; they explained the circumstances and reasons that moved them to authorize that deportation.19 Finally, the Consejo received information from two additional friars who had firsthand memories of the Mixtón War and had met Tenamaztle personally: Franciscan Fray Joseph de Angulo and Augustinian Fray Joan de San Román.20

15 16 17 18 19 20

“Con todas las fuerzas de privilegio fortísimo.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 518. “Haziendo que todas aquellas gentes dexen los errores y religión reprobada que hasta aquí, por no aver quien les doctrinase e informase de la verdad, an tenido con su ignorancia y ceguedad, ayudándome Dios y los frailes.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 518. Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 519–​520. Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 520–​526. Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 527–​533. Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 533–​535.

94 Sánchez-Godoy As noted by Nancy E. van Deusen in her Global Indios: The Indigenous Struggle for Justice in the Sixteenth-​Century Spain, most of the witnesses in cases that involved Indigenous litigants in the peninsula in the sixteenth century were assigned and interrogated—​because they had known the litigant for a significant time and were familiar with the territory and events related to the litigant’s case. These witnesses either supported the information provided by him or offered their expertise to clarify or to contextualize some elements in that information.21 In Tenamaztle’s case, all the witnesses articulated their answers around his participation in the Mixtón War (1541–​1542) and his decision to return to Spanish rule with the support of the bishop of Guadalajara—​ Pedro Gómez de Maraver (d. 1551). Most of their answers were not based on direct knowledge of Tenamaztle, but primarily on information they heard from others. Beyond the gaps and evident differences in the information that each witness provided, none refuted Tenamaztle’s testimony. All of them agreed that he was a leader during the Mixtón War, that he sought to mediate during the conflict, and that he fled Spanish rule for nine years until he handed himself over to Bishop Maraver.22 As part of the testimonies, there was a short petition from the bishop of Chiapa, Bartolomé de las Casas. The year he penned and signed this petition is not specified; yet, since it was part of the legal inquiry, it was probably signed in either September 1555 or in September 1556: Very powerful lord, Don Francisco Tenamaztle prays to your highness to do the favor to order to give him some money for buying a cape, a tunic, pants and some shirts, as well as for fixing his clothes with patches and mends, and for other things he needs, and order to pay to his instructor and servant the amount that it is owed to him for six months of work. Signed on 21 22

Nancy E. van Deusen, Global Indios: The Indigenous Struggle for Justice in the Sixteenth-​ Century Spain (Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press, 2015), 141–​146. For an analysis of the answers provided by the witnesses in Tenamaztle’s case, see Augusto Carrillo Cázares, El debate sobre la Guerra Chichimeca, 1531–​1585. Volumen i (Zamora, Mich.: El Colegio de Michoacán y El Colegio de San Luis, 2000), 179–​190. The participation and relevance of Tenamaztle in the Mixtón War are confirmed by at least two additional early sources: “Descargos del Virrey Don Antonio de Mendoza, números 35 al 42 inclusive, del interrogatorio de la Visita del licenciado Tello de Sandoval” and “Carta de Gerónimo López al Emperador. México 20 de enero de 1548.” In Pérez Bustamante, Antonio de Mendoza, 152–​168, 194. In addition, there is a brief mention of Tenamaztle in the “Relación de la conquista de Nueva Galicia, alzose año de 1542, anónima tercera.” In Razo Zaragoza y Cortés, Crónicas de la conquista, 343.

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September 17 of this year. He will appreciate that. The Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas.23 This is the only section of the case in which Las Casas’s name explicitly appeared. Compared with the dramatic and vivid tone of Tenamaztle’s testimony and the legal style of the answers provided by the witnesses, this brief petition looks extremely colloquial. While Tenamaztle was asking for justice, and the witnesses were mostly trying to validate his testimony and his claim for justice with their answers, Las Casas was requesting some money for a cape, some clothes, and provisions, as well as to pay the salary of Tenamaztle’s servant and instructor. In some way, this petition was fundamental for the advancement of the case given the precarious circumstances in which Tenamaztle was living in the Iberian Peninsula and the imperative need for communication that he had at that moment. In this sense, possibly the servant mentioned in Las Casas’s petition worked as Tenamaztle’s Castilian instructor or interpreter. Beyond this particular (and peculiar) petition, it is widely accepted that Las Casas’s intervention went far beyond in Tenamaztle’s case. His testimony maintained strong similarities with some of the treatises that Las Casas wrote and published in 1552. In fact, Lascasian scholars, such as Lewis Hanke, Henry Raup Wagner, and Isacio Pérez Fernández, recognized Tenamaztle’s testimony as a text written by Las Casas.24 However, not one of them considered this text as part of the Lascasian corpus. In their approaches to Tenamaztle’s case, Miguel León-​Portilla and Alberto Carrillo Cázares opined that Las Casas worked

23

24

“Muy poderoso señor: Don Francisco Tenamaztle suplica a Vuestra Alteza le haga merced de lo mandar proveer de algunos dineros para comprar una capa y un sayo y colas y un par de camisas, y para adobar la chamarra de los aforros y reparos y otras cosas de que tiene necesidad, y se mande pagar a su maestro y criado lo que se le debe del tiempo que pareciere débesele, que son seis meses. A diez e siete deste presente mes de setiembre. Y en todo recebirá merced. El obispo fray Bartolomé de las Casas.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 533–​535. In 1941, Lewis Hanke identifies Tenamaztle’s testimony in the Archivo de Indias as a text that is “certainly handwritten by Las Casas and probably penned by him.” See “Un festón de documentos,” 152–​153. Henry Raup Wagner subscribes Hanke’s opinion adding that the text is written “in his typical style: first a long tale of crime committed by the Spaniards, then a remedy whereby Tenamaztle will undertake a peaceful conversion venture,” Henry Raup Wagner, The Life and Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas (Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press, 1967), 282–​283. Finally, Isacio Pérez Fernández accepts Hanke’s and Raup Wagner’s opinions, adding that while “the plea comes from Tenamaztle, Las Casas wrote it (or maybe penned?),” Isacio Pérez Fernández, Inventario documentado de los escritos de Bartolomé de Las Casas (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 1981), 665.

96 Sánchez-Godoy closely with Tenamaztle in the writing of his testimony and in formulating the questions for the witnesses in order to produce a compelling case before the Consejo de Indias. León-​Portilla states—​and celebrates—​that, beyond their different perspectives and personal backgrounds, Tenamaztle and Las Casas worked together and pushed for an early defense of human rights.25 For his part, Carrillo Cázares argued that Las Casas worked as an advocate and advisor in Tenamaztle’s case. In this case, Las Casas pushed before the Consejo de Indias some of the most important ideas that he discussed in his writings against the encomienda and the unfair enslavement of Indigenous populations.26 2

Las Casas as Translator and Author

The intervention of Las Casas in Tenamaztle’s case was not occasional. During his tenure in Valladolid in the 1550s—​in addition to publishing eight treatises, and writing the Historia de las Indias and the Apologética Historia Sumaria—​ the bishop of Chiapa became an advisor for several Amerindians pursuing justice before the Consejo de Indias. As pointed out by Van Deusen in her Global Indios and by Bernat Hernández in his recent biography of Las Casas. During the 1550s, he became one of the most experienced and recognized advocates for Indigenous litigants in the Spanish court.27 His vast experience in the Indies, ability for argumentation using the Hispanic legislation, and knowledge of the legal procedures in the Consejo de Indias made him an extremely skillful advisor on behalf of the Indigenous litigants in Valladolid—​beyond the fact that he remained a very polemic figure until the end of his life. In the context of the difficult enactment of the New Laws in 1542, and of the inspections of Indios in 1543 and 1549, Las Casas capitalized on his experience in the Indies and employed his legal knowledge to support Indigenous litigants fighting for their freedom.28 In addition to this commitment to the legal defense of Indigenous litigants, Las Casas had a particular interest in Xalisco. In his Brevísima relación de la destruición de Indias, he narrated a short section about the violent conquest of Xalisco led by Nuño de Guzmán.29 There were also short references to this 25 26 27 28 29

León-​Portilla, La flecha en el blanco, 177–​178. Carrillo Cázares, El debate, 1:190–​192. Van Deusen, Global Indios, xii–​xiii, and Bernat Hernández, Bartolomé de Las Casas (Madrid: Taurus, 2015). Van Deusen, Global Indios, 99–​124. “De la Nueva España [en particular: paso a la conquista de] Panuco, Mechuacán y Xalisco,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruición de Indias

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region in the “Conclusiones sumarias sobre el remedio de las Indias” (1542) and in his “Memorial al emperador” (1543), wherein Las Casas emphatically asked the king for the restitution of freedom for all those Indigenous people who had been enslaved for seeking justice and repelling the unfair attacks of the Spaniards in their territories.30 A section of the “Memorial” echoed and summarized several ideas that were present in Tenamaztle’s testimony. Las Casas also wrote a treatise, currently lost, about the war that Antonio de Mendoza declared on the Indigenous population31 in 1540. Finally, there were some references to Xalisco in the Apologética historia sumaria that exalt the number of people and towns that Spanish conquerors encountered in this region.32 According to León-​Portilla’s La flecha en el blanco, if we read some passages of the Apologética Historia Sumaria and other texts that Las Casas wrote on Xalisco, it is possible to recognize that he had familiarity with the Nahuatl language and the rebellions in Xalisco. Therefore, he was prepared to understand and translate Tenamaztle’s testimony into Castilian in a juridical form. Additionally, Salvador Álvarez states that Nahuatl was a sort of lingua franca in the region in which Tenamaztle used to live before he was deported to Spain.33 In this sense, it is reasonable to believe that even though the first language of

30 31

32 33

(Bayamón: Universidad Central de Bayamón/​Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 2000), 446–​454. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Obras Completas, 13. Cartas y memoriales (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), 121. “Memorial al Emperador (1543).” Bartolomé de Las Casas, Obras Completas, 13. Cartas y memoriales (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), 148. The oldest references to this treatise on war on Xalisco appear in De Thesauris, Caput vii, Caput x, Caput xii, and Caput xxxv. Las Casas refers to this text as “De Bell Xalisquino.” Bartolomé de las Casas, Obras Completas, 11.1. De Thesauris (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), 102–​ 103, 136–​137, 158–​159, 380–​381. Outside of Las Casas’s corpus, the earliest reference to this treatise appears in the Historia general de las Indias Occidentales by Antonio de Remesal, published for the first time in 1620. According to Remesal, Bartolomé de las Casas wrote “a libro doctísimo en latín que tiene 272 hojas de a folio Sobre el hacer esclavos de la segunda conquista de Xalisco, que mandó hacer don Antonio de Mendoza Virrey de la Nueva España, año 1541.” Antonio de Remesal, Historia de las Indias Occidentales, y particular de la gobernación de Chiapa y Guatemala (Guatemala: Sociedad de Geografía e Historia, 1932), 449. About the date of composition of this work, Isacio Pérez Fernández considers that Las Casas penned the manuscript in 1546 and probably reviewed it in 1556. Pérez Fernández, Inventario documentado, 466–​467. Bartolomé de las Casas, Obras Completas, 7. Apologética Historia Sumaria ii (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), 555 and 885; Obras Completas, 8. Apologética Historia Sumaria iii (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), 1161. Salvador Álvarez, “Conquista y encomienda en la Nueva Galicia durante la primera mitad del siglo xvi: ‘Bárbaros’ y ‘Civilizados’ en las fronteras americanas,” Relaciones 116 (2008): 186.

98 Sánchez-Godoy Tenamaztle was Caxcan, he was able to communicate in Nahuatl with Las Casas when they met each other in Spain. Therefore, the bishop of Chiapa was able to understand and translate Tenamaztle’s testimony from Nahuatl to Castilian with the help of an interpreter (the escribano of the case explicitly mentions the existence of an interpreter for Tenamaztle). In addition, in order to translate and articulate Tenamaztle’s testimony, Las Casas used his own knowledge of the Nahuatl language, the information he had about the Indigenous rebellions in Xalisco, and obviously the conceptual background that he had created at that point as part of his defense of the Indigenous population. In an article titled “La fuentes utilizadas para México y la Nueva España en la Apologética Historia,” Jesús Bustamante García emphasizes Las Casas’s stress on learning of languages (and particularly Nahuatl in the case of New Spain) as a condition for correctly understanding the Indigenous populations.34 Bustamante García includes in his article a famous quotation from Las Casas’s Apologética: Y esta regla se ha de tener cerca de las historias que se escribieren de las cosas destas gentes y destas tierras: que cuando se tratare referir en ellas las cosas, ritos y costumbres dellas, buenas o malas, que por vista de ojos no nos constan, en especial las que tenían en tiempo de su infidelidad, que si lo que se cuenta contiene alguna verdad, que no lo han podido saber ni descobrir sino quien tiene por principal cuidado y oficio y sobre ello se desvela [en] saber y escudriñar y penetrar las lenguas, y éstos solamente son por la mayor parte y cuasi siempre sin excepción no otros sino los frailes (my emphasis).35 capítulo 68, p. 619

According to Bustamante García, during his tenure in the New Spain, Las Casas had access to several oral and textual sources of information that allowed 34 35

Jesús Bustamante García, “La fuentes utilizadas para México y la Nueva España en la Apologética Historia.” Bartolomé de las Casas, Obras Completas, 6. Apologética Historia Sumaria i (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), 235–​259. “And this rule should be followed regarding the histories that are written about the things of these peoples and these lands: namely, that when the aim is to refer to their things, rites and costumes, good or bad, that are not based on eyewitnesses, especially those that they had during their infidelity, that if what is told has some truth, which has not been known or discovered by any other but those who have as their main objective and office to know and scrutinize them and to learn the languages. And these are mostly and almost always without exception the friars.” Bartolomé de las Casas, Obras Completas, 7. Apologética Historia Sumaria ii (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), 619.

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him to become familiar with the Nahuatl language, and therefore with the Indigenous populations in the region. Bustamante García points out that in ­chapter 219 of the Apologética Las Casas states that he worked on a text written by a Dominican friar—​probably Fray Andrés Dalviz, “aquel religioso, que fue el que más supo de la lengua mexicana y más la penetró.” Therefore, the meeting between Tenamaztle and Las Casas took place at a decisive moment—​not only for the Indigenous leader but also for the bishop of Chiapa. While Tenamaztle was fighting for justice and freedom for himself and his community, Las Casas was working to implement his ideas and the legislation related to them, and on supporting Indigenous litigants inside of the Spanish legal system. In addition, he had firsthand knowledge about the so-​called conquest of Xalisco between 1540 and 1542. In that context, the relationship between translation and agency acquires particular relevance, specifically in the way in which authorship works in Tenamaztle’s testimony. This chapter explores this subject not in terms of the contemporary concept of authorship as individual property, but in terms of shared agency and translation. According to Michel Foucault’s “What is an author?” the notion of the author changed over time and was not necessarily connected with an individual identity. Rather, authorship was related to the ways in which a text acquired legibility and authority in a certain context.36 In Tenamaztle’s case, authorship appeared in a legal context as a problem of truth and justice that framed the translation of Tenamaztle’s story in a legible testimony for the Consejo de Indias. On two occasions during the process, the escribano of the case—​Juan Fanega—​declared that Tenamaztle did not speak the Castilian language, and was the Indigenous person who brought to the Consejo de Indias a detailed account of the injustices that he had suffered and his resistance to the perpetrators of these injustices. During the presentation of the first two witnesses in the case, this escribano writes: “A man showed up before me, saying that his name was Francisco Tenamaztle, indio, according to an interpreter that was present and heard him speaking in his lengua de indio. The interpreter said that the indio was introducing Friar Juan de la Puerta and Friar Melchor de Medina, both Franciscan friars, as witnesses.”37 A few lines further, when talking about 36 37

Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 101–​121. “Ante mí apareció un ombre [sic] que se dixo llamar don Francisco Tenamaztle, indio, al cual, según un intérprete que estaba presente, el cual oyó hablar en su lengua de indio, dixo que dezía que presentaba e presentó por testigos a Juan de la Puerta, e a fray Melchor de Medina, frailes de le horden de Señor de San Francisco.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 520.

100 Sánchez-Godoy the presentation of the third witness in the case, Fanega added: “Before us, the escribano and the witnesses, Francisco Tenamaztle showed up. Because I did not understand his language, he made some signals with his hands, implying that he was introducing Antonio Botiller, neighbor from the City of México, as witness.”38 In spite of these comments, no evidence exists in any of the documents pertaining to the case that the Consejo de Indias considered the fact that Tenamaztle did not speak Castilian as a reason for disqualifying the testimony that he submitted in Castilian to them. Spanish authorities considered Las Casas’s translation of Tenamaztle’s story as the introduction of a litigant seeking justice and a document that was acceptable in the peninsular legal system. However, besides narrating events, Las Casas’s translation also reframed Tenamaztle’s claims in the conceptual and doctrinal realm that the bishop of Chiapa had previously produced as part of his life-​long defense of the Indigenous populations in the Indies. In this sense, it is possible to point out at least two relevant transformations in this process of translation and production of Tenamaztle as a litigant. First, Las Casas translated Tenamaztle’s testimony from the Caxcan to the Castilian language. Miguel León-​Portilla argues that the Caxcan language has some proximity with the Nahuatl language, so the process of translation was possible through this latter language.39 However, Salvador Alvarez disputes this idea, arguing that the Caxcan language was different from Nahuatl. The latter became a sort of lingua franca in Xalisco after the participation of Mexica warriors in the Spanish conquest of this region.40 In any case, at the beginning of Tenamaztle’s testimony, Las Casas used a Taino word (cacique) and a Nahuatl word (tatoan) as synonyms to describe the position of authority that Tenamaztle used to have in Xalisco: “Cacique o tatoan de la provincia de Nochistlán y Xalisco.”41 After several years of contact with Castilian speakers in New Spain and the Iberian Peninsula—​at least from 1551 through 1555—​it is possible Tenamaztle could communicate in Castilian. However, the comments of the escribano and the use of Taino and Nahuatl words to describe the position of power that Tenamaztle used to have in his Native land suggest that

38

39 40 41

“Ante mi el dicho escribano e testigos, paresció el dicho don Francisco, por señas hizo señal con la mano, porque yo escribano no le entendía su habla, dando a entender que presentaba y presentó por testigo a mosén Antonio Botiller, vecino de la ciudad de México.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 520. León-​Portilla, La flecha en el blanco, 124. Álvarez, “Conquista y encomienda,” 171–​172, 186. Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 513.

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the translation from the Caxcan to the Castilian, through the Nahuatl, was a very difficult process. In spite of that, Las Casas penned a text in which, with the exception of the names of the places in Xalisco, the words “cacique” and “tatoan,” and the last name of the litigant, were completely in the Castilian language. In his translation, Las Casas made legible Tenamaztle’s testimony for any Castilian reader, and particularly for the members of the Consejo de Indias. He introduced Tenamaztle as someone capable of communicating his detailed testimony fluently and, most importantly, in the first person from beginning to end. Las Casas contextualized his narration within the Spanish conquest of Xalisco and appropriated many of the vocabulary and ideas that he had used in the published 1552 treatises, and in some of his previous correspondence to the king: Don Francisco Tenamaztle, cacique or tatoan from the province of Nuchistlán and Xalisco, I kiss Your Highness’s feet and hands and I appear before this Real Consejo de Indias in justice and in the best way and manner I can, asking for justice and telling only the truth that your Highness already knows: I have been sent to these kingdoms by the viceroy of the New Spain, don Luis de Velasco, as an exiled prisoner, alone, dispossessed of my power, land, wife and children, in extreme poverty, thirsty, hungry, and in extreme need, through sea and land, suffering many insults, affronts and persecutions from many people as well as many other challenges and dangers in my life that have become unbearable. I feel very aggrieved, for suffering all this against any reason of justice, under the power of a just king whose will and habit, according to people, is to order everybody to be fair.42 In this introduction and until the end of his testimony, Tenamaztle speaks as somebody who knew firsthand and had painfully experienced in his own flesh 42

“Don Francisco Tenamaztle, cacique o tatoan de la provincia de Nuchistlán y Xalisco, beso pies y manos de Vuestra Alteza y parezco ante este Real Consejo de las Yndias en la mejor forma y manera que de derecho puedo y pidiendo justicia digo contando la sola verdad que: como ya a Vuestra Alteza consta, yo e sido enviado a estos reynos de Castilla por el Visorrey de la Nueva España, don Luis de Velasco, preso y desterrado, solo, desposeído de mi estado y señorío y de mi muger y hijos, con summa pobreza, sed y hambre y estrema necessidad, por mar y por tierra, padeciendo muchas injurias y afrentas y persecuciones de muchas personas y con otros muchos y graves trabajos y peligros de mi vida, que por esta causa se me han recrecido, de lo cual me tengo por muy agraviado, contra toda razón y justicia, debajo de rey tan justo, cuya voluntad y costumbre (según e oído decir), es manifiesta de mandar hacer a todos cumplimiento della.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 513.

102 Sánchez-Godoy the impact of the early Spanish conquest of Xalisco, but also as somebody that knew that all the injustices that he and his community had endured were unfair and deserved condemnation and reparation in the terms of the Spanish legal system. Las Casas’s knowledge of the conquest of Xalisco, such as it is denounced in his Brevísima relación de la destruición de Indias (and probably explored in his lost treatise on the war in Xalisco), as well as his commitment to provide access to the Spanish legal system for those who had suffered injustices during the conquest, reinforced the purpose of Tenamaztle’s testimony around a specific point: restitution for all the sufferings that he and his community had unfairly endured.43 Second, Las Casas translated the leadership role that Tenamaztle exhibited in Nuchistlán (cacique or tatoan), particularly during the Mixtón War as an authority in terms of “estado y señorío,” which implied an ancestral, permanent, and natural dominion over a region and the people who lived there. In fact, the whole testimony was sustained on the premise that Tenamaztle was the heir of an ancestral authority over Nuchistlán and that he was trying to recover it with the help of the Spanish crown. Therefore, his first petition to the Spanish king was not about punishment for those who had caused suffering to him and his community, or even about reparation for the damages that they had endured, but a restitution of their freedom and his authority in Nuchistlán.44 However, even though all of the witnesses of the case agreed that Tenamaztle was a leader in the Mixtón War and that he obtained respect and recognition within the Indigenous groups because of that leadership, none of them could ensure that he had ancestral authority over Nuchistlán. Las Casas deliberately inserted the language of “estado y señorío” to make this point. In fact, on the basis of his revision of early sources on the Caxcan rebellion, León-​ Portilla argues that Tenamaztle was increasingly recognized as a leader in the effort to avoid the enslavement of the Indigenous population, as well as to confront the abuses of the conquerors and encomenderos.45 Nevertheless, these documents did not identify Tenamaztle as the evident or exclusive authority 43

44

45

Caroline Cunill, “El indio miserable: nacimiento de la teoría colonial del siglo xvi,” Cuadernos Inter·c·ambio 9 (2011): 229–​248. In this essay Cunill explores the use of the juridical figure of the indio miserable in Bartolomé de Las Casas as a legal strategy to frame the cases before the Consejo de Indias and obtain restitution for his litigants. “Vuestra alteza tenga por bien de mandar poner en libertad a los vezinos y moradores que ovieren vivos del dicho pueblo de Nuchistlán y Mixquitutla (?) y sus subjectos, mandando que yo sea restituido en el señorío de ellos, como cosa propia mía y que me dejaron mis padres del qual e sido despojado; y a mi y a todos ellos Vuestra Alteza incorpore en la Corona Real de Castilla.” Tenamaztle, “Ciertas peticiones,” 517. León-​Portilla, La flecha en el blanco, 113–​116.

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in the region. In the same manner, Josefina García-​Quintana and Salvador Álvarez argue that precisely one of the problems that Spanish conquerors had to confront when they arrived to the region of Nuchistlán was that, unlike the case of Tenochtitlan, where powerful lineages were well established and recognized, the conquerors did not find a centralized system of power between Indigenous groups that inhabited this region. Rather, these groups used to have persistent conflicts and precarious alliances among them.46 Therefore, the idea according to Tenamaztle that he possessed an ancestral and permanent “estado y señorío” over Nochistlán and Xalisco is the way in which Las Casas translated his leadership in the fight for freedom against the Spanish conquerors of the region. This translation was not neutral. It produced a representation of Tenamaztle as somebody who had the authority to offer a submission to the Spanish crown not only for him and his community but also for other Indigenous communities around him. In his testimony, Tenamaztle was no longer the leader of a rebellion against the Spanish invaders. He had become a señor of Nuchistlán and Xalisco who was asking the Spanish king for the restitution of his natural rights over the land and the people. If the Spanish monarch restituted his freedom and señorío, he would become a loyal vassal of the Spanish crown, which would help in the expansion of Spanish dominion and of Christianity in the region of Xalisco. 3

Conclusion

This transformation of Tenamaztle as Señor de Nuchistlán has two important consequences. On the one hand, it gives Tenamaztle moral superiority over the Spanish conquerors and encomenderos who arrived later in Xalisco and who acquired power over the people and the land mostly through lies and violence. This moral superiority justified Tenamaztle’s actions against conquerors as a just defense of his natural right to freedom and allowed him to argue that he was in a better position to become a loyal vassal of the Spanish crown than were the conquerors and encomenderos. In this sense, Las Casas placed Tenamaztle in a group of figures that he had created in his writings. Hatuey, Enriquillo, and now Tenamaztle became emblematic figures of justified resistance against

46

Josefina García-​Quintana, “La rebelión caxcana,” in El Lienzo de Tlaxcala, ed. Mario de la Torre (México: Papel y Cartón, 1983), 183–​188; Salvador Álvarez, “La guerra Chichimeca,” in Historia del Reino de la Nueva Galicia, ed. Thomas Calvo and Aristarco Regalado Pinedo (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2016), 215–​234.

104 Sánchez-Godoy the abuses of the Spanish conquerors and encomenderos, and of the peaceful Christianization of the Indigenous populations.47 On the other hand, Tenamaztle’s testimony gave Las Casas the opportunity to incarnate in a singular story what he had extensively discussed in his copious writings about the injustices that the Christians committed in the Indies against the Indigenous population. In his works, Las Casas talked about the injustices, but he did not use the first person. As in the case of his narrative on Hatuey, he put some words in their mouths, or he talked about them while having tremendous empathy for their sufferings. However, they were not able to give voice to these sufferings: their voices were lost in time and only recovered through Las Casas’s writing. With Tenamaztle’s testimony, this situation has changed. While Las Casas gave Tenamaztle an opportunity to make his case before the Spanish crown, Tenamaztle gave Las Casas a face, a body with marks of suffering and resilience, a personal narrative, and a Christian/​Indigenous name, which demonstrated that the struggle for justice was not his cause but an Indigenous cause, which in turn sustained and made sense of all his efforts before the Consejo de Indias. Not one of the petitions that the Caxcan leader—​Francisco Tenamaztle—​ made to the Spanish king and to the Consejo de Indias through Las Casas bore fruit. Tenamaztle never returned to his land and his community. It seems that he became ill and died while in captivity in October 1556.48 A few years later, the conquest of Xalisco and Zacatecas became one of the most heinous episodes in the history of the Spanish expansion into the northern frontier of the New Spain: the Chichimeca War.49 However, together, Francisco Tenamaztle and Bartolomé de las Casas wrote a document in which, through translation, their pursuit of justice created a bridge between two perspectives that still inspires the fight for justice and truth in the present, even in the darkest times today. Appendix Francisco Tenamaztle’s Testimony before the Consejo de Indias

47 48 49

Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., 5:1841–​1845, 1861–​1864. See also, Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima Relación de la Destruición de Indias, 406–​411; Bartolomé de las Casas, “Carta al Consejo de Indias (April 30, 1534),” O.C., 13:82. Álvaro J. Torres Nila, ¡Axcan quema, tehuatl, nehuatl! Notas acerca de la vida de Don Francisco Tenamaztle (Guadalajara: Boletín Eclesiástico de la Arquidiócesis de Guadalajara, 2019), 28. Álvarez, “La Guerra Chichimeca,” 234–​247.

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Translation by Rubén Sánchez-​Godoy Some petitions made at the request of don Francisco Tenamaztle.50 Mexico, June 1, 1555. Checked. Information obtained in Valladolid at the request of cacique Francisco Tenamaztle, who was sent as a prisoner from Xalisco, where he was a lord. A.G.I. México, 205, n.11 [Fol. 1r] What don Francisco Tenamaztle is begging and the account of his grievances +​ Very powerful members of the Consejo de Indias, Don Francisco Tenamaztle, cacique or tatoan from the province of Nuchistlán and Xalisco, I kiss Your Highness’ feet and hand, and I appear before this Real Consejo de Indias in the best form and manner that law gives to me, asking for justice and telling only the truth. As Your Highness already knows, I have been sent to these kingdoms of Castile by New Spain’s viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, as a prisoner and exile, alone, dispossessed from my condition and lordship as well as from my wife and children. I have suffered extreme poverty, thirst, hunger, and severe need while crossing sea and land. I have received many insults, affronts, and persecutions from numerous people. I have also gone through many other difficult situations and dangers for my life, which have become harder to endure due to the situation in which I am. I feel very aggrieved for all this situation, where I have been mistreated against all reason and justice, under the rule of a so fair king whose will and habit, according to what I have heard, explicitly orders everybody to comply with reason and justice. It has not been enough for the Spaniards to hurt me with so many, big, unbelievable, and irreparable damages through unjustified and extremely cruel wars—​killing many of my vassals, people from my region, and relatives—​forcing me to run away, exiled from my land, my wife and children, to hide in the mountains for many years, living in fear of those who ambushed and went after my life. After that, during supposedly peaceful times—​if it is possible to call peace a cruel and undeclared war—​the Spaniards wickedly and shamefully hanged many important lords as well as several of my vassals, relatives, and neighbors.

50

This translation is based on the electronic copy of the file available in pares (Portal de Archivos Españoles) under the reference A.G.I. México, 205, n. 11. I also consulted the transcription of the text found in León-​Portilla, Francisco Tenamaztle, primer guerrillero, 138–​146, as well as the one found in Augusto Carrillo Cázares, El debate sobre la guerra Chichimeca, 1531–​1585. Volumen ii. Cuerpo de documentos (Zamora, Michoacán: El Colegio de Michoacán y El Colegio de San Luis, 2000), 513–​518. I am also providing additional notes that help clarify the context, the characters, and the dates of the events that Tenamaztle narrates.

106 Sánchez-Godoy The initiator and first agent of these damages and grievances was a certain Nuño de Guzmán,51 who was the first to arrive in my lands, when I was the lord of them and did not recognize any lord in the world as my superior. He came as an enemy of my lordship and my republic, acting as a violent oppressor against me and my subjects [which was against natural law and the law of nations].52 Even though I and my people were safe and peaceful in our land, he came against us as if we were declared defiant enemies of the Christian people or of the King of Castile, or as if we have offended the universal church or any of its kingdoms with very serious damages. I could have justly contested him using weapons to resist him as far as I could (fol. 1v) since he was an infamous big tyrant, a killer and oppressor of the people in Mexico, Pánuco, and Michoacán; in these three provinces, he had ordered to kill and torture the kings and important lords, as well as many other innumerable people, just because he wanted them to give him gold and silver, like the horrendous cruelty that he did to the king Cazonci of Michoacán and to others right there and in other places.53 His deadly fame was so frightening and extended throughout all these kingdoms that people all around those places were totally scared of him and the Spaniards that accompanied him, to the point that if the inhabitants had the opportunity to bury themselves alive, they would do it before seeing themselves in their hands. Because I, Don Francisco Tenamaztle, only wanted to meet them in peace, I ordered my people to go forward to receive the Spaniards in a peaceful and friendly manner, to give them generously all the things they needed, and to welcome them; my only reason for this was a natural and excessive piety. By doing this, I put myself in danger of getting exposed to the major wrongdoings and damages that he [Nuño de Guzmán] committed later against me, all my people, and my lands. Guzmán went ahead toward the province of Culiacan with his people, looking for gold

51

52 53

Nuño de Guzmán’s expedition departed from Mexico City on December 21, 1529. Therefore, the first contact of his army with Tenamaztle and his community probably took place in 1530. Aristarco Regalado Pinedo, “Una conquista a sangre y fuego (1530–​ 1536),” Historia del Reino de la Nueva Galicia, ed. Thomas Calvo and Aristarco Regalado Pinedo (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2016), 131–​164. The expression “against natural law and law of nations” is inserted in the left margin in the text and is referenced with a cross (+​) in the text. Tenamaztle is talking about Tzintzincha Tangaxoan, a Tarascan leader who was the last cazonci monarch of the kingdom of the Purépecha from 1520 to 1530. He was baptized as Francisco and made a peace treaty with Cortez. Nevertheless, on February 14, 1530, Nuño de Guzmán ordered Francisco executed by garrote and burning, after accusing him of insulting and killing many Spaniards. James Krippner-​Martinez, Rereading the Conquest: Power, Politics, and the History of Early Colonial Michoacán, México, 1521–​1565 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 9–​35; Nuño de Guzmán, Proceso, tormento muerte del Cazonzi, último gran señor de los Tarascos, 1530, introduction, paleographic version, and notes, Armando M. Escobar Olmedo (Morelia, Michoacán: Frente de Afirmación Hispanista, 1997).

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and wealth. He devastated that province—​one of the most beautiful and populated provinces in the whole world—​stabbing whoever he found regardless of sex, age, or dignity, filling also houses with people, children and old people, little and big ones, and then setting them on fire to see them burn alive. Once he destroyed that province, he soon returned to Xalisco, and to pay the hospitality that I, my people, and other caciques, had with him, he used the same coin and gratitude he used with people from Panuco. He decided to settle down in our province since it was a region with more gold and silver.54 Then, after deciding along with his captains how to distribute people from the towns and their surroundings to each Spaniard, as though we were wild animals, he put me, the subscriber Francisco Tenamaztle, my people, as well as many other caciques and lords with their people, in the habitual and extremely harsh captivity and serfdom in what the Spaniards called encomiendas. While we were suffering patiently in this captivity with other caciques and people with more […]55 that the Franciscan friars arrived; these friars came to us and told us that the reason they had come was to teach us that we had to know the only and true God that lived in heaven [fol. 2r], and also that a just and pious king of Castile had sent them only with that purpose. In that time, I was one of the first people who, because of the preaching and persuasion of these religious men, converted, and received the holy sacrament of baptism along with other lords and many people. In those days, when the towns were calm and safe, [Nuño de Guzmán] used to send people walking and by horses to assault them, and they enslaved all the people they took, because they took all the people they wanted, marking them with the branding iron of the king according to them. In this way, he made innumerable slaves, men and women, children of all ages, leaving husbands without their wives, women without their husbands, children without their parents, and parents without their children, sending them to be sold in the mines and other places in New Spain, wherever he received the best price for them. In addition, this Nuño de Guzmán and his servants, being crueler than the others, as well as all the other Spaniards—​used to afflicting—​afflicted each one of the towns and Indians that they had with excessive works inside and outside the mines, treating them so harshly with all kinds of serfdom and cruelty as though they were made of iron or metal, and not taking care for their health or life since they were regarded as wild animals.

54 55

Guzmán began the process of settlement and foundation of towns in this region in December 1531. Regalado Pinedo, “Una conquista a sangre y fuego,” 154. There is an interruption in the manuscript in this line. This lost word is probably “título” (title), but there is no way to know the exact missing word and the connection between the sentences.

108 Sánchez-Godoy The injustices and cruelties that Juan de Oñate, Cristóbal de Oñate and a certain Miguel de Ibarra, whom [Nuño de Guzmán] named captains, committed in that kingdom have not been seen or thought in these places.56 They hanged nine lords and more of my relatives, noblemen, and vassals because, due to the aggressions, lashes, beatings, and other kinds of bad, cruel, and unbearable mistreatments that common Indigenous people received from them—​and being unable to keep on suffering such amounts of impiety and evil—​many of these Indigenous people ran away to the mountains, in the same way that the meek ox naturally runs away from the butcher. When they were running away, [the Spaniards] chased after them. Defending themselves, while the Indigenous were running away, they wounded or killed a Spaniard. Therefore, while the caciques and lords were in their houses serving the encomenderos, [the Spaniards] hanged them because of what other individuals had done. In this way, and due to other people’s fault, they hanged many other people and chiefs, making bigger day by day the grievances and the irreparable damages, the calamities, the extremely harsh captivity, deaths, and depopulations that we suffered.57 When adelantado Alvarado arrived by sea with five hundred men, with whom he was going to discover, he camped them in that province.58 The discoveries that these people made by land added grievances upon grievances, evils upon evils, robberies upon robberies [fol. 2v], and aggressions and violence against married women and stolen daughters, and other things impossible to mention. However, in those lands, everybody takes these things for truth, and everybody knows that this is the habit and activity of the Spaniards wherever they go in the Indies. Then, with all that kingdom afflicted, oppressed, extenuated, destroyed, and—​with the remaining survivors—​placed in such a dejected and dire situation, they were not hesitant about the fact they were to be exterminated and consumed in the same way that thousands of people were being consumed; if such serfdom, contrary to any 56

57

58

The Oñate brothers, Juan and Cristóbal, as well as Miguel de Ibarra, were soldiers from Guzmán’s expedition who came from Guipúzcoa in Spain. For that reason, they created a particular group inside the expedition. After settling down in Xalisco, Guzmán gave them advantages in the distribution of the encomiendas. Salvador Álvarez, “La primera regionalización (1530–​1570),” in Historia del Reino de la Nueva Galicia. ed. Thomas Calvo and Aristarco Regalado Pinedo (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2016), 165–​210 (173). For information about each of these conquerors, see Jesús Amaya Topete, Ameca, Protofundación Mexicana (México: Lumen, 1951), 85–​86, 120–​122. Establishing the exact date of their hanging is difficult. However, a Nahuatl text subscribed by Don Cristóbal, an indigene, suggests that this event happened around 1538. Thomas Calvo et. al., Xalisco, la voz de un pueblo en el siglo xvi (México: Centro de Investigaciones Sociales y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1993), 54–​56, 81–​83. Pedro de Alvarado arrived in the region of Nochistlán in 1541 to aid Cristóbal de Oñate at the time of the Mixtón Indigenous rebellion. After being crushed accidentally by a horse, Alvarado died on July 4, 1541.

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natural justice—​that is to be encomendados to the Spaniards—​persisted, they agreed, as free people that we are, to run away to the mountains, and become stronger up there to defend their own lives, and their women and children, because God and nature conceded this natural defense even to the beasts, and to the insensitive and inanimate things, and all divine and human laws protect it and consider it licit. I, the subscriber Francisco Tenamaztle—​seeing that they had hanged nine caciques so inhumanly, without justice, and finding them safe in their houses and lands; that many and innumerable of my vassals had died, not remaining of all the people who used to live in that kingdom but only one percent; that there was no justice or hope of it, or no person to complain to about it, or to ask for justice because all of the Spaniards were our enemies and they stole, afflicted, oppressed, and tyrannized us in the same way that they do today. I decided to run away with the few people that I had left to save them and myself as natural law obliges it because, if I had not fled, they would have hanged me with the same injustice and cruelty.59 Very powerful lords: Spaniards always have called this escape and this natural defense, using words improperly in all Indies, as an uprising against the king. Your highness, judge, as I expect, you will judge justly and in a Catholic way, as the fairest judges do; for what nation, even if it lacks the faith in Christ or any other divine or natural law, but is only guided by natural reason, or for what kind of beasts between the irrational creatures, it is not licit and extremely fair such an escape, such a defense, such an uprising, as they want to call it? Even more, considering that they [the Spaniards] have done a disservice to their king and have violated their loyalty to him because they have not made us understand about another king [fol. 3v] but about themselves. When they have used the king’s name, it has been only for imposing and accusing us of guilts and sins that we never considered to commit, and for excusing their injustices and their tyrannical acts of violence that are lacking any humanity, and that they have committed against us very inhumanly. I ran away and I hid for nine years where no Spaniard could see me or find me unless I wanted them to.60 However–​–​after remembering that I was a Christian and that while moving through the mountains I could not live and rest as a Christian, and also believing that [Spaniards] would be grateful if I came back from the place in which 59

60

Previously Tenamaztle mentioned that the Spaniards hanged nine caciques, after the arrival of Nuño de Guzmán in 1530 to the region of Xalisco. Seemingly, this second reference to the hanging refers to a different event that happened as a Spanish retaliation against the Indigenous population for their participation in the 1541 Mixtón War. It is not clear in the text who ordered the hanging of the nine caciques. According to Pérez Bustamante, the two expeditions that confronted the Mixtón rebellion, those of Cristóbal de Oñate and Antonio Mendoza, used collective hangings as a way of retaliation against the Indigenous population. Pérez Bustamante, Antonio de Mendoza, 73–​85. Tenamaztle hid in the mountains from 1541 to 1550.

110 Sánchez-Godoy I was safe on my own land and with the lordship that I had inherited from my parents and from which I have been dispossessed and exiled without just reason or cause–​–​I came alone and by my own will offered myself to the bishop of that province61 so that he could make a deal with the Spaniards to receive me with friendship, humanity, and Christianity; because, if I came by myself, I would suffer the desperate life that they keep giving to all our people. I came with no anger, as if the persecutions, the attacks on our territory, and the evils that Spaniards caused me had not happened. The bishop told me that we should go to meet the viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza, as a person who had to have my service in return. I told him that it pleased me with all my will. Therefore, we came to Mexico [City], but found that he was gone, and that Don Luis, his successor, was in his position.62 I spent one year there with the bishop. He died at that time, and when I was willing to return home with his clerics, the viceroy apprehended me, and not adding other cause or new justice to the above mentioned, he ordered my arrest, put me in shackles, and transported me to Veracruz where we embarked and all the injuries, affronts, hunger, thirst, and personal sadness of which I began to speak previously continued. All these things, all these regrettable grievances and evils, that I have received from the Spaniards, without having offended anyone, are public and notorious. They have eaten, drunk, and dressed from my blood and sweat, as well as that of my people for many years, and they have acquired and still have much wealth that they use to succeed. Yet, the same enemies that have destroyed, slandered, ignominiously weakened, and brought me to this situation, to this place, do not deny what they have done; and, even if they would like to deny it, they could not do it. In fact, I know that they take pride and glorify themselves for these actions, and this Consejo de Indias has proof of many of these acts in the trials and judicial processes [fol. 3v] against such as Nuño de Guzmán and others, and all this can be frightening even today because it is impossible to declare, to express, to make ugly, what is only one of ten thousand parts. Therefore, I ask and plead with Your Highness that having only God before your eyes, as well as the truth and justice, and the fact that I am Christian, as well as the harsh persecutions, the unbearable damages, dispossessions, captivities, incursions into our territory, and exiles that I and my people have suffered, and we, those who

61 62

Tenamaztle refers to the first bishop of Guadalajara, Pedro Gómez de Maraver, who was bishop from 1541 until December 1551, and died in Mexico. He met Tenamaztle around 1550. Antonio de Mendoza was the viceroy of New Spain from 1535 to 1550. He was replaced by Luis de Velasco, who was the viceroy of New Spain from 1550 to 1564. Tenamaztle and Bishop Maraver arrived in Mexico City after September of 1550—​the year Velasco became the new viceroy.

Francisco Tenamaztle, Bartolomé de Las Casas

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are alive today, still suffer, and the misery, and the calamity in which I am currently placed: order the remedy and enforce justice in the following things: First, if I make a criminal complaint against those who have committed many deaths, captivities, injuries, grievances, evils, and damages against the natural as well as the law of nations attacking me, because they are many, I ask Your Highness, do not order that they be killed; and, if I make a civil complaint making them pay for and satisfy all those evils and damages, it will not be enough for the rest of their life and my descendants, even in the case they would have large rents and properties, to pay me, the other caciques, lords, and all that kingdom and its people who have been hurt and aggrieved by their actions. In order to avoid complaints against me as well as danger to my life and person while living in a foreign land, so cold and so hot compared with the land in which I was born and raised, and for excusing the damages that many people who are still alive, who aggravated me, and who hurt me, will inevitably receive if this Real Consejo de Indias judges them in rectitude and equality, as usually it does, I ask you that Your Highness order to free all the neighbors and inhabitants who remain alive in the towns of Nochistlán and Mizquitutla, and their vassals, ordering the restitution of my lordship over them, as something that belongs to me, that my parents left to me, and from which I have been dispossessed. I also ask Your Highness to incorporate me and all of them in the Real Crown of Castile, in whose devotion and service I want always to live as well as my successors and to raise its royal flag each time that I have to militate as a vassal of it, and for that reason I pledge respect to it, according to the customs and laws of Castile. And as a fulfillment of this, I will work to bring to the service of Your Majesty the acahecas and the coachichines; they are nations that are angry, and they have neither come to the knowledge of God nor to the obedience of Your Majesty because of the large damages [fol. 4r] and evils that they have directly received from the Spaniards and those that they have heard that their neighbors and close provinces have suffered from the Spaniards when the latter have arrived into their lands. Also, I will bring other nations that remain hidden, ferocious, and with mortal hate and enmity against the Spaniards, because of the horrors that they have heard of what the Spaniards do wherever they arrive. I offer myself to bring all of them without using spears or swords, just with a bishop and a number of friars that Your Highness will give to me as I travel from here; there the friars make public and preach what they preach in other parts, and they certify that this is Your Majesty’s will. The most important favor (merced) that you have to do and you will do for them is this—​and this is the condition that I put in order to fulfill what I am offering to do about those nations: Your Highness will give to me a letter and royal provision and safety for it, using all the forces of the most powerful privilege that you can grant so that all the people (pueblos y gentes) that I could bring, thanks to my

112 Sánchez-Godoy work, they will be included in the royal crown of Castile, and they never will be—​for any reason or need, as far as remaining loyal to the service and devotion to the kings of Castile—​be deported from their lands or delivered in encomienda to Spaniards or any other particulars, given as part of any estate, or in any other thinkable way. In addition, the caciques and lords will stay in their lands with their states and lordships recognized and confirmed, and their heirs will receive them according to the laws and customs that they have, recognizing always the universal kings of Castile as their supreme and sovereign lords and kings. And as recognition of this universal lordship, they and their successors will pay tribute in their states. I understand all this, and I offer myself and I promise to do it in the way I have said; serving in that and in many other ways Your Majesty with the help of God, I will make all people abandon their mistakes and the reproved religion that they have had until now, because they have not had those who would indoctrinate and tell them the truth—​all this would be with the help of God and the friars. Don Francisco Tenamaztle (signature)

­c hapter 5

Books and/​as Idols: Affective Discourse in Early Colonial Dominican and Maya Writings Garry Sparks 1

Introduction

The arrival of Bartolomé de las Casas and his Dominican recruits to the Maya highlands in the 1530s and 1540s coincided with wider trends in Iberian Christianity. Among these was the decline of the medieval affective theologies related to the displacement of Neoplatonic metaphysics for linguistic or semiotic ideologies, as well as theories of natural law—​both largely informed by the theology of Thomas Aquinas. While no longer inclined toward a Christian mysticism, many mendicant missionaries to the Americas construed language—​ including writing—​as emotionally and perspectivally able to affect Native peoples in the manner akin to how Native Mesoamericans understood the words attributed to their religious effigies. However, consideration for the use of Native affective discourse was intricately related to early debates between mendicants on not only how to translate key concepts, like “God” and “idol,” but also on the role, value, and power of religious literature. Intertextual analysis between the earliest writings in K’iche’an1 languages by both the first Dominican missionaries in Guatemala and Maya authors shed light on how each constituency understood its religious discourse to move the early modern Maya either toward or away from opposing religious worldviews. Furthermore, it evinces how early Dominican missionaries in particular co-​ opted K’iche’ Maya religious terms and rhetorical poetics for their pastoral texts, as well as construed such literature as replacements for Maya effigies and objects of affection, resulting in the post-​contact Maya fetishization of “sacred” books but on Christianized Maya terms.

1 K’iche’an in this chapter refers to the sub-​family of ten Mayan languages and cultures (e.g., K’iche’, Kaqchikel, Tz’utujil, and Q’eqchi’ among the most prominent) historically located in the Guatemalan highlands.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_007

114 Sparks 2

Book Ideology: Las Casas’s Dominicans

Aside from the extensive writings left by Las Casas, one of his 1545 recruits from the University of Salamanca, Domingo de Vico, op, produced the most extensive texts ever written in the Mayan languages, which included the first original Christian theology composed in the Americas—​the two-​volume Theologia Indorum (1553, 1554). Toward the end of the proemium to the first volume of the Theologia Indorum, Vico states the purpose of his nearly 900-​page theological treatise to the Highland Maya. Specifically, he writes: This is the revival of the self2 and the revival of the heart for good people, readers of the book, as well as hearers of the beloved names [of God]3 that are in the large book.4 One should listen, one should want it, one should be loved by and thus one should desire it, this knowledge, that is in this world as you all are my sons and my daughters. [¶] One should place God in your heart and should give, thus, into the desire that one should desire knowing God, the great lord. What is really loved and a 2 The K’iche’ stem wach may also be translated as “face” or “image.” Together with the stem k’u’x—​which can be glossed as “heart,” “center,” “core,” or “essence”—​Vico constructed a lexical couplet that references the exterior and interior dimensions of human nature. With this couplet Vico possibly implied a Christian theological anthropology grounded in Genesis 1:26–​27, which states that the first human was made in the image (imago [in Latin] or eikon [in Greek]) and likeness (similitudo [in Latin] or homoiosis [in Greek]) of God—​for humans uniquely created as imago Dei “image of God.” In emerging Christian (vs. Jewish) theology and exegesis of this verse in late antiquity, the disobedience of Adam and Eve resulted in the ontological, and thus perpetual, severing of the former (humans as divine image) and warping of the latter (humans in divine likeness) only to be restored (reconcilio) by God returning to the original idea (logos [i.e., John 1:1]) of humanity as and through the person of Jesus as the second persona (“person,” “character,” or literally “mask”) of the triune god (i.e., as God the Son). 3 While possibly read as an oblique reference to Jesus, the name of Jesus does not appear prominently until the second volume of the Theologia Indorum, and this proemium for the first volume is introducing the Thomistic topic of the “names of God” (e.g., eternal, infinite, immortal, etc.) rather than Jesus, for a theocentric rather than christocentric approach. 4 While mistakenly read as referring to the Bible, K’iche’ readers would most likely not have been exposed to a Bible given its girth relative to other pastoral texts, such as catechisms or mendicant vade mecum (go-​with-​me) books like breviaries, and its cost (and thus tendency to be kept within convents rather than carried about), this phrase most likely refers to the Theologia Indorum itself since that is how it is called only a few lines earlier on the same page: Uae nima vuh rij theologia indor[um] vbinaam … (“This is the large book named the Theologia Indorum …”); Domingo de Vico, Theologia Indorum, American Philosophical Society Manuscript 497.4.Ua13 (1605 [1553]), fol. 1, Philadelphia. Hereafter aps Ms; all English translations mine.

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really great thing in the world is the knowledge of God, the great lord, with also an understanding of the works of the keeper of greatness, the keeper of love. May people listen, may they take to heart and love the name of God, the great lord, because thus truly it shall be necessary that they love it and shall desire in their heart the clarification of and the language of God and of the being of God, the great lord. [¶] Three loves and three pains in your heart and in knowing that you all are the people of this place [Guatemala], you all are the K’iche’ people, as you are called. Love glorified to you all is the language of God, the great lord, that I will begin to tell you all right now so that then you all may be enlivened and so that you all then warm up, as because of this your hearts should then be warmed, that it would then comfort your hearts because God, the great lord, is behind it. May then your hearts ache for and then feel the weight to know God, the great lord.5 After this section in his theology’s introduction, Vico does not explain what his book or devotional literature in general is intended to do, let alone emotionally to do, to its readers. The only exception to reflecting on a book again comes later in c­ hapter 20, but his focus at that point is not on any religious book (e.g., his Theologia Indorum, the Bible, a catechism, sermons, a hymnal, Aquinas’s summae, etc.), but rather the “book of life” by God.6 And again, unlike his opening section’s brief reflection on his book’s purpose, he does not mention any affect or emotional impact of God’s “book of life” on Maya Catholics. This early reflection on religious emotions to Native peoples can be placed within the longue durée of debates in Iberia regarding the legitimacy of various kinds of interior religion (affective Christian theologies or spiritualities) from the turn of the sixteenth century onward. Furthermore, the Observant reformation built on the previous Cistercian reformation that cut across religious orders and schools of scholasticism. As such, the perpetual development of medieval affective spirituality or mysticism most prominently occurred among Franciscans in Iberia, who came under increased scrutiny and suspicion both in wider Catholic Europe and in the leading up to and in the wake of the Council of Trent—​even within Spain. This trend was accompanied by a revaluation of the authority, and also of affectivity, of the book. Humanism fed into the emerging semiotic divide between realism and nominalism that in northern Europe compelled Reformers to simultaneously shore up the

5 aps Ms, fol. 1r. 6 aps Ms, fol. 25v.

116 Sparks authority and accessibility of the Bible while also divesting it of enthusiastic affectivity characteristic of medieval mystics.7 By the turn of that century, the understanding of books included vernacular languages, namely Castilian, of “texts designed to both inspire and guide deeper contact with God.”8 For example, as Francisco de Osuna restated in his Third Spiritual Alphabet (1527): “But why do we reveal in public these secret colloquies, and why labor to explain in ordinary language these ineffable affections? Inexperienced people will not understand these things if they do not read them more clearly in the book of experience, as this very devotion teaches them; otherwise, the one who reads the exterior letter will gain nothing, for if he does not take the gloss and inner meaning of the heart, then the lesson of the external letter will have little appeal.” What the holy man [St. Bernard of Clairvaux] has said …9 Across the Atlantic, Alejo Venegas—​the first professor of rhetoric at the Universidad Real in Mexico—​stated in his Primera parte de las diferencias de libros que hay en el universo (1540) that a book “is an ark of deposit in which, by means of essential information or things or figures, those things which belong to the information and clarity of understanding are deposited,” with an ark understood to be etymologically derived from “to frighten” (arredrar), and this is appropriate for his definition because Venegas understood that books frightened ignorance.10 Notably, writings by Las Casas and his Dominican recruits, like Vico, reveal none of the affective Pseudo-​Dionysian discourse, patterns, or tropes (e.g., Neoplatonic flow of cosmic emanation from and return back to God, defined stages of anagogic ascent of the soul via ascetic devotional practices, senses of ecstatic union with divine intellectual illumination or extra-​biblical messages 7 8 9 10

Robert A. Yelle, Semiotics of Religion: Signs of the Sacred in History (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 92–​99. Bernard McGinn, Mysticism in the Golden Age of Spain, 1500–​1650. The Presence of God, Volume 6, Part 2 (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2017), 6. Francisco de Osuna, The Third Spiritual Alphabet, trans. Mary E. Giles (New York: Paulist Press, 1981 [1527]), 280; also see McGinn, Mysticism, 37. Alejo Venegas, Primera parte de las diferencias de libros que hay en el universo (Salamanca: Casa de Pedro Laso, 1572 [1545]), fol. 1v; and Walter D. Mignolo, “Who is Naming that Object a Book?” Writing Without Word: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes, ed. Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004), 220.

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via visions, etc.) in works by Franciscan alumbrados and the likes of Francisco de Osuna, the Carmelites of Ávila like Teresa de Ávila and Juan de la Cruz, or their legacies in New Spain, such as Juana de la Cruz. But they did share a language ideology regarding the transformative power of the book further enhanced by humanism and the advent of the printing press. Analysis of Las Casas’s reporting illustrates how Thomism came to bear on religious affections in Peru that can then be extended to how he and others of his cohort, such as Vico, also understood religious effigies, images, and terms among Mesoamericans, such as of the K’iche’an Maya. And while analysis of Las Casas’s Thomistic perspective has mostly focused on Aquinas’s understanding of perception and cognition, Aquinas’s theory about affections is also highly relevant since they correspond with his theory of signification—​of symbols and sign theory. The influence of Aquinas after the 1520s in Spanish theological education became one of the largest intellectual divides. The divide was especially marked between the semiotic realism of Dominicans and the nominalism of Franciscans, and thus by extension how Aquinas’s understandings of affections and religious emotions also informed understandings of idolatry beyond a demonology, at least for some Dominicans like Las Casas. Furthermore, the pictographic “script” of many Mesoamerican peoples obscured distinctions between images and text, such as the K’iche’an stem tz’ib’ to refer to either writing or drawing.11 Thus, for many mendicants, spoken and written words, like drawn and carved images, could raise potential concerns of idolatry. For this reason, the parsing of Vico’s opening comments regarding his book is aided by how mid-​sixteenth-​century K’iche’an Maya understood religious effigies, books (including language and writing), and emotions (including affective discourse). For example, the key term k’astab’al that Vico uses to explain his book does not appear in colonial lexicons. Similar entries include: the root k’as in Franciscan friar Thomás de Coto’s mid-​seventeenth-​century Thesaurus Verborum, glossed as “to awaken” or “to open one’s eyes” (k’as, k’astoj: despertar), “to rejoice” (k’asal nuwach: alegrarse), “to feel relief” (k’asas nuwach: alivio sentir), “to resuscitate” (k’ase, k’astajib’al: resucitar), “[to have] soul,” “to encourage,” “to motivate” (k’aslib’al: alma, animar), but also “magic” or literally a “living stone” (k’aslik ab’aj: mágica).12 In his Spanish entry on resuçitar o reuiuir el 11 12

Dennis Tedlock, 2000 Years of Mayan Literature (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010), 32, 299. Thomás de Coto, [Thesavrvs Verborv]: Vocabvlario de la lengua cakchiquel v[el] guatemalteca, nueuamente hecho y recopilado con summo estudio, trauajo y erudición, ed. René Acuña (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1983 [c.1650]), ccxl. K’iche’ and Spanish orthography modernized, English translation mine.

118 Sparks q[ue] era muerto (“to resuscitate or to revive that which was dead”), Coto states that qaztah (k’astaj) is synonymous with “to get up” (levantarse), “to stand up” (ponerse en pie), and even “to resemble” (parecer) but is also a term for “resurrection,” such as that of Jesus and Lazarus—​rox q’ij xuk’astaj wi ri’ qanimajawal Jesucrito (“on the third day [God] resurrected him, our great lordly Jesus Christ”).13 These were not, however, understandings that either Iberians or Maya had for their books but rather that the Maya had for devotional effigies. 3

Che’ Ab’aj: Effigies of “Wood and/​or Stone” (vs. “Stone and/​ or Wood”)

Early post-​contact Highland Maya literature presents three key terms that can refer to effigies—​che’ ab’aj, k’ab’awil, and poy—​with the first two appropriated by early Christian missionaries to mean “idol.” Both the lexical couplet che’ ab’aj and the term k’ab’awil availed themselves for possible analogies, (in)commensurability, and (mis)translation between missionaries and Maya religion but also for points of debate between the competing religious orders with their differing scholastic theologies, semiotic ideologies, and theories of translation. Of the three, che’ ab’aj afforded the most significant point of contact. As a traditional parallel phrase che’ ab’aj, in Highland Mayan languages like K’iche’ 13 Coto, [Thesavrvs Verborv], 489. K’iche’ orthography modernized, English translation mine. Similar definitions and understandings are found in the eighteenth-​century, anonymous Dominican Vocabulario en lengua 4iche otlatecas, though composed from much earlier Franciscan and Dominican K’iche’an language sources. For more, see Michael Dürr and Frauke Sachse, eds., Diccionario k’iche’ de Berlín: El Vocabulario en lengua 4iche otlatecas: edición crítica, Estudios Indiana 10 (Berlin: Ibero-​Amerikanisches Institut Preußischer Kulturbesitz and Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2017), 166–​167, 238; Dominican friar Domingo de Basseta’s 1698 Vocabulario quiché, such as: resuscitar: chin caztah u uach (to resuscitate) and +​Caztahic, po; caztahibal; resurreción; caztahibal quih: día of Resun+​ . Cazlibal: ánima (passion, resurrection, day of the Resurrection, soul) in René Acuña, ed., Domingo de Basseta: Vocabulario de lengua quiché (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005 [1698]), 281, 363–​ 364; and Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez’s Arte de las tres lengvas εaεchiqvel qviche y 4,vtvhil (c.1704–​1714), such as: 4aztahibal. la resurreccion, activa o pasiva. (k’astajib’al =​“the resurrection,” active or passive) and Per hominem mors et per hominem resurrectio mortuorum. rumal vinac 4amic zachic rumal 4avinac 4aztahibal richin 4aminac. rumal vinac 4amic zachic rumal 4a [te et] vinac 4aztahibal rech 4aminac (because of people, death and loss; for people, resurrection from being dead) in Francisco Ximénez, Arte de las tres lenguas Kaqchikel, K’iche’ y Tz’utujil, ed. Rosa Helena Chinchilla Mazariegos (Guatemala City: Academia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, 1993 [c.1704–​1714]), 112, 148; colonial orthography maintained, modern transcription and English translation mine.

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and Kaqchikel, literally means “wood” and “stone.” Its antiquity is attested in the ancient Maya hieroglyphic writings of the Classic Era (c.250 ce–​c.850 ce), such as te’ tunn (tree, stone), te’ took (wood, flint), and che’ tunich (sticks, stones).14 Depending on the context, this phrase in ancient, colonial, and contemporary Maya texts can have three references. First, this couplet may simply refer to the material or substance from which something is made, for example houses of “wood and stone.” Secondly, it may refer to carved effigies, often for religious devotional practices, via the material from which they were made, like figurines fashioned out of “wood or stone.” In this sense, che’ ab’aj may be understood as synonymous with objects of k’ab’awil. For example, in ­chapter 25 of the first volume of his Theologia Indorum (1553), Vico often uses che’ ab’aj and k’ab’awil interchangeably in an effort to clarify that he is denouncing the Maya understanding of k’ab’awil as conscious, sentient, and communicative wooden or stone images.15 Finally, although questionably, the phrase may mean a stela—​a large, upright stone monument—​that bears images and even written text, a “tree of stone” or “stone tree.”16 In contrast with the doctrinal literature developed by earlier Dominican writings in Nahuatl—​such as the 1548 Dominican Doctrina Christiana en le[n]gua Española y mexicana, which used tlateotoquiliztli (following something as a deity) for “idolatry”—​later Dominican arrivals (educated in the Thomistic humanism of Francisco de Vitoria’s Salamanca school and sent further south to Oaxaca, Chiapa, and northeastern Guatemala) used “wood, stone” for “idols.”17 For example, Dominican friar Pedro de Feria’s Doctrina christiana en lengua castellana y çapoteca (1567) condemns as idolatry the Zapotec practice of quela huezaa, quela huecete bitoo quie, bitoo yàga (“the manufacture and the teachings of stone and wood deities”).18 However, this distinction in the use of 14

15 16

17 18

Kerry M. Hull, “Poetic Tenacity: A Diachronic Study of Kennings in Mayan Languages,” in Parallel Worlds: Genre, Discourse, and Poetics in Contemporary, Colonial, and Classic Maya Literature, ed. Kerry M. Hull and Michael D. Carrasco (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2012), 91–​95. For example, see aps Ms, fols. 33r–​36v; for English translation, Garry Sparks, The Americas’ First Theologies: Early Sources of Post-​Contact Indigenous Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 103–​120. Judith M. Maxwell and Robert M. Hill, ii, Kaqchikel Chronicles: The Definitive Edition (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 257; and Allen Christenson and Frauke Sachse also disagree with the gloss of “stone tree” as stela (personal communication, July 2018). Hull does not explicitly include stelae as a gloss for this couplet in “Poetic Tendency,” 91–​95. David Tavárez, “Reframing Idolatry in Zapotec: Dominican Translations of the Christian Doctrine in Sixteenth-​Century Oaxaca,” in Trust and Proof: Translators in Renaissance Print Culture, ed. Andrea Rizzi (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 175. Tavárez, “Reframing Idolatry,” 174–​175.

120 Sparks the “wood, stone” motif for “idolatry” was not simply based on the precontact Zapotec and Maya but instead earlier missionaries’ exposure to Nahua terms, effigies, and devotional practices. Later m ­ issionaries to New Spain drew upon and reconfigured earlier mendicant work with Mexica to establish analogies and neologisms but according to differing translation strategies in other Native vernaculars. This was not merely a distinction between the respective evangelism approaches taken by the competing religious orders in southern Iberia and then in the Americas—​specifically Dominicans and Franciscans, but also Augustinians and later Jesuits. It also highlights an intellectual divide between those mendicants who studied at the universities in Valladolid and Salamanca after the return of Vitoria in 1522 with his introduction of second-​wave Thomism to Iberia from the Sorbonne. For example, pre-​Vitoria Salmanticense Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, in book one—​on Mexica deities—​ of his La historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (c.1540s–​1570s) also describes as “idols” the carvings of “stone and wood” worshipped as gods by Nahua.19 Aquinas’s Summa theologiae (1265–​1274) was the centerpiece of Vitoria’s lectures that then replaced Peter Lombard’s Libri Quattuor Sententiarum (c.1150) as the curricular standard for theological and philosophical scholasticism by the 1530s and thus became a key influence for many of the next missionaries. Upon his appointment as the chair of theology at Salamanca, Vitoria’s initial lectures focused primarily on the second part of the Summa theologiae. Specifically, in the Summa theologiae ii–​i i, q. 94, a. 1–​4, Aquinas argues that idolatry is a subcategory of superstition that began when ancient peoples created images of deceased relatives for remembrance—​to keep a vestige of their presence among the living—​and over time morphed into a deified treatment of such effigies. Aquinas balances this historical theory of deification, based on the biblical Book of Wisdom (13:1–​2, 11–​17; and 14:15, 21), with a theological theory of anthropomorphism—​of people producing construals of creator gods from human images, albeit of “fallen” human nature—​based on Romans (1:23–​ 25).20 In other words, for Aquinas, as explained in the authority of scripture, 19 20

Bernardino de Sahagún, O.F.M., The Florentine Codex: The General History of the Things of New Spain, Book 1: The Gods, trans. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1970), 57, 69. While the Book of Wisdom is part of the Septuagint, and thus part of the Christian Old Testament until the sixteenth century—​and part of the Catholic Old Testament as affirmed by the Council of Trent (1545–​1563)—​among Christian humanists and reformers, especially Protestants after 1529, the Book of Wisdom was to be considered deuterocanonical, intertestamental, or apocryphal, due in part to its removal from the Jewish Bible at the legendary rabbinic Council of Yavneh (c.90 ce).

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the historical beginning and process of the development of idolatry was driven by emotions, such as grief but as also related to love. Aquinas’s theories of perception and cognition intersected with his theories of emotions (passio and affectus) as movements within a person that could distort the intellect, and thus understanding and knowledge.21 Furthermore, fallen human nature with misdirected love and faulty reasoning was prone to the deception of the devil. To this extent, Thomism provided an intellectual armature for much of sixteenth-​and seventeenth-​century demonology among Salmanticense missionaries in the Americas.22 The various biblical terms for idolatry aided by humanism’s increased emphasis on not only biblical literacy but also on familiarity with biblical languages—​Hebrew and Greek—​and on critical assessment for ancient source texts, such as Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros’s Polyglot Bible project (1522), served as explicit points of commensurability with mendicants’ understandings of Native religions. Terms, often translated as “idol” in the Bible, range from a “molten” or “poured” image or god (msk, e.g., ’elohe massekah [Exodus 34:17]), “carved” or “crafted” images (psl, e.g., pesel [Isaiah 40:18–​20]) and pasal (Isaiah 44:9–​20 or Exodus 20:4–​5, which is explicitly cited by Aquinas in ii–​i i, q. 94, a. 2), simply “images” (tsb, e.g., atsab [1 Samuel 31:9]), and words from the etymologically obscure Hebrew root ’lyl (e.g., ’elilim [Leviticus 19:4] that, while resembling the ’el root that means deity, in non-​religious passages means “worthless” [e.g., Job 13:4]). References to biblical verses that use these terms often appeared in early Dominican doctrinal works, such as in Feria’s 1567 Zapotec catechism, which cited, for example, Habakkuk 2:18–​19.23 This Habakkuk passage uses almost all of these terms, including the most common phrase to refer to idolatry in the Bible—​“stone, wood” (’eben ‘es in Hebrew [e.g.,

21

22

23

For more detailed explication on how affections (affectus as interior motions of the intellectual appetite, or will) and passions (passiones, which are mediated by the corporal body but involve commotions of the soul) engage if not interfere with cognition, or the faculty of reason, and intellectual apprehension according to Aquinas, see Diana Fritz Cates, Aquinas on the Emotions (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009). In addition to Tavárez’s 2017 study of this influence of Aquinas among early mendicant missionaries among the Nahua and Zapotec in New Spain, also see MacCormack on the Dominicans’ use of Aquinas among the Quechua: Sabine MacCormack, Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 6–​8, 15–​49; and Sabine MacCormack, “‘The Heat has its Reasons’: Predicaments of Missionary Christianity in Early Colonial Peru,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 65.3 (1985): 443–​466. Tavárez, “Reframing Idolatry,” 175.

122 Sparks Deuteronomy 4:28], ’abna ’a’a in Aramaic [Daniel 5:4], and even carried into Christian Koine as lithina xylina [Revelation 9:20]).24 Notably, Habakkuk 2:18–​19 specifically refers to such molten and carved images as “mute” gods (’elilim) and “mute” effigies of stone and wood (le’eben la‘es). And, unlike Feria, while Vico’s Theologia Indorum does not cite specific biblical passages, even in the sections that contain summaries of biblical stories, in c­ hapter 25 of volume one, Vico points out to his K’iche’ readers that their effigies really do not speak to them: If it would be buried or if it becomes infested with bugs, that stick that is made “human” as an effigy by you all does not say to you all, “Ayy! I have just been buried! I am infested!” … If it would be shat on by your children, by a dog, by a hen, or by a bird it does not say, “Ahh! You all just shat on me! You all just stained me! I have just been soiled by you all!”25 In other words, according to Vico, these Maya effigies, both che’ ab’aj and k’ab’awil, are not only inanimate but also are non-​ communicative and non-​emotive. However, unlike Aquinas and Feria, Vico did not locate the origins of devotion to wood and stone effigies back to ancestor veneration (Book of Wisdom), to the ancient Hebrews revering a golden calf (Exodus 32:1–​28), or even with the second commandment of the Decalogue (Exodus 20:4–​5; Deuteronomy 5:8–​10). Instead, he linked to the aftermath of the tower of Babel and the diversification of languages, as he explains in ­chapter 52 of volume one of his Theologia Indorum.26 This link is also made in the earlier Dominican set of songs or coplas in the Highland Mayan languages of K’iche’ and Q’eqchi’ and a possible precursor to Vico’s theological treatise.27 Dating no later than 1552 and attributed to one of Vico’s few predecessors to the Maya region and companion to Las Casas, Dominican friar Luis de Cáncer (d. 1549), Chapter 12 of the coplas 24 25 26 27

However, perhaps ironically for the missionaries, Jeremiah 2:18–​19 provides a biblical description of the process of making and devotion to idols, but no specific term is used. aps Ms, fol. 36r; my English translation. aps Ms, fols. 76v–​78v. On the assessment of the coplas in the U.S. Library of Congress’s Kislak 1015 and the Newberry Library’s Ayer Ms 1536 along with Vico’s Theologia Indorum, see Garry Sparks and Frauke Sachse, “A Sixteenth-​Century Priest’s Field Notes among the Highland Maya,” in Words and Worlds Turned Around: Indigenous Christianities in Latin America, ed. David Tavárez (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2017), 102–​123; and Garry Sparks, Rewriting Maya Religion: Domingo de Vico, K’iche’ Maya Intellectuals, and the Theologia Indorum (Louisville: University Press of Colorado, 2019), 313–​318.

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tells how the devil (Diablo) from the Maya “place of fear” (Xib’alb’a)—​appropriated by Dominicans as “hell”—​appeared before the post-​Babel people and convinced them to adore the che’ ab’aj.28 More insightfully, the title line of this chapter—​with some of the rare uses of Spanish—​and the next line in K’iche’ appear to explicitly identify idolatry (ydolatria) with the other term k’ab’awil (cabauilaxic) as the label for placing offerings before wood and stone (che’ ab’aj) effigies. Treatment of such effigies as gods is idolatry according to this Dominican text. In the only other use of this phrase in the Kislak 1015 manuscript in a section of sermons in K’iche’, dated 1567, the devotion to che’ ab’aj is listed along with murder and pride as a sin and contrary to the good justice of God.29 However, like the use of che’ ab’aj by Maya, stone and wood in the Old Testament, and by extension Vico’s Theologia Indorum, also simply refers to substances, including those for non-​religious items. For example, ­chapter 85 of the first volume of the Theologia Indorum recounts the story of Joshua and the ancient Hebrews piling stones after crossing the Jordan River as a memorial but not a devotion.30 Likewise, in one of the earliest and most extant religious texts by Highland Maya—​the Popol Wuj or “Book of the Council” (c.1554–​ 1558)—​che’ ab’aj only appears twice and not with the same meaning. The first instance is the tale of the third attempt by Maya gods to create human beings and ends with people made of wood having their faces crushed by “trees and rocks” (xq’ut kiwach rumal che’ ab’aj).31 Only later, in the second instance, in the tale of the fourth attempt to create humans as persons made of maize, does 28

29

30 31

Jay I. Kislak Collection item 1015 (1567), fol. 24r, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., hereafter Kislak 1015. Comparatively, for a transcription of the Q’eqchi’ version with Spanish translation from Ayer Ms 1536, see Ennio María Bossú Zappa, “Un manuscrito k’eckchi’ del siglo xvi: Transcripción paleográfica, traducción y estudio de las coplas atribuidas a Fray Luis Cáncer,” thesis Universidad Francisco Marroquín (Guatemala City, Guatemala, 1986), 71–​72. Kislak 1015, fol. 76v. This chapter of this early Dominican sermonario could correspond to ­chapter 29 of the second volume of the Theologia Indorum, which explicates the carnal or natural virtue of justice, such as found in Domingo de Vico, [Theologia Indorum] Garrett-​ Gates Mesoamerican Manuscript no. 175 (n.d. [1554]), 155–​161, Princeton University Library, Princeton, N.J. aps Ms, fol. 133v–​134v; Joshua 4:5–​7, 20–​24. Francisco Ximénez, O.P., [Popol Vuh] Tesoro de las tres lenguas, Edward Ayer Manuscript 1515 (n.d. [c.1701–​1704]), fol. 4v, Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill. Hereafter Ayer Ms 1515. All citations from the Popol Wuj are from Ayer Ms 1515 but rendered in my modern orthography. Given its increased treatment as a canonical text by Maya, the title Popol Wuj (vs. Popol Vuh) is treated here in not only the modern orthography but also without italics, and thus similarly to other authoritative texts of religious communities, such as the Bible, Qur’an, Torah, etc.

124 Sparks the Maya creation story tell of a period in which people did not yet call upon “wood and stone” (maja chikisik’ijoq che’ ab’aj), in other words effigies.32 This varied use of this phrase in both Maya and biblical contexts—​and especially in non-​religious use, made “wood, stone” a precarious lexical index from “idolatry”—​all of which Vico, if not also other early Dominican missionaries, carried into instructional writings in K’iche’an languages. Notably, this couplet consistently appears in biblical literature as only “stone, wood” and never “wood, stone.” In contrast, this similar motif in precontact Maya texts, including Classic Era hieroglyphic literature, is “wood, stone.” Early post-​contact Highland Maya literature is also almost exclusively “wood, stone” and never “stone, wood,” such as those two instances in the Popol Wuj and its five appearances in the Xajil Chronicle (c.1550s–​1600s) by the related Kaqchikel Maya.33 However, early Dominican writings in K’iche’an languages, such as the Theologia Indorum, vary and use both che’ ab’aj and ab’aj che’ throughout, evincing the extent to which early Salmanticenses missionaries strove to accommodate Maya terminology and establish commensurability between their Hispano-​Catholic and Mesoamerican religious worlds. To the extent that the Popol Wuj is a K’iche’ text written in reaction to the Theologia Indorum and as a reaffirmation of precontact K’iche’ religion, its Maya authors continued to use che’ ab’aj rather than use the mendicant biblicized ab’aj che’.34 By contrast, in Dominican texts in the Kislak 1015 manuscript—​which is the earliest known Dominican writing in any Mayan language to date and the oldest evidence of Dominicans appropriating Maya religious terms for Christian use—​“stone, wood” (ab’aj che’) is absent and, as noted previously, only che’ ab’aj appears twice. Furthermore, in the Title of Totonicapán (1554), written by early K’iche’ converts to Catholicism who worked closely with Dominicans, like Vico, the traditional Maya version che’ ab’aj appears in only three places and never as ab’aj che’. In one instance the phrase simply refers to “trees and rocks.” However, in the other two places it refers to ritual devotion by K’iche’ ancestors to “wood and stone” effigies in temples once they began to build cities in the Guatemalan highlands, but also previously in ancient times “back east” where their

32 33 34

Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 35r. Maxwell and Hill, Kaqchikel Chronicles, 18, 28, 34, 257. For intertextual analysis between the Popol Wuj and the Theologia Indorum, see Michael Dürr, “Gott, Götter oder Götze(n)? Zwei Begriffe und ihre Verwendung im kolonialen K’iche’,” in Mesoamerikanistik: Archäologie, Ethnohistorie, Ethnographie und Linguistik, ed. Lars Frühsorge et al. (Hamburg: Shaker Verlag, 2015); Sparks et al., The Americas’ First Theologies, 204–​211; and Sparks, Rewriting Maya Religion, 209–​224.

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ancestors first learned of such practices from Assyrians and Babylonians.35 In other words, as a K’iche’ accommodationist text—​hybridic of both Maya and mendicant traditions—​the Title of Totonicapán, in contrast to the Popol Wuj, uses che’ ab’aj among its various meanings to refer to non-​Christian religious effigies but only in the Maya way, as images of “wood and stone” and never as the biblical motif of “stone and wood.” The Dominican appropriation and use of che’ ab’aj, therefore, points to two further difficulties as a translation for “idol.” First, in neither the biblical nor the traditional Maya sense does “wood, stone” occur with affective discourse. According to Maya, a che’ ab’aj does not emotionally move, provoke, or compel its devotees (nor does the biblical ’eben ‘es). Affective discourse for the Highland Maya usually involves one’s “heart” (uk’u’x), and references to the “heart” and to “wood, stone” do not commonly occur together. But references to “heart” and k’ab’awil do. Furthermore, while mendicant missionaries were condemning and destroying Maya statues, they were also presenting their own, including a carved figure of a man hanging literally on two sticks. Convincing proto-​converts that reverence to “sticks and rocks” is “sinful” became complicated as mendicants introduced their own effigies for devotional practices. Dominicans working with Native Mesoamericans were like their brethren further south who “might well describe Andean sacred images as idols. But Andeans in turn came to be convinced that Catholic religious images were ‘idols of the Spaniards,’ while the demon-​conquering cross of Jesus was simply a ‘stick.’”36 4

K’ab’awil: “Divine,” “Divinity,” “Deities,” and Effigies As/​Of

Unlike che’ ab’aj, the second term, k’ab’awil (k’ab’awilab’ in the plural), appears within early K’iche’an literature more often but also with a wider range of meaning. Its etymology is more obscure and thus gave greater potential for some mendicants to appropriate it as well as spur intense debate among mendicants regarding its use. In general, together within early K’iche’an literature and current K’iche’an religious discourse, k’ab’awil has two basic meanings for the Maya: supremely powerful spirits or “gods” and the effigies of them—​anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, or statues composed of features of 35

Robert M. Carmack and James L. Mondloch, Uwujil Kulewal aj Chwi Miq’ina’ /​El Título de Totonicapán: Edición facsimilar, transcripción y traducción (Guatemala City: Cholsamaj, 2007), 60–​61, 110–​111, 128–​129; and Sparks, The Americas’ First Theologies, 234. 36 MacCormack, Religion in the Andes, 49.

126 Sparks both—​carved from wood or stone.37 And while both the colonial and modern orthography as well as current pronunciation varies in folk etymologies, this term is often explained as an item or being that has “dual vision” (with k’ab’ meaning “two” together with the stem il, “sight”), such as with perspective from “this world” of the living and the “other world” of ancestors and spirits, of the present as well as of the future and prehistoric past, of earthly and celestial things, etc.38 In other words, k’ab’awilab’ are those beings that have this expansive if not also corrective hyper-​sight (e.g., propitiable spirits, “gods,” “deities,” etc.) and, or, items that may communicate or avail such insight to people, often through ritual practices of divination or prognostication.39 Based on Maya texts at the time of first contact, not all exceptional characters in the Maya cosmogonic stories are identified as k’ab’awil. Such as in the Popol Wuj, the second occurrence of this term explicitly clarifies that the lords of the Maya otherworld, Xib’alb’a, are not k’ab’awil (mana k’ab’awil).40 That use of the term in the initial sections of the Popol Wuj, which contain stories of Maya cosmogenesis and theogony, only applies k’ab’awil explicitly to the primordial creator gods—​e.g., Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth (Uk’u’x Kaj, Uk’u’x Ulew)—​and the Hero Twins Jun Ajpu and Xb’alanke as akin to “divine.”41 In the final sections that consist of the migration and dynastic histories of the K’iche’ confederacy, k’ab’awil shifts to refer to the four patron spirits or deities of each of the major governing lineages: the “god” Tojil for the Kaweqib’, Tamub’, and Ilokab’; Awilix for the Nija’ib’; Jakawitz for the Ajaw K’iche’; and Nik’aqaj Taq’aj for the Saqik’, all of whom composed the K’iche’ nation.42 Other

37

38

39 40 41 42

Also see Michael Dürr, “Strategien indianischer Herrschaftslegitimierung im kolonialzeitlichen Mesoamerika: ein Vergleich der Argumentation im Popol Vuh und im Título von Totonicapán,” Sociologus 39 (1989): 172–​181. Matsumoto notes a third possible meaning, which is the place of veneration, such as a temple, that presumably housed an effigy of a k’ab’awil spirit or deity; Mallory E. Matsumoto, Land, Politics, and Memory in Five Nija’ib’ K’iche’ Títulos: “The Title and Proof of Our Ancestors” (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2017), 295 n. 19. Personally, I disagree with this local etymology popular among modern K’iche’ speakers; the initial letter is more likely rather than , and thus not kab’ (two). The confusion relates to the variance between k’ab’awil and kab’awil in K’iche’ (k’ab’owil or kab’owil in Kaqchikel), due in part to inconsistent spellings in the colonial literature between cabauil, cabahuil, cabouil, 4abauil, etc., with the colonial (modern ) as a glottalized often not distinguished or even conflated to by later colonial-​era writers. Personal conversations with various chuchqajawib’ (Maya spiritual guides), such as daykeepers (ajq’ijab’) and K’iche’ and Kaqchikel cultural activists in Guatemala since 1995. Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 31v. Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 34r, 35r. Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 35v–​36r, 37v, 43v, 45r.

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Highland Maya—​at times allied and then later competing with the K’iche’—​ also had their respective tutelary deities, such as Jun Toj as the k’ab’awil for the Rab’inal to the east of the K’iche’, and Sotz’i Ja Chi Malk’a’n for the Kaqchikel to the south.43 Among the K’iche’, Tojil was gradually construed as superior—​ due in part to increased political dominance of the Kaweqib’ lineage (although sixteenth-​century Kaweqib’ would most likely have attributed their political and military dominance to the superiority of their k’ab’awil Tojil)—​with Tojil implied as the K’iche’ substitute for the primordial creator god also called the Framer and Former (Tz’aqol B’itol).44 These lineage deities notably differ from the theogony in the first sections of the Popol Wuj—​such as the Heart of Sky and Heart of Earth, the Bearer and Begetter (Alom K’ajolom), the Plumed Serpent (Q’ukumatz), Xpiyakok and Xmukane (the divine grandfather and divine grandmother) and their grandsons, the Hero Twins. For example, while there is no account of the origins of cosmogonic deities who created both the celestial and terrestrial worlds and all of the creatures, including human beings, the lineage deities do not enter the lives of Highland Maya until their westward migration from the mythological primal city of Tulan in the east.45 These later tutelary k’ab’awilab’ are given to the K’iche’ “where the sun rises,” carried by their assigned lineages, and “fed” human and animal blood and burnt offerings, such as sap or resin incense, that accompany other devotional activities like fasting and petitionary prayers.46 Despite the first seven folios of the Title of Totonicapán consisting of a K’iche’ redaction of the first volume of the Theologia Indorum, much of the later sections present versions of stories also found in the last portions of the Popol Wuj.47 Whereas the Popol Wuj tells of Tojil and the other lineage deities requesting blood offerings, a similar version of this account in the Title of Totonicapán specifies that the human blood given to Tojil, Awilix, and Jakawitz was that of the enemies of the K’iche’ (as opposed to the rites of bloodletting performed by Maya elites onto themselves).48 From a historical analysis, these Highland Maya myths evince a later influence from Nahua (e.g., Toltec) religion from central Mexico and possibly mixed with Postclassic (after 900 ce) Lowland Maya in the Yucatan region. Though,

43 44 45 46 47 48

Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 41r. Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 35v–​36r. Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 41r. Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 38r–​42v, 50r, 54r. Garry Sparks, “How ‘Bout Them Sapotes? Mendicant Translations and Maya Corrections in Early Indigenous Theologies,” cr: The New Centennial Review 16.1 (2016): 213–​244. Carmack and Mondloch, Uwujil, 76–​77.

128 Sparks as Frauke Sachse and other ethnohistorians have argued, names of some Maya deities also indicate influence in a wider ancient Mesoamerican religious complex, such as: the cult of the Plumed Serpent (e.g., Quetzalcoatl of the Nahua), Xpiyakok and Xmukane of the K’iche’ as variants of the divine grandparents Oxomoco and Cipactonal of the Nahua, as well as the primary ritual devotion oriented toward the sun by Nahua eventually mixing with primary ritual devotion oriented toward maize by ancient Classic Maya.49 Furthermore, while the Popol Wuj attests to an older historic Nahuatl-​speaking population along the Pacific slopes of Guatemala and El Salvador—​called Yaki by the K’iche’ and later Pipil after the arrival of Spaniards and their north-​central Mexican allies—​ethnohistorians note a significant influence of Nahua culture, including religion, around 1200 ce.50 In other words, the shift in k’ab’awil not only from older cosmogonic and more distinctively Highland Maya deities (like the Framer and Former, or Heart of Sky and Heart of Earth, not evident in the Nahua pantheon but in the first sections of the Popol Wuj) for instead more localized lineage-​affiliated spirits (like Tojil in the latter sections of the Popol Wuj) but also from more ethereal nature deities (found in the early parts of the Popol Wuj) for “wood and stone” effigies of a supreme Tojil (in the final parts of the Popol Wuj) may also semantically mark a theological shift for the K’iche’ beginning around 1200 ce, a new era where religious effigies increasingly played a role. Specifically, as the trek of the ancestral ruling K’iche’ lineages transitioned from patterns of migration to ones of settlement, their k’ab’awil were petrified into zoomorphic images of a puma, jaguar, and serpents. However, one—​Saqik’oxol—​escaped into the shadows of the forest to remain an

49

50

See, for example, Dürr and Sachse, Diccionario k’iche’, 45; and Frauke Sachse, “Renaming Vico’s Dictionary: Reconstructing the Textual Genealogy of the Vocabulario copioso de las lenguas cakchikel y 4iche,” Indiana 35.1 (2018), 84 n. 29; also see Ruud van Akkeren, Xib’alb’a y el nacimiento del nuevo sol: Una visión posclásica del colapso maya (Guatemala City: Editorial Piedra Santa, 2012). See, for example, Robert M. Carmack, The Quiché Mayas of Utatlan: The Evolution of a Highland Guatemala Kingdom (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012). However, Sachse convincingly argues against the Toltec hypothesis for, instead, K’iche’an stories of an ancestral journey from Tulan in the east not as a reference to any historical migrations of Nahua or Nahuaized Lowland Maya from the Yucatan, but rather a more widespread literary motif of (re)birth, primarily with the symbol of the rising sun, found throughout Mesoamerican myths; see Frauke Sachse, “Over Distant Waters: Places of Origin and Creation in Colonial K’iche’an Sources,” in Pre-​Columbian Landscapes of Creation and Origin, ed. John Edward Staller (New York: Springer Science +​Business Media, 2008), 123–​160.

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undomesticated nature spirit.51 Even more specifically, in contrast to some of the other patron spirits and primordial creator gods, the lineage deities of the K’iche’ leadership class were not only concretized into effigies but also eventually housed in temples as the K’iche’ established cities in the central highlands.52 To this extent, k’ab’awil may align with che’ ab’aj as occurred toward the end of the Popol Wuj but also in the first volume of Vico’s Theologia Indorum and then also by K’iche’ converts to Catholicism in their Title of Totonicapán. Therefore, for the early post-​contact Highland Maya, k’ab’awil referred to both local tutelary spirits of people and regional nature as well as carved images of them—​statues, effigies, or, for some mendicants, “idols.” The theological and theoretical debate between mendicants regarding how to interpret this term as either “idol” or “divinity” became the focal point of one of the first contentious and long-​lasting religious debates in Guatemala.53 5

Poy: Manikins, Scarecrows, and Other “Heartless” Persons

The third contending K’iche’an term for mendicants when translating a Christian notion of “idol” was poy.54 However, whereas poy semantically could

51

52 53

54

Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 40v. In this sense, Saqik’oxol is a classic trickster character commonly found in Indigenous American myths and in various, separate, and later K’iche’ stories and even dramas; for example, see Barbara Tedlock, “El C’oxol: Un símbolo de la resistencia quiche a la conquista espiritual,” in Nuevas perspectivas sobre el Popol Vuh, ed. Robert Carmack and Francisco Morales Santos (Guatemala City: Editorial Piedra Santa, 1983), 343–​357; Barbara Tedlock, “On a Mountain Road in the Dark: Encounters with the Quiché Maya Culture Hero,” in Symbol and Meaning Beyond the Closed Corporate Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas, ed. Gary Gossen (Albany: State University of New York, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 1986), 125–​138; and Munro S. Edmonson, Quiché Dramas and Divinatory Calendars: Zaqi Q’oxol and Cortés: The Conquest of Mexico in Quiché and Spanish, the Bull Dance, the Count of the Cycle and the Numbers of the Days (New Orleans: Tulane University, Middle American Research Institute, 1997), 3–​80. Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 50v, 51v, 53v. Regarding the precarious relationship between che’ ab’aj and k’ab’awil, see also Frauke Sachse, “Maya Divinities in Christian Discourse: The Multivocalities of Colonial Mendicant Translations from Highland Guatemala,” in Translating Wor(l)s: Christianity Across Cultural Boundaries, ed. Sabine Dedenbach-​Salazar Sáenz (Baden-​Baden: Academia-​ Verlag, 2019), 54–​55. A related but fourth term is atz’, also glossed as espantar los pájaros “scarecrow” by Coto (Acuña 1983, lxxxvii) but as estatua o bulto “statue or bundle” by Basseta (Acuña 2005, 340). In addition to non-​Catholic anthropomorphic carvings, like Maximón, some present-​day Maya confraternities like that of San Juan and San Martín in Santiago de Atitlán are devotionally oriented toward sacred bundles.

130 Sparks overlap with che’ ab’aj and even, in some sense, k’ab’awil as an anthropomorphic fabrication, according to the mendicants’ Maya audience poy is explicitly “heartless.” Within mendicant pastoral and doctrinal literature poy is almost absent but played a significant role in cosmogonic, theogonic, and historical narratives of the K’iche’.55 For example, the third attempt to create human beings resulted in “manikins” (poy) made from carved wood (ajam che’) specifically, believed by many Maya, from the sacred tz’ite’ tree.56 The tale in the Popol Wuj states that this pre-​human race of people was literally without blood and other vital bodily fluids to symbolically underscore the extent to which they were apathetic to the creator gods, like Tz’aqol B’itol, but also to other creatures and nature. Due to their heartlessness, these wood people are destroyed in part by having their faces (kiwach, which also metaphorically can refer to their “selves”) smashed by “trees and rocks” (che’ ab’aj). In other words, the heartless people made of wood were smashed by material that would later become objectified images of k’ab’awil for heartfelt religious devotion by true human beings (who were later made of maize according to the Popol Wuj). While having various ceremonial uses among ancient peoples throughout Mesoamerica, Highland Maya still use trees of the erythrina genus for sacred figurines, such as of Maximón for the Tz’utujil Maya, and divining bundles (vara) of day-​keepers (ajq’ijab’) containing inedible red tz’ite’ beans.57 In the Popol Wuj’s later sections, poy refers to manikins that the K’iche’ made and dressed up as warriors to make their army look bigger than it really

55

While not as numerous in the Popol Wuj as che’ ab’aj and k’ab’awil, the references to poy can be found in Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 4r–​5r, 6r, 24r, 46r–​46v, usually paired with ajam che’. In a rare case Vico in Chapter 15 of the first volume of the Theologia Indorum uses poy but paired with atz’ and an inference not to “idols” but people hypothetically without God (aps Ms, fol. 21r). 56 Palo de pito in Spanish, coral tree or whistle tree in English, Erythrina berteroana Urban among other species according to Regina Aguirre de Riojas and Elfriede de Pöll, Trees in the Life of the Maya World (Fort Worth: Botanical Research Institute of Texas, 2007), 34–​ 35. Though many Mayanists, who are not botanists, have identified this tree as Erythrina corallodendron. 57 While tz’ite’ is a native K’iche’ word, to use vara to refer to the bag of red beans, crystals, and stones is a loanword from Spanish for the measurement of roughly 24–​32 inches (though the length varied throughout colonial Spanish America) and to the silver-​tipped rod or staff of that length held by local colonial and present-​day Indigenous authorities as a sign of office, and occasionally during local land disputes, still used to officially measure plots of land. In either case—​a divining bundle or the staff of a council member—​a vara is a sign of “standard” authority, akin to “canon” in ancient Greece (kanna) and later Christianity.

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was and to intimidate their enemies.58 According to this account, not only did the trick succeed, unlike the poy as the people of wood trying to be human in the earlier third creation attempt, but the term explicitly refers to poy as only appearing like people and not as gods, like Tojil. Even in extraordinary events—​for example, in war—​poy did not refer to religious statuary. The Popol Wuj, however, does recount an episode where poy are fashioned to replace godlike characters, such as the main rulers One Death and Seven Death (Jun Kame and Wuqub’ Kame). These lords of Xib’alb’a, the Maya otherworld, first challenge Xpiyakok and Xmukane’s twin sons (Jun Junajpu and Wuqub’ Junajpu) and then their twin grandsons (Jun Ajpu and Xb’alanke) to a ball game. Upon their arrival to the court of Xib’alb’a, each set of brothers is greeted not hospitably by the lords of Xib’alb’a but rather deceptively by manikins enthroned in their place.59 While Jun Junajpu and Wuqub’ Junajpu fall prey to the trickery of Xib’alb’a and are killed, their sons, the Hero Twins, do not. The eventual defeat of Xib’alb’a by Jun Ajpu and Xb’alanke not only vindicates their fathers but also puts death in its place and raises the fourth, true sun for the creation of true human beings out of maize by Xmukane. However, even in this section of the Popol Wuj, poy does not refer to effigies of gods because the text explicitly states that the lords of Xib’alb’a were not divine—​ mana k’ab’awil. In other words, poy could not mean “false god” if what it deceptively imitates was never considered “divine” by Maya. This important distinction between poy in contrast to either che’ ab’aj or k’ab’awil—​that unlike either but especially the latter, poy never refers to a religious statue and is almost antithetical to k’ab’awil in relation to matters of the heart—​did not seem lost on the mendicant missionaries. For example, according to the anonymous sixteenth-​or seventeenth-​century Vocabulario en lengua 4iche otlatecas, poy refers to an ordinary scarecrow.60 According to Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez’s later K’iche’an dictionary, poy is glossed to a kind of scarecrow made of rags.61 Of the various colonial K’iche’an lexicons, these two are among the more informative. Ximénez’s early eighteenth-​century K’iche’ transcription and Spanish translation of the Popol Wuj is the oldest extant version of these Highland Maya cosmogonic stories. So, while he acknowledged that he drew 58 59 60 61

Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 46r–​47v. Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 24r. Dürr and Sachse, Diccionario k’iche’, 267. Francisco Ximénez, O.P., Arte de las tres lenguas Kaqchikel, K’iche’ y Tz’utujil, ed. Rosa Helena Chinchilla Mazariegos (Guatemala City: Academia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, 1993), 129.

132 Sparks from older mendicant linguistic works, Ximénez’s lexicon dates to 150 years after the redaction of the original Popol Wuj by K’iche’ and thus may express later understandings of K’iche’ religious terms. And, while a later redaction, the Vocabulario en lengua 4iche otlatecas is genealogically close to not only the earliest mendicant linguistic work, including that mistakenly attributed to Vico, but also entries drawn directly from Vico’s Theologia Indorum.62 Therefore, while poy remains obscure in the K’iche’-​authored Popol Wuj, according to mendicant resources on the K’iche’ language of the Popol Wuj, poy refers to effigies or life-​size figures made for non-​ritual but albeit possibly deceitful purposes (e.g., keeping away crows, military foe, or divine competition). To this extent, curiously early mendicant missionaries did not use poy to mean “idols” as false objects of worship possibly attributable to the Christian devil, except they seem to have understood that their K’iche’ audience already marked poy as non-​religious replicas (e.g., of people as “true” human beings but without heart, as a farmer in his field, as soldiers at the ready, etc.). In other words, both sixteenth-​century mendicants and K’iche’ understood poy as false, whereas mendicants strove to have the K’iche’ regard their ritual effigies of “true” devotion (che’ ab’aj and even k’ab’awil according to Franciscans) as rather “false” and distinct from, at least per Christianity, “true divinity” (k’ab’awil according to Dominicans). If K’iche’ already understood poy as ­quotidian objects of deception, it would then have been an inadequate concept for mendicants to establish a notion of “false religion” for Highland Maya, let alone to convincingly argue that Maya k’ab’awilab’ were really just poy. For Highland Maya, poy did not mean, do, or feel the same as k’ab’awil or che’ ab’aj. 6

K’ab’awil 2.0: Dominican “Divinity” vs. Franciscan “Idolatry”

The growing distinction between intellectual schools informing clergy through their respective education—​namely, those schooled in humanism and those not, those also schooled in scholasticism and those not and, within scholasticism, those influenced more by Thomism and those by nominalism—​came to bear on construals of idolatry and, more specifically, the treatment of the term k’ab’awil between Dominicans and Franciscans in Guatemala. By the 1520s in Iberia, one of the stark contrasts between many Dominicans and Franciscans was their educational formation, and thus their linguistic and

62

Dürr and Sachse, Diccionario k’iche’, 35. Regarding these three linguistic works misattributed to Vico, see Sparks, Rewriting Maya Religion, 111.

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semiotic ideologies germane to theories of translation and evangelization. While both orders were heavily influenced by the humanism en vogue since the late fifteenth century, by the 1520s mendicants—​mostly Dominicans but also some Franciscans—​at the University of Salamanca adopted the realism of Thomistic scholasticism (universalia sunt realia ante rem, “universals are real [and exist] prior to [or independent of] a thing”),63 the optimism of establishing commensurability through analogies, and an understanding that a signifier (modus significandi) such as a word was distinct from what it signified (res significata). In contrast, religious orders that maintained clerical education within their respective convents, such as largely Franciscans and Augustinians, promoted the nominalism of William of Ockham, which denied the existence of universals in terms of signification (universalia sunt nomina post rem, “universals [or generalizations] are names [generated] after [the existence] of things”) and understood signs as intrinsically related to referents.64 Unlike their Dominican counterparts, nominalist Franciscans were highly suspicious of the ability for a word from one language to ultimately mean the same as an approximate word in other language, especially with respect to religious language; neither Allah in Arabic nor Tz’aqol B’itol in K’iche’, for example, could mean the same as the Christian god, Dios or Deus. As recorded in the first history of the Dominicans in the Maya highlands, the 1619–​1620 Historia general de la indias occidentales y particular de la gobernación de Chiapa y Guatemala by Dominican friar Antonio de Remesal, by the Guatemalan lay historian Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán in his 1690 Recordación Florida, and by the Franciscan historian Francisco Vázquez in his 1714–​1716 Crónica de la provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús de Guatemala de la orden de Nuestro Seráfico Padre San Francisco en el reino de la Nueva España, the debate between Dominicans and Franciscans regarding the use of the term k’ab’awil boiled over into a major controversy by 1551.65 As noted, while the term is ambiguous in early K’iche’ texts and referred to both spiritual or divine characters and their wood or stone effigies, Dominicans proposed use

63 64 65

Frauke Sachse, “Words and Their Meaning: Lexical Semantics of Christian Discourse in Colonial K’iche’,” paper presented at the 54th International Congress of Americanists, Vienna, Austria, July 17, 2012. Sachse, “Words and Their Meaning.” Francisco Vásquez, Crónica de la provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús de Guatemala de la orden de Nuestro Seráfico Padre San Francisco en el reino de la Nueva España, Biblioteca Goathemala de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, volúmenes xiv a xvii (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1937 [1714–​1716]), 127.

134 Sparks of the term to mean “pure divinity” in K’iche’an pastoral literature.66 Even Las Casas argued that “for the common and supreme god over everything that they [Native Mesoamericans] would say whose name in the language of Guatemala was ‘Cavovil’ [k’ab’awil] and in that of Mexico ‘Teutl’ [teotl].”67 Franciscans, in contrast, vehemently opposed this and argued that the term could only refer to Maya idols and, thus, could not possibly be used to point to the Christian notion of the divine. Working with the first bishop of Guatemala, Francisco Marroquín, early Franciscans there, like Friar Pedro de Betanzos, condemned the term k’ab’awil, stating that it referred to idols.68 Franciscan literature instead phonetically K’iche’anized Dios to become Tyox as their alternative for any Native word, like k’ab’awil to mean “divinity.”69 The tension between their competing semiotic ideologies and, by extension, theories and strategies of translation played out for centuries through the mendicant literature in and on Highland Mayan languages. For example, an enormous Spanish-​to-​Kaqchikel Thesavrvs Verborv[m]‌ (c.1650) by Franciscan friar Thomás de Coto lists the entry for ydolo (idol) as k’ab’awil and che’ ab’aj.70 Later, the Dominican friar Domingo de Basseta used a Franciscan Kaqchikel dictionary as a key source for his own Kaqchikel and K’iche’ dictionaries for fellow Dominicans in the late seventeenth century.71 His entry for cabauilah (k’ab’awilaj) defines the term as “to commit idolatry” and ahcabauil (ajk’ab’awil) as an “idolater”—​in other words, the Franciscan definition. However, in one of the K’iche’ manuscripts marginalia, presumably by a later eighteenth-​century Dominican, states: “K’ab’awil k’u ruk’ rib’ is ‘God then with Godself’; K’ab’awilaj means ‘to worship’; K’ab’awil was said in ancient times for ‘God’ and also means

66

Antonio de Remesal, Historia general de las indias occidentales y particular de la gobernación de Chiapa y Guatemala, vol. 4 (Guatemala City: Editorial José de Pineda Ibarra, 1966 [1619]), 1454–​1456. 67 Bartolomé de Las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman, Historiadores y Cronistas de Indias, vol. 2 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1967), 506 (English translation mine). 68 Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán, Recordación Florida: Discurso historial y demostración natural, material, militar y política del Reyno de Guatemala, vol. 2 (Guatemala City: Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Editorial Universitaria, 2013 [1690]), 549–​550. Also see Jesús García-​Ruíz, “El misionero, las lenguas mayas y la traducción: Nominalismo, tomismo y etnolingüística en Guatemala,” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 37.77 (1992): 83–​110. 69 Such as matyox in modern Kaqchikel and maltyox in modern K’iche’ for “thanks [be to God]” rather than with the older stem k’amo. 70 Coto, [Thesavrvs Verborv], 289. 71 Sachse, “Renaming Vico’s Dictionary,” 90 n. 39.

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‘shooting star’.”72 Despite the unilateral decision by Bishop Marroquín that the debate on the meaning of k’ab’awil was over, it apparently continued over the course of the colonial period, as evidenced through the mendicant paper trail. The early Dominican texts alone leading up to 1551 hint at this controversy over k’ab’awil as well as their understanding of affectivity in universal human nature and also culturally among the Highland Maya in particular. While part of the trend away from the affective spirituality that saturated medieval Christian mysticism, and instead one more in line with the devotio moderna of the previous century, music—​especially in the vernaculars—​played an increasing role for mendicant missionaries like the Dominicans. Preaching appealed to and moved via reason and intellectual apprehension; music moved via the body or sensory appetite according to Aquinas, and involved commotion of the soul with emotions (passiones) as well as with the interior motions of the will or intellectual appetite as affections (affectus). Sahagún’s Psalmodia Christiana in Nahuatl, composed between 1558 and 1561 and eventually printed in 1583, was thought to be among the earliest Christian songs written in the Americas.73 However, in the 1540s Las Casas famously negotiated for no Spanish forces or settlers to enter his Highland Maya mission territory for at least five years, and his Dominicans, according more to legend, entered the region singing—​in their initial effort to pacify and convert K’iche’an peoples. Las Casas was apparently inspired in Mexico City in 1538 by Nahua singers and musicians taught by Franciscans like Sahagún.74 Among the first Dominicans who entered the Maya highlands in the late 1530s and early 1540s, friar Luis de Cáncer is said to have composed songs, coplas, focused on basic biblical stories and doctrinal teachings, and he was one of Vico’s tutors once he arrived in 1545.75 As thanks for the support he received 72

Domingo de Basseta, Vocabulario de lengua quiché, Bibliothèque nationale de France Manuscrit Américain 59 (1698), fol. 168r, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, France; modern K’iche’ orthography and English translation mine. 73 Bernardino de Sahagún, Bernardino de Sahagún’s Psalmodia Christiana (Christian Psalmody), trans. Arthur J. O. Anderson (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993), xv; and Miguel León-​Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún: First Anthropologist, trans. Mauricio J. Mixco (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 145–​146, 226–​228. 74 Benno M. Biermann, “Bartolomé de Las Casas and Verapaz,” in Bartolomé de Las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work, ed. Juan Friede and Benjamin Keen (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), 458. 75 There is scholarly debate regarding Luis de Cáncer’s entrance into the Maya region, with, for example, Manuel Giménez Fernández siding with Remesal’s account of Cáncer leaving Nicaragua and arriving in Guatemala by July 1536, possibly joining Las Casas in Oaxaca later that same year, but returning to Guatemala and entering the northern K’iche’

136 Sparks from the Franciscans in Mexico and their Nahua singers, Las Casas had a set of these songs dedicated to the bishop of Mexico City, Juan de Zumárraga, and sent them to Mexico to be printed on the Americas’ first printing press under the title Cancionero spiritual, coplas muy devotas en loor de nuestro Señor Jesucristo y de la sagradísima virgen María, su madre.76 While the version sent to Mexico is now lost, two partial versions seem to survive: an undated early seventeenth-​century manuscript in Q’eqchi’ Maya and the Kislak 1015 manuscript in K’iche’ with a composition date of 1544–​1552.77 In the coplas of Kislak 1015, written in the years leading up to the 1551 k’ab’awil controversy, the term k’ab’awil appears four times: twice in Chapter 12 related to the Tower of Babel, once in c­ hapter 22 related to religious practices of Egyptians during the time of Jesus’s escape from King Herod, and once in ­chapter 48 that tells of God’s apocalyptic fire.78 The K’iche’ version of these coplas, while most likely begun by Cáncer prior to the arrival of the second cohort of Dominicans, including Vico, shares distinctive discursive features also found in Vico’s Theologia Indorum, especially volume one (1553), where the use of k’ab’awil varies to refer to effigies of wood or stone but also implicitly to that beyond such material signa for, instead, “the divine” as any religious image’s true res or referent. However, as a late contemporary of Vico’s theological treatise, the K’iche’ Popol Wuj represents near-​precontact Maya religious worldviews and explicitly uses k’ab’awil as initially the divine agents who create the cosmos and desire that true people have “heart” and sing their divine creators’ names, as well as later the carved effigies of such tutelary agents that guide them both physically through migration and settlement but also emotionally through religious ceremonialism and divinatory practices. For early modern Maya, even the mendicants’ desire to try and talk about the divine and “idolatry” related to the “heart.”

76 77 78

frontier town of Sacapulas by May 1537; Manuel Giménez Fernández, “Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Biographical Sketch,” in Friede and Keen, Bartolomé de Las Casas in History, 91. However, Biermann and Bataillon, based on analysis of other sixteenth-​century records that predate Remesal, argue that Cáncer did not come to Guatemala until 1542 and came from Spain rather than Nicaragua; Biermann, “Bartolomé de Las Casas and Verapaz,” 493; and Marcel Bataillon, “La Vera Paz. Roman et histoire,” Bulletin Hispanique 53.3 (1951): 235–​300. Biermann, “Bartolomé de Las Casas and Verapaz,” 466. The former is Ayer Ms 1536 from which Bossú based his study, “Un manuscrito k’eckchi’”; the latter is Kislak 1015, for its composition and copy dates see fol. 59r. Kislak 1015, fols. 24r, 25r, 32v, 55v.

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Highland Maya Theological Anthropology: A Locus of Affect, A Heart of the Matter

Unlike che’ ab’aj and poy, as noted in the Popol Wuj, k’ab’awil for K’iche’an Maya relates to the heart. As more extensively documented in ethnographic literature, Highland Maya have a variety of terms for their moral and religious anthropology—​how they understand human nature and its constitutive elements, how they are affected and are moved (e.g., emotionally) by the wider cosmos, and how they affect and move others.79 The most general of these in K’iche’ is the stem wach, which literally can mean “face” or “in front of” but more broadly refers to one’s exterior image or public persona, or it can mean “self” as the psychosomatic whole of a person and thus include subjective interiority. For example, the common greeting la utz awach? (“are you well?” or “how are you?”) can be answered with regard to one’s corporeal health but also one’s mental or emotional state. Terms for one’s more ephemeral or ethereal self include nawal (often translated as one’s essence, core value or character, or “spirit,” usually in symbolic relation to a particular animal or natural phenomena), uxlab’ (literally “breath” or “aroma” but also “spirit,” although the latter may be the result of early mendicant influence), and the lexical couplet ninoch’ natub’ (literally “shadow, shade” but also “spirit” or “soul”).80 In traditional K’iche’ literature, nawal often appears as the couplet nawal pus to refer

79

80

For example, see Edward F. Fischer and Carol Hendrickson, Tecpán Guatemala: A Modern Maya Town in Global and Local Context (Cambridge: Westview Press, 2003), 79–​88, regarding the Kaqchikel Maya; C. James MacKenzie, Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds: Religion and Modernity in a Transnational K’iche’ Community (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2016), 66–​112, regarding the K’iche’ Maya; and Pedro Pitarch, The Jaguar and the Priest: An Ethnography of Tzeltal Souls (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 22–​77, regard the Tzeltal Maya of Chiapas, Mexico. In colonial K’iche’an lexicons both of these terms are defined as sombra. It is unclear whether the lack of distinction between them is inherent to K’iche’ (i.e., that for a native K’iche’ speaker they would have been synonymous and only used in a poetic parallelism for rhetorical reasons) or because sombra in Spanish can mean either shadow or shade. I have rendered them with two different English words here since they are two distinct words in K’iche’. Similar terms of “shadow” to mean something akin to one’s “soul” are found in other non-​K’iche’an Highland Mayan languages, such as naab’l in Mam and ch’ulel in Tzeltal; see John M. Watanabe, Maya Saints and Souls in a Changing World (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), 254; Pitarch, The Jaguar, 24–​39; and Pedro Pitarch, “The Two Maya Bodies: An Elementary Model of Tzeltal Personhood,” Ethnos 77.1 (2012), 105.

138 Sparks to a kind of extraordinary power, usually in military, political, or religious contexts.81 Like che’ ab’aj and k’ab’awil, many of these terms were used by early mendicant missionaries in their efforts to translate Catholic concepts, including the idea that humans only have one soul or spirit—​possibly unlike Native theological anthropology, which could have held that a person had various kinds of “souls” or “spirits.” As with k’ab’awil, the attempt to reconfigure the meaning of these terms was a topic of debate between the mendicants. For example, nawal pus was used to mean “miracles,” such as the miracles performed by Moses or Jesus. For Dominicans, uxlab’ meant “spirit”—​on par with or to replace ninoch’ natub’, as Vico argued in ­chapter 32 of volume one of the Theologia Indorum, although not only for humans.82 In opposition to Franciscans, who claimed that only Spanish or Latin could be used to speak about the Holy Spirit (Espiritu Santo, Spiritus Sancti), Dominicans rendered the third character of the triune god with uxlab’ (e.g., rab ruxlab Dios or vxlabixel spiritu santo).83 In contrast, Franciscans strove to replace natub’ with the Latin term anima, soul.84 In fact, for most modern K’iche’an Maya anima’ is now thoroughly incorporated into their Native anthropology as either a Mayanized term for “soul” or “spirit” or an additional understanding, or even different kind, of soul-​spirit.85 Just as significantly, the stem k’u’x can literally mean “heart” but more broadly also can be understood as soul, core, center, or essence. Anthropologically or physiologically uk’u’x as one’s “heart” is a seat of emotions, along with other human key loci, such as one’s stomach (upam), in contrast to one’s head

81

82 83 84 85

Though, unlike pus, nawal is clearly not etymologically derived from a Mayan language but from the Nahua term nahualli resultant from Nahua influence either from the Yaki (Pipil) Nahuatl-​speaking population in Guatemala and El Salvador or the later “Toltec” influence by the twelfth century. The etymology and fully religious meaning of pus is more obscure, as argued in Frauke Sachse, “Of Gods and Souls: Ontological Categories in the Missionary Sources from Highland Guatemala,” in Maya Religion and History, ed. Bodil Liljefors-​Persson, Harri Kettunen, and Christophe Helmke (Munich: Verlag Anton Saurwein, forthcoming), 49–​71. However, the concept of one having a soul related to an animal spirit companion is common throughout even non-​K’iche’an Highland Maya peoples, such as lab’ among Tzeltal Maya; see Pitarch, “Two Maya Bodies,” 40–​59. In general studies of the religions of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, this is akin to the concept of totem (e.g., totemism) as derived originally from doodem of the Anishinaabe language. aps Ms, fols. 46v–​47v; I am grateful to Frauke Sachse for pointing this out. Dürr and Sachse, Diccionario k’iche’, 309. Fischer and Hendrickson, Tecpán, 81. It remains unclear the extent to which the current K’iche’an concept of anima’ does or does not align with the Greco-​Roman philosophical or Hispano-​Catholic theological use of anima.

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(ujolom) that relates to thought and ideas (no’j) and knowledge or understanding (eta’manik). Furthermore, along with nawal but more interior than wach, k’u’x can refer to the essence of someone or something like the general dispositions or periodic state of one’s “heart” but a less perennial, deeply constant characteristic than one’s nawal.86 But, unlike the other anthropological terms, k’u’x can also relate to the divine (e.g., the creator god Uk’u’x Kaj, Uk’u’x Ulew [Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth]), the celestial realm (e.g., the equilateral triangle in the lower part of the Orion—​specifically Saiph, Rigel, and Sigma Orionis—​ a Maya constellation called Heart of the Sky [Uk’u’x Kaj]), and wider familial and social relations (e.g., the Maya constellation Uk’u’x Kaj is also called xk’ub’ [hearth stones], a reference to the three large stones traditionally used for cooking in the “heart” of a Maya home).87 Finally, as “heart,” the concept of k’u’x extends to also include “blood” (kik’) as the medium by which daykeepers (ajq’ijab’) sense signals or signs (etalil)—​internatural communication with the wider cosmos and so-​called spiritual realms attributed to daykeepers as they borrow koyopa’, “lightening.”88 Uk’u’x, a person’s heart, according to K’iche’an Maya, is the locus by which people deeply feel, move, compel others to move, and are moved, especially with respect to religion.

86

87

88

While not in modern K’iche’an languages, the term k’ojelem found in colonial literature refers to essence but may have been a mendicant neologism aimed at distinguishing between two ways of “being” with respect to essence versus existence, especially by Dominicans with Aquinas’s doctrine of God, and is not an anthropologically moral or religious term. Unlike English (“to be”) and Spanish (ser, estar), K’iche’an languages do not have a copula (i.e., a separate verb “be”) except for k’oje’ik (k’olik or k’o in modern K’iche’), which is more akin to the Spanish verb haber (hay), “there is.” Dennis Tedlock initially identified this “hearth” constellation but as Saiph, Rigel, and Alnitak, which has influenced later work by Linda Schele, Susan Milbrath, and David Stuart; but, in my personal conversations with K’iche’ daykeepers (1998–​2001) “hearth” is Saiph, Rigel, and Sigma Orionis, whereas Atlnitak with Alnilam and Mintaka (aka the Belt of Orion) formed the “turtle” or kok constellation; see Dennis Tedlock, Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, revised and expanded edition (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 236; David Freidel, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993), 79–​81; Susan Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), 266–​268; and David Stuart, The Order of Days: The Maya World and the Truth about 2012 (New York: Harmony Books, 2011), 220–​222. For example, see Tedlock, Popol Vuh, 232–​233; and Freidel, Schele, and Parker, Maya Cosmos, 200–​201, 226–​229.

140 Sparks 8

Maya Religious Affections

The intricate relationship between k’ab’awil distinctively and matters of the heart for sixteenth-​century Maya is evident throughout their most significant religious literature. Affective or religiously emotional discourse surrounds the K’iche’ engagement with k’ab’awilab’ like no other object within the Popol Wuj, such as when it states: Great was the weeping in their hearts and bowels for the dawning and clearing [of the sky]. Only over there they arrived beforehand as penitents in great sorrow and anguish. They trembled due to the pains through which they had previously passed. “Our recent arrival here has not been sweet. Alas! That we could just see the birth of the sun. What have we done? Our faces were one on our plateau, but we just abandoned each other,” they said as they spoke among themselves, amidst their sorrow and angst; and amidst weeping and crying out they said this since their hearts were not yet appeased by the dawn. Thus, these are the “deities” who were appeased there in the canyons and forests, they were just among bromeliads and hanging moss but not yet on the altars people would give them. Tojil, Awilix, and Jakawitz initially spoke from there. Their light was great but so also their soul and spirit were great above all of the “deities” of the nations. Their force was abundant and also their pathways and manners of working were abundant. They were chilling, fearful, and existed in the heart of the nations, and [the first rulers of the nations] were appeasing and heartening for them. … Their hearts would not bear ill will to their “deities” whom they carry, as they carried them and came from over there in Tulan Suywa, from over there where the sun rises.89 Likewise, shortly later in this same final section, the Popol Wuj further clarifies: Therefore, with a sense of accomplishment in their hearts the three [ruling K’iche’ lineage heads] opened [the bundle of incense] as their way of heartfelt thanksgiving, thanks [for the world’s first dawn]. “Mixtam” was the name of the resin incense that B’alam K’itze’ [the head of the Kaweqib’] had carried. “Kawistan” was the name of the resin incense that 89

Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 39v; English translation mine, but also see the English translations in Allen J. Christenson, Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya (Winchester: O Books, 2003), 226–​227; and Tedlock, Popol Vuh, 180–​181.

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B’alam Aq’ab’ [the head of the Nija’ib’] had carried. “K’ab’awil” is now called the name of the resin incense that Majukutaj [the head of the Ajaw K’iche’] had carried. These were the three kinds of incense there that they, thus, burned when they swung their censers back over toward where the sun arose. They wept sweetly as they swung their censers and burned their incense, the beloved incense.90 The name for the first and second kind of incense is possibly derived from Nahuatl and would arguably have been introduced to the K’iche’ along with the three new patron deities for the ruling lineages along with other “Toltec” influences around the thirteenth century.91 In two colonial mendicant lexicons terms related to these types of incense, if not also deities, are pejorative and related to Native demonology. Franciscan friar Alonso de Molina’s 1555 Nahuatl-​ Spanish dictionary, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, associates the prefix awil (ahuil)—​possibly apparent in the name of the K’iche’ tutelary god Awilix and the term k’ab’awil—​with vice (vicio), vainness, vanity (vana), carnal interests (carnal), and general evil (mal).92 The early colonial K’iche’-​Spanish dictionary erroneously attributed to Vico glosses entries possibly related to the deities affiliated with these first two mentioned types of incense, miktan ajaw and kakostan ajaw, as “demons.”93 However, according to the K’iche’-​authored Title of Totonicapán all of this incense, including the third type called k’ab’awil, is sacred or “beloved” incense (loq’olaj pom).94 In a variation of this same event recounted in the Title of Totonicapán, the K’iche’ Christian authors write: Then they just gave thanks and opened their incense, their thanksgiving. “Kasiwastan” was B’alam K’itze’s incense. “Mistan” was the incense

90 91 92 93 94

Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 40r; K’iche’ transcription and English translation mine, but also see Christenson, Popol Vuh, 288; and Tedlock, Popol Vuh, 160. Carmack and Mondloch, Uwujil, 187–​188 n. 187. Carmack and Mondloch, Uwujil, 188 n. 187. They cite Molina 1944, 10; however, this reference is not clear; therefore, also see Molina 1571, fol. 9v; https://​arch​ive.org/​str​eam/​voc​ abul​ario​enle​n00m​oli#page/​n277/​mode/​2up (image 278), accessed on May 12, 2020. Carmack and Mondloch, Uwujil, 188 n. 187. Regarding the misattribution of Vico with this early K’iche’ lexicon, see Dürr and Sachse, Diccionario k’iche’, 23–​35; and Sachse, “Renaming Vico’s Dictionary.” Due to the root usually glossed as “love,” loq’olaj has been translated here as “beloved.” However, modern K’iche’ speakers, especially spiritual guides (chuchqajawib’) such as daykeepers (ajq’ijab’), often also translate this term as “sacred,” “holy,” “glorious,” “noble,” and “majestic,” claiming that its essence cannot readily be translated well.

142 Sparks of B’alam Aq’ab’. “K’ab’awil” was the incense of Majukotaj.95 Then they burned it. “Twice and thrice thanks to you the Framer and Former who is, thus, the center of the sky and earth, the four corners and edges [of the cosmos].96 Thanks for the brightening and parting we have just seen, the sun and the [morning] star we just now see. You, thus, are our mountain Tulan Siwan, our great ‘yellow and green’ mountain,” they said as they burned their resin incense.97 However, unlike the Popol Wuj, the Title of Totonicapán shifts the dedication of the offering of incense away from k’ab’awilab’ as the deities of the ruling lineages back to the supreme primordial deity Tz’aqol, B’itol, the Framer and the Former of the earth and all of the cosmos, understood as related to or a variation of Uk’u’x Kaj, Uk’u’x Ulew (Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth). This deity was not only the initial god which the Popol Wuj labeled as a k’ab’awil but is also the K’iche’ name that Vico appropriated for the Christian god throughout his Theologia Indorum—​Dios, nimajaw, Tz’aqol B’itol.98 For both K’iche’ who resisted Hispano-​Catholicism (like the authors of the Popol Wuj) and K’iche’ who worked with the mendicants and became their early converts (like the authors of the Title of Totonicapán), k’ab’awil could point not only to the “divine” but also to that which moved the K’iche’ not physically, coercively, or even persuasively but rather ritually, emotionally, and, for lack of a better term, spiritually. 9

Book Ideology: Maya Wuj

The final pertinent Maya concept “book,” wuj, yokes early modern Highland Maya understandings of language, theological anthropology, and religious 95

96

97 98

Similar to the Popol Wuj when it states, “Their thanksgiving in their heart. ‘Mixtam’ incense was the name of the incense carried by B’alam K’itze’. ‘Kawistan’ incense is still the name of the incense carried by B’alam Aq’ab’. ‘K’ab’awil’ incense is called still the incense carried by Majukutaj”; Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 40r; English translation mine. Similar to the Popol Wuj when it states in the early cosmogonic section, “all of the sky and earth; its four corners, its four edges, being measured out, and its four being staked down,” and later in a prayer by K’iche’ rulers: “… and to you Tojil, Awilix, and Jakawitz, the belly of the sky and the belly of the earth, the four corners and the four edges”; Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 1r, 54v; English translation mine. Carmack and Mondloch, Uwujil, fol. 18r; English translation mine. aps Ms, fol. 33v; or Tz’aqol B’itol, Dios, nimajaw (the Framer and Former, God, the great lord) on aps Ms, fol 34v.

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material culture but not affectivity. In brief, Maya language ideology, for example as found in the Popol Wuj, holds an understanding that language is not only communicative or informative (i.e., tells) but is also formative (i.e., creates) and transformative (i.e., produces change beyond persuasion). Language for the Maya conveys not just understanding but also force. In this sense, as written language, a wuj is similar to k’ab’awil.99 While references in the Popol Wuj to k’ab’awil are more extensive than those to wuj, those to the latter are no less important. They provide evidence that K’iche’an Maya had a textual ideology that most likely predated the arrival of Europeans and was related to their understanding of language having force. On one hand, Lowland Maya by their Late Preclassic Era became the only Indigenous people in the Americas to develop a phonetic-​based writing system that continued at least into the sixteenth century, as evinced in the Relación (c.1566) of Franciscan friar and later bishop Diego de Landa (1524–​1579), who attested to personally burning twenty-​seven Maya books along with reportedly 5,000 religious effigies.100 Seen as a whole, it could be argued that the Maya 99

In general, there remains little critical assessment in scholarly literature on the Maya of the conceptual relationship between “idols” and books, except that many (but not all) missionaries attributed them in some way to the devil among precontact Native peoples; see, for example, John F. Chuchiak, iv, “De Descriptio Idolorum: An Ethnohistorical Examination of the Production, Imagery, and Functions of Colonial Yucatec Maya Idols and Effigy Censers, 1540–​1700,” in Maya Worldviews at Conquest, ed. Leslie G. Cecil and Timothy W. Pugh (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2009), 135–​158; John F. Chuchiak, iv, ed., The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536–​1820: A Documentary History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012); Mark Z. Christensen, Nahua and Maya Catholicisms: Texts and Religion in Colonial Central Mexico and Yucatan (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2013); John D. Early, The Maya and Catholicism: An Encounter of Worldviews (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006); Elizabeth Graham, Maya Christians and Their Churches in Sixteenth-​Century Belize (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011); William Hanks, Converting Word: Maya in the Age of the Cross (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010), especially 63–​66, 87–​92; and Amara Solari, “The ‘Contagious Stench’ of Idolatry: The Rhetoric of Disease and Sacrilegious Acts in Colonial New Spain,” Hispanic American Historical Review 96.3 (2016): especially 495. In the early primary (e.g., Landa) and later secondary sources there does not appear to be any evidence that Lowland Maya worshiped their books like their devotionalism to carved images. This correlation of affectivity to texts seems to have been initially distinct to Dominicans, particularly in Guatemala, with the earliest evidence in the writings in Mayan language by Vico, one of Las Casas’s first recruits. In this sense, critical historical studies, and specifically ethnohistorical studies, of mendicant missions (e.g., Lascasian studies) can help correct the record and narrative shopped by Mayanists. 100 See, for example, Landa on the phonetics of Maya glyphs, Diego de Landa, Relation des choses de Yucatan de Diego de Landa; texte espagnol et traduction française en regard, comprenant les signes du calendrier et de l’alphabet hiéroglyphique de la langue maya, trans. Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (Paris: Auguste Durand, Éditeur, 1864 [1566]),

144 Sparks have a more than 2,000-​year history of writing books—​from ancient hieroglyphic texts carved on stelae and written in folding-​screen paper codices (e.g., Dresden Codex, Paris Codex, Madrid Codex, and Mexico City Codex) to early post-​contact books (e.g., Popol Wuj, Xajil Chronicle, and nine surviving Books of Chilam Balam), colonial legal documents (e.g., will and land deeds, like the Title of Totonicapán), and the published poetry and manifestos by present-​day Maya.101 However, on the other hand, there is no conclusive evidence that Highland Maya wrote phonetically or produced books in any form (e.g., tablets, scrolls, codices, etc.) until contact with mendicants. The early survey in 1553–​1556 of the conditions of Native Mesoamericans by Spanish jurist Alonso de Zorita claims that he saw a book with glyphic writing or images held among the K’iche’, though none have survived or are attested by other sources.102 The K’iche’ stem tz’ib’ can refer to both painting and writing according to colonial-​era and modern K’iche’ sources, but the extension of its semantic domain to include phonetic writing among the Highland Maya may have only occurred after the introduction of an alphabetic script by mendicants in the 1540s. Early post-​contact K’iche’an documents are not only composed of pre-​Hispanic myths and histories but also use Native genres, often along with newly introduced Iberian genres.103 So pre-​contact Highland Maya narratives in various genres could have been limited to pictographic (e.g., lienzos, or maps) or oral texts and only incorporated into their written texts beginning in the 1540s. Unlike oral texts, writing involves sight, which relates explicitly to and builds off of K’iche’ religious understanding of human nature. In the stories of the various attempts by the Maya gods to create true human beings, they make only one request and related regret. Their request is for people to have language, to speak the names of the gods and thank them.104 All but the final,

1 01 102 103

104

316–​322; and Coe on the importance of Landa’s book, in part via Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, in helping modern epigraphers decipher the ancient Maya writing system, Michael D. Coe, Breaking the Maya Code (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992), 30, 99–​ 101, 260. Also see, for example, Tedlock, 2000 Years of Mayan Literature. Benjamin Keen, Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain by Alonso de Zorita (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 272. See, for example, Robert Hill on the Annals of the Kaqchikel; Robert M. Hill, ii, Colonial Cakchiquels: Highland Maya Adaptation to Spanish Rule 1600–​1700 (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), 127–​ 128; Robert M. Hill, ii, Pictograph to Alphabet—​and Back: Reconstructing the Pictographic Origins of the Xajil Chronicle (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2012), 4–​26; and Tedlock, Popol Vuh, 27–​33. Ayer Ms 1515, fols. 2v–​3r.

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fourth creation attempt successfully produced people who could fulfill this command—​because only humans have discursive force akin to that of a god. However, this fourth batch of people—​created with maize—​also had perfect sight (e.g., extended hindsight, foresight, insight, etc.), like the gods.105 Neither the failure to speak by the initial three batches of people (i.e., animals, people of soil, and people of wood) nor the expansive vision of the fourth group is the result of any error on their part but rather due to the gods. For this reason, many Highland Maya today say they are not born with “original sin” or fault but rather an “original debt” to God and their ancestors for their existence. Thus, unlike Western Christian theological anthropology, human nature is not understood by the Maya as “fallen” and thus in need of “healing” or salvation. As a result of their perfect vision, the divine creators diminish human sight, not due to sin but to have humans be less godlike.106 A compensation for this truncated vision is the technology of written language, like the Popol Wuj. For example, in its prologue, where the K’iche’ writers tell under what tragic sixteenth-​century conditions they are transcribing their stories to be the Popol Wuj, they state that their book is produced by the ruling council (a popo[l]‌ wuj), but it is based on an initial book of ancient writings (nab’e uwujil ojer tzib’am) to be used as an instrument by which to see clearly (ilb’al saq) and to continue to witness (ilol) and to ponder (b’isol) enlightened life (saq k’aslem).107 This rationale for the text is repeated toward the end when it states: “There is, thus, an instrument for seeing for them; there is their book; the Council Book is its name according to them [the ruling lords],” K’o k’ut ilb’al re, k’o uwuj, popol wuj ub’i’ kumal.108 Early post-​contact Indigenous literature provides few meta-​moments where a text explicitly reflects upon what it, as a text, is. For the K’iche’ the only other comparable site is the contemporaneous Title of Totonicapán, which states that members of the leading Kaqoj and Eq’omaq’ lineages of the Tamub’ branch of the K’iche’ nation “are also themselves witnesses within this book,” xa uq’anawinaq rib’ chupam wa’e wuj.109 However, unlike the Popol Wuj, this line from the Title of Totonicapán does not say anything about what a wuj is, nor how its role and value pertain to, and thus also discloses, Maya understandings of human nature. But it does provide additional textual evidence that for the Maya while 1 05 106 107 108 109

Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 34r. Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 34r. Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 1r; also see Christenson, Popol Vuh, 21–​22. Ayer Ms 1515, fol. 54r. Carmack and Mondloch, Uwujil, 64–​64; modern transcription and English translation mine.

146 Sparks books entailed language, and thus had force, even religious books were not affective. In terms of Maya theological anthropology, books pertained to one’s “head” (ujolom), specifically the faculty of “sight,” rather than one’s “heart” (uk’u’x). 10

Conclusion

Exemplary of many of Las Casas’s recruits from Salamanca, Vico’s theology for the Maya not only established analogical understandings between Maya religious terms and Christian concepts, but also employed the ceremonial rhetoric of Maya religious leaders. Among these analogies sought contestably by Dominicans and against Franciscans were “divinity” and its corollary “idolatry.” Furthermore, in addition to being among the first and most lengthy example of this theological approach, Vico’s Theologia Indorum also appropriated Maya religious affective discourse—​affiliated with the “heart” and related to devotion to the gods and effigies of them—​but applied it not toward Christian effigies but rather to pastoral literature and the books that contain it (Figure 5.1). In other words, Vico did not import the kind of discourse associated with books in Iberia. Nor did he use the way that Maya spoke about their pre-​ contact stories and books and apply that to Christian doctrinal texts. Perhaps ironically, both Iberians and Maya understood writing as related to the head, knowledge, and “seeing” correctly—​an easy analogy that Vico did not seize. And, curiously, while similar to how Protestants would construe scripture, Vico did not reflect upon nor apply any such affective discourse to the Bible but rather to other religious literature, namely his Theologia Indorum. Finally, perhaps in the way of Neoplatonic metaphysics and, by extension, medieval mysticism, he did not import the traditional affective discourse within Catholic devotionalism focused on an anagogic assent of the soul. Instead, he sought an affective discourse appropriated from the Maya analogous with a Thomistic theory of religious emotions and semiotic realism. However, how Maya discussed the significance of their images was not erased but rather re-​employed.110 Catholic effigies were not discussed by Vico as Maya images were discussed by the Maya. But neither was Catholic theological and devotional literature discussed as Maya literature was, nor did Vico discuss his theology for the Maya as devotional texts had been back in Europe. 110 In 2015 K’iche’ elders traveled to the Newberry Library to present prayers and other offerings to the Popol Wuj: https://​blog.merid​ian.org/​global​conn​ect/​gua​tema​lan-​ind​igen​ous -​lead​ers-​recon​nect​ing-​with-​the-​sac​red-​text-​of-​the-​may​ans/​, accessed on May 12, 2020.

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Instead, Vico’s aim appears to have been an intellectual displacement of Maya myths, like the Popol Wuj, as well as an affective replacement of Maya effigies but with text rather than Catholic images. While albeit unwittingly, Vico’s new arrangement appears to have risked not only making the book a new Maya “idol” or fetish but also laying a foundation upon which Protestant missionaries to the Maya would build centuries later.

­f igure 5.1  Redirection of Maya affective discourse by Vico toward religious books

­c hapter 6

Las Casas and the Divine Social Orders of the Indigenous Americas Frauke Sachse 1

Introduction

In the Apologética Historia Sumaria, Bartolomé de las Casas provides the first comparative ethnographic account of Indigenous societies in the Americas.1 His description of cultures, religions, and social systems supported his argument that humans in the “New World” had the same rational abilities and lived according to the same natural laws and organizational principles as did citizens in the “Old World,” and that the same legal rights applied to them. Building on the concept of the perfect society, Las Casas shows in ­chapters 195 to 262 that the societies in pre-​colonial America had legitimate governors and that these rulers were by nature good and not tyrannical.2 Among the descriptions in these chapters, the account of social order and political organization in Highland Guatemala merits particular attention, as it clearly supports the political agenda of the Dominican bishop—​Las Casas, who in the 1550s began to advocate the restoration of the sovereignty of the Indigenous kingdoms and states that the Spanish invasion destroyed.3 In his description of governance in Guatemala, Las Casas backed the petition of former Indigenous ruling elites for restitution of their status and influence, which permits further insights into the missionary politics of the time. The Guatemalan highlands were the scene of the most violent military conquest led by Pedro de Alvarado against the K’iche’ Maya and their capital at Utatlan.4 While the K’iche’ were the dominant group, they were not

1 Bartolomé de las Casas, ahs (1967). 2 Edmundo O’Gorman, “Introducción,” in ahs (1967), 42, 50–​51. 3 Juan Friede, “Las Casas and Indigenism in the Sixteenth Century,” in Bartolomé de las Casas in History, ed. Juan Friede and Benjamin Keen (DeKalb: Northern Illinois Press, 1971), 127–​234 (176–​178). 4 The K’iche’ name of the capital city was Q’umarkaj, “Place of Old Reeds.” Throughout this paper the Nahuatl translation “Utatlan” without Spanish accents will be employed. Las Casas spells the toponym as “Utlatlan.”

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_008

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the only power in the multilingual and multiethnic highlands, where several provinces continued to resist Spanish control.5 To avoid further bloodshed, Las Casas suggested the Crown pacify them by means of evangelization. He sent a group of Dominicans to the so-​called Tierra de Guerra (Land of War) to sing and preach the teachings of Christ to the local population. The local lord was so intrigued that he converted to Christianity and accepted the new hegemony, under the condition that his province Tezulutlan—​later renamed Verapaz (True Peace)—​would be exempted from tribute payments.6 The deal that was negotiated left the Maya ruler in power in exchange for accepting the new faith and the authority of the Spanish Crown. This negotiation established the model for Indigenous sovereignty that Las Casas strongly advocated many years later; this model was based on a common understanding of what constituted political authority and legitimate rule. This chapter explores how Las Casas presented political rule and legitimate succession in Highland Guatemala to support his argument for the restoration of Indigenous governance. By examining the textual evidence in the Apologética Historia Sumaria, I argue that the description shows great consistency with the accounts of Highland Maya political organization that can be extracted from the Indigenous text sources. Las Casas supported the continuity of divine hierarchies as portrayed by K’iche’ authors and acknowledged the legitimacy of K’iche’ supremacy as part of a Dominican missionary strategy. 2

The Sources

The prime resources that have been cited for the reconstruction of Highland Maya political organization include Indigenous documents and accounts by Spanish missionaries and chroniclers. Besides Las Casas’s description of political rule and legitimate succession in the reino de Utatlán (kingdom of Utatlan) 5 A total of twenty different Mayan languages are spoken in Guatemala to this day. Most languages in the highlands fall into the Eastern branch of the Mayan language family. This branch consists of the K’iche’an and Mamean families. The K’iche’an language family includes Q’eqchi’, Poqom, and Uspantek, as well as proper K’iche’an that includes the closely related languages K’iche’, Kaqchikel, Tz’utujil, Sakapultek, and Sipakapense, see Terrence Kaufman, “Aspects of the Lexicon of proto-​Mayan and its Earliest Descendants,” in The Mayan Languages, ed. Judith Aissen et al. (London: Routledge, 2017), 62–​111. 6 Antonio de Remesal, Historia general de las Indias Occidentales y particular de la gobernación de Chiapa y Guatemala por Fray Antonio de Remesal, O.P., vol. 4, ed. Antonio Batres Jauregi Ij (Guatemala: Biblioteca “Goathemala” de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, 1932 [1619–​1620]), 200–​205.

150 Sachse in ­chapter 234 of the Apologética historia sumaria, the letter that the Franciscan Pedro de Betanzos sent to the Crown in 1559 is of particular relevance. Both accounts have been argued to present two different models of political organization that have been used as stencils to interpret the information provided in the Indigenous documents. In the mid-​sixteenth century, members of the Indigenous elites adopted alphabetic writing and created a new literary genre by fusing Spanish administrative documents (such as land titles) with the Mesoamerican narrative tradition of sacred books. Written in K’iche’, these documents served to negotiate inter-​polity hierarchies and dependencies between Indigenous communities. The most significant of these texts is the well-​known Popol Vuh, which relates the mythic origin story of the K’iche’ Maya from the creation of the world to the arrival of the Spanish and Christianity.7 The colonial K’iche’ descriptions of political organization in the Popol Vuh, and other contemporary Indigenous documents, are essential for resolving questions posed by the contradicting accounts of Las Casas and Betanzos. While Las Casas depicts a centralized system of political organization in which rulership was hereditary and the ruler of Utatlan was recognized as the ultimate political authority by all K’iche’ groups and surrounding “kingdoms,” Betanzos argues that the system was decentralized, the ruler was elected, and Utatlan was not politically superior. Although the contradictions of both accounts have been previously discussed, they yet remain to be placed into the historical context in which they were produced.8 The date of the Apologética Historia Sumaria has been widely debated; however, Las Casas likely wrote it after 1552 in Valladolid, Spain.9 Allen Christenson discusses different options for the origin of the ethnographic information that 7 The text of the Popol Vuh is preserved in a manuscript copy made by Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez in 1701 that is today in the holdings of the Newberry Library in Chicago. It has been translated from K’iche’ into various modern languages multiple times, see e.g. Allen J. Christenson, Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya (Winchester: O Books, 2003). For more information on the text see chapter five by Garry Sparks. 8 The two different models were first contrasted and analyzed by Robert Carmack, The Quiché Maya of Utatlán: The Evolution of a Highland Guatemala Kingdom (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981), 168–​169. 9 O’Gorman suggested that Las Casas began the Apologética Historia Sumaria in 1555 or 1556 and completed it before 1559, when his ill health would have prevented him from further writing, see O’Gorman, “Introducción,” 35. Christenson summarizes the debate regarding the date, pointing out that the compilation of the Apologética Historia Sumaria may have begun as early as 1552, when Las Casas “revised and expanded his Historia general,” see Allen Christenson, The Burden of the Ancients: Maya Ceremonies of World Renewal from the Pre-​ Columbian Period to the Present (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016), 71–​72.

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Las Casas provides about Highland Guatemala.10 It is not unlikely that Las Casas based his account on personal observations recorded during his stay in Guatemala between 1536 and 1538; in the Historia general, he certainly mentions the existence of such personal notes. Las Casas may also have had access to documents written by other Dominican friars who served in Guatemala—​ in particular, Domingo de Vico’s lost text on the history and religion of the Highland Maya.11 Possibly, he also had notes left by Rodrigo de Labrada, who participated in the peaceful mission of Tezulutlan and who is known to have lived with Las Casas in Valladolid.12 Of particular relevance to the argument in this chapter is Ruud van Akkeren’s suggestion that Las Casas could have received information from Don Juan de Cortés, a cacique from Santa Cruz del Quiché (the Spanish settlement that was founded near the conquered and destroyed city of Utatlan), who was the legitimate heir to the K’iche’ rulership. In 1557, Cortés traveled to Spain with Dominican friars and could have served as an informant; he also would have been in Valladolid at the time of compilation of the Apologética Historia Sumaria.13 3

Juan de Cortés

The circumstances and reasons for Juan de Cortés’s visit to Spain were carefully analyzed by Pedro Carrasco.14 Alonso de Zorita, royal judge in New Spain between 1548 and 1566, reports that Cortés was second in the rank of nobles from Utatlan after a cacique named Juan de Rojas, both of whom were living impoverished in Santa Cruz del Quiché.15 In the Popol Vuh, Don Juan de Rojas and Don Juan de Cortés are both mentioned as the fourteenth generation of rulers at Utatlan.16 A K’iche’ document named Título de los Indios de Santa 10 Christenson, Burden of the Ancients, 69–​71. 11 Antonio Remesal mentions this text written by Domingo de Vico that “he was also historian of these people, in writing down into a book all the histories, fables, councils, tales, and errors according to which they lived, [and] rejecting them in order to separate the natives from these [ideas].” Remesal, Historia de la Provincia, 612 (book 10, Chapter 8). 12 Christenson, Burden of the Ancients, 71. 13 Ruud van Akkeren, “Authors of the Popol Vuh,” Ancient Mesoamerica 14.2 (2003): 237–​ 256 (249). 14 Pedro Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés, Cacique de Santa Cruz Quiché,” Estudios de Cultura Maya 6 (1967): 251–​266. 15 Alonso de Zorita, “Breve y sumaria relación de los señores y maneras y diferencias que había de ellos en la Nueva España,” in Nueva colección de documentos para la historia de México, ed. Joaquín García Icazbalceta (Mexico City: Chávez Hayhoe, 1941), 65–​205 (204). 16 Christenson, Popol Vuh, 295–​297.

152 Sachse Clara La Laguna identifies them as the sons of the lords Tekum and Tepepul, who ruled Utatlan at the time of the Spanish invasion: My grandfather and my father were those who saw the arrival of Don Pedro de Alvarado, captain Tonatiuh Adelantado. This was the lordship of Tekum [and] Tepepul, my father. I am Don Juan de Rojas and I am Don Juan Cortés; we live under the word of God now.17 Two royal decrees inform us that Cortés went to Valladolid to request restitution at court for his confiscated lands and tribute provinces.18 The document from 1557 mentions that the Spanish encomenderos had named the local lords in their encomiendas as caciques (which gave them the right to manage the lands and tributes on behalf of the encomenderos), which is why these K’iche’ lords did not feel any further obligation to recognize the supremacy of the ruler of Utatlan: Don Juan Cortés, cacique of Utlatlan and of all its towns and subjects, who says he is the legitimate son of Don Juan Chicueyquiagut and grandson of Yeymazatl, has reported to me that given that the mentioned ones are his father and grandfather, lords of the named province of Utlatlan, and while they owned and possessed it, Don Pedro de Alvarado and his captains entered it and they conquered it together with the province of Guatemala, and that the said Pedro de Alvarado had burned his grandfather because he did not give him gold, and once the said Don Juan Chicueyquiagut was dead, of almost the entire province he [Alvarado] … divided the villages, and like this each one of the encomenderos made and named as caciques the Indians who they liked and who they could profit from, and because his mentioned father had died and he had been left behind as a boy, they did not want to obey him or accept him as lord and cacique of the said land, as they all had done in the past … You can order to put him into possession of the said province of Utlatlan, and you can restore the lordship and cacicazgo of [this province] and all its peoples and subjects …19 17 Ruud van Akkeren, “Título de los Indios de Santa Clara La Laguna,” in Crónica Mesoamericanas ii, ed. Horacio Cabezas Carcache (Guatemala: Universidad Mesoamericana, 2009), 69–​86 (82). 18 Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 251–​252. 19 The text of the decree was published in the original Spanish by Robert Carmack, Quichean Civilization: The Ethnohistoric, Ethnographic, and Archaeological Sources (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 385; author’s translation.

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Another document in the Archivo General de Indias mentions that Juan de Cortés brought papers to Spain to prove his legitimacy, but that these were stolen by French pirates who attacked the ship on which he traveled.20 The case of Cortés must have been widely known in colonial Guatemala, at least among Dominicans who seem to have supported his claim. The Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez writes about the event almost 150 years later. Ximénez confirms that Cortés and his descendants have held the title of cacique and that they had some land with serfs from whom they extracted tribute. He confirms that his descendants continued to live in Santa Cruz del Quiché: The thirteenth k’iche’ king was called Tecumtepepul … He had two children who were baptized and one of them is called don Juan de Rojas and the younger one don Juan de Cortés, and since the lord don Juan de Rojas would hold the kingdom, his Majesty had ordered that they would be given a substantial rent, so that he could live with the decency that his royal status merits, conceding him many privileges, so that when he goes down to Guatemala, they would give him a palace and pantry at the expense of His Majesty, and that when he attended in public at royal hearings he would have his seat next to the president of the court, according to his majesty, his birth, and to the natural right that he had to reign, showing his majesty and his Christianity in the decree that he dispatched, for those times in which all the caciques and lords remained in their lordships, because his majesty knew well that he could not strip them without very serious cause of the lordship that nature gave them. But the ministers took little care of this, because only tyranny prevailed, and to the extent that even the few slaves he had they wanted to take away from him, for which they litigated and won the lawsuit with a contradictory judgment against the king; and that is the only income their descendants have today, whose line is preserved in the town of Santa Cruz del Quiché …21 Ximénez’s statement confirms that the restitution of Cortés’s lands was never granted. The reason for this may be found in the aforementioned letter by Pedro de Betanzos, in which the Franciscan friar makes a detailed argument against Cortés’s claim and the restitution of his lands.22 It is not unlikely that 20 21 22

The mentioned document is agi Guatemala 386, Libro de Reales Cédulas 1551–​1560 cited by Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 254, and Akkeren, “Authors of the Popol Vuh,” 250. Francisco Ximénez, Historia de la provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala de la orden de predicadores, i (Guatemala: Tipografía nacional, 1929), 79–​80. Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 255–​259.

154 Sachse the description of political organization found in the Apologética Historia Sumaria was drafted originally in support of Juan de Cortés, who would have described a political system to Las Casas that would have backed his claims. 4

Rule of Succession

Las Casas begins his political ethnography of the kingdom of Utatlan with the mythological narrative of the arrival of four brothers from Mexico: The most powerful kingdom there was within a radius of many miles of what we call Guatemala, in particular in the highlands and mountains, was the kingdom of Utatlan. This kingdom had its origin in this way: that four brothers arrived from the province of New Spain …23 The account of the “four brothers” seems to refer to the narrative of four mythological founders that are mentioned in the Popol Vuh and other K’iche’ documents. From these sources, it is generally understood that the K’iche’ were organized in three large groups named the Nimak’iche’ (Great K’iche’), Tamub’ (Drummers), and Ilokab’ (Seers), who originally immigrated together with other ethnic groups, including the Tz’utujil, Kaqchikel, and Rab’inaleb’, from a mythical place of origin in the east called Tulan Zuywa. The Nimak’iche’ branch traces its history back to four mythological founders named B’alam Kitze, B’alam Aq’ab’, Majukutaj, and Ik’i B’alam, who are said to be the progenitors of three of the ruling lineages at Utatlan: the Kaweq, the Nija’ib’, and the Ajaw K’iche’ (Figure 6.1). Ik’i B’alam did not produce offspring and therefore engendered no ruling lineage.24 Las Casas takes up this narrative topos of one of the founders who fails to procreate and relates that the eldest of the four brothers had no talent for rulership, and for this reason the government fell into the hands of the second eldest brother. This second brother had two sons, both of whom he placed into rulership, with the second one serving as an heir to the throne: Of the four brothers, the eldest one was not as talented as the other one, or because he had a softer and more modest nature, and because of that 23 24

Las Casas, ahs (1967), 499 (author’s translation). The Nimak’iche’ were nevertheless organized into four descent groups, with the fourth branch constituted by the lineage of the Saqik, who did not trace their ancestry back to the mythical founders, see Carmack, Quichean Civilization, 162–​163.

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­f igure 6.1  Organization of K’iche’ branches and social groups

he did not try to command or govern. The following and eldest of the three [others] had two sons and for these sons he procured that they would rule …, finally, it occurred that of these two sons of that second brother, the father determined as supreme lord that one would immediately succeed him, [while] the other would be like an elected [successor] to be [ruler] after that [first] one died, …25 Las Casas’s description confirms the lists of rulers in the Popol Vuh and other K’iche’ documents that often include two names: a ruler and his vice-​ruler. Table 6.1 lists the fourteen generations of rulers that can be extracted from the text of the Popol Vuh. What is striking is that some names appear in two consecutive generations, suggesting that one and the same individual may have held both ruling offices. This conclusion is consistent with the additional details Las Casas provides in his account. He describes that in order to avoid the rise of unexperienced individuals into rulership, the sons of these two “brothers” held designated offices that are referred to as “major captain” and “minor captain,” suggesting 25

Las Casas, ahs (1967), 499 (author’s translation).

156 Sachse table 6.1 Kaweq ruler list extracted from the Popol Vuh

Kaweq K’iche’ rulers 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Balam Quitze (Founder) Co Caib & Co Cavib Balam Co Nache & Beleheb Queh Co Tuha & Iztayub Cucumatz & Co Tuha Tepepul & Iztayul Quicab & Cauizimah Tepepul & Iztayub Tecum & Tepepul Vahxaqui Cam & Quicab Vucub Noh & Cauatepech Oxib Quieh & Beleheb Tzi Tecum & Tepepul Juan de Rojas & Juan Cortés

that these were military ranks. There is evidence from Indigenous documents that the sons of rulers indeed held military offices. According to the Título de K’oyoy, the legendary K’iche’ warrior Tecum Uman held the rank of a “warrior of the matkeeper” (“rajpop achij”) and was the grandson of the Kaweq K’iche’ ruler K’iqab’.26 Similarly, the “warrior of Rab’inal” (rab’inal achij) in the likewise named dance drama from the Verapaz region is referred to as the son of the ruler of Rab’inal named Job’ Toj.27 The four offices that formed this system of “quadripartite rule” can be identified as those mentioned in the Popol Vuh and Título de Totonicapan as being held by the Kaweq lineage of Utatlan: the “matkeeper”28 (“ajpop”), “matkeeper

26 27 28

Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, “Tecum, the Fallen Sun: Mesoamerican Cosmogony and the Spanish Conquest of Guatemala,” Ethnohistory 60.4 (2013): 693–​719 (697–​698). Alain Breton, Rabinal Achi: Un drame dynastique maya du quinzième siècle (Nanterre: Société des américanistes & Société d’ethnologie, 1994), 52. The woven palm mat was a symbol of rulership throughout Mesoamerica. In Mayan languages, the term for mat is pop. Thus, the popol wuj (modern spelling) is literally the “book of rulership” and the supreme K’iche’ ruler was explicitly called ajpop “he of the mat,” or “matkeeper.”

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of the reception house” (“ajpop k’amja”), “major warrior of the matkeeper” (“nima rajpop achij”), and “minor warrior of the matkeeper” (“ch’uti rajpop achij”).29 According to Las Casas, these four formed a system of succession that ensured that the office of the ruler would always be filled by the most experienced senior person: … so that no young and inexperienced and unknown man would come to reign, but [the one] of the sons that was known [to be] the most prudent and skillful, they designated among the sons of these brothers a major captain and a minor captain, and so there were four, two fathers and two sons, who had the same order in the seats: the supreme and king, first, and then the king elect, and after him the major captain, and last the minor [captain]; and if any of them died, if it was the king, then the elected went up in his place to the supreme position, and the third to the second, and the fourth to the third, and instead of the fourth one of the relatives came in who based on their laws was due to enter: so that the rulership always came to the one who was of sufficient age and who had passed first through the other offices, and therefore was experienced. If any of those ranks was useless, or not good enough to ascend to the highest rank, he would not rise, but would stay in the first [rank] that he had, and another one would enter in the place that he had vacated.30 The system described by Las Casas is reminiscent of the Mexica-​Aztec practice of succession, where the ruler, literally called “speaker” (“tlatoani”), was elected from a Council of Four that included military leaders of different ranks who were close kin.31 Those who acceded to the supreme office had generally held one of the major military offices prior to their appointment as tlatoani, and were sons, brothers, uncles, and nephews of the last ruler.32 29 Carmack, The Quiché Maya of Utatlán, 169; Akkeren, “Authors of the Popol Vuh,” 249. 30 Las Casas, ahs (1967), 499–​500 (author’s translation). 31 Such councils existed in societies across Postclassic Mesoamerica, but the interpretations as to whether these constituted systems of actual collective rule differ. Lane F. Fargher et al., “Alternative Pathways to Power in Late Postclassic Highland Mesoamerica,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30 (2011): 306–​326. 32 Most of the tlatoque between 1415 and 1520 had held the office of tlacateccatl before acceding to the rank of the supreme ruler, only Axayacatl (1471–​1482) was elected from the rank of tlacochcalcatl, see Hanns Prem, Die Azteken (München: Beck, 1996), 27. Duran reports in detail the disputes around the election of Ahuizotl as successor of his brother Tizoc and the role of the Tlacaelel, brother of Moctezuma i, who as holder of the office of Tlacochcalcatl was influential in the decision-​making process, see Diego Duran, Historia

158 Sachse

­f igure 6.2  Idealized line of succession in Utatlan following Las Casas’s model

According to Las Casas, in an idealized case of succession, the one appointed as “ruler” (“señor”) would have previously held the other three offices (Figure 6.2). This organizational principle is not dissimilar to the practice in present-​day Highland Maya confraternities, where the members have to pass through all ranks on their way up to a leadership position.33 The following passage from the Popol Vuh supports Las Casas’s statement that the offices of the king and king-​elect were held by brothers and their sons; as the text suggests, there were always two individuals who shared the responsibilities of office: Matkeeper, Matkeeper of the Reception House, Magistrate, Herald Person. They are two by two, when they enter, they succeed each other in the carrying of the polity among all the K’iche’ people.34

de las Indias de Nueva España, ed. Angel M. Garibay (Mexico City: Editorial Porrua, S.A., 1984), 313–​322. 33 The confraternities (“cofradías”) that were founded for the veneration of the Catholic saints have long been thought of as colonial institutions within which the units of Indigenous social organization continued to exist. Robert Carlsen has argued for the Tz’utujil town of Santiago Atitlán that the cofradía system inherited the “civil and religious functions” of the former Atiteco social organization, see Robert S. Carlsen, “Social Organization and Disorganization in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala,” Ethnology 35.2 (1996): 141–​160 (145). 34 [Popol Vuh] Empiezan las historias del origen de los indios de esta provincia de Guatemala /​ traduzido de la lengua Quiche en la Castellana para mas commodidad de los ministros de el Sto. Evangelio por el R.P.F. Franzisco Ximenez. Newberry Library Chicago, Ayer Collection, Ms 1515, 1701, 56 folios: fol. 54v (author’s translation).

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A system like this would also have led to cases where the two ruling offices were held by father and son or nephew, which is supported by the statement of Rojas and Cortés in the aforementioned Título de la Laguna de Santa Clara that the last rulers of Utatlan were their grandfather and father. There is limited evidence from hieroglyphic texts that senior and junior ranks of rulership already existed in Classic Maya times. In the inscriptions from Ucanal and Motul de San José, we find apparent cases of joint rulership of such senior and junior kings, with the junior only acceding to the throne after the death of the supreme king.35 The written record from Palenque even indicates that there was a system of brothers succeeding each other into rulership.36 The system of succession described by Las Casas, which combined hereditary rights with an election based on merit, thus seems culturally plausible. Cortés’s claim would thus have carried some validity. His appeal for restitution of property and tribute rights maintains that the rulers of Utatlan were the central authority in the region, which is clearly confirmed by the account in the Apologética Historia Sumaria. 5

Hegemonial Organization

Las Casas describes a regional system of polities under direct control that had been conquered by Utatlan, and the surrounding polities that acknowledged the supremacy of the Kaweq king. He states that the model of succession at Utatlan was also practiced in the conquered territories to the south, including the towns of Totonicapan, Quetzaltenango, Ixtlahuacan, Escuintla, and Zacualpa. The lord of Utatlan instituted governors in these towns who had limited authority and juridical power, and who could be removed from office at Utatlan’s will: The [people] of Utatlan grew a lot and multiplied, so that their people achieved to populate many neighborhoods within fifteen leagues; and from there they sent people and weapons to guard the borders, like in Totonicapan, Quetzaltenango, Ixtlahuacan and Esquintla and Zacualpa, 35 36

Simon Martin, Ancient Maya Politics: A Political Anthropology of the Classic Period 150–​900 CE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 73, 81–​82, and 335. On the same day that Kan Bahlam succeeded his famous father Pakal as ruler of Palenque, his younger brother K’an Hoy Chitam was seated into “head-​princeship” (“b’ahch’oklel”), see Mary Miller and Simon Martin, Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 232.

160 Sachse which were large settlements, and in other areas, [and] in all these they placed superiors and deputies of the lord [of Utatlan]. These had the limited jurisdiction that the lord granted them, and nothing more, and like this they were in charge of the small lawsuits, and with everything else they turned to the court and supreme tribunal. They removed these deputies, if they did something they were not allowed to, as well as for noticeable disobedience, but if he [the deputy] did not give them any reason, they would not remove him until he died. And in the substitution and positioning of others they always showed respect in replacing [him with] the most deserving and useful for everybody’s benefit; and [they did this] in the same way as the lords succeeded each other, it is worth knowing, in that the minor would rise to advanced status if the major [office holder] failed, provided that he was capable and skillful [enough] to accede. So, in that way it was customary among the deputies, because there were certain ranks of minor offices in which they first tested themselves; so that when they would accede to the rank of prefect or deputy, they would already be old and of mature age.37 Las Casas also addresses the regional organization of the highlands beyond the immediate K’iche’ jurisdiction. He returns to the four mythological brothers who had arrived from Mexico and states that the remaining two engendered their own kingdoms. These kingdoms were not paying tribute to Utatlan, although they did acknowledge the supremacy of the Utatlan king and supported him in military campaigns: The other two brothers [of the king of Utatlan] had their own rule, but it was different from that of Utatlan because, though they were the lords of their people, they recognized the lords of Utatlan as their superiors. This recognition of superiority was not in giving them tribute, rather only in reverential obedience as one would give to an older brother, and in helping them when they went to war. They had their own rule, and distinct ministers of justice, especially over towns called Chiquimula and Oloquitlan, which were next to the city of Utatlan.38 The towns of Chiquimula and Oloquitlan can be identified as settlements of the aforementioned Tamub’ and the Ilokab’.39 This means that Las Casas 37 Las Casas, ahs (1967), 500–​501 (author’s translation). 38 Translation by Carmack, The Quiché Maya of Utatlán, 172. 39 Carmack, The Quiché Maya of Utatlán, 172.

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contradicts the dynastic account in the Popol Vuh, which states that the two founders B’alam Aq’ab’ and Majukutaj engendered the Nimak’iche’ lineages of the Nija’ib’ and the Ajaw K’iche’ and not the fraternal kingdoms of the Tamub’ and Ilokab’ (see above). While this contradiction cannot be resolved, Las Casas and the Popol Vuh coincide in attributing utmost supremacy to the lord of Utatlan. Las Casas states that this supremacy was recognized not only within the K’iche’ dominion but across the highlands, and that the rulership of the kingdoms of the Q’eqchi’, Kaqchikel, Tz’utujil, and other neighboring groups was confirmed, approved, and authorized by the Utatlan ruler, who was wearing a Toltec-​style nose bar as a sign of his overlordship: This kingdom of Utatlan constantly grew in population size and authority until the Spanish arrived, and then it was at the peak of its greatest happiness, and to such a degree that by its king [of Utatlan] were placed and confirmed, approved and authorized all rulers and dominions and jurisdictions of the provinces and kingdoms of the area, like the one in Tecuciztlan and Guatemala and Atitlan, which had large populations and much inhabited territories, and in each one of these there was a king and ruler whom many other inferior rulers obeyed to. They had the manner in the elections and succession [to office] in the states and dominions and in their council and the government and juridical executive that they referred to Utatlan. The sign of superiority of the king of Utatlan over the others was that he had a pierced nose, which was not permissible to anyone else.40 What Las Casas describes for highland Guatemala is consistent with the hierarchical system of hegemonic control and overlordship that has been convincingly argued for pre-​contact Mesoamerica and goes back at least to the over-​regional dominance of the Classic center of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico.41 In this system, political control and subordination were negotiated through diplomacy and marriage ties, as well as warfare and subjugation, with 40 41

Las Casas, ahs (1967), 501 (author’s translation). Simon Martin first suggested in 1992 that the political landscape of the ancient Maya world was a system of shifting hierarchies, with some polities gaining dominance over others. The most comprehensive treatment of this political model is found in Martin, Ancient Maya Politics. David Stuart has shown that the same relations of overlordship are repeated at the supra-​regional level, with the city of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico exerting hegemonic dominance over the Classic Maya area, see David Stuart, “The Arrival of Strangers,” in Mesoamerica’s Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, ed. David Carrasco et al. (Boulder: University of Colorado Press), 465–​513.

162 Sachse subordinate polities usually paying tribute to their overlords. The hieroglyphic texts provide insight into a complex system of political events and protagonists, which shows that overlords would oversee and supervise the inauguration of rulers in subordinate polities.42 Las Casas’s description of the lord of Utatlan authorizing the legitimacy of rulers in the other polities is consistent with the cultural practice of over-​regional hierarchies that is attested by the precolonial records. Las Casas states that even the rulers of Tecuciztlan (Q’eqchi’), Guatemala (Kaqchikel), and Atitlan (Tz’utujil) recognized Utatlan’s supremacy. However, given the hostility that existed between the K’iche’ and the Kaqchikel in the decades before the arrival of the Spanish, it seems unlikely that the Kaqchikel ruler would have been appointed by an Utatlan overlord. In a letter to the Spanish Crown Governor of Guatemala Alonso López Cerrato reported in 1552: … What I have been able to find out is that in this land there were four lords … Sinaca who was the lord of the Utatlan people … Sacachul of the Guatemalans, another one of Comalapa, and another one of Jilotepeque; although these two last ones recognized the other two [as superior] …43 According to Cerrato, the K’iche’ ruler of Utatlan and the Kaqchikel ruler of Guatemala were equal and recognized as superior by the lords in Comalapa and Jilotepeque. While Cerrato’s account contradicts Las Casas only with respect to the relationship between the regional powers of the K’iche’ and the Kaqchikel, Pedro Betanzos denies Utatlan any political dominance and reduces the role of the K’iche’ capital to a center for religious pilgrimage.44 6

Betanzos’s Letter

In his letter to the king of Spain written in 1559, Franciscan Fray Pedro de Betanzos rejects the overlordship and supremacy of the Kaweq K’iche’ at Utatlan. Betanzos had spent time in Guatemala, knew the region well, and was particularly recognized for his language skills and for the descriptive and doctrinal materials he had written in Kaqchikel.45 42 Martin, Ancient Maya Politics, 237–​243. 43 Carmack, Quichean Civilization, 378. 44 Carmack, Quiché Maya of Utatlán, 177–​179. 45 René Acuña, “Introducción,” in Thomas de Coto, Thesavrvs verborvm: Vocabvlario de la lengua cakchiquel v[el] guatemalteca, nueuamente hecho y recopilado con summo estudio,

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In his refutation of Cortés’s claim, Betanzos lists a total of thirteen points that speak against the request of the cacique from Santa Cruz. He rejects the claim that Utatlan was the superior power of the region and argues that the towns of Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan, Ixtlahuacan, Zapotitlan, Chichicastenango, Zacualpa, and Usumacinta, among others, did at best recognize a genealogical relationship, since they all descended from the same four lineages of the Kaweq, Nija’ib’, Ajawk’iche’, and Saqik: With respect to what Don Juan Cortés requests from the towns of Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan, Ixtlahuacan, Zapotitlan, Chichicastenango, Zacualpa, Usumacinta, and others as subjects of the Utateca nation one can contest that these do not recognize him as ruler nor have they or their ancestors ever done so …46 The lords of Utatlan never ruled over the mentioned towns, it was more a recognition of kinship they shared, because all of them came from a few lineages, which were called Kaweq and Nija’ib’, Ajawk’iche’, Kalesakik from which those of the town of Utatlan descended as well as the rest of the mentioned towns.47 Betanzos argues that Utatlan only had importance as a ritual center, which, however, ceased because of the arrival of Christianity and the conversion of the lords: … if any governance was proven that the aforementioned [attributed] to Utatlan, or that there was [some] recognition because of the divine cult that they had there [in Utatlan], they would have been ending that by the law of Christ, that service discontinued ….48 With respect to the rule of succession, Betanzos argues that the lords of Utatlan were elected by vote from the four branches or lineages rather than succeeded by any hereditary right:

46 47 48

trauajo y erudicón, ed. René Acuña (Mexico City: unam, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, 1983 [1650]). Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 255. Betanzos’s letter was published by Carrasco in Spanish. All quotations from this letter have been translated by the author. Inconsistent orthographies of names and toponyms have been standardized into modern spelling. Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 255–​256 (author’s translation). Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 256 (author’s translation).

164 Sachse … because the lords of Utatlan were elected by vote by the aforementioned towns and they did not observe whether these were sons or grandsons that succeeded, instead each one of the four aforementioned ­lineages would elect a lord based on who appeared to be the best to rule and who had the best qualities, and this election mode they had in the capital of Utatlan and in the remaining mentioned towns.49 The Franciscan friar thus rejects the idea that the four offices of the council were filled with close kin from the Kaweq line and accordingly opposes the Dominican Las Casas and the account in the Indigenous sources.50 Betanzos continues to argue that none of the towns claimed by Cortés as his former possessions recognized the lord of Utatlan as superior ruler; none of these paid tribute to Utatlan, nor did they follow Utatlan military command, but rather decided jointly on whether they would go to war together: … the aforementioned towns did not recognize those of Utatlan as their lords … … the aforementioned towns had absolute rulers, one in each town, and it shows in their customs of warfare that they did not make war with any other nation without the council and agreement of all those aforementioned towns, and for this council they put themselves all into agreement … no particular Indian paid tribute, nor did they have anything to do with Utatlan …51 In the remainder of the letter, Betanzos addresses the current situation: he explains that it would be politically unwise to elevate a local lord because this might lead to defiance and rebellion, as it would likely entail further requests from other lords, would endanger the process of conversion, and would minimize the tribute for the Crown and the encomenderos.52 Betanzos takes a clear position against the main arguments of Juan de Cortés’s claim, that is,

49 Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 256 (author’s translation). 50 The Popol Vuh and the Título de Totonicapan agree on Kaweq dominance, even though the document from Totonicapan was authored by members of the Nija’ib’ group who clearly contradict the historical narrative from Santa Cruz del Quiché, see Akkeren, “Authors of the Popol Vuh,” 244–​247. 51 Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 256 (author’s translation). 52 Carrasco, “Don Juan Cortés,” 257–​259 (author’s translation).

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hereditary succession and Utatlan supremacy, thereby contradicting every point in Las Casas’s description. 7

Missionary Politics

The contradictions in the accounts by Las Casas and Betanzos appear to be consistent with the respective political agendas and missionary strategies of the Dominican and Franciscan orders in sixteenth-​century highland Guatemala. Central to this argument is the dispute about Utatlan supremacy. Las Casas and Betanzos both take extreme positions. Las Casas claims that the superiority of the Utatlan ruler was not only recognized in the areas with K’iche’ population but, also beyond that, by the other independent polities of other language groups that surrounded the K’iche’ dominion. Betanzos, in contrast, even rejects the legitimacy of the Kaweq influence over other K’iche’ communities. What is reflected in these contrasting views is the regional distribution and sphere of influence of the mendicant orders in the highlands. Without going into the details about the general tensions that existed between the Dominicans and the Franciscans in New Spain, the relationship of both orders in the highlands was characterized by “competition, not cooperation.”53 There were constant disputes about territorial control. The Franciscans dominated the mission in the Kaqchikel-​speaking areas around the capital and Lake Atitlan, as well as all the western regions and those in the south towards the Pacific Coast, while the Dominicans focused their efforts to the north and the K’iche’-​speaking central highlands.54 In these regions, both orders founded new towns (“congregaciones”) where the Indigenous people living in dispersed hamlets all over the countryside were resettled to live an ordered life according to the principles of Christian social conduct and civility. While first opposed to the resettlement policy that Zorita issued in 1555, the Franciscans eventually founded more than twice as many new towns as the Dominicans between 1555 and 1660.55 The two orders were in constant competition for territories of 53

54 55

For a more thorough treatment of these tensions, see Laura Dierksmeier, “The Narrower the Divide, the Deeper the Trench: Bartolomé de las Casas and Toribio de Motolinía,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David Thomas Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 348–​391. George W. Lovell, “Mayans, Missionaries, Evidence and Truth: The Polemics of Native Resettlement in Sixteenth-​century Guatemala,” Journal of Historical Geography 16.3 (1990): 211–​294. Lovell, “Mayans, Missionaries, Evidence and Truth,” 284. Lovell, “Mayans, Missionaries, Evidence and Truth,” 284.

166 Sachse influence, which did not even end after a royal order was issued in 1556 that demanded both mendicant orders seek reconciliation.56 Lovell states that the Dominicans tried to win influence over Quetzaltenango, which was a missionary territory of the Franciscans, but were “rebuffed” and moved to Sacapulas instead.57 Quetzaltenango and several of the towns that Juan Cortés claimed as part of his dominion were part of the “Franciscan territory,” while Santa Cruz del Quiché was the core area of the Dominican mission. As Carmack pointed out, the restitution of lands and tribute provinces to the descendants of the Utatlan ruling lineage would also have “enhanced the position of the Dominicans who administered in the Quiché area” and allowed them to expand their sphere of influence.58 Thus, the Franciscans would have had a strong interest in preventing the reinstallation of Kaweq political control over traditional Indigenous communities and new congregations. Accordingly, Betanzos would have been committed to keeping those towns under Franciscan influence. So, the question of political organization in highland Guatemala and the hereditary rights that could be derived from that system had a direct impact on the authority and resources of the mendicant orders in colonial Guatemala. The intentions behind Las Casas’s account undoubtedly went beyond the local politics of the Guatemalan mission. From 1550 onwards, he actively argued for the reinstallation of Indigenous rulers in the territories of the Americas, who would govern sovereign states and would recognize the supremacy of the Spanish Crown.59 Las Casas was not opposed to the concept of hierarchy and believed that both rulership and the episcopacy of the church were divine rights.60 In consequence, the hierarchies that existed in the Indigenous societies prior to the arrival of the Spanish had been installed by God and constituted the Indigenous peoples’ right to govern themselves. This right could not be taken away by anyone, and the dispossession of legitimate Indigenous governors was counterproductive to the process of the conversion.61 Within the logic of his own argument, it would have been in Las Casas’s interest to 56

Adriaan C. van Oss, Catholic Colonialism: A Parish History of Guatemala, 1524–​1821 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 35–​26; cited from Lovell, “Mayans, Missionaries, Evidence and Truth,” 285. 57 Lovell, “Mayans, Missionaries, Evidence and Truth,” 284. 58 Carmack, The Quiché Maya of Utatlán, 315. 59 Friede, “Las Casas and Indigenism,” 176, 178. 60 Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, “Bartolomé de las Casas, His Theory of the Power of Bishops, and the Early Transatlantic Episcopacy,” in Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., 99–​126 (103). 61 Friede, “Las Casas and Indigenism,” 177.

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identify with some accuracy who were the legitimate heirs, as only those individuals would have had the divine right to power. Thus, not surprisingly, his model is consistent with the picture drawn in the mentioned K’iche’ documents that attribute the right to rule to the descendants of the last Kaweq ruler at Santa Cruz del Quiché. What remains unclear is whether the attribution of this hereditary right to Juan Cortés and Juan Rojas already represents a shift towards the European concept of primogeniture. Both Las Casas and Betanzos coincide in their accounts that the successors to Utatlan rulership were elected. While Las Casas clearly states that the position was filled with the most capable and experienced office-​holder from the Kaweq line, Betanzos denies Utatlan’s hereditary prerogative and claims that rulers were elected from among all the K’iche’ groups. The Franciscan thus indirectly justifies the decision of the colonial authorities to appoint independent Indigenous leaders in towns that were formerly part of the Utatlan dominion. Hence, Betanzos was not opposed to maintaining Indigenous elites in control of local communities, which was the common practice of the colonial administration. But he vetoed the reestablishment of former overlords and hegemonies, a position that may well have been motivated by an additional concern that Utatlan could regain significance as a ritual center. In the Apologética Historia Sumaria, the description of hegemonic control through divine hierarchies in highland Guatemala, in contrast, served as a subtle support of Las Casas’s argument that sovereign Indigenous states would accept the supremacy of the Spanish Crown. Although motivated by an agenda to emphasize human equality, the consistency of Las Casas’s account with the Indigenous sources remains remarkable and sheds light on political power plays in both the precolonial and the colonial time.

pa rt 3 Bartolomé de las Casas and Political and Moral Theology

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­c hapter 7

The Pontifical Theocracy of Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. (1484–​1566) Ramón Darío Valdivia Jiménez 1

Introduction

Three elements converged in Las Casas’s conversion: the religious dimension, the experience of truthfulness, and the search for justice.1 In this road to conversion, Las Casas discovered the true personal dignity of the Indians—​a vital and cultural horizon of which he was unaware upon arriving in the Indies.2 His conversion—​narrated in Book iii of Historia de Indias—​constituted a kairós moment for his religious and political life, as well as a crucial instance in the changing perception of the Spanish crown regarding the problems in the Indies. Therefore, his conversion had a lasting impact on the next four decades and, by extension, on the history of Spanish expansion in the Indies. A line of continuity extends between the spiritual realm and the juridical-​ political world in which the “defender of the Indians” acted with justice. Humans discover through reason the need for a feasible way to gain certainty against arbitrariness, and eternity against the unavoidable caducity of life. Hence, justice makes possible the connection of the religious with the juridical. After all, is not justice the noblest and most perfect cardinal virtue of the soul?3 This question aroused the conscience of encomendero Las Casas while he was in Cuba, where he learned about the harsh controversy generated by Dominican friar Montesinos’s sermon, and the firm decision of the Hispaniola community of the Order of Preachers not to absolve those who would not

1 I offer special thanks to María José Fernández, professor of English philology at the University of Seville, for translating this chapter from Spanish to English. 2 Ramón D. Valdivia Giménez, “Reason, Providence and Testimony in the Conversion of Bartolomé de las Casas: A Theological Reading,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David Thomas Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 310–​324. 3 Aristóteles, Ética a Nicómaco, trans. Julián Marías (Madrid: Centro Estudios Políticos Constitucionales, 2002), 1129, col. b, 71.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_009

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renounce the ownership of the ill-​gotten encomiendas. In this way, for Las Casas, conversion and law should reflect each other. Elements of the Lascasian conversion made him conceive a new form of relationship with the Indians. These elements pertained to the intervention of divine providence in human affairs, Las Casas’s concern for the eternal salvation of Spaniards and Indians alike, and, above all, the testimony of a new morality born out of the pontifical demand for evangelization to justify the presence of Spain in those lands. Thus, even before acknowledging the ontological status of the Indians’ human nature and its attributes of freedom, rationality, and sociability, Las Casas experienced the need for a primary sense of justice that clearly clashed with the slavery system in the encomiendas. This “political” sense of justice was evident in his first writings on the defense of the Indians in a series of memorials offering remedies from 1516 to 1519 to the regents Cardinal Cisneros (1436–​1517) and Adrian of Utrecht (1459–​1523) as well as to Prince Charles (1500–​1558).4 In these, Las Casas articulates a set of proposals for the Spanish monarchy to consider in accordance with the principles of pontifical theocracy. These principles constituted the basis of the social structure of the late Middle Ages. At that time, they considered the pope as the dominus orbis (lord of the world), and hence as the legitimate and true lord with power to grant lawful titles to the Spanish monarchs to expand their legal dominion over the newly found lands. This chapter seeks to clarify the juridical and political ideology latent in the first writings of Las Casas, as he responded to the devastating effects of the political and ethical corruption in the Indies. In fact, these first memorials—​ written when Las Casas was a doctrinero—​never questioned the constitutional titles granted by the Alexandrine Bulls of Donation, nor the fact that the Spanish presence in the Indies had any purpose other than the conversion of the Indians to the Christian Faith. Furthermore, all Las Casas knew about law (in addition to his study of canon law) consisted mainly in what he learned from the lay jurist Palacios Rubios, from the religious jurist Matías de Paz, and from his connections first with the court of Ferdinand, and then with the court of the Regent Cisneros. In this sense, the legal foundation of Las Casas’s political ideas was undoubtedly rooted in juridical voluntarism as expressed in the pontifical theocracy that the Castilian administration used to justify dominion of the Spanish Crown over the Indies and that defended the necessity of evangelization prior to the control of trade.

4 Carlos A. Jaúregui and David Solodkow, “Biopolitics and the Farming (of) Life in Bartolomé de las Casas,” in Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., 127–​166.

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Pontifical Theocracy

From Saint Ambrose onwards, and during the early Middle Ages, an empire was understood as an instrument of divine providence, a preambula societatis (preamble of society) of the universality of the Church, with the provision that political power would always serve the religious cause.5 However, during the late Middle Ages, political power began to acquire a legitimate character previously associated with the Church, thus becoming minister Dei (minister of God)6—​although both faced considerable resistance as to their prevalence. Nevertheless, both always defended a common goal: to tend to the universality underlying the ideal of the political empire, to overcome the narrow limitations of local jurisdictions, to gain dominion over the world, and to procure peace through administrative uniformity that would take shape with universal citizenship and social exchange.7 Hence, since the twelfth century onwards—​thanks to the contribution of canon law to common law, the ideology of pontifical theocracy was regarded as the principal system to legitimize the universal dimension of the decadent empire. The development helps explain the ideological origin of the Alexandrine Bulls that supported the Spanish presence in the Indies. For Paulino Castañeda, pontifical theocracy is: 5 “Il trionfo di una nuova religione non abbatté affatto, come sarebbe stato ragionevole attendersi, l’antica concezione pagana del potere imperiale come espressione del favore degli dei, ma modificò i termini di essa e fece dell’imperatore [Constantine] una sorta di rappresentante sulla terra dell Dio cristiano.” Francesco Martino, Storia della costituzione romana, vol. 5 (Naples: Jovene, 1975), 112. 6 “E otrosí dijeron los sabios que el emperador es vicario de Dios en el imperio para hacer justicia en lo temporal, bien así como lo es el papa en lo espiritual.” Partida ii, tít. i, ley i. Alfonso X, Las Siete Partidas (El libro del fuero de las leyes), ed. José Sánchez Arcilla (Madrid: Reus, 2004), 185. 7 Cfr. Francisco Cuena Boy, “Imperio romano e Imperio Hispano en el nuevo mundo. Continuidad histórica y argumentos jurídicos en el ‘Tratado comprobatorio’ de Bartolomé de Las Casas,” in Boletín Instituto Riva Agüero 26 (1999): 125–​142 (129). See as well: “Valore giuridico ha indubbiamente la proclamazione dell’uguaglianza universale di tutti gli uomini, secondo la celebre enunciazione di S. Paolo: ‘non est Judaeos, neque Graecos, non est servus, neque libre; non est masculus, neque fémina, omnes enim vos unum estis in Christo Jhesu (…) omnes nos … sive Judaei, sive gentilis, sive servi sive liberi et omnes in uno Spiritu potati sumus?’ (Galatians 3, 28) (…) Mentre l’uguaglianza proclamata dagli stoici non va al di là di un pensiero filosofico e di una blanda aspirazione, tanto che non opera legislazione neppure quando Seneca era prefetto di Nerone, l’enunciazione di S. Paolo ha tutta la forza vincolante del comando divino ed influisce nella legislazione imperiale, determinando il favor libertatis.” Biondo Biondi, Il diritto romano cristiano. Vol. 1. Orientamento religioso della legislazione (Milan: Giuffrè, 1952), 85.

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the doctrine of God’s government of the world through his highest representative on earth: his supreme vicar, the pope […] [who is] lord of both the faithful and infidels. The pope, by delegation of Christ, has a high sovereignty, […] to intervene in spiritual and temporal matters, to appoint and depose kings and princes, to move empires when required by the wellbeing of souls and the spiritual purpose of the Church.8 From a theological perspective, Antonio García identifies this doctrine as monism and argues that society then understood that God gave temporal power to people exclusively through spiritual power, which belonged only to the pope under the motto Extra ecclesiam non est imperium (outside the church there is no empire). This notion is supported by such representative authors as Henry of Segusio (Henricus de Segusio, also known as Hostiensis, 1200–​1271); Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus, Egidio Colonna, or Egidio Romano, 1243–​1306); Alvaro Pelagio; and Giacomo de Viterbo (1255–​1307), among others.9 Pietro Costa held that the conceptual transformation of the Church, from its initial conception as service—​as envisioned by Saint Gregory the Great, for instance—​until the legitimization of Pelagio’s theocratic notion, was only achieved through manipulation of the symbols of the Bible to validate a power process like that of the rational organization of the empire. By doing so, biblical statements were transferred from a transcendental religious context to a secular juridical context, and this as a result of the power of the Church being an act of faith.10 During the Middle Ages and even during the Renaissance, this notion caused endless disputes between religious and secular powers. No one questioned that all power, in whatever way legitimized, came from God; yet, church and empire had to be reconciled because they were subjects of the Lord. From this perspective, the only exceptions were infidels who, at times, were

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“[…] la doctrina del gobierno del mundo por Dios mediante su más alto representante en la tierra, su vicario supremo, el papa (…) señor de fieles e infieles [quién] posee, por delegación de Cristo, una alta soberanía para señalar las rutas de la justicia, para intervenir en lo espiritual y en lo temporal, para nombrar y deponer reyes y príncipes, para trasladar imperios, cuando lo exija el bien de las almas y el fin espiritual de la Iglesia.” Paulino Castañeda, La teocracia pontifical en las controversias sobre el nuevo mundo (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996), 15. Antonio García y García, “Raíces medievales en América,” Carthaginensia 7 (1991): 331–​ 335 (335). Pietro Costa, Iurisdictio. Semantica del potere político nella pubblicistica medievale (1100–​ 1433) (Milan: Giuffré, 1969), 273.

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considered enemies—​as in the case of the Muslims—​or tolerated and other times persecuted—​as happened to the Jews.11 From the point of view of such theocrats as Hostiensis, pontifical power meant that the pope had plenitudo potestatis … potestatem et auctoritatem summam (the fullness of power … in his power and authority). According to this view of plenitudo potestatis, power is seen as spreading both to the faithful and to the infidels alike on account of Christ’s expeditious concession to Saint Peter, as seen in Matthew 16:19 and Matthew 18:18. This view is also connected to this supreme and universal power according to the Christological hermeneutics of Psalm 2:8: “I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession” (Dabo tibi gentes hereditatem tuam et possessionem tuam terminus terrae). This teaching led Cardinal Hostiensis to formulate the hypothesis that, from the moment of Jesus’s birth, there had been a sort of universal expropriation in favor of Christ, which was then bequeathed to the pope, who held the rights over all kingdoms of this world in his consecrated hands. In this way, the pope reserved the right to grant lands for the sake of structuring the Christian world, such as Pope Boniface viii (r. 1294–​1303) did in 1297 when he granted King James ii of Aragon the investiture over the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Sardinia.12 According to Hostiensis, this universality of the temporal power of the pope was not limited to the people of the Western world; instead, it was effective all over the orbis, whether or not they were believers or infidels. His was a juridical voluntarism that mixed natural law with positive divine law. Consequently, in this view the pope even had the power to punish infidels if they subverted the law of nature (i.e., if they attacked Christians); if they did not allow the preaching of the faith in the territories under their jurisdiction; if they prevented Christians from having jurisdiction over their own lands; or, if they declared war. For Cardinal Henry of Susa, infidels entering places with Christian jurisdiction had to recognize the dominion and sovereignty of the Church, so that, if accepted, they could be tolerated and the jurisdiction over their separate 11

“E decimos que deben vivir los moros entre los cristianos (…) guardando su ley y no denostando la nuestra. Pero en las villas de los cristianos no deben haber los moros mezquitas, ni hacer sacrificio públicamente ante los hombres.” Partida vii, título xxv, ley i. Alfonso X, Las Siete Partidas, 963; “Mansamente e sin mal bullicio deben hacer vida los judíos entre los cristianos guardando su ley, e no diciendo mal de la fe de nuestro señor Jesucristo.” Partida vii, título xxiv, ley ii. Alfonso X, Las Siete Partidas, 960. While mosques were prohibited in the Christian villages, they tolerated those synagogues already built, although it was forbidden to build new ones, according to Law iv of the Partidas. 12 Enma Montanos Ferrín, España en la configuración histórico-​jurídica de Europa, “La época nueva”: siglos xii al xv (Rome: Il Cigno Galileo Galilei, 1999), 107.

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property and assets would be safeguarded (as was generally the case with the Jews) but in the case of not accepting those prerequisites, then they could be deprived of their possessions by means of lawful warfare. The most genuine expression of pontifical power is represented by the Augustinian friar Giles of Rome—​a disciple of Thomas Aquinas for whom the pope’s spiritual power is the root for his temporal power, which always submitted to spiritual power, given the fact that the Roman Holy Father was the sole owner of all temporal things: “There is no just domain which is not under the Church and by the Church. Therefore, the dominion of the unfaithful and of the sinners is unjust, because since they are not under Christ, they do not give God what is his, as justice demands.”13 This proposition also prevailed during the sixteenth century with the canonist Juan de Andrés, for whom all worldly things were subject to the soul, and hence they all fell under the pope’s jurisdiction—​not because of their worldly nature but because of their existence for a supernatural superior end—​and, likewise, Andrés also upheld the pope’s direct rule over the infidels. In a similar way, Italian civil law doctrine was influenced by the theocratic stance during the fourteenth century of Oldrado da Ponte, whom Petrarch described as the most intelligent jurist of his time.14 The emperor would only acquire power over administration after being crowned.15 Similarly, during the fifteenth century, this stance was defended by, among others, Abbot Nicolas de Tudeschis-​who was also known as Panormitanus and was frequently quoted by Las Casas. However, Panormitanus defended a more moderate thesis, stating that the pope owned two swords, but in two distinct ways: on the one hand, in spiritualibus (in spiritual things), giving him habitu et actu (in habit and in act) jurisdiction; on the other hand, in temporalibus (in temporal things), giving him just habitus. In other words, the emperor was the lord of things temporal and the pope of things spiritual, notwithstanding that the temporal things must be oriented towards the spiritual ones, and the temporal rule must be oriented towards the spiritual one. Panormitanus goes on to note precisely that limited power in the hands of the pope would be particularly useful in the case of having to depose the emperor for just cause, or in

13 14 15

“No hay dominio justo que no sea sub Ecclesia et per Ecclesiam. Luego el dominio de los infieles y de los pecadores es injusto, pues como éstos no están sub Christo, no dan a Dios lo que es suyo, como exige la justicia.” Castañeda, La teocracia pontifical, 142. Francesco Petrarca, “Epístola 16” (para. 13), in Cartas a los más ilustres varones de la cristiandad (Seville: Espuela de Plata, 2014). “Imperator in coronatione dicitur oriri, et sic incipere esse.” Oldradus de Ponte, Consilia (Venice: 1585), 90.

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case of scandal within Christendom, thus having jurisdiction over those who would sin against the law of nature.16 This will become a recurrent appeal to authority (argumentum ab auctoritate) in the dispute between Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda.17 Nevertheless, another important fifteenth-​century author, Antonio de Florencia (Antoninus), denied this power, concerning both the pope and the emperor, since these rights were part of the natural assets that God had bequeathed to everyone—​the demons included. This awakened his interest in Thomistic natural law doctrine.18 During the sixteenth century, canon law was still firmly anchored in theocracy—​a position widely accepted as the authoritative one. However, certain discordant voices were also heard, such as those of Martín de Azpilcueta.19 His disciple, Diego de Covarrubias (1512–​1577), also broke the mold by contesting and criticizing theocracy and the excessive reliance of monarchs on the pope.20 He also objected to the thesis arguing that the Indians, being considered infidels, could be lawfully deprived of their rights over their lands and provinces.21 Hence, Covarrubias was on a different ideological plane when compared to Hostiensis, sustaining that the condition of infidels could not be the basis for losing natural rights. He was against the mixing of natural law and divine positive law. 3

Pontifical Theocracy in the First Speeches about the Indies

The ulterior motive for summoning the Junta de Burgos and its legislative consequences was identified with the social problem provoked by the 16

“… unde apud papam est suprema potestas licet non habeat excercitum gladii temporalis.” Nicholas Tudeschis, Commentaria primae partis in secundum decretalium (Lyon: Germain Nanty, 1586), nn. 12–​13. 17 Casas, Apología, in O.C., 9:202. 18 Antonino Florentii, Summa theologica in quatuor partes distributa (Graz: Facs, 1959), Pars tertia, tit 22, cap. 5, par. 8, cols. 176–​179. 19 Martín de Azpilcueta, Relectio in caput novit, De iudiciis, notabile tercium (Lyon: Guilielmum Roullium, 1576), nn. 19–​21, p. 97. 20 “La potestad temporal y civil jurisdicción suprema reside toda entera en la misma república, y por tanto, aquél será príncipe temporal y tendrá autoridad sobre todos en el gobierno de la república que haya sido elegido y constituido tal por la misma república.” Diego de Covarrubias y Leiva, Textos jurídico-​políticos (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Políticos, 1957), 248. 21 “La infidelidad no priva a los infieles del dominio que por derecho humano tienen o tuvieron antes de la ley evangélica sobre las provincias y reinos que poseen.” Covarrubias y Leiva, Textos jurídico-​políticos, 85.

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disproportionate desire for wealth and by the extent of exploitation in the New World—​something that the first Dominican community of friars denounced.22 From the moment of their arrival in the Indies in September 1510, the Dominicans were astonished by the progressive depopulation of the territory and the cruel barbarity of the Spaniards who acted without self-​ control on the islands.23 As is well known, on the fourth Sunday of Advent in 1511 with the explicit support of his community and their prior—​friar Pedro de Córdoba—​friar Antonio Montesinos delivered a homily based on the lament of John the Baptist: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”24 This sermon was a clear reprobation of the behavior of the Spaniards owning encomiendas, and also openly censured the legitimizing titles granted by the pontifical donation. The sermon is widely assumed to be the beginning of the reflection on the problem of the lawful implementation of the juridical-​political structure of Spain in the Indies. The controversial “sermon” was particularly striking in the metropolis due to the scandal caused by the refusal of Dominican friars to administer the sacrament of penance to those owning encomiendas. Considerable anxiety on the islands and in Spain forced King Ferdinand to call the Junta de Burgos. In response to the monarch’s concern—​or at least to those

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See Ramón Valdivia Giménez, “La paradoja de las leyes de Burgos,” in Leyes de Burgos de 1512. V Centenario, ed. Rafael Sánchez Domingo and Fernando Suárez Bilbao (Madrid: Dykinson, 2012), 233–​264; idem, “El sermón de Montesino. Origen de las Leyes de Burgos de 1512,” in Fray Antonio de Montesino y su tiempo, ed. Silke Jansen and Irene Weiss (Madrid and Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana and Vervuert, 2017), 121–​146. October 3, 1508, Thomas de Vio Cajetan signed a decree to send fifteen friars to La Española, “to establish monasteries there and preach the Word of God.” Álvaro Huerga, Vida y obras, O.C., 1:15–​404 (52); “Los religiosos, asombrados de oír obras tan contrarias a la humanidad y a la costumbre cristiana, cobraron mayor ánimo … y, encendidos, del calor y del celo de la honra divina y doliéndose de las injurias que contra su ley y mandamientos de Dios se hacían, de la infamia de su fe …, y compadeciéndose entrañablemente de la miseria padecida por tan gran número de personas … suplicando y encomendándose mucho a Dios con continuas oraciones, ayunos y vigilias, les alumbrase para no errar en cosa que tanto iba … Finalmente, habido su maduro y repetido muchas veces concejo, deliberaron de predicarlo en los púlpitos públicamente …” Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., vol. 5, Part 3, 1759–​1760. “Yo soy la voz de Cristo en el desierto de esta isla … Esta voz es que todos estáis en pecado mortal, y en él vivís y morís, por la crueldad que usáis con estas inocentes gentes. Decid: ¿Con qué derecho y con qué justicia tenéis en tan cruel y horrible servidumbre aquestos indios? … ¿Con qué autoridad habéis hecho tan detestables guerras a estas gentes, que estaban en sus tierras sanas y pacíficas, donde tan infinitas de ellas, con muertes y estragos nunca oídos habéis consumido? … ¿Estos no son hombres? ¿No tienen ánimas racionales? ¿No sois obligados a amallos como a vosotros mismos?” Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., vol. 5, Part 3, 1761–​1762.

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holding responsibilities in the court—​theologians, jurists, and statesmen were summoned to produce regulations pertaining to the welfare of the Indians. The Junta’s sessions, which were held in 1512 in front of King Ferdinand, the Catholic, addressed and settled two important issues: first, they introduced reasonable doubt regarding the treatment of the Indians, and second and most significantly, the Junta opened the way for reflections on natural law that questioned the legitimacy granted by the Alexandrine Bulls. In Las Casas’s opinion, the main proponents of the Laws of Burgos were jurist Palacios Rubios and, through a subsequent report at the end of the Junta de Burgos, Dominican friar Matías de Paz, a professor of theology first at Valladolid and later at Salamanca.25 Given Palacios Rubios’s theocratic stance and his anti-​conciliar position, he faced controversies long rooted in Europe because he ratified the power of the pope to depose the monarchs of Navarre, who had sided with the schismatic kings of France in favor of the king of Aragon.26 Additionally, with respect to the American question, Palacios Rubios claimed that the pope, as the vicar of Christ, had power and jurisdiction over the infidels of the world.27 In this way, Rubios acknowledged the status of the Indians as free persons and possessors of the rights that natural law granted to all human beings28 although they were

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“doctísimo en su facultad de jurista, estimado en ella más que todos por bueno y buen cristiano también tenido.” Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., vol. 5 Part 3, 1775–​1776. Las Casas later displayed his benevolence toward the cause of the indigenes: “del doctor Palacios Rubios—​que fueron los que más destas Indias trataron [sic] por aquellos tiempos—​cosa de interese ni cosa que no debiera hacer se sospechó (…) era el que con verdad favorecía la justicia de los indios y oía y trataba muy bien al clérigo y a los que sentía que por los indios alguna razón alegaban.” Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., vol. 5 Part 3, 1830–​1831. Juan López de Palacios Rubios, De iustitia et iure obtentionis et retentionis Regni Navarrae (Basel: Fridericus Biel, 1515–​1517). Cit. in Castañeda, La teocracia pontifical, 370; for a parallel discussion of Palacios Rubios’s influence on Bartolomé de las Casas, see Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, “Bartolomé de las Casas, His Theory of the Power of Bishops, and the Early Transatlantic Episcopacy,” in Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., 99–​126. “De lo anterior se infiere que como el Papa tenga potestad suprema sobre el universo entero, y que toda criatura esté sujeta a él como fundador de la ley y Vicario del Creador (…) tendrá en consecuencia poder y jurisdicción sobre todos los infieles del mundo, incluso sobre los más remotos e ignorados de nosotros, como lo siente el Hostiense.” Juan López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, ed. Silvio Zavala and Agustín Millares Carlo (México: Fondo Cultura Económica, 1954), 100–​101. “Esta gente poseía esa ingenuidad y libertad que prevaleció desde el principio del mundo, cuando los hombres todos nacían libres y legítimos, y la esclavitud era desconocida.” López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, 26–​27. And further on: “Esta ingenuidad o libertad, así como el dominio sobre estas cosas, si las tenían, la conservaron

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denied political power—​in accordance with the premise of Hostiensis that all dominion had been lost with the advent of Christ.29 As a result, according to the Spanish jurist, the Indians had lost the right to rule their subjects—​ regardless of the way they might respond to conversion;30 this is particularly the case if they were corrupted with wars against the faith.31 For Rubios, the Alexandrine Bulls unquestionably granted the Catholic monarchs the titles of dominion, power, and jurisdiction over the Indies.32 Notwithstanding how Montesinos’s defense of the Indians might have affected King Ferdinand,33 the fact is this introduced into the Junta de Burgos the most moderate opinion in the academic environment of the University of Salamanca—​that of Professor Matías de Paz.34 This Dominican friar kept

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después de recibir el sagrado bautismo.” López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, 32. “Y cierto, si sobre aquella errónea y aún herética opinión sólo estribara el derecho de los reyes a las Indias harto poco les cupiera jurídicamente de los que en ellas haya.” Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., vol. 5, Part 3, 1776. “Esos señores y caciques, antes de su conversión al cristianismo, no tenían en absoluto poder alguno, ni prelación ni jurisdicción por propio derecho sino en virtud de un cierto consentimiento precario por parte de la Iglesia, y que tampoco la tienen hoy ni pueden usarlos, por prohibirlo Vuestra Majestad.” López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, 69. In addition: “Tenían, también, la Iglesia y su prelado el Papa jurisdicción y potestad sobre estas isleños [sic] antes de que se convirtiesen a la fe, porque a San Pedro, como antes hemos dicho, se le dio el mundo entero como diócesis o navío.” López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, 104. “Cuando los señores infieles intentasen corromper a sus súbditos, acaso fieles en la fe, o arrastrarlos a sus ritos o ceremonias o a inferir ofensas al Creador, ya que entonces quedan privados inmediatamente o pueden al menos ser privados de la prelación o jurisdicción que se les permitía tener sobre sus súbditos.” López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, 116–​117. “El Papa Alejandro vi concedió y donó esas islas con todos sus dominios, ciudades, castillos, lugares, villas, derechos, jurisdicciones y pertenencias a vosotros y a vuestros herederos y sucesores, los Reyes de Castilla y de León, a perpetuidad, de manera que ningún otro se atreviera a abordar a ellas, ni a la tierra firme descubierta o por descubrir (…) como el privilegio de la donación más largamente se contiene.” López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, 128. “Vi ansí mismo el sermón que dezís que hizo un flayre dominico que le llama frey Antonio Montesino. Y aunque[e]‌él syenpre de predicar escandalosamente me ha mucho maravillado en gran manera de decir lo que dixo, porque para dezirlo ningún buen fundamneto de teología ni de cánones ni leyes tenía según dizen los letrados.” Documento 96 in Cedulario cubano (Los orígenes de la colonización). Colección de Documentos inéditos para la Historia de Hispanoamérica, ed. José María Chacón y Calvo, vol. 4 (Madrid: Compañía Iberoamericana de Publicaciones, 1917), 429. Italics added for emphasis. Vicente Beltrán de Heredia, “Un precursor del maestro Vitoria: el padre Matías de Paz y su tratado De dominio Regum Hispaniae super Indos,” Ciencia Tomista 40 (1929): 173–​190 (181); “… trabajó muy mucho el dicho padre fray Antonio Montesino que el rey lo enviase

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his theocratic ideal and warned that faith was the true and legitimate title of the dominion over the Indies. He classified this title in three different categories: possessory title, priority title, and title regnativo (regnative).35 The first one—​the possessory title—​referred to the material goods owned by the infidels and protected by natural law. The second—​the priority title—​referenced the authority of parents over their children before adulthood—​a title of which they could not be deprived. And, finally, the third one—​the title regnativo—​ pertained to the dominion over their people; this established—​for its lawful exercise—​the Indigenous people’s loyalty to the Catholic faith such that Christian dominion corresponded to their faith, while, if they were infidels, that of the Indians would be lost.36 But, once converted to the Catholic faith, whosoever dared to oppress the Indians would have the obligation to make restitution. This latter idea made Las Casas understand, based on a partial reading, that Matías de Paz was demanding absolute freedom for the Indians.37 With this, Matías de Paz was more than a precursor of master Francisco de Vitoria, who—​as a true defender of the Catholic monarch—​sought to protect the Indians by virtue of natural law. 4

Pontifical Theocracy in the Works of Bartolomé de las Casas

José Alejandro Cárdenas Bunsen argued for the formal education of Las Casas in canon law on the basis of having likely received a degree at the University of Salamanca.38 Bunsen noted that in Las Casas’s first writings to the regents

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a llamar, que residía siendo catedrático, como dijimos, en Salamanca.” Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., vol. 5, Part 3, 1776. While the term “regnativo” is an archaic word, it is the term used by Matías de Paz. It refers to the king’s “domain” or “jurisdiction.” Fray Matías de Paz, Del dominio de los reyes de España sobre los Indios, in López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, 213–​259 (243). “[Matías de Paz] improbó y condenó la manera de servirse de los indios por el repartimiento. Y determinó ser obligados los españoles que así de los indios se habían servido a restitución de todo lo que con ello habían adquirido, y de los daños que por ellos recibieron.” Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., vol. 5, Part 3, 1783. The true reason for this misunderstanding lies in the fact that Las Casas does not see this juridical problem as affecting the notion of dominion, but just the treatment received by the Indians. “Para el efecto, parte de los recientes hallazgos documentales de Helen Rand Parish, en especial de su descubrimiento de que Bartolomé de Las Casas había optado a grados académicos de Derecho Canónico por la Universidad de Salamanca.” José Alejandro Cárdenas Bunsen, Escritura y derecho canónico en la obra de fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (Madrid and Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana-​Vervuert, 2011), 15. Or, he takes for granted that Las Casas spent six years of his long life dedicated to this learning: “En tanto

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Cardinal Cisneros and Adrian of Utrecht, there are certain features proper to canon law. These include characteristic adjectival phraseology, insistence on the combination of justice and honesty with utility, references to the protection of people and their spiritual welfare, and, above all, canonical legitimacy to the Dominican friars’ decision to deny the sacrament of penance to those Spaniards with encomiendas who would not make restitution to the Indians. This legitimacy reflected the canonical penitential practice that stated: “Penance is not completed, if the thing taken is not restored.”39 Matías de Paz supported this statement at the Junta de Burgos.40 However, and worth noting, the letter of representation of Las Casas to the court from the Franciscan and Dominican friars vouched for his honesty and his zeal for charity and justice, but it contained no allusion at all to his expertise in law.41

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que Las Casas ingresa en la universidad antes de que las tendencias de la Reforma europea llegarán al terreno institucional de la ruptura con Roma.” Cárdenas Bunsen, Escritura y derecho, 34. See also: “Pues según nuestro descubrimiento, él mismo fue bachiller y licenciado en derecho canónico.” Helen Rand Parish and Harold Weidman, Las Casas en México. Historia y obra desconocida (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996), 134. However, the documentary evidence supporting these concussions has not been made public. Moreover, García Gallo states that Las Casas never earned a degree in any academic discipline and that his contemporaries, at least up to 1547, praised his good intentions or considered him illiterate (mostly his detractors). It is only after that date when Las Casas starts realizing the necessity to substantiate his allegations according to law. Alfonso García-​Gallo, “Las Casas, jurista,” in Los orígenes españoles de las instituciones americanas. Estudios de Derecho Indiano (Madrid: Real Academia de la Jurisprudencia y Legislación, 1987), 87–​111. In contrast, David Orique, in The Unheard Voice of Law in Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias (New York: Routledge, 2021), argues that Las Casas became both a bachiller and a licenciado. Vincenzo Lavenia points out that Saint Augustine’s letter to Macedonius (Letter 153) must be considered as the foundational act of this doctrine and the starting point for the causa xiv, quaestio 6 of the Decretum, although the true meaning and value of the text is revealed in the sentence: “penitentia agi non possit, -​si legge-​, nisi res aliena reddatur.” Vincenzo Lavenia, “Restituire, condonare. Lessico giuridico, confessione e pratiche social nella prima età moderna,” in Grazia e giustizia. Figure della clemenza fra tardo medioevo ed età contemporánea, ed. Karl Härter and Cecilia Nubola (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011), 392. “No es permisible someterlos como siervos a despótico principado, y que quienes hasta el presente los han oprimido, están obligados a restitución.” Matías de Paz, Del dominio, 218. José María Chacón y Calvo, Cartas censorias de la conquista (Havana: Secretaría de Educación, Dirección de Cultura, 1938), 21–​22. However, some contemporary authors, like the historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, whom he met at the court in 1519, or Miguel Castellanos, whom he met on a trip to the coast of Paria, and Las Casas referring to himself in the third person, mention the title of “licenciado Las Casas.” Also, “Esto es, señores muy ínclitos, todo lo que yo en cuarenta y nueve años ha que veo en Las Indias el mal hecho, y treinta y cuatro que estudio el derecho, siento.” Casas, Treinta proposiciones muy jurídicas, O.C., 10:201–​214; for another perspective on Las Casas’s legal training, see David

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From the moment of the first contact between Las Casas and the court of King Ferdinand in Plasencia in December 1515, the cleric was astonished by the insidious sluggishness of the Indian rulers and of those in charge of the Council of Castile, particularly in the case of Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca (1451–​ 1524) and Lope de Conchillos (d. 1521). This first interview with the monarch confirmed Las Casas’s impression (already felt in Hispaniola) that Spanish sovereignty in the New World, which he witnessed, lacked any legitimacy from the outset,42 although during that period Las Casas had not gathered enough arguments to prove it. As a result, the former encomendero concentrated on denouncing the illegalities committed by the Spaniards not only against the natural rights to life, liberty, and property, but also against the first positivistic juridical rules offered to the court to ensure “good care of the Indians,” as set out in the 1512 Laws of Burgos. Las Casas used these laws in his 1516 Memorial to call upon the court to suspend work temporarily for the Indians, to replace the authorities that had been administering the Indies up to that moment, to keep the Indians on their islands, to prohibit their forced transfer to other islands; and, as stated in the ninth remedy of the Memorial: “to comply with the just laws by repealing the others—​removing laws that are for Indians that may not be living—​because at the time these laws were made, it seemed that, those who had Indians there, said some things that indicated that they were more inclined to acquiring than for zeal of the republic.”43 However, in the 1516 Memorial there is not a single word that might question the presence of the Spaniards in the Indies—​thanks to the pontifical donation. During this first stage, as observed in the well-​known volume by Giménez Fernández, Bartolomé de las Casas followed mere moral intuition—​unaware of the logical or rational foundation of his doctrinal postulates.44 However, by

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Thomas Orique, “One Hell-​of-​a-​Text: Remedial Components of Bartolomé de las Casas’s Confessionario,” in Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., 71–​98. Manuel Giménez Fernández, Bartolomé de Las Casas. Delegado de Cisneros para la reformación de las Indias (1516–​1517) (Seville: csic-​Escuela Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1953), 52–​53; David Orique, To Heaven or to Hell: Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Confesionario (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018), 42. “[Cumplir las leyes justas derogando las] otras, que son para que los indios no vivan, las quiten; porque al tiempo que se hobieron de hacer tomóse parecer de que los que allá tenían indios, y dijeron algunas cosas que más parecen inclinadas a adquirir que a celo de república;” Casas, “Memorial de remedios para las indias” (1516), O.C., 13:27. “Ví el sermón que decís que hizo un fraile dominico que se llama fray Antón Montesino, e aunque él siempre hubo de predicar escandalosamente, me ha mucho maravillado en gran manera de decir lo que dijo, porque para decirlo, ningún buen fundamento de Teología, ni de Cánones, ni Leyes tendría, según dicen todos los letrados e yo así lo creo.” King Ferdinand ii, “Carta del rey Fernando a Diego Colón, 20 de marzo de 1512,”

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1517, his contact on the island of La Española with friar Pedro de Córdoba—​ the superior of the Dominicans—​and above all, with his wise missionary confrere, Antonio de Montesinos, broadened his moral conceptions. However, friar Reginaldo de Montesinos gave Las Casas a wider knowledge of legal formulations that originated in the universities of Valladolid and Salamanca and defended the liberty and rational capacity of the Indians, as Las Casas himself mentioned in his History of the Indies.45 In his first meeting with King Ferdinand, Las Casas realized the rationality of his moral intuition. Later, in his Dominican novitiate and studium, as well as when he was prior in Puerto Plata, he engaged in theological study pertaining to the topic of peaceful evangelization. He drew inspiration from patristic doctrine and used a text that he believed to be from Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan, but which was actually a text from Saint Prosper of Aquitaine.46 Accordingly, his vision broadened to include authoritative, biblical, theological, and rational arguments, together with philosophical and juridical ones. This vision resulted in his De unico voccationis modo. In this missiological treatise, Las Casas proclaimed that any war or violent method used to force the intellect and the will to accept the faith should be considered reckless, unfair, iniquitous, and tyrannical, and also that agreement between the ruler and the ruled is needed: Because the principality that is acquired with the force of arms, or in some way has been achieved against the will of its subjects, is tyrannical, violent and never perpetual, as is clear in the third book of the [Aristotle's] Politics. And the tyrannical government is the worst of all political governments, as it appears in the eighth book of Ethics (…) Therefore, the best quality of government consists of what has been constituted for the common good of the subjects and not for the utility and glory of the ruler.

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in Colección Documentos inéditos, relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía, sacados de los Archivos del Reino, especialmente del de Indias, vol. 32 (Madrid: Imprenta Manuel G. Hernández, 1879), 375–​376; Manuel Giménez Fernández, Bartolomé de Las Casas. Capellán de S.M. Carlos i, Poblador de Cumaná (1517–​1523) (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1960), 387. “No puso en el olvido el Padre Maestro Fr. Juan Hurtado, lo que el P. Fr. Reginaldo le encomendaba: juntó creo que fueron trece maestros en Teología (…) contra los que aquel error sostuviesen y con pertinacia lo defendiese, se debía proceder con muerte de fuego, como contra herejes.” Casas, Historia de Indias, O.C., vol. 5, Part 3, 2177. Prospero de Aquitania, “De vocatione omnium gentium,” in Patrologiae Cursus Completus, ed. Jacques-​Paul Migne, vol. 17 (Paris: Garnier Frates, 1879), 1074–​1131.

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And therefore, the greater the freedom of the subjects, the better, more noble and durable is the government.47 During his studies, Las Casas also managed to withdraw from the political controversy in which he had been engaged during the previous decade. Consequently, the resultant De unico voccationis modo hardly mentions the situation in the Indies. Rather, his academic work now was intended to prove the efficiency and validity of a rational method in which the faith would be proposed as a rational appeal for the intellect and with gentleness for the will. This rational approach led him to engage authoritative individuals who were somehow opening a breach in the monolithic theocratic ideology—​which was well established in academia by the lectures of Francisco de Vitoria. After this period of studies, friar Bartolomé passionately returned to political and juridical activity at the Spanish court where the defense of the Indians was actually being debated. Indeed, by late 1539 and early 1540, Las Casas was summoned together with the Franciscan missionary Jacobo Testera to the court of Charles V and to the emperor’s Council of the Indies, to participate in the needed legislative sessions of the future 1542–​1543 New Laws.48 In one of Las Casas’s preparatory writings, “Carta a un personaje de la Corte” (“Letter to a Member of the Court”), he states that the juridical foundation for the Spanish presence in the Indies is none other than, … the preaching of the faith to those so ready and prepared to receive ours [as] faithful nations, and the first step by which, your Majesty, they must enter, and in no other way, but by the faith and government and unity of them (…) Every concession and cause of the kings of Spain and lordship have over these lands and people, was and is for their lives and for the salvation and conversion of their souls.49 47

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“Principatus enim, qui armorum viribus acquiritur vel qui contra voluntatem subditorum aliqualiter est acquisitur, tyranicus est et violentus et numquam perpetuus, ut patet 3 Politicorum. Tyrannicus autem principatus ómnium politicorum pessimus est principatuum, ut apparet 8 Ethicorum (…) Item optima principatus natura in hoc consistit quod est constitutus propter bonum commune subditorum et non propter utilitatem et gloriam principantis … Et ideo quanto subiecti maiori gaudent libertate, quae non est corruptio tranquilitatis et pacis nec repugnat bono communi subditorum, tanto principatus est melior et nobilior et durabilior.” Casas, De unico vocationis modo, O.C., 2:472–​474. Luís Iglesias Ortega, Bartolomé de Las Casas. Cuarenta y cuatro años infinitos (Seville: Fundación José Manuel Lara, 2007), 412. “… predicar la fe a éstas tan dispuestas y aparejadas para recibir la nuestra, fieles naciones, y el primer pie con que su Majestad en ellas ha de entrar no es otro, sino por la fe y

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Nevertheless, this theocratic argument was seemingly diluted in Las Casas’s mind when he definitely understood that the intention of those Spaniards would never be evangelization, but the exploitation of human and economic resources. He conveyed this point by the adoption of the juridical category of “tyranny,” which he used constantly in the Brevísima. To solve this problem in his diocese, Bishop Las Casas promoted his work Aquí se contienen unos avisos y reglas para los confesores (Here are contained some advice and rules for confessors), also known as the Confesionario (Confessionary).50 In the Confesionario, he demanded the restitution of what was stolen by the conquerors, encomenderos, and merchants, and he questioned the legitimacy of the Spaniards’ presence in the Indies.51 This denunciatory solution generated conflict with the crown in the metropolis and in his diocese of Chiapa. The situation had also become unsustainable due to conflicts with the established authorities in the region, as well as fierce opposition to the New Laws and to the demand for restitution. Subsequently, upon his arrival in Valladolid, he faced charges filed before the Supreme Council of the Indies, alleging that he was questioning the authority of the king of Spain. His response to these charges was his treatise Treinta proposiciones muy jurídicas (Thirty Very Juridical Propositions, 1548).52 In his rebuttal, Las Casas first sought to leave no doubt about his acceptance of the pontifical doctrine that recognized the pope as Dominus Orbis.53 Thus, on the one hand, he was in accord with the very arguments stated by the contemporary mens juridica. This latter argument was still rooted in theocratic doctrines, as were those of Palacios Rubios, who underlined the power of the pope by demanding that the Christian kings offer assistance, if necessary, since they were forced to obey the pope as the vicar of Jesus Christ (Proposition gobernación y regimiento dellas (…) Toda concesión y causa della de los reyes de España y señorío que sobre esas tierras y gentes tienen, fue y es para la vida dellas y para la salvación y conversión de sus almas …” Casas, “Carta a un personaje de la Corte,” O.C., 13:90. 50 Casas, Aquí se contienen unos avisos y reglas para los confesores, O.C., 10:367–​388. 51 “La razón desta regla es en dos maneras: la primera, porque todas las cosas que se han hecho en todas estas Indias, así la entrada de los españoles en cada provincia de ella como la sujeción y servidumbre en que pusieron estas gentes con todos sus medios y fines y todo lo demás que con ellas y cerca dellas se ha hecho, ha sido contra todo derecho natural y derecho de las gentes, y también contra el derecho divino; y por tanto, es todo injusto, inicuo, tiránico y digno de todo fuego infernal.” Casas, Aquí se contienen unos avisos, O.C., 10:375. 52 Casas, Treinta proposiciones, O.C., 10:201–​214. 53 “Proposición i: El romano Pontífice, (…) tiene auctoridad y poder del mismo Jesucristo, Hijo de Dios sobre todos los hombres del mundo, fieles e infieles, cuanto viere que es menester para guiar y enderezar los hombres al fin de la vida eterna (…).” Casas, Treinta proposiciones, O.C., 10:202.

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iii).54 Accordingly, and by means of their “armed wing and royal forces,” they defended the ministers of the church and were no hindrance to spreading and preserving the faith or to the conversion of the infidels (Proposition iv). On the other hand, theocratic doctrine also allowed the pope to grant and divide kingdoms and provinces belonging to the infidels for the expansion of the universal Church (Propositions vi and vii). In like manner, this privilege granted by the pope should not be perceived as increasing the honor and glory of the prince; on the contrary, it should be taken by those enjoying it as a burdensome load for which they would be accountable before God (Proposition viii). For all this, Las Casas stated that Pope Alexander vi granted these particular prerogatives, those of “imperial crown and dignity and sovereign lordship”55 (Proposition xiv), to the monarchs of Castile and Leon, and “by divine authority to instruct them and invest them with the highest dignity that kings ever had upon the earth (and worth noting) as apostolic architects of the Indies”56 (Proposition xv). He concluded that the public power was a ministerial extension of the power of the Church, as an instrument to secure the fulfillment of the historical plan of divine providence: The kings of Castile y León are true princes, sovereigns and universal lords and emperors over many kings, to whom belongs all that high empire, and universal jurisdiction over all the Indies, by authority, concession and donation of said Holy Apostolic See, and so by divine authority. And this is, and no other way, the juridical and substantive foundation on which their title is founded and established (…) [and] one that sympathizes with the natural kings and lords to have administration, principality, jurisdiction, rights, and dominion over their subject peoples.57

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“Y ellos son obligados a lo aceptar y obedecelle como al mismo Jesucristo.” Casas, Treinta proposiciones, O.C., 10:204. “… dignidad y corona imperial y soberano señorío.” Casas, Treinta proposiciones, O.C., 10:205. “por auctoridad divina instituillos e investillos de la más alta dignidad que reyes jamás tuvieron sobre la tierra (conviene a saber) de apóstoles arquitectónicos de Las Indias.” Casas, Treinta proposiciones, O.C., 10:217. “Los reyes de Castilla y León son verdaderos príncipes, soberanos e universales señores y emperadores sobre muchos reyes, e a quien pertenesce de derecho todo aquel imperio alto, e universal jurisdicción sobre todas Las Indias, por auctoridad, concesión y donación de dicha Sancta Sede Apostólica, y así por autoridad divina. Y este es, y no otro, el fundamento jurídico y substancial donde está fundado y asentado su título (…) [y]‌se compadece tener los reyes y señores naturales dellas su administración, principado, jurisdicción, derechos y dominio sobre sus súbditos pueblos.” Casas, Treinta proposiciones, O.C., 10:206.

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One way or another, because of political convenience or because of the charges against his Confesionario in the Royal Court of the Indies, Las Casas wanted to face them with the publication of the Tratado comprobatorio.58 These new political and academic arguments approved of the presence of Spain in the Indies, but they did not show any respect for the dignity of the Indians, or for the spread of the faith. Indeed, these arguments only consolidated the prevalence of imperial power. As Las Casas confirmed: the greatest right of the Spanish crown lies in Spain’s geographical proximity (from the Canary Islands)59 as opposed to other claimants (Portugal, France, or England), and is based on reasons related to prudence in dealing with the unworthy and barbaric Indians in the opinion of those who considered that they committed idolatry and engaged in acts contra natura.60 In the Tratado comprobatorio, Bishop Las Casas resumed and readdressed Proposition xvii and Proposition xviii from Treinta proposiciones muy jurídicas, albeit with some nuances. The first one pertained to the legitimacy of the title granted to the monarchs of Castile and León over the sovereign empire, and of there being emperors over the natural kings and the lords of the Indies, all on the basis of the authority of the papal donation that was not absolute but modal. That is, the papal donation was conditional upon the spiritual welfare of the Indigenous people and upon the jurisdiction of the natural lords over their peoples.61 For Las Casas, this conclusion was in accord with the interpretation 58 Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:395–​517. 59 “Mas cercanos están los portugueses como parece por Lisboa, y esa costa de Portugal, y las islas de Cabo Verde y las Azores.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio del imperio soberano, O.C., 10:395–​543 (494). 60 “… procede de mucha falta de consideración imponer tal opinión a Hostiensis, porque si bien se penetra e distingue la letra de Hostiensis no quiso decir que actualmente hobiesen de ser en universal todos los infieles de los bienes temporales y señoríos e jurisdicciones indignos, sino algunos por algunas especiales culpas cometidas contra el pueblo cristiano.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:494; “… decimos que, cuando les mostraremos tener pueblos e ayuntamientos, lugares, reyes y señores y ordenada policía, y en algunos mucho mejor que la nuestra …” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:494. He argues, from his personal experience, in this way: “Manifiesto (…) no haber destas miserias e contaminaciones algún rastro, memoria ni noticia.” In this paragraph, where he relies on his memory, he will, nevertheless, achieve the opposite effect, since he recounts some of his famous exaggerations, saying that the island of La Española is bigger than Spain or that Cuba is from Spain as far as Valladolid from Rome. Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:495. 61 “Los reyes de Castilla y León tienen justísimo título al imperio soberano e universal o alto de todo el orbe de las que llamamos Océanas India, e son justamente príncipes soberanos y supremos, y universales señores y emperadores sobre los reyes y señores naturales dellas, por virtud de la auctoridad, concesión y donación, no simple y mera, sino modal, id est, ob interpositam causam, que la Sancta Sede Apostólica interpuso y les hizo.” Casas,

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of the word hortamur (we exhort) in his analysis of the Alexandrian Bulls, wherein he understood that the Catholic monarchs were, position-​wise, inferior to the pope and had the mandatory obligation to introduce the Catholic faith in the Indies.62 Another theocratic argument asserted that the pope had offered the aforesaid donation because he possessed power over temporal affairs according to divine law, which was given by Christ himself, and affected everything, including goods, estates, and “[w]‌hatever is necessary or very convenient for the promulgation (…) of the faith (…) and to procure and carry out the vocation and conversion of the unfaithful.”63 This pontifical power authorized acts such as “the division and the sharing for the sake of the preaching of the faith” or the removal of any obstacle or hindrance in ordine ad finem spiritualem (in the order of the spiritual end).64 This is necessary to the extent that any infidel king or prince could be deprived of his principality and royal dignity by means of contentious jurisdiction, whenever it was necessary for the promulgation of the faith.65 Continuing with this theocratic logic, Las Casas warned the heirs to the Spanish crown that, a sensu contrario (in a contrary sense), the pope could also apply that all-​encompassing power against the Spanish monarchs based on Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of tyrannicide, which read: the tyranny and cruelty that unjustly oppressed and dissipated his kingdom (…) could result indirectly as an impediment to the faith and an endangerment to souls (…) filled with the anguish and violence that they suffered, they could at some time deliberately cease wanting to hear the news of the preaching of the Christian faith and religion.66 Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:400; “Con este soberano, imperial e universal principado y señorío de los reyes de Castilla y León sobre las Indias se compadece tener los reyes y señores naturales de los indios su administración, jurisdicción, derechos y dominio sobre sus pueblos súbditos, o que política o realmente se rijan.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:400. 62 Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:500. 63 “… cuanto fuese necesario o muy conveniente para la promulgación (…) de la fe (…) y para procurar y efectuar la vocación y conversión de los infieles.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:465. 64 “… la división e repartimiento para la predicación de la fe.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:440. 65 Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:426–​427. 66 “tirano e cruel que, injustamente oprimiese e disipase su reino (…) [ya que] podía resultar indirectamente en impedimento de la fe y en daño de las ánimas (…) ocupadas en las angustias e violencias que padecían, mal podían en algún tiempo deliberar ni vacar a oír las nuevas de la predicación de la fe y de la religión cristianas.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:430.

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In the Tratado comprobatorio, Las Casas made a distinction between the pope’s voluntary jurisdiction and his coercive and contentious jurisdiction. On the one hand, voluntary jurisdiction could be exercised over the infidels, without coercion or force, solely as a warning about the punishment that the pope could impose, if necessary.67 On the other hand, Las Casas admonishes that the pope can only exercise contentious jurisdiction in two cases. First, when according to the doctrine of Hostiensis or even to that of Bartolo,68 coercive jurisdiction is applied to the enemies of the faith—​the tyrants, or when there is no legitimate heir to the throne. The second instance that he identified is when jurisdiction is exercised over those who have not received the faith or have never heard about it, in which case contentious jurisdiction would only be acceptable with a “peaceful entrance that invites believing and receiving us with peace, in accord with the temporal government that is established among them”; that is, with the only legitimate aim of spreading the faith.69 For this reason, Las Casas concluded his Tratado comprobatorio asserting that while the Indians remained outside the church without receiving baptism, they would not be subjects in actu to the pope or to the emperor, since their bondage was absolutely voluntary. Only after their being baptized could the pope exercise contentious jurisdiction over the Indians, as with the rest of his subjects: “After the reception of baptism wherein the kings, princes, Native princes, and peoples of those kingdoms became Christian, the apostolic concession and donation achieves its full effect: the monarchs of Castile are the source of all temporary jurisdiction in those kingdoms.”70 Once Las Casas confirmed the capacity of the pope to grant the Indies—​ and keeping in mind theocratic arguments—​he considered the suitability of granting the Catholic monarchs the modal concession. He argued that they had been chosen by divine providence and the Apostolic See, and that they fulfilled two prerogatives: the defense and spread of the faith (which they proved with the Conquest of Granada), and the zeal for evangelization in the Indies.71 67 Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:412. 68 Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:443. 69 “… entrada pacífica que combide a nos creer y a recibirnos con paz, la gobernación temporal que en ellos se asentare.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:445. 70 “Después de recebido el baptismo y hechos cristianos los reyes, príncipes naturales y pueblos de aquellos reinos, cuando consigue su efecto plenariamente la dicha apostólica concesión y donación, los reyes de Castilla son en aquellos reinos fuente de toda la temporal jurisdicción.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:515. 71 “… la del celo de la defensión y ampliación de la fe recobrando estos reinos de España, sacándolos (…) de las manos de los tiranos y de la fe católica enemigos (…) [y]‌teniendo ofrecimiento por del egregio varón don Cristóbal Colón, que había en el mundo gentes

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Additionally, their suitability was certified on the basis of their public character as opposed to the private interests of the encomenderos. He also warned that the concession to the crown was one in perpetuity, which stopped the possibility of being granted to the encomenderos by the very same crown.72 In this sense, Las Casas extended the meaning of the modal concession, since the passive subject of the papal donation could not be freed from the limitations that they attributed by the power of the pope. Through this mechanism of subrogation, Las Casas argued that the power of the Holy See over temporal matters in the Indies was “indirect” while the Indians were not Christians.73 Consequently, or as he put it “per quandam consequentiam” (by way of consequence), the power of the Holy See “in order, and with respect to spiritual matters” was also limited.74 Furthermore, according to Las Casas, the power of the Catholic monarchs over the Indians was subrogated from the Holy See. Hence, their power or jurisdiction was similar or limited to the power of the subrogator, and not more.75 Therefore, the Catholic monarchs did not have more rights than the Holy See. He tried to prove his theories with the support of various theologians. Some thinkers Las Casas particularly liked—​such as Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto76—​and some he really distrusted—​ such as Ockham.77

72

73

74 75 76

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infieles que podían al cognoscimiento y servicio de Cristo ser convertidas.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:473. Ethelia Ruíz Medrano, “Poder e Iglesia en Nueva España. La disputa del diezmo,” in Felipe ii y el oficio de Rey: La fragua de un Imperio, ed. José Román Gutiérrez, Enrique Martínez Ruíz, and Jaime González Rodríguez (Puertollano: Ediciones Puertollano, 2001), 839; John H. Elliott, Imperios del mundo atlántico (Madrid: Taurus, 2006), 209–​210. The encomienda granted in perpetuity was never accomplished in America; it was only effective for the encomendero and his heir, but the latter was normally granted the encomienda again. “poder indirecto y per quandam consequentiam en orden y por respecto a las cosas espirituales (…) sobre tales infieles entretanto no son cristianos, (…) los Reyes Católicos, que han recibido su poder de la Sede Apostólica, la jurisdicción sobre los infieles la pueden ejercitar mientras no son fieles.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:484–​485. O.C., 10:484–485. O.C., 10:484–485. “Expresamente, en sus propios términos, entre los teólogos, las ponen los doctísimos y de clarísimos ingenios maestros fray Francisco de Victoria en la primera relección, De potestate. Ecclesiastica, en aquella cuestión Utrum potestas espiritualis sit supra potestatem civilem circa finem, y el maestro fray Domingo de Soto, en el tratado De dominio” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:425. “Y, para prueba de esto bastante cosa sería traer el testimonio de los que más la potestad de la Sede Apostólica (en cuanto a esto) derogaron en sus escritos. Los cuales, convencidos de la misma razón e de las divinas autoridades, no pudieron negarlo. De entre los teólogos fue Joannes de Parisiis y Guilielmo Okam.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:411.

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Finally, despite trying to establish the pope’s immense power to grant the Indies to the Spanish monarchs in this way, Las Casas also pointed out in this last conclusion that the pontiff never eliminated the direct power of the Indians over their lands. The legitimacy of the concession was only for preaching and for divine worship, so that if the Holy See did not comply with these rules, it “would use its power to destroy and not to benefit.”78 Indeed, according to Luca Baccelli, this is a common place or topos in Lascasian literature.79 However, Las Casas eventually casted off his “courtly fears” and decided to undertake a more robust juridical defense instead of a political one. The idea arose after the controversy of Valladolid, when the threat of the sale of encomiendas in perpetuity in Peru seemed imminent—​an idea promoted by the encomenderos and to which King Philip ii was more receptive than his father. Las Casas then abandoned the theory of pontifical theocracy as the basis of the legitimacy of the Spaniards’ endeavor in the Indies. He undertook a new defense of the Indians on the grounds of natural law in his treatise, Principia quaedam (principles of a kind).80 Las Casas studied with the Dominicans at San Gregorio in Valladolid toward the end of 1552, where he had access to professors and juridical texts on natural and civil law. He also glossed canon law and such authorities as Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Principia quaedam marks the beginning of a change in Las Casas’s thinking. In spite of the fact that the fourth principle of Principia quaedam defended the notion that temporal power must submit to spiritual power, he did so with the intention of demanding from the Spanish crown a fair and effective government for the common good, which includes attending to the primary goal of spreading and caring for the faith—​which was the sole way to provide a correct understanding of the donation of Pope Alexander vi.81 However, the other three anti-​theocratic principles of Principia quaedam demonstrate an openness towards natural law that clashed, explicitly and implicitly, with theocratic doctrines. Thus, while Hostiensis claimed that the Indians lost dominion over their goods, Las Casas warned in the first principle, 78

“[usaría] de su potestad in destructionem, non in edificationem.” Casas, Tratado comprobatorio, O.C., 10:507. 79 Luca Baccelli, Bartolomé de Las Casas. La conquista senza fondamento (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2016), 162. 80 Casas, Principia quaedam, O.C., 10: 548–​582. 81 “Et quia Hispaniarum príncipes favore fidei a Sede Apostolica receperunt curam et onus dandi operam ad per totum hunc máximum Indiarum orbem fidem catholicam predicandum et ampliandum christianam religionem, quod per conversionem harum gentium ad Christum fieri necesse est.” Casas, Principia quaedam, O.C., 10:580.

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which establishes human equality on the basis of rationality in agreement with natural and divine law, that the rights of all people to have dominion over the less rational should be respected82—​whether they were believers or not—​and only after agreement or common consent could the division of lands and other things be approved.83 In the second principle about natural jurisdiction Las Casas also strongly opposed a belligerent theocratic doctrine that proclaimed absolute dominion of the faithful over the infidels. The bishop of Chiapa contended that natural jurisdiction should only refer to the act of giving advice and directions,84 thus agreeing with Roman law that stated: “Thus, in this way, the Roman people, in principle, chose their emperor, granting to him all power; however, they did not give over to him all their liberty, but only grant him power and jurisdiction.”85 Furthermore, Roman law concludes that the right to choose a ruler belongs to the people and not to a foreign prince or a foreign authority—​which opposed the papal and imperial enforcements, as commanded by canon law.86 Lastly, the third anti-​theocratic principle about freedom, which also arose from Roman law, asserted that if by nature humans are free, so too are all people: “As such, in principle, people were originally free.”87 In contrast, servitude was understood as an accidental event, imposed by chance or ill fortune, but not as something natural.88

82 “Apud infideles iuste esse rerum domina.” Casas, Principia quaedam, O.C., 10:554. 83 “Unde condictum vel placitum communis sive totius communitatis et multitudinis, quod est ius gentium a naturale ratione derivatum, introduxit et approvabit quod terre et res dividerentur, ut unusquisque sciret quod suum propium esset curam habere de illo, propter pacificam conversationem hominum simul commorantium et alias utilitates.” Casas, Principia quaedam, O.C., 10:552–​554. 84 “Ahora bien, si existe un concepto lógicamente extraño a la iurisdictio es la creación del Derecho: decir el derecho significa presuponerlo ya creado y formado (…) La identificación del príncipe como conditor legum y la necesaria conexión entre la actividad legislativa y el poder político son hechos que surgen solamente en la crisis de la civilización jurídica medieval, y son un testimonio manifiesto de aquella crisis, signos evidentes de lo nuevo que se abre camino en el cuerpo agonizante.” Paolo Grossi, El orden jurídico medieval (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 1996), 140–​141. 85 “Et hoc modo populus romanus a principio elegit imperatorem, concedens ei totam suam potestatem, non tamen ademit sibi suam libertatem, et transtulit imperium et jurisdictionem.” Casas, Principia quaedam, O.C., 10:558. 86 “Iudicium autem est recta determinatio eius quod est iustum. Unde iudicare est ius dicere.” Casas, Principia quaedam, O.C., 10:560. 87 “Item populus a principio originaliter fuit liber.” Casas, Principia quaedam, O.C., 10:566. 88 This treatise became commonly known as the Confesionario. Cfr. Casas, Treinta proposiciones, O.C., 10:201.

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Conclusion

The unbridled expansion into the Atlantic World—​carried out in the name of Jesus Christ and assumed to be guided by divine providence—​also revealed an alliance with temporal worldly power that normally was bound by the duty of obedience to that superior theocratic model. Far from the distinction between these two orders—​from the thirteenth century up to the beginning of the sixteenth century—​the prevailing notion was that of the theocratic monism that perceived these two forms of power as intertwined, and where the realm of spiritual power always had priority over worldly authority. The Alexandrine Bulls constituted the clearest example of this notion and served as the founding model of the Spanish presence in the Indies. The pope, as successor of Saint Peter, had been granted full dominion over the orb that Christ’s victory had gained for the expansion of his kingdom. The pope had in his hands not only spiritual power over all the children of the Church, i.e., the flock of Christ, but he also had the power to decide, according to the pontiff’s will, about anything affecting the matters of human beings—​given the ordering of every natural thing towards a supernatural end. Precisely because of this, the providential spiritual renewal achieved by the Catholic monarchs—​who had overthrown eight centuries of the Muslim presence in Iberia and had opened a Western way to the Indies—​made them deserve the compliance of the pope for the concession of those lands. This would be the greatest theocratic argument to be imposed on the Western world. This compelling theocratic logic—​as the expression of an unquestionable radical monism—​was shattered with the strident censorship of a group of Dominican friars in Hispaniola, who denounced the abuses that the Spaniards inflicted upon the Indians in the Caribbean islands. In their preaching, they contended that the logic behind the dominion conferred by the papal authority could not be used to make these people captives or reduce their nature to slavery. Surprisingly, this allegation reached right into the heart of the juridical and political field of the Spanish crown in the sessions of the Junta of Burgos. Palacios Rubios—​who in spite of sharing conceptual ideas similar to those of pontifical theocracy—​recognized the Indians’ natural right to freedom. Matías de Paz further extended these rights to the Indians’ property and to that of their children. However, he did not extend natural rights to jurisdiction, or what he called dominio regnativo, because they were not Christians. Thus, independent of the flexibility to deal with this pontifical tutelage, these notions hardly meant any true expression of autonomy regarding the rights of the Indians. Nevertheless, the initial postures of Palacios Rubios and Matías de Paz encouraged Las Casas to study natural law, where he found a new defense

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of the Indians. This doctrine would lead Las Casas to foster an argument that would allow him to shatter the monolithic theocratic thinking of the moment. The religious and humanist conversion of the former doctrinero Bartolomé de las Casas opened a new cognitive horizon for him regarding the humanity and freedom of the Indians. Even if he received training in civil and canon law before traveling to the Indies in 1502, the dogmatic and juridical value of his first writings about remedies and accusations concerning the situation of the Indies, addressed to the regents and to the court, was not recognized until publication in 1552 of some of his treatises and other texts that he wrote before the controversy in Valladolid in 1550. The contradiction between the daring proposition of the natural freedom of the Indians and the requirement of restitution that he formulated in the Confesionario on the one hand, and the defense of theocratic postulates that he articulated in Treinta proposiciones muy jurídicas and the Tratado comprobatorio on the other hand, can be explained by his need to ingratiate himself with the Spanish court so he could publish the Confesionario and so he could later continue his advocacy for the Indians on the peninsula. Indeed, in these treatises, he held back on those arguments to focus on a staunch defense of papal authority—​although merely from pressure that resulted from his Confesionario; he also focused on the legitimacy of the Spanish crown to take possession of the newly found lands—​even if with the condition that this legitimacy was subject to a modal and not to an absolute power. In the Treinta proposiciones muy jurídicas, Las Casas summarized the classical theocratic principles regarding the premises that spiritual power has absolute priority over temporal power and that the pope had plenitudo potestatis. However, in the Tratado comprobatorio, he emphasizes that the ­pontifical donation was not absolute but modal and only served the spiritual welfare of the Indians. This “spiritual welfare,” rooted in the theocratic logic of the supremacy of the spiritual over the material, will be used by Las Casas as a link to make his way into the doctrine of natural law, and hence into a rational defense that could bring about a break with pontifical theocracy, since this “spiritual welfare” demanded a peaceful and rational preaching, as presented in his De unico vocationis modo, and not a logic of absolute dominion that would endanger the very life, freedom, and properties of the Indians. In this way, the crown, instead of being credited as owner, was, in turn, to be regarded as protector of the interests of those Indians, precisely based on the duty of obedience to a principle of authority per edificationem, non destructionem (through building up, not destruction). Finally, in Principia quaedam, Las Casas resorted to common law, substantiated by natural law, Roman law, and canon law, to declare that the crown

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had to safeguard and respect the exclusive dominion of the Indians over the less rational and that the jurisdiction granted by the Alexandrian Bulls did not imply the right to alienate Indigenous lands, but to proclaim the legal and natural right of the people to choose the rulers of their community, because if someone is free by nature, so it is with the people. The fact is that, whether defending a greater openness to natural law or from the most determined personal will, the “defender of the Indians” always tried to find a loophole to argue in favor of their freedom and liberty.

­c hapter 8

Prudentia: Thomas Aquinas Interpreted by Bartolomé de Las Casas Thomas Eggensperger, O.P. In 1547, Bartolomé de las Casas returned definitively to Spain and resigned as bishop after enduring many struggles with the settlers in the diocese of Chiapa.1 From there, he continued to write the works which he had partially begun in the “new world.”2 One was the Apologética historia sumaria, written in Spanish and the subject of this chapter.3 Las Casas planned a rather comprehensive natural and cultural history of the Native peoples, in large part informed by his personal experience. This plan contrasted with his Historia de las Indias, which attempted to be a systematic-​chronological historical account of the Americas—​beginning with the colonization by Columbus.4 Worth noting, however, is that Las Casas was not only interested in presenting a historical narrative; he also wanted a descriptive natural and cultural history, which was his core purpose. In the scope of his comprehensive Apologética historia, Las 1 Regarding biographical points, see Isacio Pérez-​Fernández, Cronología documentada de los viajes, estancias y actuaciones de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Estudios monográficos ii (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 1984); Thomas Eggensperger, “Bartolomé de Las Casas: Prophetischer Protest gegen Methoden kirchlicher Mission und politischer Kolonisation,” in Die Orden im Wandel Europas: Historische Episoden und ihre globalen Folgen, ed. Petrus Bsteh et al. (Vienna: Lit Verlag, 2013), 191–​208; idem, “Was bleibt? Zur aktuellen Las Casas-​Rezeption,” in “Ces gens ne sont-​ils pas des hommes?” Évangile et prophétie (“Sind sie etwa keine Menschen?” Evangelium und Prophetie), ed. Mariano Delgado, Colloque de la Faculté de théologie de Fribourg (1–​4 décembre 2011) (Kolloquium der Theologischen Fakultät Freiburg, 1–​4 Dec. 2011), Studia Friburgensia vol. 116, Series historica vol. 10 (Fribourg: Academic Press, 2013), 247–​260. 2 See Isacio Pérez-​Fernández, Inventario documentado de los escritos de Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 1981). 3 Casas, ahs (1992), o.c., vols. 6–​8. There are few German translations of his works at the present time. A major project: Bartolomé de las Casas, Werkauswahl (3 vol. or partial vol.), ed. Mariano Delgado (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1994–​1997). 4 Bartolomé de las Casas, H.I. (1994), o.c., 3–​5. See Thomas Eggensperger, “El ‘paraíso terrenal’ de Cristóbal Colón y la interpretación de Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas,” Anamnesis 5 (1995): 39–​47; idem, “Bartolomé de Las Casas and Tomás de Berlanga. Dominikanisches Engagement für die Rechte der Völker und der Menschen,” Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 103 (2019): 86–​95.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_010

198 Eggensperger Casas approached this question through the concept of prudentia (prudence). Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas formed the basis of his thinking regarding the virtue of prudence. Toward that end, the present examination concentrates on nine chapters of his Apologética historia.5 As such, this study seeks to present and to describe how and why Las Casas interpreted the concept of prudentia following Aquinas. 1

The Apologética historia sumaria

The Dominican bishop began the composition of this work during the great disputation of Valladolid (1550/​1551) with his philosophical and theological opponent, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. Furthermore, Las Casas indirectly continued the defense of the human dignity of the Indians against Sepúlveda’s hypothesis of “barbarism.”6 Las Casas’s work included a total of 267 chapters and addressed, as the subtitle of the Apologética historia indicates, the description of the new world in relation to its nature, the customs of its inhabitants, and, not least of which, their social and political structure.7 However, the scope of this chapter’s examination is limited and does not consider the entire work.8 According to Abril Stoffels’s analytical framework, the Apologética historia contains a clear structure.9 The first part is the “determinismo geográfico” or the “argumento físico” (­chapters 1–​23), which describes the reality of the Indies.10 The second part is the “determinismo humano,” or “argumento humano” (­chapters 23–​267).11 Here we find the discussion of the 5 6

7

8 9 10 11

This is the theme in ­chapters 40 to 48. See ­chapters 40–​45, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:463–​492; and ­chapters 46–​48, ahs (1992), o.c., 7:523–​538. Pérez Fernández assumes that Las Casas wrote the first drafts of the work in 1527—​thus, contemporaneous with the Historia de las Indias—​and, at the latest, after the end of the disputation. Corrections and editorial revisions by the author were, in his view, carried out incrementally until c.1560. The text was, however, first printed in 1575 as excerpts, and entirely in 1909. See Pérez-​Fernández, Inventario, 240–​251 (no. 94). So, the subtitle: “… cuanto a las cualidades, disposición, descripción, cielo y suelo destas tierras, y condiciones naturales, policías, repúblicas, maneras de vivir e costumbres de las gentes destas Indias occidentales y meridionales, cuyo imperio soberano pertenece a los reyes de Castilla.” ahs (1992), o.c., 6:283. See Thomas Eggensperger, “Die Umsetzung der ‘prudentia’—​Interpretation des Thomas von Aquin durch Bartolomé de Las Casas,” Theologie und Philosophie 70 (1995): 559–​566. Miguel J. Abril Stoffels attempts a systematic outline, which clarifies the thread of the author’s concerns, see Miguel J. Abril Stoffels, “La Apologética Historia Sumaria: claves para su interpretación,” in ahs (1992), o.c., 6:185–​199 (193). ahs (1992), o.c., 6:283–​383. ahs (1992), o.c., 6:381–​514; ahs (1992), o.c., 7:523–​1114; ahs (1992), o.c., 8:1121–​1627.

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physical characteristics and Aristotelian potentiae (viz., intelligentia, habilitas, and bonitas) of the Indians. As Stoffels argues, Las Casas starts with a human-​ individual argument (biological and historical) and continues with a human-​ social argument. As will be seen, Las Casas draws on Aquinas’s concept of prudentia in this second argument (­chapters 40–​48). 2

Intellectus—​causas naturales

As a methodological matter in intellectual history, an author’s emphasis on a particular aspect demonstrates their train of thought as well as their applied method. As such, in what follows I examine the reason why Bartolomé de las Casas attempts to prove and to establish the existence of the individuality of the Indians (the concept indio did not have a pejorative connotation for Las Casas!). In doing so, it is worth keeping in mind that, at that time, this fact was not self-​evident, since the more the personality of these subjects is considered in a degrading manner, the easier it became to justify their exploitation.12 The first chapters of the Apologética historia are informed by responses to the botanical, zoological, and geographical constitution of the Caribbean islands—​particularly of the Island of Hispaniola. Las Casas had his own personal experiences, but he also used some contemporary authors, as well as Aristotle and Aquinas, among his sources.13 Moreover, Las Casas also had close contact and dealt with the Native inhabitants of the region in question.14 To 12

13 14

A characteristic of Fray Bartolomé’s approach is that he stakes himself on a great number of multifaceted sources in his writings. This is clear from just a few of the chapters that are examined here. There are cross-​references to Augustine as well as Virgil, Pliny, Flavius Josephus, and many others. At this point, though, there is no time to explore the meaning of these authors and to draw corresponding conclusions. An overview of the variety is offered in Bruno Rech, “Bartolomé de las Casas und die Antike,” in Humanismus und Neue Welt, ed. Wolfgang Reinhard, Mitteilung xv der Kommission für Humanismusforschung, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Weinheim: Wiley-​ v ch, 1987), 167–​ 197; idem, “Bartolomé de las Casas und Aristotle,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas–​Anuario de Historia de América Latina 22.1 (1985): 39–​68; idem, “Las Casas und das Alte Testament,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas–​Anuario de Historia de América Latina 18.1 (1981): 1–​30; idem, “Las Casas und die Autoritäten seiner Geschichtsschreibung,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas–​Anuario de Historia de América Latina 16.1 (1979): 13–​52; idem, “Las Casas und die Kirchenväter,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas–​Anuario de Historia de América Latina 17.1 (1980): 1–​46. See Jesús Bustamante García, “Las fuentes utilizadas para México y la Nueva España en la Apologética Historia,” ahs (1992), o.c., 6:235–​259; and Leoncio López-​Ocón Cabrera, “Las fuentes peruanas de la Apologética Historia,” ahs (1992), o.c., 6:261–​282. See ­chapter 23, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:381 ff.

200 Eggensperger summarize, his approach is initially concerned with the entendimiento (intellectus) and its corresponding potentia. Humans have a natural endowment of intellect (“buenos entendimientos”) for reason, which is promoted and influenced through six causas naturales. Las Casas presents these six causes in ­chapters 23–​32.15 First is the influence of heaven, which, for example, makes for the constitution of the human body and the probity of the soul, and allows, in a particular way, for differentiated insight. Second, the level of intellect depends on the temperature of the region in which the human person resides. Third, every person is formed in relation to their ability to reason by their external traits (e.g., bodily build, shape of the skull, hair color) and from the internal traits (e.g., quality of blood); additionally, there are individual characteristics. Fourth, the climatological conditions to which humans are exposed must be considered. Fifth, in accordance with the thinking of the time, the age and health of the parents at the conception of the child also play a role. The sixth natural agent of the human “intellectus” is the quality of maintenance and nutrition. After this list, which is linked to an extensive array of sources from antiquity (Aristotle), Holy Scripture, and the Middle Ages (Aquinas, Albert the Great, etc.), Las Casas approaches the six points anew. He creates a new and very specific systematic reference for the Native peoples of the Americas by means of the six causas naturales.16 His intention is evident: he wants to prove their ability, rational endowment, and their intellect. In doing so, he implements these natural causes and applies them to the Indians. Not surprisingly, Las Casas demonstrates a clear correlation between the ideal and the reality. At the end, he concludes that there is no doubt about the “buenos y sotiles entendimientos” (“good and subtle understanding”) of the Indigenous peoples.17 3

The Virtue of Prudentia

In c­ hapter 40 of his Apologética historia sumaria, after the disquisition of the six causas naturales, Las Casas introduces a new topic: he lays out the razón (ratio) of the Indians, in which the virtue of prudence is implemented as a benchmark of their full human dignity.18 With that, he reinforces the fact that they possess entendimiento (intellectus). This is because the faculty of 15 16 17 18

ahs (1992), o.c., 6:381–​429. See ­chapter 33, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:430 ff. See ­chapter 39, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:462. Chapter 40, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:463 ff.

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reasoning displays itself through the existence of leadership and dominion (regimen) among them. Consequently, the Indians must be endowed with the virtue of prudencia (prudentia). 4

Prudentia in Thomas Aquinas

Las Casas draws on Thomas Aquinas’s teachings on virtues, which are, in turn, based on Aristotle. Firstly, one must conceptualize Aquinas’s understanding of prudence.19 Secondly, one must explain how Las Casas used this understanding in his text. Aquinas’s statements regarding prudentia in the Summa theologiae are here referenced as Las Casas references them in his Apologética historia.20 Evidently Las Casas considered Aquinas’s theory in accordance with what can be found in the Summa, but he tried to adapt it to the needs of his own concern in order to demonstrate the character of the Indians as razonables. Aquinas’s treatise on prudence is embedded within the discourse on virtues in the Secunda secundae. After Thomas has discussed the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, he begins his remarks on the cardinal virtues with prudence.21 He had already articulated at another point of the Summa that these are the “cardenales virtutes.”22 Thomas determines that prudentia is a matter of ratio.23 The close relationship of prudence to reason is the basis of the treatise, meaning that prudence is not a matter of the senses (“vis sensitiva”), but rather of awareness (“vis cognoscitiva”),24 because prudence is ­capable of recognizing not only the present but also the future. The future extrapolates itself from the present and the past. This does not pertain to vision

19

See Thomas Eggensperger, “Prudent Governance Leadership: Aquinas’ Virtue and Modern Political and Business Management,” in Fullness of Life and Justice for All, ed. Ellen Van Stichel, Thomas Eggensperger, Ulrich Engel, and Manuela Kalsky (Adelaide: atf, 2020), 289–​306; idem, “Mit Klugheit führen. Ein sozialethischer Rekurs auf Thomas von Aquin,” in Hochschulbericht 2012/​13, ed. Philosophisch-​theologische Hochschule Münster (Münster: Münster Philosophisch-​Theologische Hochschule Münster gemeinnützige, 2013), 28–​40. 20 See S. th. ii–​i i 47 ff. 21 Cited from Thomas Aquinas, Die Deutsche Thomas-​Ausgabe. Ungekürzte lateinisch-​ deutsche Ausgabe der Summa theologica (Salzburg/​Leipzig: Styria, 1933–​) (as of 1941 Heidelberg: Kerle, as of 1950 Heidelberg/​Graz: Kerle/​Styria, as of 2004 Vienna: Styria), esp. vol. 17B. 22 S. th. i–​i i 61, 2. 23 See S. th. ii–​i i 47, 1. 24 S. th. ii–​i i 47c.

202 Eggensperger or prophecy, but rather that something at hand is logically developed such that the present and the past are brought into a single context. Clearly, for Thomas, prudence is a matter of practical reason (ratio practica).25 He thereby sets himself apart from the notion that prudence builds on theoretical reason. The concept of “ratio speculativa” would prove to be quite different: it sought truth or wisdom, but this is not at all the premise of prudence. Accordingly, references for a quest for meaning are not provided—​ just only those for practical agency.26 Thomas underscores that it is apparent that prudence is “wisdom in the area of humanity,” not “wisdom per se.”27 The essential truth does not fall under the category of prudence. Thus, metaphysics cannot be pursued with Thomistic prudentia, but rather with ethics in the true sense. Aquinas substantiates this in further articles of his Quaestio on prudence. It is not only a consideration of reason, but also an implantation of practical agency, as putting it into action is the goal of practical reason. That prudence is a virtue is so apparent that it is at first astonishing that Thomas Aquinas initially concerns himself with the question in the fourth article of his Quaestio as to whether prudence is a virtue at all. In doing so, his starting point is the definition of a virtue according to Aristotle: “Virtue is that which makes the one who has it good and who does his work well.”28 This also applies to prudentia—​and falls under the category of virtues, as such, together with temperantia (temperance), fortitudo (fortitude), and iustitia (justice). Here Thomas specifies that the virtue of prudentia belongs to the category of moral virtues, as it leads not only to agency based on righteous reason—​such as in the so-​called intellectual virtues,29 as is the case with wisdom or scholarship—​but also based on righteous ambition.30 This unity of reason and righteous ambition transforms this virtue into a moral virtue.

25 S. th. ii–​i i 47, 2. 26 “… die Kontingenz des Feldes, auf dem sich dem Menschen diese Aufgabe der Lebensführung stellt, ist ihr notwendiges Korrelat,” as per the conclusion by Markus Riedenauer, “König auf dem kontingenten Kontinent: Klugheit als Führungskompetenz by Thomas Aquinas,” in Phrônesis—​Prudentia—​Klugheit: Das Wissen des Klugen im Mittelalter, Renaissance und Neuzeit; Il sapere del saggio nel Medioevo, nel Rinascimento e nell’età moderna, ed. Alexander Fidora, Andreas Niederberger, Merio Scattola, and Matthias Lutz-​Bachmann (Porto: Brepols, 2013), 77–​91 (91). 27 “Unde manifestum est quod prudentia est sapientia in rebus humanis: non autem sapientia simpliciter, quia non est circa causam altissimam simpliciter.” S. th. ii–​i i 47, 2c. 28 Eth. Nic., 2, 5. 29 See S. th. i–​i i 58. 30 “recta ratio” and “appetitus rectus,” S. th. ii–​i i 47, 4c.

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The goal of moral ethics is the human good, which means nothing other than that the human soul is rationally oriented.31 However, Aquinas makes room for nuance here on an important point regarding prudence. Prudence may not prescribe the moral virtues. This is not a matter of the virtue of prudence, but rather of natural reason.32 The “ratio naturalis” is the so-​called ­primal consciousness, the “synderesis.”33 It sets the goal, but prudence, by contrast, is the way—​the medium—​to reach the goal. After these rather basic preliminaries, Thomas Aquinas turns his inquiry toward making the meaning of prudence concrete. In doing so, he proceeds in three steps: first is contemplation (consiliari).34 After that is discernment (iudicare), which, for Thomas, belongs initially to speculative reasoning.35 Not until the third step does it turn to the question of practical reason: action (praecipere). That which was contemplated and discerned is set into action.36 This can take place through command, meaning that one must set it into action. This already touches on a further premise of Aquinas when he places the virtue of prudence—​in the literal sense of the word—​into a political context. Prudentia does not exist only in its relationship to the welfare of the individual (“bonum privatum”), but also to the common welfare (“bonum commune”).37 With that, Thomas makes it clear that the virtue of prudence has a social dimension: prudence is oriented toward the common good. He calls this orientation “political prudence” (“prudentia politica”).38 In a certain way, the other cardinal virtues are also political and relate to the common welfare, but it is particularly prudence and justice that are oriented to the “commons,” because that which is based on reason is more intensely oriented on the “common” than that which is based on senses, which is, in turn, related to the individual.39 Aquinas states that there are various types of prudence. Prudence is a means to reach a goal and it respectively differentiates itself as a means in

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

“bonum humanum,” S. th. ii–​i i 47, 6c. “ratio naturalis,” S. th. ii–​i i 47, 6 ad 1. S. th. ii–​i i 47, 6 ad 3. S. th. ii–​i i 47, 8c. S. th. ii–​i i 47, 8c. “applicatio consiliatorum et judicatorum ad operandum,”. S. th. ii–​i i 47, 10c. S. th. ii–​i i 47, 10c. “Magis tamen prudentia et iustitia, quae pertinent ad partem rationalem, ad quam directe pertinent communia, sicut ad partem sensitivam pertinent singularia.” S. th. ii–​i i 47,11 ad 3.

204 Eggensperger what it has as a goal.40 Thus, there is, alongside prudence as such, also an economic prudence (“prudentia oeconomica”) and even a political, meaning a civic prudence (“prudentia politica”).41 The first is oriented toward the common welfare of the household, respectively devoted to the family; the second is oriented to the common welfare of the “civitas” or of the “regnum.” A further understanding is needed of what prudence is and where it is applied and for what reasons. 5

Prudentia in Las Casas

Las Casas takes on the task of breaking down “prudencia política,” “prudencia económica,” and “prudencia monástica.”42 His approach to prudence is not essentially different from Aquinas’s teaching. The goal of this customary virtue is the “bonum humanum”; that is, the human person living according to reason in their particular situation.43 Las Casas first describes the preceptos (praecepti) of natural law: above all, the commandment to do good and to avoid evil. From this mandate stem all other commandments of the “ley natural” (“lex naturalis”), which discerns practical reason (“ratio practica”) from nature and considers it to be good. In the following section, Las Casas briefly presents Aquinas’s teaching on prudence. In doing so, Bartolomé refers essentially to the corresponding treatise in the Summa theologiae44 and offers here nothing particularly original. However, Las Casas integrates three “inclinaciones naturales” of the human being (self-​preservation, conservation of species, and knowledge of God), which were not explicated originally in the corresponding section of the Summa theologiae, into the disquisition regarding prudencia.45 Essential to further demonstrations is the classic breakdown of the three “species” of prudence (viz., monástica, económica, and política). 40

“Ratio autem formalis omnium quae sunt ad finem attenditur ex parte finis.” S. th. ii–​i i 47, 11c. 41 S. th. ii–​i i 47, 11c. 42 See S. th. ii–​i i 47, 11c. 43 “… el fin de las virtudes morales es el bien humano, y este bien humano es vivir el hombre según razón, cada uno según el estado que tiene y según lo que pide y requiere aquel estado.” Chapter 40, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:463; explicitly based on S. th. i–​i i 67, 1. 44 See S. th. ii–​i i 47/​48. 45 See ­chapter 40, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:464 ff. Las Casas does not provide any proof (there is no cross-​reference, even from the publishers of the edition). It appears evident to me that Las Casas wrote this excerpt down, almost word for word, from Aquinas. The corresponding section can be found in the scope of the “Lex”—​tract. See S. th. i–​i i 94, 2c.

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205

Prudentia monastica (simpliciter)

After the forty-​second chapter of the Apologética historia, Las Casas addresses his actual topic, namely, a look into the Indigenous peoples of America.46 As explained above, the outline of the three “species” is already found in Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae.47 Regarding prudencia monástica (“prudentia simpliciter”), which is focused on the good of the individual, Las Casas demonstrates that this can be found among the Indians.48 He focuses on the three natural inclinations,49 using three historical aspects: at the dawn of humankind, people were born naked, lived under the open sky, and were unaware of the edibility of fruits. Initially, little by little, they gathered their experiences in how they could best preserve and protect their lives. Exactly the same pattern took place among the peoples of the new hemisphere as could be read in Pliny or Herodotus. They even found opportunities to hunt animals or to produce clothing. Of course, there was also the natural inclination toward propagating offspring, which, however, did not limit itself to that, because the Native inhabitants were also aware of their responsibility to raise their children. At this point, Las Casas does not yet go into details on the third natural inclination: knowledge of God.50 In summary, Las Casas reaches the conclusion that prudencia monástica is secured among the aboriginal peoples, and that their historical beginnings were identical to that of the Spaniards or other human beings. The precondition for this can only be that they are endowed with reason and are prudent. 7

Prudentia oeconomica

Friar Bartolomé continues to lay out his train of thought in the Apologética historia sumaria in the next couple of chapters and then discusses prudencia económica.51 These “species” already prove the orientation of humankind toward sociability, as Aquinas had already established.52 This framework 46 47 48

See ­chapter 42, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:472 ff. S. th. ii–​i i 47, 11c, see Aristoteles, Eth. Nic., 1141 b 30 ff. According to Aquinas, “prudentia simpliciter” is “… ordinatur ad bonum proprium,” S. th. ii–​i i 47, 11c. 49 See ­chapter 42, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:472 ff. 50 This is brought up in the Apologética historia sumaria at a later time when the topic is the religiosity of the American Indians. See ahs (1992), o.c., 7:633 ff. 51 See ahs (1992), o.c., 6:478 ff. 52 If “prudentia simpliciter” is ordered on “bonum proprium,” then “… prudentia oeconomica” is “… ordinatur ad bonum commune domus vel familiae,” S. th. ii–​i i 47, 11c. Aquinas

206 Eggensperger builds the house in which families live, perhaps together with their domestic servants. This natural familial community—​and that is the key point of this chapter—​is to be subject to proper rule (gobernación económica).53 This is because certain necessities of survival can only be maintained within a community. Consequently, the man who governs must possess reason and be prudent. He remits proper guidelines that have validity for everyone together; the same is true for women with their responsibilities to the community.54 The family unit is also found among the autochthonous inhabitants. In this societal form, they develop their lifestyle, typical and appropriate for their region, which Las Casas descriptively illustrated in the examples of house construction, or of the money and bartering economy—​a situation he himself knew from his own personal observations.55 Exactly in the same way that the prudencia monástica existed among them, so did prudencia económica, which in return is indicated in the endowment of reason among the supposed “barbarians.” 8

Prudentia politica

Even though prudencia económica hints at a social life, it remains incomplete.56 Completeness (perfección) first requires “prudencia política,” which Las Casas introduces as the last of the “species” in ­chapters 45 and 46.57 In doing so, he in turn takes up Aquinas, since “prudencia política” applies to the precept that the more perfect leadership is, the more it expands and the larger the goal to be reached.58 “Prudencia política” requires both of the aforementioned “species” as well as fulfills human life and makes it peaceful and calm. For Las Casas, the perfection of política exists in the fact that it enables not only life but also much more: “the good life.”59 Such a community is ciudad

53 54 55 56 57 58 59

suggests this according to “recta ratio” because the good of the community is superior to the good of the individual. Subsequently, he flatly rejects contrary assertions as that contradicts “caritas.” See S. th. ii–​i i 47, 10c. Chapter 43, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:479. See ­chapter 44, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:484. See ­chapter 43, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:480. “Y ésta [i.e. “la económica”] no es el todo perfecta, porque algunas faltas padece, como a todas las necesidades por ella no pueda ser proveído.” Chapter 43, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:478. Cf. ­chapter 45, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:488 ff. “Tanto enim regimen perfectius est quanto est universalius, ad plura se extendens et ulteriorem finem attingens.” S. th. ii–​i i 50, 1c. “… no solo vivir, pero bien vivir …” Chapter 45, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:488.

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(civitas) and multitud (multitudo). Even under the requirement of the function of the single household, a life of peace and security is enabled for a large gathering of small communities. The larger the sociedad (“societas”) is, the more it can manage in cooperation to secure the necessities of daily life. This happens in a twofold way. The first is with respect to temporal goods (“bienes temporales y corporales”), because there is the corresponding necessary industry and trade in the ciudades, which is beyond the capacity of the household or the small community. The second pertains to morality (“bienes morales”), which are virtues. The community should be protected from evil and damage. This happens through the public hand (“poder público”), and belongs, among other things, to the executive. It is not surprising that Las Casas concludes by asserting that the natives can form communities, both large and small, as is the case with all who are endowed with reason, since they fulfill the aforementioned requisites.60 9

Civitas

Las Casas then discusses two phenomena—​which must have been disputed in his time, or else he would hardly have discussed them—​which he explained these explosive problems as follows. Toward the first point, Las Casas begins with a reference to Aristotle, according to whom per definitionem a perfect state community is one in which people live according to their wills.61 This voluntad (voluntas) leads to the goal of human life, which is aimed at political intercourse. To live according to the will of God and to be pleasing to God is a part of being a real “república cristiana.” A non-​Catholic respublica cannot, under any circumstances, attain the same degree of fullness. This statement seems to be quite rigid. Still, the Dominican missionary offers a way out. Just like the ancient peoples of the pre-​Christian epochs, so too did the pagan American Indians live out their wills according to peace and order. Furthermore, Las Casas spelled out, in provocation to

60

61

“Así que visto cómo estas naciones destas Indias son bien intellectivas y racionales por razón de saber bien regir o gobernar sus casas, que son los primeros elementos y principios o quizá segundos de los ayuntamientos y poblaciones grandes de hombres que llamamos ciudades, inquiramos de aquí en adelante si lo son por razón de ser sociales y naturalmente inclinados como todos los hombres a vivir en compañía …” Chapter 45, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:488 ff. “… la perfecta policía pertenece que los hombres vivan en ella a toda su voluntad.” ahs (1992), o.c., 6:489, citing Aristotle, Politics 1260 b 27–​30.

208 Eggensperger European readers, how their political structures were even fuller than those of the other nations due to their peacefulness.62 In fact, the thesis about the complete peacefulness of the American Native inhabitants is, on the part of the author, nonetheless idealized and does not correspond to historical reality. The Indigenous peoples also knew war and injustice.63 The second point identifies another problem. Apparently, the accusation was made against the Indians that they were not real societas because they did not live in fixed houses.64 To this, Las Casas asserted that this definition of “societas” only falls short if one defines ciudad exclusively as a territorial settlement surrounded by a permanent wall. Ciudad refers much more to a community in which order, peacefulness, and harmony are interconnected criteria. As a concise example, Las Casas refers to the barbaric Tartars, who did not live in any building whatsoever but still had the state of civitas, since they fulfilled the above criterion. Therefore, clearly the Indian peoples also exhibited the ciudad, even though some of their living arrangements were simpler. A similar accusation was that American Indians were too scattered to form real community, and he relativized it in a similar way. This state of being scattered is much more geographically conditioned, and as such, is a form of society thoroughly in harmony with the understanding of poverty of the New Testament.65 The final point of contention that Las Casas addressed in ­chapter 46 ascertained the real situation at hand relating to “society” in the case of the societal structure of the Indians of the Americas. Drawing on Aristotle’s premise—​“civitas est multitudo civium quae ad vitam per se sufficiens est”66—​he claimed that they possessed all of the relevant offices (farmers, soldiers, wealthy people, judges, etc.). Las Casas must certainly concede that in no way did all American peoples have such a distinct structure, and he proposes a solution even for that, viz., some communities were per se so peace-​loving that they did not have to fulfill certain offices at all for the realization of order.

62 63 64 65 66

“… síguese de aquí que sus repúblicas y policías sean para ellos perfectas y suficientes por sí y aún más perfectas que otras naciones donde no hay tanta paz y, por consiguiente, ni justicia, cuyo fructo y efecto es la paz ….” Chapter 45, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:490 ff. See Hugh Thomas, La conquista de México (Barcelona: Planeta, 1994). See ­chapter 45, ahs (1992), o.c., 6:491. See ­chapter 46, ahs (1992), o.c., 7:525. Las Casas evokes respective passages in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which posit a simple life for the sake of a greater freeness from care (Matthew 6:25–​34 or Luke 12:22–​32). Chapter 46, ahs (1992), o.c., 7:523, citing Aristotle, Politics 1328 b 16–​18.

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209

The Ability to Form Community

The direct reference to prudencia and its three types in Apologética historia sumaria ends with these extrapolations. Here, the concern of Bartolomé de las Casas should be made clear: he emphasizes the ability of the American subjects of the Spanish crown to form community. Before Las Casas moves on from his systematic exposition in order to confirm in a historical manner the aforementioned with regard to the respective American Indian populations, he sets about again to clear up any doubt. In doing so, he finally defends certain facts about the “new world” in c­ hapters 47 and 48, which, according to conventional criteria, can no longer be, under any circumstances whatsoever, even in the most remote sense, a ciudad.67 For Las Casas, it cannot be said, even of people who are completely isolated and live as wild, that they are lacking in reason. Because every population had its beginning and could not have been a ciudad originally. One must mature through experience, and thereby it was only incrementally possible to become “prudentes” and political. This applied even to Italy’s ancient history, whose policía, Las Casas demonstrates, is not in doubt.68 Using further examples (e.g., Athens, Bohemia), one can detect Las Casas’s concern to show that all people are in the position to institute policía.69 Every nation is made up of people, and all people are capable of reason (razonables). They possess entendimiento, voluntad, and libre albedrío (“liberum arbitrium”), as well as natural principles (“principios naturales”), in order to understand how to gain knowledge of the unknown. The subsequent chapters in the Apologética historia describe the political reality in cities of the Indies, like the city of Mexico and others, which make his concept more palpable.70 He does not continue explicitly with the debate of the different types of prudencia, but he assumes them. 11

Summary

The intention of this chapter was to clarify in what way the Spanish Dominican bishop Bartolomé de las Casas sought to defend the individuality of the 67 68 69 70

See ­chapter 47, ahs (1992), o.c., 7:528 ff. “… por muy política y ordenada y razonable y delicada en prudencia y sabiduría que hoy la veamos.” Chapter 47, ahs (1992), o.c., 7:530. See ­chapter 48, ahs (1992), o.c., 7:535 ff. See ­chapter 50, ahs (1992), o.c., 7:542 ff.

210 Eggensperger Indians. Early on, he took the history of the new Spanish lands as foundational. However, this history actually leads to the subject of anthropology. For clarification, Las Casas uses the notion of prudentia drawn from Aristotle—​ mostly reconstructed from the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics. Another interlocutor whom Bartolomé engaged was Thomas Aquinas. In the chapters in Apologética historia sumaria under discussion, Las Casas concentrated on Aquinas, mostly in the understanding of prudence as is found in the Summa theologiae. In any case—​let it be noted at this point—​Las Casas very often does not explicitly refer to Aquinas. Instead, the sixteenth-​century friar is content with approximate references for the corresponding points. At the same time, Las Casas’s intention is evident: Aristotle and Aquinas constitute his theoretical foundation. However, he specified his concern and the corresponding current environment in a practical way: Native inhabitants of the Americas are to be considered as rational individuals and as a people capable of socialization. The final point ultimately proves their endowment with reason. Las Casas’s work also demonstrates variations in the assessment of actual problems by means of medieval methodologies, which is of interest to this day.

­c hapter 9

Moral Uncertainty and Doubt in the Affairs of the Indies: Vitoria, Las Casas, and Medina on Difficult Cases of Conscience Víctor Zorrilla 1

Introductory Remarks

Matters of conscience provoked heated debates among Spanish theologians of the sixteenth century. Since the first decades of the century, the Spanish conquest and domination of the Americas elicited a great deal of interest from moralists and jurists. In the wake of the Council of Trent, theologians worked to understand sacramental confession as a means to cure, guide, assuage, and punish the conscience. Seeking greater control over their subjects, early modern states and the post-​Tridentine church generated an extensive and complex legislation. These and other factors helped configure a context in which the medieval system of moral thought was no longer fully adequate. The new context prompted moralists to develop tools that would enable individuals to navigate situations where the right course of action could not be determined with certainty. Among these, situations involving property and its processes of transmission, such as restitution and prescription, were routinely addressed.1 This chapter first discusses Francisco de Vitoria (1483–​1546), who, in his discussions on the Spanish conquest and the law of war, gave some indications on how to deal with doubtful moral matters. This is followed by comment on Bartolomé de las Casas, who addressed matters of conscience related to the traffic and ownership of slaves. Then the thought of Bartolomé de Medina (c.1528–​1580)—​their fellow Dominican friar and a notable Salamancan professor—​ will be elucidated for his contributions to the study of moral uncertainty. This exposition will not focus on the legal side but rather on the subjective aspects involved in difficult moral situations regarding ownership, prescription, and restitution, as well as in the theoretical tools moral theologians

1 For a fuller picture of the factors that contributed to the discussion on matters of conscience in the early modern era, see Stefania Tutino, Uncertainty in Post-​Reformation Catholicism: A History of Probabilism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 1–​5, 17–​25.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_011

212 Zorrilla devised to discuss moral uncertainty.2 This study contributes to a better understanding of the role that the American enterprise played with respect to moral uncertainty in post-​Reformation thought. Its aim is to show how, even before probabilism emerged as a distinct theological doctrine, Las Casas had developed a sophisticated approach to thorny moral questions involving slavery and restitution. 2

Certainty, Doubt, and Counsel: Francisco de Vitoria

At a lecture in Salamanca in 1539, titled Relectio de indis, Francisco de Vitoria—​ holder of the first chair of theology at the university—​addressed the hotly contested subject of what rights the Spanish could and could not claim to conquer the Indies.3 With the Spanish conquest well underway, scholars, courtiers, conquistadors, and missionaries keenly debated the titles that could or could not justify Spanish domination.4 Aware of the difficulty of the issue at hand, Vitoria warned his listeners that in such cases where no clear solution could be readily found, an appeal should be made to the experts. Clear matters surely did not require deliberation, he said. No reasonable person would ask whether he or she should live justly, be temperate, or stay strong in the face of adversity. Nor would they wonder if they should break an oath or commit adultery.5 2 As Daniel Schwartz has noted, the late scholastics emphasized the importance for the moral expert to adopt the perspective of the morally troubled agent. Such adoption was intended not to bend morality but to force the expert to think carefully about the price that the agent would have to pay—​his or her livelihood, his or her office, heavy taxes—​for any moral ruling. Daniel Schwartz, The Political Morality of the Late Scholastics: Civic Life, War and Conscience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 3. 3 Francisco de Vitoria, “De indis recenter inventis relectio prior,” in Obras de Francisco de Vitoria: Relecciones teológicas, ed. and trans. Teófilo Urdánoz (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1960), 641–​726. 4 Lewis Hanke explained that “the Spanish conquest of America was far more than a remarkable military and political exploit; […] it was also one of the greatest attempts the world has seen to make Christian precepts prevail in the relations between peoples. This attempt became basically a spiritual defense of the rights of the Indians […]. [N]‌o other European people, before or since the conquest of America, plunged into such a struggle for justice as developed among Spaniards shortly after the discovery of America and persisted throughout the sixteenth century. [The Spanish] kings allowed and even encouraged at times the discussion of such a tender issue as the justice of their own right to rule the New World.” Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1965), 1, 8. A decade after Vitoria delivered the lectures on the Indians discussed here, the famous Valladolid debate (1550–​1551) took place between the humanist Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas on the legitimacy of the conquests. 5 Vitoria, “De indis recenter,” 644.

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However, Vitoria warned, moral matters were not always so clear cut. Issues that appeared to be honorable from one viewpoint may have other reprehensible aspects. In such issues, if one acted without being certain that the chosen course of action was right, one would commit a sin—​even if the action was licit. The reason for this dictum was that in such cases one would be acting recklessly so that even ignorance would be unjustifiable. Since we did not do what we could have done to overcome it, our ignorance was not invincible. So, it remained inexcusable ignorance. For this reason, if no certainty about the right course of action could be otherwise obtained, Vitoria explained, then a person ought to conform to an expert’s decision—​this being a theologian’s. Seeking the counsel of an expert was the only way to act with a clear conscience. If the experts determined that the issue at hand was illicit, then one should conform to this decision. Whoever acted otherwise would commit a sin, even if the thing itself turned out to be licit. Conversely, if the expert determined that the thing was valid, then one could safely act on this dictum even if the thing was actually illicit. In matters of conscience, then, each should judge not as it pleases him or her but rather from probable reasons or the authority of experts. In doing otherwise, a person would be acting recklessly and exposing oneself to err—​a mistake in itself.6 This was the nature, Vitoria explained, of the affairs of the Indies, in which there were conflicting views on the morality of the Spaniards’ actions and government. Vitoria acknowledged that many capable and honorable men oversaw these affairs, which suggests that the Spanish domination in the Americas was valid and just. At the same time, he admitted that the news of so many crimes and atrocities was reason enough to doubt that the American enterprise has been justly executed.7 A similar elaboration on how to deal with difficult moral affairs and the need to appeal to the experts’ criteria can be found in another lecture by Vitoria, De iure bellum, on the law of war. There, Vitoria asked if the sovereign’s judgment call sufficed for war to be just. Vitoria’s answer was no—​at least not in all cases. The sovereign could judge improperly by others’ or by his own fault. Moreover, as Aristotle claimed, for an act to be good, it needed to be performed in accordance with a wise person’s judgment. It was difficult to attain the true and the just in moral matters. Someone could easily make careless mistakes; yet,

6 Vitoria, “De indis recenter,” 644–​648. 7 Vitoria, “De indis recenter,” 648.

214 Zorrilla such mistakes were inexcusable, especially when dealing with grave matters like war, where the fate of many was at stake.8 Then, of course, the question could be posed as to whether the subjects were also obliged to consider the causes for war or if they could fight without further examination. Generally speaking, Vitoria explained, the subjects were not bound to consider the causes for war, but they could follow their officials’ commands without need for further inquiry. However, there could be some cases where such clear indications existed on the injustice of war that even the subjects’ ignorance was morally inexcusable. Now, if a subject was certain that the war was unjust, he must not engage in it, even when commanded to do so by his officials. Indeed, under no authority was it morally permissible to kill innocent people. Hence, if the subject discovered the enemies’ innocence, then he must not kill them. Soldiers who engaged in war under such circumstances did so in bad faith and could not be excused; anything that contradicted the conscience was a sin.9 A different problem arose when doubts existed about the justice of war, i.e., when plausible and probable reasons seemed to support each side. Regarding the sovereigns—​Vitoria claimed—​the law states that the right of the possessor took precedence (“in dubiis melior est conditio possidentis”). Let us suppose, for instance, that the king of France ruled over Burgundy when doubts were raised on whether he had the right to do so. On the grounds of such doubts, other princes might not claim this right to use arms. In these cases, the possessor was obliged to examine the issue and see if he or she could clear up doubts. Whoever doubts and fails to use due diligence no longer retained the possession in good faith. Having used due diligence, while the doubt persists, the possessor could keep the possession.10 Subjects should follow their sovereign in doubtful cases. As stated before, subjects should only deny compliance when they were certain about the war’s 8

9 10

Vitoria, “De indis, sive de iure belli hispanorum in barbaros, relectio posterior,” in Obras de Francisco de Vitoria, 811–​858 (829–​831). Hereafter referred to as “De iure belli.” This lecture, which complements “De indis,” was also delivered in Salamanca in 1539. The reference is to Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 2, ch. 6, 1106b 35–​1107a 1: “Excellence […] is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.” Aristotle, Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 2:1748. Vitoria, “De iure belli,” 831–​833. Vitoria, “De iure belli,” 833–​836. The cited legal principle was already codified in Justinian, Digest 43.17.2, (https://​droi​trom​ain.univ-​greno​ble-​alpes.fr/​Cor​pus/​d-​43.htm#17); for an English translation see The Digest of Justinian, ed. Theodor Mommsen, trans. Charles Henry Munro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

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injustice. The mere lack of certainty about the war’s justice did not allow them to avoid the war, since the sovereign could not or should not in all cases make public all the reasons for going to war. Moreover, Vitoria stated, when in doubt, the safest path should be taken. Now, if the subjects refused to go to war, the commonwealth would risk favoring its enemies—​an act more perilous than fighting with doubts. Therefore, the subjects must go to war. Similarly, the executioner must carry out the judge’s sentence even when he doubted if it were just; otherwise, the community would be in great danger. Augustine conceded—​Vitoria recalled at this point—​that a just person could partake in war under a sacrilegious king insofar as he or she was certain that the king’s orders did not breach any of God’s precepts, or at least if one was not certain that they did. This proposition implied that if there was no certainty, i.e., if it was doubtful that the orders went against a divine law, then the subject may fight.11 At this point, Vitoria alluded to the classic Thomistic moral dictum according to which a person in doubt should remove it by forming or informing one’s conscience—​in this case, about the justice of the war. For Vitoria, this dictum was useless here; it might very well happen that the subject was unable to remove the doubt as it occurred with other similar doubts. Vitoria then introduced an important distinction: it was mistaken to assume that if one doubted whether this war was just or not, it followed that one also had doubts about personally engaging in it. It was true—​Vitoria reminded the reader—​that one could under no circumstances act against a doubtful conscience. This principle implied that if one doubted if something was morally valid and still did it, one committed a sin. However, from this proposition it did not follow that if one doubted that this war was just, one also doubted whether he or she should fight in it. Quite the contrary, if one had doubts about the justice of the war, it follows that one could fight by the sovereign’s orders. In fact, here there were two distinct doubts. First, one could doubt whether the war was just or not; this doubt mainly concerned the sovereign and his advisors. Secondly, one could doubt whether or not one should engage in the war. In this case, one

11

Vitoria, “De iure belli,” 836–​837. The reference is to Augustine, Contra Faustum, book 22, ch. 75: “Cum ergo uir iustus, si forte sub rege homine etiam sacrilego militet, recte possit illo iubente bellare ciuicae pacis ordinem seruans—​cui quod iubetur, uel non esse contra Dei praeceptum certum est uel utrum sit, certum non est, ita ut fortasse reum regem faciat iniquitas imperandi, innocentem autem militem ostendat ordo seruiendi […].” Augustine, Contra Fausto, trans. Pío de Luis (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1993), 606.

216 Zorrilla could (and should) fight if ordered by one’s superiors to do so. As stated before, only certainty about the war’s injustice should stop a person from fighting.12 From the previous considerations, another issue arises: could war be just for both parties? Precluding the case of ignorance, Vitoria denied this possibility. If one knew about the other side’s right to wage war, it meant that one did not have that right. It might happen, however, that the war was just in itself for one party, while the other party might be excused on the grounds of their good faith. This proposition presupposed that the latter party suffered from an invincible ignorance, that is, an ignorance that could not be overcome. Such an ignorance exonerated the moral agent. Vitoria reckoned that this situation occurred frequently with subjects who followed their sovereigns in good faith. In this case, the subjects of both sides fought justly.13 The possibility of war being just on both sides due to invincible ignorance opened up another problem. Suppose that a subject who fought in good faith later discovered that the war was unjust. Were they obliged to restitution? Vitoria claimed that if one was aware that the war was probably unjust from the outset but followed the superior’s orders, one ought to restore only the war booty that was not spent. In accordance with the principles stated above, Vitoria considered that such subjects fought in good faith and thus should not be punished for an offense in which they did not take part.14 A principle and a schematic set of procedures could be sifted through Vitoria’s thought on difficult moral situations. The principle could be stated thus: it was not valid to act against a doubtful conscience. If doubts arose, then certain procedures were required. First, one should appeal to the criteria of wise persons (like the monarch seeking counsel before going to war). Second, one should examine the issue to try to overcome the doubts (like the doubtful possessor who had to evaluate his or her claim to the possession). Third, if it were impossible to clear the doubts, the safest choice was for subjects to rely on their superiors. In this latter case, Vitoria adopted the classic medieval

12

13 14

Vitoria, “De iure belli,” 837–​838. The relevant Thomistic passages are in Thomas Aquinas, S. th., i–​i i, q. 19, a. 5–​6, http://​www.corpus​thom​isti​cum.org/​sth2​006.html#34379; Thomas Aquinas, Suma teológica, vol. 4 (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2012), 521–​527. In contrast with Vitoria, Aquinas here referred to a situation of vincible or surmountable ignorance, i.e., one that can be overcome. A commentary can be found in Tutino, Uncertainty, 7–​8. As we shall see further on, Medina reformulated the distinction between doubts as one between a theoretical and a practical doubt. Vitoria, “De iure belli,” 838. Vitoria, “De iure belli,” 838–​839. A thorough discussion of Vitoria’s thought on doubt and good faith in war can be found in Schwartz, Political Morality, 125–​132.

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moral doctrine of tutiorism, according to which, when in doubt, one should always follow the safest path. Vitoria’s acknowledgment of the difficulty of the issue at hand when dealing with the justifications for Spanish conquest and domination was perhaps the first such reckoning with the enterprise’s dubious character. Accordingly, Vitoria devoted several pages at the beginning of his Relectio de indis to frame his discussion as one that merited careful and expert deliberation. Other authors subsequently took a similar attitude toward Indian affairs. Bartolomé de las Casas’s discussion on slavery exemplified this attitude. 3

Slavery, Doubt, and Bad Conscience: Bartolomé de las Casas

Among other works, Las Casas dealt with matters of conscience in the Apología, the Tratado de las doce dudas, and in his famous Confesionario.15 In the same volume of treatises where the Confesionario appeared in 1552, Las Casas included another work: the Treatise on the Indians that have been enslaved (Tratado sobre los indios que han sido hechos esclavos). The following exposition will focus on this latter work, which addressed the states of conscience that could affect the persons involved in slave trafficking and ownership and will develop their implications. The extended title explicitly states that the work deals with difficult cases of conscience; it declares that the treatise aimed to help the reader “determine many diverse doubtful questions on the matter of restitution” (“para determinar muchas y diversas cuestiones dudosas en materia de restitución”).16 As in his other works, the bishop began with his conclusion: all Indians enslaved from the time of the encounter and up to the present time had been unjustly enslaved. Las Casas assured the reader that the Spaniards who owned slaves mostly did so “with a bad conscience.”17 Even if those slaves were not captured by Spaniards themselves, they were bought from other Indians. In these initial propositions, Las Casas alluded to a state of conscience—​namely, bad conscience—​which allegedly affects almost all Spaniards who owned slaves. What caused this bad conscience? 15 16 17

A recent (and first complete) English translation of the last work, together with an introductory study, can be found in David Thomas Orique, O.P., To Heaven or to Hell: Bartolomé de las Casas’s Confesionario (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018). Bartolomé de las Casas, “Tratado sobre los indios que han sido hechos esclavos,” in Tratados de 1552, O.C., vol. 10, 219–​284 (219). Hereafter referred to as “Tratado.” Casas, “Tratado,” 221.

218 Zorrilla Before dealing with this issue, Las Casas turned to the first part of the conclusion, which stated that all Indian slaves had been unjustly enslaved. One way to begin to argue this proposition, Las Casas explained, was by asserting that unjust wars were the least iniquitous way the Spaniards used to capture and enslave Indians. This argument presupposed that all the wars the Spaniards had waged against the Indians were unjust. There were two necessary conditions for just war: a just cause and the authority of the sovereign; in the Indies, they were never met.18 First, a just cause was lacking, because the Spaniards—​and not the Indians—​ were the first to give offense. Secondly, the Indians were not occupying ancient Christian lands (such as northern Africa, the Kingdom of Granada, the late Byzantine Empire, or Jerusalem). A third possible cause was also lacking because the Indians had not repressed Christianity or persecuted Christians. Some might argue that spreading the Gospel might be a fourth cause for just war. However, Las Casas underscored that no divine or human law had ever allowed war as a legitimate means to attain this purpose. A fifth cause that might justify war was the protection of innocents, for instance, the victims of human sacrifice. Las Casas denied it had any relevance here. The Spaniards, he claimed, had never cared for the innocent Indigenous people except to rob, plunder, and kill them. Also, the Spaniards must be prudent to avoid a greater evil, such as killing more innocent New World inhabitants than those whose lives were saved, and thus scandalizing the Native population.19 The second cause for just war—​the authority of the sovereign—​was also lacking. Las Casas declared that the Spaniards neither had nor kept a royal order, instruction, or law regarding war, or pertaining to any other matter related to the welfare of the Indian peoples. Hence all war against the Indians had been unjust since a just cause and the proper authority had never concurred. In an unjust war, slavery was unjustified.20 As mentioned earlier, war—​for Las Casas—​was the least iniquitous means that the Spaniards used to capture slaves. He then described in detail the fraud, deception, and trickery the Spaniards used to mislead the natives, to bend the law, and to bribe officials with the aim of enslaving Indians; in Las Casas’s view, this behavior was more treacherous than unjustified war. For instance, 18 19 20

Here Las Casas did not directly address the third condition that traditionally justified war—​one based on good intentions. He might have considered it unnecessary in light of the treatise’s description of the Spaniards’ behavior, as will be seen. Casas, “Tratado,” 222–​223. Casas, “Tratado,” 223. Medieval law allowed the enslavement of a defeated non-​Christian enemy in just war to spare his life.

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Spaniards had sometimes traded wine, shirts, or trinkets with cunning Indians in exchange for orphans, who were loaded onto ships and sold as slaves elsewhere. Spanish officials would then, without further investigation, brand them as slaves with a hot iron. Other Spaniards hopped from island to island or to the mainland, where they would land clandestinely at night and raid an Indian village, setting it on fire. They would capture as many Indians as they could before continuing to the next village. They did this until their ships were full of Indians to be sold as slaves. Las Casas assured the reader that such expeditions were authorized by officials. In these expeditions, the ships were so overloaded with Indians and so poorly stocked with provisions that traffickers often threw overboard over a hundred wasted and dead bodies during the voyage. Other Spaniards beat, tortured, and threatened the Indian chieftains to extort a tribute of slaves from them. These chieftains would then go to their communities and take one or two children from each family until they filled the quota the Spaniards had imposed on them. Las Casas also referred to some governors who had gambled several hundred Indians in their jurisdictions and authorized their gambling mates to fetch and enslave them. One of them, lacking money and precious metals, used to pay for his groceries with free Indians from his jurisdiction. The Spaniards connived more treachery: once the friars had filled a church with Indians to teach them the Christian faith, the Spaniards would suddenly appear and abduct as many as they desired to brand as slaves. The Spaniards captured and enslaved the Indians in these and many other such ways. For this reason, Las Casas argued that war against the Indians—​ which was always unjust—​was the least iniquitous way the Spaniards used to capture slaves. Thus, he argued for the first part of the conclusion stated at the beginning of his treatise on slavery: that all the Indian slaves had been unjustly enslaved. Up to this point, Las Casas did not perceive the need to deal with uncertainty or complex subjective moral states.21 In the second part of the conclusion in the treatise, Las Casas categorized the state of conscience caused by the ownership of Indian slaves. The friar bishop referred to this state as “bad conscience.” He generally thought that bad conscience originated from doubt. More specifically, bad conscience was the result of acting without certainty that the chosen course of action was morally viable.22

21 22

Casas, “Tratado,” 223–​230. Casas, “Tratado,” 235.

220 Zorrilla Las Casas explained several ways a person could incur in bad conscience. For example, when an individual intended to buy something that they suspected might be a stolen good, the buyer needed to investigate the ownership. Questions about the item’s origin required due diligence and, when this did not occur, there was implied negligence. As Las Casas clarified, negligent behavior implied that an individual failed to do what they could and should do to ensure they chose the right course of action. A person might deliberately procrastinate due diligence. Even when a person did not forsake due diligence on purpose, their negligence should be attributed to gross ignorance (“ignorancia crasa”). Gross or supine ignorance happened when enough hints suggested the immorality of the transaction to the extent that it was inexcusable for the person to not doubt it. Hence not only did a doubt impose a duty to inquire, but also certain circumstances implied an obligation to doubt. From this latter proposition, Las Casas concluded that the fact that individuals did not doubt the morality of an action did not by itself exonerate them. Indeed, indications about the immoral character of an action might suffice to make moral certainty erroneously inexcusable. Las Casas explained that this unfounded moral certainty was caused by an affected and sinful naivety (“simplicidad fatua,” “simplicidad culpable”). Whoever chose a course of action, despite such indications, acted in bad faith and thus incurred a bad conscience because he was bound to doubt whether his decision was legitimate.23 Las Casas claimed that the Spaniards who owned slaves were precisely in this situation. As stated before, bad conscience affected not only those who got their slaves through war, bribes, and deception, but also those who bought their slaves from the Indians. Las Casas pointed out that how these slaves were captured was largely unknown. He warned that missionaries and ecclesiastics skilled in the Indian languages were aware of the questionable or immoral ways the Indians acquired slaves. Such illicit means of enslaving persons could be due to the Indians’ heathen customs or to the lucrative slave traffic the Spaniards had imposed. Whatever the cause, such Indian customs, as well as the caveats raised about them, were publicly known.24 Las Casas cited the following examples of how Indians acquired slaves: When hunger struck a community, rich Indians sometimes traded maize with poor Indians in exchange for a child, who was subsequently enslaved. Secondly, Indians enslaved other Indians as a punishment for petty theft. Las Casas cited religious persons who, after examining the issue, found out that several times,

23 24

Casas, “Tratado,” 242, 248–​49. Casas, “Tratado,” 245, 247.

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Indians had intentionally placed a few corn cobs near the road as bait so they could enslave other Indians. In a third example, the losers at the Indians’ ball game were enslaved. For this reason, proficient players dissimulated and fooled others into playing with them. Fourth, if a slave fled, the master could seize and enslave the closest relative to the escapee. A fifth example implied that if a female slave was impregnated by a free man, her master could enslave the latter and his wife as compensation for lost work due to the pregnancy. In a sixth example, if a slave was raped, her owner could enslave the offender. For this reason, Las Casas claimed, several masters persuaded their female slaves to solicit men to sin with them. In another example, when a slave stole something from the master for her relatives, they were also enslaved. Finally, in times of hunger, usurers and speculators charged poor people excessive interest for their loans. When the poor were unable to pay, the usurers would force them into servitude. All these customs, Las Casas claimed, built the case for a strong presumption about the illegitimacy of slavery as the Indians practiced it. Thus, the Spaniards who bought slaves from the Indians were aware, or in any case should have known of the morally doubtful nature of their transactions.25 As stated before, Las Casas insisted that the public knew about the way the Indians made slaves. Indeed, once the friars had detected these practices in New Spain, they had been vocal about their rejection of them. Now, such concerns—​when expressed by authoritative persons who had no stake in the issue (other than the souls’ salvation)—​constituted what Las Casas called a probable opinion. A proposition on moral matters became a probable opinion when all or most of the knowledgeable, experienced, and honest persons held it to be true. Uneducated people and laypersons, Las Casas claimed, were bound to believe and to follow their opinions on difficult issues. Even if laypersons erred in doing so, they incur what Las Casas called a probable mistake and are thus exempted from responsibility. In contrast, those who chose not to follow a probable opinion incurred an improbable mistake, of which they were guilty; they were also responsible for the consequences of such a mistake.26 Las Casas advised that, in case of doubt, the safest course of action should be taken. Hence no slaves could be legitimately bought from the Indians. Here Las Casas followed the aforementioned doctrine of tutiorism, according to 25 26

Casas, “Tratado,” 231–​233. Las Casas told the reader he got the information on Indian customs on slavery from the first bishop of Mexico, Juan de Zumárraga, who in turn had been informed by the Franciscan friars. Casas, “Tratado,” 245–​246. Las Casas also used the notion of a “probable mistake” to explain the Indian practice of human sacrifice. See, for instance, Bartolomé de las Casas, Apología, O.C., vol. 9, 422.

222 Zorrilla which, when in doubt, one should follow the safest path. At this point in the treatise on slavery, Las Casas seemed to hint at the growing moral complexity in the Spanish American empire. He suggested that, ideally, the safest course of action would be one where no sin would follow. However, he conceded that it might be the case that no safe option exists or was known. Stretching the traditional doctrine, Las Casas asserted that the least dangerous course of action should be preferred.27 The task of refining the theoretical tools to deal with moral uncertainty would fall on the moral theologians of the following decades, beginning with Bartolomé de Medina, O.P. (c.1528–​1580). 4

Prescription and Doubt: Bartolomé de Medina

In contrast with Las Casas, who devoted his life to the Spanish overseas enterprise, Bartolomé de Medina’s interest in American affairs was marginal. However, Medina did address moral doubts from a general perspective in the lectures he gave at Salamanca (1565–​1566) while substituting for the chair of theology—​Mancio de Corpus Christi. Thus, our interest here in Medina lies not in his perspective on American affairs but rather in his treatment of difficult moral cases as a university professor. Medina had been considered a pioneer of probabilism—​the Catholic theological doctrine aimed at helping a person arrive at a legitimate moral decision when there was uncertainty about the right course of action.28 Although Medina’s doctrine on prescription remained unpublished until recently, he became quickly known in his own time for his Handbook for Confessors.29 He also published a commentary on Aquinas’s Ia-​IIae in 1577, which dealt with issues about moral doubts and their epistemological role. In his commentary on Aquinas, Medina distinguished between doubts and opinions. On one hand, to doubt, he explained, was to be completely uncertain. On the other hand, to have an opinion implies believing some course of action 27 28

29

Casas, “Tratado,” 235. Las Casas was not unique in his stretching of the traditional tutiorist doctrine. Other Salamanca authors, like Vitoria, Soto, and Suárez, took similar views. See Schwartz, Political Morality, 126–​128. Tutino regards Medina as the founder of probabilism, Tutino, Uncertainty, 44; Schwartz considers that he came up with its standard formulation, Schwartz, Political Morality, 135. Medina’s probabilism has been contested by Francisco O’Reilly, Duda y opinión: La conciencia moral en Soto y Medina (Pamplona: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, 2006), 81–​95. Bartolomé de Medina, Breve instrvction [sic] de como se ha de administrar el sacramento de la Penitencia (Barcelona, 1604), first published 1579.

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was more legitimate than another without being completely sure that this was the case. Now, opinions could be probable or improbable. Probable opinions were those backed by solid arguments and by the authority of learned scholars. If we hold an opinion that is improbable, we are never allowed to follow it. If we do not know, or doubt whether our opinion is probable, we are not allowed to follow it either. However, Medina stated that if we hold a probable opinion, we are free to follow it—​even if the alternative was probable or more probable, and supported by better arguments and stronger authorities. The reasoning behind this controversial proposition was pastoral and practical, rather than a strictly philosophical or theological. Medina explained that a person—​especially one with a very sensitive conscience—​should not be forced to continually evaluate which opinion was more probable—​an operation which, in the end, would become vexing and excruciating. Indeed, a probable opinion was safe enough to take, and it remained so even if the alternative was safer and more probable. Moreover, Medina added, nobody was obliged to the best and the most perfect. For instance, consecrated life was more perfect than married life, yet no one was bound to embrace it.30 In his Salamanca lectures, Medina raised the issue of whether someone who doubted if a thing was theirs might enjoy the legal benefit of prescription. In medieval law, prescription was understood as the acquisition of ownership by an uninterrupted possession of property consisting of real estate during the time prescribed by the law. This time could be ten or twenty years, depending on whether the persons involved were present or absent.31 Medina explained that the law foresaw prescription to avoid dubious ownerships and unending lawsuits. He also noted that, for prescription to be valid, ordinary human confidence sufficed, even if absolute certainty was lacking. This proposition meant that prescription was legitimate despite scruples suggesting otherwise. Prescription only required the kind of knowledge generally used in human affairs, not apodictic clarity. Appealing to Aristotle, Medina reminded the reader that one should not expect the same degree of certainty in every realm of knowledge.32 30 For Medina’s commentary on Aquinas, I rely on Tutino, Uncertainty, 41–​46. 31 Bartolomé de Medina, De dominio /​Sobre el dominio, ed. Augusto Sarmiento (Pamplona: Eunsa, 2017), 128. I will indicate the pages containing the original Latin text in this opposing-​pages bilingual edition. 32 Medina, De dominio, 138–​139. See, for instance, Aristotle, Metaphysics, book 2, ch. 3, 995a 15–​16: “The minute accuracy of mathematics is not to be demanded in all cases, but only in the case of things which have no matter.” Aristotle, Complete Works, 2:1572. See also Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 1, ch. 3, 1094b 12–​27: “Precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions […]. We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects [i.e.,

224 Zorrilla Historically, the scholars had given three different opinions on the implications of doubt for prescription. Several scholars had conceded that, since a doubt excluded the certainty that the thing belonged to someone else, a possessor in doubt was entitled to prescription. A second contrary opinion, upheld by Adrian of Utrecht, stated that any doubtful possession or prescription was sinful. However, Adrian had allowed for the possessors to guard the thing insofar as they diligently investigated about the actual ownership. Having done what they could to overcome their doubts unsuccessfully, they were then entitled to prescription because they were acting in good faith. A third opinion was given by Domingo de Soto, who held that a doubtful possessor might defend his or her possessions until his or her case was rejected in court. However, such a possessor was not entitled to prescription—​since he or she must return the thing if and whenever it is proven to be alien.33 Regarding the possible sinful nature of doubtful possession as put forth by Adrian, Medina explained that it was one thing to have a lax conscience and another to doubt. A lax conscience was always sinful, for example, when someone learned that something was alien but would not restore it to the owner. The same was the case when a person, who was unsure if the possession was alien, was unwilling to use due diligence to pursue the truth. To doubt, on the other hand, was to be uncertain. In case of doubt, Medina assured the reader, individuals could legitimately keep and defend their possessions until their case was rejected in court. Medina predicated this proposition on the aforementioned legal principle: when in doubt, one should rule in favor of the actual possessor (“in dubiis melior conditio possidentis”). To elucidate the issue, a couple of distinctions are in order. First, there are two types of doubt: one is of a speculative nature; the other is practical. For instance, soldiers might speculatively doubt whether the war they are fighting is just. However, in practice they are certain that they must obey their superior lest their country be put in great peril. Second, a person might doubt one aspect of a particular issue but be certain about another aspect. This is the case, for example, when an individual doubts if the land they are occupying belongs to someone else, but they are certain that they are not bound to give it away at once.34 moral ones] to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premises of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. [I]‌t is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits […].” Aristotle, Complete Works, 2:1730. 33 Medina, De dominio, 134–​136. 34 Medina, De dominio, 136–​138.

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Medina then went on to ascertain that, if a person doubted that something belonged to them, they might in fact defend their possession until their case was rejected in court. This proposition followed from the fact that, as stated before, when in doubt one should rule in favor of the actual possessor. Here, Medina introduced a distinction between a good faith and a doubtful one. Good faith, he explained, implied full confidence without reservations. Conversely, a doubtful faith was not without some degree of remorse. Therefore, Medina concluded, even if possessors might hold on to their possessions despite having some doubts, they could not enjoy the legal benefit of prescription. Of course, such a concession presupposed that the doubtful possessors had used due diligence and inquired about the ownership. If they did not, they could not possess the thing either.35 5

Concluding Remarks

Recent scholarship has shown the relevance of uncertainty in grasping early modern notions of knowledge. Sixteenth-​century Spanish theologians and moralists struggled to think through a rapidly changing reality, one in which the traditional theoretical tools were no longer adequate. New situations pertaining to war, restitution, and slavery demanded novel approaches that could enable persons to deal with uncertainty in their moral choices. This study aimed to propose Las Casas as an instance where a thinker had to address an unprecedented moral situation with the consequent need to push the traditional theological boundaries. Vitoria, Las Casas, and Medina intended their analyses of moral doubt to help Catholic Christians face moral uncertainty in a context of increasingly complex situations and legal dispositions. These reflections would be taken up by the moral theologians of the latter sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries and pave the way for a new and modern understanding of the moral and epistemological role of conscience. 35 Medina, De dominio, 138–​140.

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“No Greater nor More Arduous Step”: Lactantius, Las Casas, and Continuity in Christian Rhetoric about Conversion Laura Ammon 1 Introduction1 Bartolomé de las Casas was an accomplished canonical jurist and tireless advocate for Indigenous Americans. In his extensive works, he found inspiration and support throughout the Christian tradition, citing and invoking church fathers and Greco-​Roman writers. These latter were particularly important when addressing questions of religious practice, justice, and governance in the so-​called New World. From his early writings to the end of his life, he was avidly engaged in the quest for justice for the Indigenous peoples. Influences on Las Casas’s theological approach to Indians are quite extensive. Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, as well as the expected biblical references are represented, but also present are Seneca, Cicero, and Gratian. Las Casas holds a truly influential position in the historical development of the idea of justice. He is a pivotal figure in the most important developments of ideas like reparations for Native peoples, legal protections for the Indigenous people through the New Laws of 1542, utopian evangelizing experiments in Guatemala, and his role in interpreting the providential role of Columbus and the Spaniards in that New World. Much of the scholarly focus on Las Casas examines his historiographical legacy, and how various authors throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries make use of his texts and thought. This chapter pulls a different thread from the tapestry of Las Casas’s work by examining his use of an author from

1 This chapter was initially written as a paper for the Second International Congress on Bartolomé de las Casas. I am deeply grateful to the organizers, Rady Roldán-​Figueroa and David Orique, for the opportunity to participate in such an engaging collaborative experience. I am also indebted to the insightful comments of colleagues and reviewers. This project is rooted in a larger work and would not be possible without my co-​author and collaborator Cheryl Claassen. Generous support was provided by the Appalachian State University Center for Academic Excellence Writer’s Retreat.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_012

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antiquity and a world on the cusp of a Christian empire. L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (250–​325 ce) was an African teacher, rhetorician, and Christian apologist who influenced Las Casas both directly and indirectly through his Christian apologia regarding imperial justice and forced conversion in a time of religious persecution. Lactantius was the author of several treatises and a witness to (and probable victim of) the Diocletian persecution of 302–​303. His work, the Divine Institutes, based on Roman law, was quite popular in the early modern period, with more than 1,000 copies in circulation by the mid-​ sixteenth century.2 This chapter explores connections between Las Casas and the fourth-​ century ante-​Nicean father Lactantius. The aim of this study is to demonstrate ways in which Las Casas adapted some rhetorical strategies from Lactantius. As there are only a few direct references in Las Casas’s works to Lactantius, some of Las Casas’s familiarity with Lactantius is demonstrated by an examination of both men’s ideas of religious tolerance, particularly in reference to human sacrifice, the problem of conversion by coercion, and the role of the emperor regarding the governance of religious others in the empire. This project places Las Casas in a historical theological context, pointing to his use of similar rhetorical tactics regarding his audience, and hopes for persuading the Crown to govern with justice and humanity. This exploration will show that Las Casas was familiar with Lactantius but also employed appeals that echo Lactantius when imploring Charles i (v) and Philip ii to deal with the pagans in his realm with justice, patience, and tolerance. The process of this study discusses the views of Lactantius and Las Casas on religious tolerance and the impossibility of conversion by coercion, on comparative religion and the problem of human sacrifice, as well as their ideas about the role of the emperor with respect to religious plurality in the empire. 2

L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius: The Christian Cicero

Lactantius (c.240–​c.320) was a North African from Nicomedia who converted to Christianity. He was a professor of rhetoric—​although he lost his position during the Diocletian persecution, which caused him to abandon Nicomedia around 305 and to move to Trier by 310. There he became a tutor to Constantine’s son Crispus.

2 Peter Gamsey, “Lactantius and Augustine,” in Representations of Empire: Rome and the Mediterranean World, ed. Alan K. Bowman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 200.

228 Ammon Sometimes called the Christian Cicero, Lactantius draws on Cicero’s texts for making his argument for the truth of Christianity. Considered one of Rome’s greatest orators, Cicero (106–​43 bce) understood that religion was an important aspect of the Roman republic and society; however, religion and philosophy were subordinate to politics. Lactantius found a dialogue partner and interlocutor in Cicero, advancing his distinction between superstition and reason.3 Like Cicero, Lactantius wrote to persuade others to discover truth; furthermore, he “acknowledges that the pagan Roman thinker grasped the force and principle of the eternal law of God”—​although Cicero lived before revelation.4 Lactantius so valued Cicero’s refutation of pagan religion that it was a foundational piece of Lactantius’s own apology.5 For Lactantius, Cicero’s “purpose [was] to put eloquence in the service of a moral doctrine,” and in this way Lactantius was both an authority on Cicero and moral doctrine—​as well as his rival—​as he sought to clarify the truth of Christianity for his audience.6 Gábor Kendeffy argued that Lactantius’s dialogue with Cicero both criticized and emulated the Roman’s teaching and rhetorical skill. Both understood that religious rites and practices were important to people and both assumed that the beliefs of educated people had little in common with popular religion. Lactantius’s most famous work, the Divine Institutes—​dedicated to Constantine—​ was a theological treatise designed to teach pagans and Christians the truth about Christianity, as well as a text about the role of a ruler facing the challenges of a religiously diverse society with an imperial religion.7 Elizabeth Digeser described Lactantius’s approach in the Divine Institutes as unique because he was interested not only in convincing philosophers and the emperor to embrace (at the very least) religious tolerance, but in his “eloquent appeal not to scripture but to logical arguments and evidence that all would find persuasive.”8 Lactantius structured the Divine Institutes to demonstrate that all classical poetry, philosophy, mythology, and literature testified to his 3 See Arina Bragova, “Cicero on the Gods and Roman Religious Practices,” Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica 23.2 (n.d.): 303–​313. 4 Gábor Kendeffy, “Lactantius as Christian Cicero, Cicero as Shadow-​like Instructor,” in Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Cicero, ed. William H. F. Altman (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 56–​ 92 (79). 5 Kendeffy, “Lactantius,” 62. 6 Kendeffy, “Lactantius,” 91. 7 For an outline of the Divine Institutes, see Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius & Rome (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000). Significant for this project is the Divine Institutes, book 2, which offers an account of Greco-​Roman culture and argues that polytheism is an error of free will that follows an original monotheism. 8 Digeser, The Making, 9.

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understanding of the basic claims of Christianity.9 As Christianity became not only legal but a significant part of Constantine’s empire, Digeser noted that Lactantius’s work morphed into “a program that inspired Constantine’s religious policy once he achieved sole rule.”10 3

Religious Tolerance and the Impossibility of Conversion by Coercion

Written between his move from Nicomedia and settling in Trier, the Divine Institutes was modeled on Roman law and strongly engaged Greco-​Roman philosophy and one philosopher specifically—​although true to Roman rhetorical style, Lactantius did not divulge his name.11 Lactantius’s focus in the Divine Institutes was to show the difficulties that resulted from forced religious conversion and coerced ritual practices in a multi-​religious society. Lactantius opposed force against religious dissenters; his definition of religion required free will, and while it did occur to Lactantius that Christians might use that same free will to return to Roman religious rites, he argued that “the superiority of Christianity is so manifest that the state should not expect Christians to desert their faith.”12 For him, then, persuasion and logical argument were the keys to religious conversion—​thus ensuring religious perseverance and genuine conversion. Though the Divine Institutes was Christian apologia directed at believers, a primary member of Lactantius’s audience was Constantine. This became clear in the dedication of the second edition of the Divine Institutes completed in Trier around 313: “This work I now commence under the auspices of your name, Constantine, Emperor most great; you were the first of Roman emperors to repudiate falsehood, and first to know and honour the greatness of the one true God.”13 However, Lactantius built a case against a Christian empire and argued that Christian justice and virtue were not to be combined with 9 Digeser, The Making, 12. 10 Digeser, The Making, 13. 11 There is much scholarly discussion about the identity of Lactantius’s primary unnamed philosopher interlocutor. Digeser claims Lactantius was arguing against Porphyry. See Digeser, The Making, 91–​114; See also Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, “Lactantius, Porphyry, and the Debate over Religious Toleration,” The Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998): 129–​146. 12 Digeser, The Making, 111. This is not a perspective Las Casas will share, although he will embrace the idea that coercion will not attain sincere conversions. 13 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, trans. Peter Garnsey and Anthony Bowen (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), book 1, 1:13, p. 59.

230 Ammon imperial power.14 Additionally, Lactantius did not see secular power as a way to inform or mandate religious faith. This was clearly a different context than the one found in Las Casas. There was not yet a Christian empire, and Lactantius would not live to see one. Living through Diocletian’s persecution, losing his position as a professor of rhetoric in Nicomedia because of his Christian faith, Lactantius was not interested in expanding imperial power or using violence to change religious thinking. Instead, his apologia was directed at how Christians might understand justice and how a ruler with non-​Christian and Christian subjects might address his responsibility for the religious practices of all citizens. Coercion was not the answer, nor was violence. Reason was the central component of religious tolerance. Lactantius argued that the root of religious tolerance was found in the “twin arteries” of piety and fairness. Piety was “simply the knowing of God” and fairness was “levelling oneself with everyone else, what Cicero calls ‘equality of ­status’.”15 These two pillars of justice formed the basis of God’s creation of humanity, which had been perverted by artificial divisions of “different grades from poor to rich, from weak to strong, from lay power up to the sublime power of kings.”16 Lactantius suggested that Plato “had dreamt his god but did not know him,” because he said nothing about worshipping God.17 Fairness, the second artery of justice, was based on being equal in status through creation: “God who created human beings and gave them all the breath of life wanted all to be […] equal, and he established the same conditions of life for everyone, creating all to be wise and pledging them all immortality; no one is cut off from God’s celestial benevolence.”18 Here Lactantius was neither proto-​socialist nor utopian; rather, he argued that there could only be justice by recognizing the importance of every person worshipping God who was “the same father to everyone.”19 Fairness was found in the first state of creation; all humans were equal and this knowledge of justice was “found” by Christians through reason, which Lactantius built directly on Cicero’s argument that reason was the root of justice. However, Lactantius clarified that this equality was the manner in which Christians “measure all things human spiritually and not physically, even though our physical conditions differ.”20 14

See Ben David Wayman, “Lactantius’s Power Struggle: A Theological Analysis of the Divine Institutes, Book v,” Political Theology 14.3 (2013): 304–​324. 15 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 14:11–​15b, p. 310. 16 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 14:19, p. 311. 17 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 14:11 and 13, p. 310. 18 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 14:16, p. 310. 19 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 14:16, p. 310. 20 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 15:2, p. 311.

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Lactantius addressed the possibility that the knowledge of God that Christians possessed prompted a new practice of virtue, public policy, and laws, which might lead to “religious tolerance.”21 Thomas Hughson argued that the Divine Institutes had a plan for the transformation of Roman society toward what Lactantius called “equity” through forming a “Christian conscience” in the emperor, although Hughson cautioned against anachronistically seeing contemporary ideas of social justice in Lactantius’s thought. Instead, this amounted to a plea for the relationship between religion and the state—​for Lactantius’s minority religion—​that advocated for social equity and protection of Christians within the empire. Lactantius addressed Constantine regularly throughout the Divine Institutes, particularly through minor additions made after 312, suggesting that perhaps Lactantius was directing his thoughts about policy specifically at a (possibly) newly converted Constantine.22 Hughson concurred with Peter Garnsey’s insight that “a good Emperor for Lactantius is above all one who leaves Christians undisturbed.”23 While Lactantius wrote that Constantine was “the protector of Christianity from the day of his accession in 306,” Lactantius did not indicate whether he saw Constantine as a Christian or not.24 Either way (and perhaps more importantly), he did not see Constantine as a Christian. Instead, Lactantius focused on creating a “Christian consciousness” in the emperor which transcended Constantine as an individual in order to reflect what constituted an ideal ruler—​regardless of the actual individual ruler. For Lactantius, the problem with the Roman imperial demand that Christians follow their practice of “picking three fingers of incense and cast[ing] it on a fire” (a reference to Roman worship practices) to avoid being tortured and killed was that the demand was not based on persuasion or logical argumentation.25 When Christians refused to participate in the rites, the empire resorted to violence. In a moment prescient of Las Casas, Lactantius wrote: Evil intent is presumed to exist in the people who try to keep their faith, and a good intent in their butchers! Is there evil intent in people who

21

Thomas Hughson, S.J., “Social Justice in Lactantius’s Divine Institutes: An Exploration,” in Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for the Twenty-​First Century, ed. Johan Verstraeten, Brian Matts, and Johan Leemans (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press of America, 2011), 185–​205. 22 Hughson, “Social Justice,” 194. 23 Hughson, “Social Justice,” 187. 24 Wayman, “Lactantius’s Power Struggle,” 306, n. 10. 25 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 18:1.12, p. 317.

232 Ammon suffer tortures contrary to all the rights of man and every ordinance of God, or is it in those who do to the bodies of the innocent things not done even by the cruellest of robbers, the angriest of enemies or the most ferocious of barbarians? Do they lie to themselves so much that they cross the words good and bad over and switch their meanings? Why don’t they call day night and sun darkness?26 Lactantius’s central argument emphasized that changing religious practice could only be accomplished by appealing to reason rather than to coercion and violence. This idea also had roots in Cicero, who maintained that humans were connected through their ability to reason. Lactantius argued that coercion would not bring people to the religious rites of the empire. “There is no need for violence and brutality: worship cannot be forced; it is something to be achieved by talk rather than blows, so that there is free will in it.”27 Even more importantly, “truth cannot be partnered with violence, nor justice with cruelty.”28 While Lactantius was arguing that Christianity was ultimately the only true religion, he was simultaneously urging Constantine to show a kind of religious toleration for Christians in the empire. Elizabeth Digeser argued that the Divine Institutes was a policy manifesto in this context—​one advocating a “government under which all his subjects could fully exercise their obligations as citizens.”29 However, Lactantius maintained that this was not possible without justice—​as Las Casas would assert more than 1,000 years later. Parallels between Lactantius and Las Casas on this point are noteworthy. Las Casas laid out guidelines for the ideal missionary in The Only Way (De unico vocationis modo), written in 1530. In this treatise, Las Casas argued that the missionary was a “living example” of Christ who exhibited no desire for wealth or power. Rather, the missionary should only be dedicated to preaching as Jesus did: “preaching a living faith [that] wins the mind with reasons, wins the will gently, by attraction, by graciousness.”30 Although he was in a different position than Lactantius, Las Casas thought carefully about the issue of justice, focusing on how an empire expanded its religion without the use of force and coercion, as he deeply analyzed missionizing and the process of conversion. In Las Casas’s condemnation of force, he echoes Lactantius’s call for reason: 26 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 19:1.6–​8, p. 319. 27 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 19:11, p. 320. 28 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 19:17, p. 321. 29 Digeser, The Making, 13. 30 Bartolomé de las Casas, The Only Way, trans. Helen Rand Parish and Francis Sullivan (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), 71.

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They ought to be ashamed to spread the gospel by means of the mailed fist. People want to be taught, not forced. There is no way for our religion to be taught in a short time to those who are as ignorant of our language as we are of their language and religion, up to the point that those who prudently hold fast [to these beliefs] are convinced by reason. For, as we have said, there is no greater or more arduous step than for an individual to abandon the religion which he has once embraced.31 Las Casas’s hope for peaceful conversion of the Indigenous people was thwarted more than once.32 His plan for a model “reduction” for colonized and unconquered Indigenous people, while never fully realized, was an attempt at implementing a humane approach to conversion and Christianization without force, coercion, or slavery. 4

Lactantius and Las Casas: Comparative Religion and Human Sacrifice

Las Casas’s appropriation of Lactantius’s ideas was more evident in his discussions of human sacrifice. For Lactantius, the ritual practices of Roman religions were the greatest impediment to the practice of justice and religious tolerance. At the forefront was the ritual of sacrifice of human sacrifice. Lactantius, lamenting “the ‘lie of the poets’ who have helped make gods out of men,” decries this sacrifice.33 Poets and priests supported and glorified the rituals that follow the poets’ work—​those that resulted in people believing their stories about humans who were false gods. Lactantius offered a “comparison” of pagan and Christian religion in book 5 of the Divine Institutes. The subheading is “Persuasion is preferable to force and freedom to coercion; pagan and Christian religions compared.”34 The comparative model he developed identified the foundation of all religions as the God of Abraham and Jesus. Lactantius pointed to pagan rituals as precursors to

31

Bartolomé de las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account, trans. Herma Briffault (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 192. 32 David T. Orique, O.P., Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Brief Outline of His Life and Labor, n.d., http://​www.lasca​sas.org/​maniss​ues.htm. Accessed 12/​ 16/​ 19; idem, To Heaven or to Hell: Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Confesionario (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018). 33 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 1, 19:5, p. 102. 34 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 19:11, p. 319.

234 Ammon Christian practice. Similarly, sixteenth-​century missionaries and theologians often repeated this point when they wrestled with the challenges of Indigenous ritual sacrifice. This comparative model was found in the works of Las Casas and those of his contemporaries Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–​1600) and José de Acosta (1540–​1600), as well as in the work of the eighteenth-​century French Jesuit Joseph Lafitau (1681–​1746), Moeurs des sauvages américains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps.35 Lactantius’s comparison began with an examination of religions reported by Greco-​Roman authors, who discussed the practices, virtues, and beliefs, and sought their origins. Lactantius argued that the pagans “do not know the origins of their gods” and were continually drawing others into religious ignorance.36 The origins of their gods were humans. As such, Lactantius argued that it was unwise for humans to worship other humans. While the pagan philosophers called those men “wise,” Lactantius maintained they were fools for rejecting the one true God.37 Lactantius’s discussion of human sacrifice along with what he called “false religion” highlighted what he saw as the hypocrisy of the Romans and the tension between true and false religion. Here he offered what in the sixteenth century would become a well-​rehearsed list of perpetrators of human sacrifice known throughout history—​a list provided by Cicero, Virgil, Livy, and Ovid. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lactantius gave no examples from the Hebrew Scriptures, although Las Casas and other sixteenth-​century comparativists would mention Canaanites, Jebusites, and King Moab.38 The practice of sacrificing humans was “old,” and the root of the problem, Lactantius concluded, was that the origins of the gods were found in people mistaking humans who died for gods.39 This was the locus of Lactantius’s most controversial position in the post-​ Nicene world. For Lactantius, an important piece of God’s design of the world was choice. In order for humans to have free will, God created the opportunity for humans to choose. Here Lactantius argued that “humanity was originally monotheistic before falling into polytheistic error”; they chose the lies of poets over the truth of God.40 That choice was the centerpiece of humans’ distortion 35

See Laura Ammon, Work Useful to Religion and the Humanities: A History of the Comparative Method in the Study of Religion from Las Casas to Tylor, Pickwick Studies in the History of Religions 1 (Eugene: Pickwick Press, 2012). 36 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 19:2, p. 319. 37 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 1:3, p. 281. 38 See Ammon, Work Useful to Religion, 22–​55. 39 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 2, pp. 118–​167. 40 For a more detailed discussion of Lactantius’s analysis of the errors of poets and human free will, see Digeser, The Making, 91–​114.

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of true religion. God was the root of religion, although this had been perverted by people, poets, evil spirits, and even philosophers to entice humans to worship mortals rather than the true God. Digeser called Lactantius’s heretical theodicy “truly original.”41 Evil spirits, Lactantius wrote, were woven into pagan religion and those evil spirits led humans to do terrible and violent things to each other in the name of religion. Lactantius did maintain that evil was created by God in order for humans to have free will. His conclusion that free will was not possible if God did not permit evil would not withstand the development of Catholic doctrine. But this kernel of thought that demons or the devil deceived humans for their own purposes would remain.42 Many sixteenth-​ century thinkers would argue that the devil was mimetic—​seeking to imitate God’s holy sacraments and ceremonies in order to deceive New World peoples and keep them for himself. The greatest challenge to the practice of justice and religious tolerance for both Lactantius and Las Casas pertained clearly to the ritual sacrificial practices of pagan cultures. This was the most obvious connection between Las Casas and Lactantius. Lamenting the “lie of the poets,” who helped make gods out of mortals, Lactantius decried the practice of human sacrifice. Poets and priests supported and glorified the rituals that followed the poets’ work, and resulted in people believing the stories poets tell of humans who were false gods. Las Casas directly quoted the above as well as several other examples from Lactantius’s Divine Institutes book 1 in c­ hapter 34 of the treatise “In the Defense of Indians” found in the Apolgética Historia Sumaria.43 Las Casas concluded that these rituals led to a lack of virtue and to barbarism “so inhuman that they label as sacrifice that foul and detestable crime against the human

41 Digeser, The Making, 14. 42 See Fernando Cervantes, The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). José de Acosta also attributed both antique and New World practices to the devil and understood the devil in the New World to be working in the same manner as he had with the ancients: “[T]‌he devil’s method of deceiving the Indians is the same as that with which he deceived the Greeks and Romans and other ancient unbelievers, through imitation of the sacraments and profaning sacramental practices.” Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002), 259–​260. See also Laura Ammon, “José de Acosta and Bernardino de Sahagun and the Sixteenth-​Century Theology of Sacrifice in New Spain,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 12.3 (2011), 7. 43 Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman, vol. 2 (Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1967), 544–​545.

236 Ammon race.”44 Among all the sixteenth-​century missionaries who attempted to understand and, to a limited extent, to contextualize Indigenous human sacrifice, Lactantius’s catalog of reports of the practice of human sacrifice across cultures throughout antiquity was authoritatively cited. The direct reference to Jupiter Latiaris in Lactantius was “vague enough to encompass” human sacrifice, though for Lactantius it was Roman hypocrisy rather than the specifics of the sacrifice that was the primary issue.45 Las Casas addressed Mexica human sacrifice directly, arguing that God could condemn the Indigenous people for this practice—​as was God’s right, but in the eyes of humanity the Amerindians were simply doing what their culture had supported—​through its laws, rulers, and most learned persons. Las Casas believed that there were as many “wise men” in Indigenous cultures as there were in antiquity, and he argued the Indians “have equalled many diverse races of the past and present, much praised for government, way of life, and customs. And in following the rules of natural reason, they have even surpassed, by not a little, those who were the most prudent of all, such as the Greeks and Romans.”46 Cary J. Nederman argued that Las Casas “proposes that the practice of human sacrifice demonstrates the very humanity of Native societies.”47 As the adherent to a minority religion, Lactantius was less charitable in his assessment of why pagans participated in human sacrifice, focusing on the hypocrisy of the practice for civilized people, where Las Casas instead emphasized it was “the Romans unparalleled reputation for civilization that made their ill-​hidden barbarism all the more reprehensible.”48 A stark difference between Las Casas and antique writers on this issue was that “Las Casas urges his audience to see those who engage in the practice as similar to other peoples, classical writers used human sacrifice as a mark of difference.”49

44 45 46 47 48 49

Lewis Hanke, All Mankind Is One; A Study of the Disputation between Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indians (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974), 223. Glen Carman, “Human Sacrifice and Natural Law in Las Casas’s Apologia,” 25.3 (2016): 278–​ 299 (287). Bartolomé de las Casas, Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Selection of His Writings, ed. and trans. George Sanderlin (New York: Knopf, 1971), 115. Cary J. Nederman, The Bonds of Humanity: Cicero’s Legacies in European Social and Political Thought, ca. 1100–​ca. 1500 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020), Chapter 8, Kindle edition. David A. Lupher, Romans in a New World: Classical Models in Sixteenth-​Century Spanish America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 264. Carman, “Human Sacrifice,” 286.

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Nonetheless, Las Casas shared Lactancius’s general condemnation of pagan worship. Possibly because Las Casas lived in a Christian empire, he had a more moderate stance, relegating the issue of the wise who led people to perpetrate unreasonable rituals to an issue of probable error rather than to poets who lied to lead humans astray. Las Casas used Aristotle’s model of probable error to clarify exactly why the Amerindians could not be held to be less than human for the practice of human sacrifice. Additionally, drawing on Cicero, Las Casas emphasized the role of reason as the feature that connected all humans. “Having narrated the pattern according to which human beings are transformed from bestial to civilized creatures, he asserts the ‘truth’ of this view rests upon the antecedent claim of Cicero that human beings are united—​across all geographical and cultural divides—​by reason.”50 Regardless, ancient customs were not easy to eradicate. Las Casas wrote there was no better way to worship God than sacrifice and that God had commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He understood that there was “no greater nor more arduous step than for a man [sic] to abandon the religion he has once embraced,” and this can only be done through reason, gentleness, and free will.51 Additionally, Las Casas maintained that wars of conquest were a far greater evil than human sacrifice.52 This is a controversial position for Las Casas, as he seemingly defended human sacrifice, the “ritual act […] that aroused the greatest disgust among Europeans who learned of New World religion,” and condemned those who were bringing Christianity by force to Indigenous people.53 Lactantius cogitated that the rationale for human sacrifice was a lack of education that “tips [people] into wicked deeds from ignorance of good.”54 Lactantius recognized as well that there was a cultural influence on ideas that had long been revered and practiced in religion; these would take time and reason to change. Las Casas drew on this analysis of human sacrifice to make the point that, like the Mexica, even the ancients put tradition over reason. Lactantius’s account that “human sacrifice is very ancient” included an account of children sacrificed to Saturn “because of a hatred for Jupiter”; in this, he reiterated the role of tradition over reason in the practice.55 Las Casas agreed about the power of traditions; however, he held the Indigenous people above the ancients with regard to the root of their religious beliefs. For example, Las 50 Nederman, The Bonds of Humanity, Chapter 8. 51 Hanke, All Mankind Is One, 93. 52 Carman, “Human Sacrifice,” 279. 53 Lupher, Romans in a New World, 264. 54 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 1, 21:5, p. 108. 55 Casas, Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Selection of His Writings, 223.

238 Ammon Casas argued that “[t]‌hese Indian peoples surpassed the Greeks and Romans in selecting for their gods, not sinful and criminal men noted for their baseness, but virtuous ones—​to the extent that virtue exists among people who lack the knowledge of true God that is gained by faith.”56 Regardless of their ritual practices, however “‘wise and prudent they may be as philosophers and statesmen,’ because Amerindians have never heard the gospel, ‘their infidelity does not bear the stigma of sin insofar as it consists of not possessing the faith of Jesus Christ’.”57 For Las Casas, Amerindians were in the same category as those pagans who lived before Christ. This made them markedly different from infidels or heretics, such as Muslims and Jews, who reject the word of God. 5

The Role of the Emperor Regarding Religious Plurality in the Empire

Lactantius believed in God’s providence as well as in the coming millennium. This interpretation of prophecy and confidence in providence led him to believe that Constantine would be at least receptive to his work, and possibly he thought or at least hoped that Constantine was already a Christian. He wrote to Constantine: The providence of the most high godhead has promoted you to supreme power so that you can in the trueness of your piety rescind the wicked decrees of others, correct error, provide for the safety of men in your fatherly kindness, and finally remove from public life such evil men as God has ousted with his divine power and has put into your hands, so that all men should be clear what true majesty is.58 He admonished Constantine to adopt piety and protect Christians, writing that God “raised you up to restore the abode of justice and protect the human race.”59 Regardless of whether Lactantius believed that Constantine had

56

Selection from Apologética historia de las Indias (Madrid, 1909), translated for Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946, 1954, 1961). http://​www.colum​bia.edu/​acis/​ets/​CCR​EAD/​lasca​sas.htm accessed July 6, 2019. Interestingly, this passage also testifies to Las Casas’s debt to Lactantius, as there is a clear parallel to Lactantius’s analysis of the Greeks and Romans underlying his own analysis. 57 Ammon, Work Useful to Religion, 36. 58 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 7, 26:10b, p. 439. 59 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 7, 26:10a, p. 439.

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become a Christian, he admonished Constantine to act with the virtues that would best protect Christians within his empire. Lactantius’s reflections on providence go hand in hand with his thoughts on how to live a life of piety at the beginning of the millennium. Through dedication and worship of the one true God, he admonished Constantine and his (pagan) readers that “God will judge and punish those who took his power and abused it without human limit, insulting even God in their arrogance, and subjecting his eternal name to the wicked and godless trampling of their own footsteps.”60 This coming judgment was important for Lactantius, and while he expected the thousand-​year reign soon, he did not anticipate it in his lifetime. Bernard McGinn placed Lactantius’s apocalyptic expectations in a millenarian context that was strongly connected to the Sibylline oracle tradition as well as other pagan texts. This allowed Lactantius to demonstrate “the same [apocalyptic] message had been foretold by seers of all religions.”61 The idea that pagans had at least some nascent knowledge of God was a consistent thread in Christian theology utilized by both Lactantius and later Las Casas. Lactantius’s millennial timeline for the coming end of days was quite convoluted as he calculated the 6,000-​year timeline of prophecy that alluded to biblical prophets and specified antique oracles, but he did not make those connections clearly; his focus remained on the pagan oracles. He wrote: “I have not thought it necessary to set out what [the biblical prophets] say in evidence because it would go on forever; my book could not manage so much material when so many people are saying the same things in the same spirit; and I would not want to bore my readers ….”62 While he did not rehearse biblical passages, he did invoke Seneca and the Sibylline Oracles at length. “The Sibyls,” Lactantius noted, “say openly that Rome will perish, and by the judgement of God, because she held God’s name in hatred and in her hostility to justice slew the people brought up to truth.”63 Additionally, Lactantius splits the Anti-​Christ into two figures: a king who would destroy the Roman Empire and a false teacher.64 Lactantius’s expectation of the coming millennium was 60 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 5, 23:2, p. 329. 61 Bernard McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality: Treatises and Letters of Lactantius, Adso of Montier-​En-​Der, Joachim of Fiore, the Franciscan Spirituals, Savonarola (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 14. 62 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 7, 25:1, p. 437. 63 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 7, 15:18, p. 423. 64 McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality, 23–​25. This is fascinating and a particular trope that gets further developed through the Middle Ages to become prominent at Ferdinand’s court in Spain. See Geraldine McKendrick and Angus MacKay, “Visionaries and Affective Spirituality during the First Half of the Sixteenth Century,” in Cultural Encounters: The

240 Ammon tempered by his hope that Constantine would be able to keep Rome from falling, at least for a while, and possibly avoid some of God’s wrath through the practice of justice, piety, and fairness which would allow for more people to convert to Christianity. The subtitle of book 7 section 15 was “approaching the end of the world, and of Rome,” which Lactantius calculated would occur within 200 years.65 For him, much like the prophets of the Old Testament, the end could be delayed in order that more might be persuaded to worship God if the emperor was willing to act with justice. This gave Lactantius’s admonition a prophetic timbre that would be amplified and transposed in Las Casas. Las Casas pinned his hopes for justice for the Indigenous peoples of New World first on Charles v and later on Philip ii. Yet, underlying that hope was an anticipation of Christ’s return. Las Casas’s millennial expectations were also tempered by what David Orique has clarified as Las Casas’s “prophetic mission to seek justice.”66 Like those prophets, Las Casas also predicted dire consequences for those who would disregard the divine will. Anthony Pagden argued that Las Casas deliberately reinforced a connection between the Muslim invasion of Spain in 711 and the Christian destruction of the Americas in A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, fearing that the atrocities of the Spaniards in the New World threatened to destroy civilization.67 Las Casas wrote Spain was destroyed once by Moors …. And it is rather to be believed that this was because of the sins of all of the people for the harm and evil they had done to their neighbors. And now we have heard many say, “Pray to God that he does not destroy Spain for the many evils which we have heard are committed in the Indies.”68

Impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the New World, ed. Mary Elizabeth Perry and Anne J. Cruz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 93–​104. 65 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 7, 25:1, p. 437. 66 David T. Orique, O.P., “Journey to the Headwaters: Bartolomé de Las Casas in a Comparative Context,” The Catholic Historical Review 95.1 (2009): 1–​24 (10). 67 The use of the term “destruction in the title of the Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies is an implicit reference to an earlier destruction of Spain, and to the Arab invasion of 711.” Bartolomé de las Casas, Las Casas on Columbus: Background and the Second and Fourth Voyages, ed. Nigel Griffin and Luciano Formisano, introduction by Anthony Pagden, trans. Nigel Griffin, Repertorium Columbianum Series 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 12. 68 Casas, Las Casas on Columbus, 12–​13.

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In prophetic style, Las Casas held Spaniards responsible for the revolts in southern Spain and for the success of Muslim attacks on shipping along coastal areas of Spain, suggesting it was God’s displeasure over the callous lack of Christian behavior displayed by Spaniards in the New World. Las Casas did not expect Christ’s immediate triumphant return; yet, he did believe that God’s providence had set the millennium in motion. Las Casas’s thinking here pivoted on the point of Columbus’s destiny regarding the discovery of the Amerindians. Edmundo O’Gorman contextualized Las Casas’s texts in the discourse about the “discovery” of America within the early modern debate about millennialism.69 God had chosen Columbus to open the world, to bring the Indians into history and into the kingdom of God. This meant the Spanish crown had been providentially chosen by God to bring salvation to the Amerindians.70 Other religious orders at the time of contact, conquest, and colonization, such as the Franciscans, saw the providential role of the Spanish conquest and conversion of the Indigenous people as the key tasks necessary for the realization of the divine return.71 There were millennial and apocalyptic expectations at play at court throughout the sixteenth century connected to the New World, which also focused on Jerusalem and the Reconquest.72 Despite these movements, Las Casas’s theological orientation remained prophetic rather than apocalyptic, although for Las Casas the timeline was in motion, and without significant change, the judgment might well go badly for the Spanish.73 Thus, he advocated that the crown would find a way to protect the new subjects in his realm in order to help bring them into Christendom. With appropriate actions, God’s wrath might be averted. Just as Lactantius had hoped for a just emperor to lead the world through treacherous times, this plea was echoed by Las Casas with a slightly different emphasis:

69

“The only truly decisive point [about the discovery of America] was that Columbus had opened the way to lands inhabited by people in urgent need of God’s word, so that they might have the opportunity and benefit of the holy sacraments before the world came to an end, an event that Las Casas believed was imminent.” Edmundo O’Gorman, The Invention of America: An Inquiry into the Historical Nature of the New World and the Meaning of Its History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961), 21. 70 Casas, Las Casas on Columbus, 9. 71 Frank Graziano, The Millennial New World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 16–​88. 72 See Patrick J. O’Banion, “What Has Iberia to Do with Jerusalem? Crusade and the Spanish Route to the Holy Land in the Twelfth Century,” Journal of Medieval History 34.4 (2008): 383–​395. 73 Orique, “Journey to the Headwaters,” 10–​11.

242 Ammon I have great hope that our Emperor Charles V will harken to and comprehend the evils and betrayals that afflict the land and its peoples, against the will of God and against the will of his Majesty, deeds still being perpetrated, because until now the truth had industriously been concealed, and it is my hope that His Majesty will abolish the evils and remedy the conditions in the New World that God has entrusted to him, as the lover and motivator of justice that he is, and may God protect his glorious and felicitous life and the Imperial state that God has given him to heal the universal church.74 Divine providence established the way to win converts: through reason and free will. It was now up to the emperor to follow that path and thus avoid divine judgment.75 6

Conclusion

Lactantius and Las Casas were men of their particular time: they engaged the reality they confronted. Impelled by an anticipated but still distant understanding of the coming return of Christ, they spoke their truth to power. They both recognized that the immediate tool of power was coercion; they both tried with all their rhetorical skill to turn their respective emperors away from that temptation and to embrace the higher path of reason instead. One way that Las Casas utilized all the tools of the Christian tradition to shape his arguments for the rights of the Indigenous people was through his use of Lactantius, paralleling a Christian plea for tolerance and reason within their respective empires. In the Christian struggle with empire, both wrestled with the rights and responsibilities of rulers for the conquered—​as minority subjects in the Roman Empire and as wielders of imperial power in the Spanish empire. The research of this chapter suggests that Lactantius led the way for Las Casas, as Las Casas would lead the way for the abolitionists, liberation theologians, and modern human rights activists.76 This particular 74 Casas, The Devastation of the Indies, 140. 75 Casas, The Only Way, 68; see also Obed Lira, “Wonder and the Ethics of Proximity in Las Casas’s Apologética Historia Sumaria,” Hispanic Review 87.3 (2019): 309–​331. 76 For a more extensive discussion of Las Casas’s arguments for abolition, see David T. Orique, O.P., “A Comparison of the Voices of Spanish Bartolomé de las Casas and the Portuguese Fernando Oliveira on Just War and Slavery,” E-​Journal of Portuguese History 12.1 (2014): 87–​ 117, https://​www.brown.edu/​Depa​rtme​nts/​Portu​gues​e_​Br​azil​ian_​Stud​ies/​ejph/​html/​issu​ e23/​html/​v12n1​a04.html. Accessed July 18, 2020; For Las Casas’s connections to human

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volume explores many of Las Casas’s contributions (and flaws) that continue to be discovered and studied today, thereby opening the historical theological legacy that Las Casas drew upon in his rhetorical style and tactics to persuade the crown to govern with justice and humanity. rights and liberation theology, see Gustavo Gutiérrez, Las Casas, In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ (Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1993). For some speculation about why Las Casas’s work is not more extensively translated, see Christopher Schmidt-​Nowara, The Conquest of History: Spanish Colonialism and National Histories in the Nineteenth Century (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006).

­c hapter 11

Reason and the Monstrous: Las Casas’s Appeal to the imago dei Timothy A. McCallister Not without reason, the 1511 Advent sermon that Antonio de Montesinos preached in Santo Domingo on the text “Ego vox clamantis in deserto” (John 1:23) has become a familiar inflexion point for historians of Bartolomé de las Casas and for the sixteenth-​century debates over the ethics of New World conquest. The Domnican friar’s homily was the first publicly known polemic of outrage over the treatment of the New World Indigenous peoples, and would become a catalyst that set Las Casas on the path from secular cleric and encomendero to Dominican firebrand, who would weaponize his order’s theology in order to bring the encomienda to an end. In the heat of Montesinos’s indictment, amid denunciations of the assembled Spanish elites for their starvation, exploitation, and enslavement of the Indigenous people of Hispaniola, the priest appealed to his flock with two rhetorical questions: “Are these not humans? Do they not have rational souls?”1 In this Dominican’s logic, the ontological status of the Taino slaves as human beings with rational souls justified their liberation from bondage and demanded peaceful treatment. Here Montesinos paid homage to an intuition that has guided Western thinkers from their earliest speculations onward. His argument presupposes that ethics follows from ontology—​that the realm of ought follows from the realm of is. Among his other rebukes, Montesinos cited his congregants’ failure to obey Christ’s commands to love and to seek to evangelize all people.2 But his two rhetorical questions about the Taino people are the only ontological claims, and, when taken at face value, neither is peculiarly Christian. The category of human being is too obvious to demand a special provenance, and his attention to the “rational souls” of humans as their most salient feature traces its origin not to any Christian teaching but to Aristotle.3 It is true that Montesinos 1 Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, ed. André Saint-​Lu, vol. 3 (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1986), 14. 2 Casas, Historia de las Indias, 3:13–​14. 3 See Aristotle, De anima, trans. and ed. Christopher Shields (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), xxxix–​xliii, 55–​61, and 292–​303.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_013

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inherited this belief through a series of Christian custodians, most significantly, his Dominican confrere, Thomas Aquinas, who developed an anthropology far more comprehensive than the repetition of this single insight. But it would not be unfair to Aquinas to say that in his philosophy, just as in Aristotle’s pre-​ Christian philosophy, the rational soul is definitional to the human being. Whereas Aquinas went beyond Aristotle in his ontology, Father Montesinos, in his 1511 Advent sermon, did not follow him. For Aquinas, part of what it means to exist as a human is to have been created in the image and likeness of God—​a belief shared by the three Abrahamic religions but foreign to Aristotle and pre-​Christian Greek philosophy. Las Casas, a studious Thomist, invokes the imago dei as a characteristic of the Indigenous peoples that he considers relevant to his argument on how the New World peoples should be treated. Tight pairings of ontological and ethical claims like Montesinos’s—​with or without an invocation of the imago dei—​are scattered throughout Las Casas’s writings, often with the same cast of prophetic indignity. From these, there is much to glean in understanding Las Casas’s worldview. But it is in his voluminous ethnographic treatise, the Apologética historia sumaria, that Las Casas develops his understanding of the image of God and, with it, his anthropology, most fully. This chapter attempts to clarify Las Casas’s theology of the human person and to consider its implications in his polemic. As I hope to show, Las Casas’s effort to ground an expansive set of natural rights in a scholastic conception of the human as rational being leaves little room for uniquely Christian categories of anthropology and creates tensions that are ultimately unresolvable. 1

The imago dei in Thomism

The doctrine of the imago dei is as old as the book of Genesis. It appears for the first time in the creation account: Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created humans in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.4 4 Genesis 1:26–​27 (nrsv).

246 McCallister Perhaps no more than a single reading is necessary for the reader to notice that these verses give no guidance about what the image of God means. While the key terms “image” and “likeness” circulate among two other foundational characteristics of God’s creation of the first humans, their dominion over the natural order and their creation as male and female, the text does not compel a logical relationship. Additional passages in the Bible cast an indirect light on the meaning of these terms, but none gives an outright definition.5 The Bible’s elliptical presentation of the image and likeness of God—​as a quality that all humans share, has given latitude to theologians to rely on other interpretive frames of reference through which to view the imago dei. Aquinas’s understanding of the image and likeness of God is a microcosm of his grand synthesis of Aristotelian and biblical teachings. In Thomistic theology, the imago dei and similitudo dei are distinct but overlapping terms—​a relationship that Aquinas explained by making use of Aristotle’s taxonomy of genus and species. All living things bear the likeness of God—​the similitudo dei. For a thing to exist and be alive, it must participate in being—​an existence it derives from and has in common with God, the divine essence.6 However, humans are like God in an additional way. Aquinas accepted Aristotle’s teaching that movement is an essential trait of a soul, such that to be a living thing is to possess a soul. But of all earthly creation, humans alone can take the undifferentiated particulars they observed and abstract them into universals with some degree of correspondence to their actual forms. Aquinas, faithful to Aristotle, called this capacity intellectus and the soul with this capacity the intellective soul or anima intellectiva.7 In his Christian cast on the Aristotelian concept, Aquinas posited that the possession of the anima intellectiva enabled humans to know God, and if to know God, then to love and glorify God. The uniqueness of humans among living things in their capacity to know God allowed Aquinas to map the biblical term imago dei onto the concept of intellective soul inherited from pre-​Christian Greek philosophy.8 5

These include Genesis 9:6 and James 3:9. For an exegesis, see Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Carlisle and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 16–​20. 6 Aquinas, S.th. i 93.2 and i 93.9. John O’Callaghan, “Imago Dei: A Test Case for St. Thomas’s Augustinianism,” in Aquinas the Augustinian, ed. Michael Dauphinais, Matthew Levering, and Barry David (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 128–​129. 7 Aquinas, S.th. i 76.1. 8 Aquinas, S.th. i 93.9. Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: A Guide and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 127–​130. This presentation of the imago dei in Thomism leaves off Aquinas’s teachings on the subject that do not seem to play a role in Lascasian thought. Among these is Aquinas’s teleological account of the imago dei. See Servais Pinckaers, “Aquinas on the Dignity of the Human Person,” in The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, ed. John Berkman and Craig Steven

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The Summa Theologiae established the nature of soul and body prior to its consideration of humans as made in the image and likeness of God. Aquinas had already determined that the human soul is subsistent but incorporeal; it has no material cause—​that is, no physical extension in space, which implies that its efficient cause must also be immaterial.9 In Aristotelian metaphysics, only the immaterial can give rise to the immaterial. With the knowledge from divine revelation that humans possess a characteristic linking them to God called the imago dei, it became almost irresistible in Aquinas’s system to identify the imago dei as the one unique characteristic that God and humans have in common: the faculty of understanding.10 In Aquinas’s scholastic theology, right understanding encompasses the knowledge of that which promotes happiness—​the habits categorized as intellectual and moral virtues.11 In humans’ ability to understand the things of this world and put them to productive use, those within the walls of the Church have no advantage over those on the outside. All peoples have the potential within themselves to create flourishing civilizations—​a foundational insight in the theology and anthropology of Bartolomé de las Casas. 2

The imago dei in the Apologética historia sumaria

When the doctrine of the imago dei first surfaces in the Apologética historia sumaria, it is prefaced by the Thomistic commitment to the universal integrity of human understanding. Over scores of pages, Las Casas has documented that the New World Indigenous peoples are both constituted to exercise understanding, and in fact do so. He likewise shows that European civilizations had modest beginnings and were sometimes no less barbaric than the maligned “heathens” of the Americas, but—​through instruction—​they were able to overcome their deficiencies. Summarizing examples from both sides of the Atlantic and from antiquity to the present, he writes: it appears beyond doubt that there was no nation of people on earth—​ however primitive or uneducated, however rustic, barbaric, coarse, wild, unruly, or near savage they may be—​who do not have the natural light Titus, trans. Mary Thomas Noble and Craig Steven Titus (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 157–​159. 9 Aquinas, S. th. i 75.2. 10 Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, 147–​148. 11 Aquinas, S. th. ii–​i 3.4, ii–​i 57–​58. Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, 193–​195.

248 McCallister of understanding intact and the rational faculty common to one and all that led to acts of unclouded understanding. For all were endowed with the gift of having been created in the image and likeness of God and were given free will.12 The invocation of the rational nature guaranteed by the imago dei places Las Casas squarely within the confines of Thomistic anthropology. It also has the paradoxical effect of strengthening his commitment to the importance of nurture as necessary to create and build civilizations. There is nothing inherent in the European culture or people that leads to the embrace of the institution of marriage, the construction of hospitals and orphanages, or the impartial administration of justice. Civilization can thrive in the New World as in the Old because people on both sides of the Atlantic are in essence identical. In the Apologética, Las Casas makes a sustained argument replete with examples to defend the advanced nature of many New World civilizations. In those places where observers might find New World cultures lacking, Las Casas does not trace the problem to generic inferiority but to a lack of good teachers. “No one is born educated,” he observes.13 To overcome any perceived deficiencies in

12

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“claramente parece que no hay naciones en el mundo por rudas e incultas, silvestres, bárbaras y grosera[s]‌y fieras o bravas o cuasi brutales que sean, que no tengan la lumbre de los entendimientos enteras, y la razón que discurre en uno y otro para producir sus actos de entender cierta, como todas sean dotadas por ser criadas al imagen y semejanza de Dios, de libre albedrío ….” Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman, vol. 1 (Mexico: unam, 1967), 3:48:259, n. 9 (For ease of reference across multiple editions of the Apologética historia sumaria, all citations use the following format, book: chapter: page. The book designated is according to Las Casas’s manuscript, not the volume of O’Gorman’s edition in which the passage appears). O’Gorman, without explanation, presents this paragraph of Las Casas’s manuscript as a footnote. One can guess that he considered the paragraph a substantial repeat of the one that follows it, which begins in the same way (“From these ancient and modern examples it appears beyond doubt …”) and cycles through the same adjectives of barbarity. The difference is that the first paragraph climaxes with the assertion that humans are made in the image of God as reasonable creatures. The second paragraph climaxes with the assertion that because humans are made in the image of God as reasonable creatures, “they can be persuaded, guided, and reconciled to the dictates of order and good government, be domesticated and made gentle and tractable.” In other words, Las Casas makes abundantly clear, with parallel structures linked by the sentence modifier of inference “therefore” (“y por consiguiente”), that his argument about what the Indigenous peoples can do follows from his ontological claim about who they are as God’s creation. It is regrettable that O’Gorman’s editorial decision obscures this logical relationship. “ninguno nace enseñado.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:258.

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New World civilizations, Europeans could rely on a good faith appeal to the shared intellectus of their counterparts. Because Las Casas believes, as Aquinas before him, that the imago dei supposes universal human rationality, he has great optimism regarding the power of instruction. However, he is aware that—​depending on the pupil—​ instruction can have its limits. It might be the case that humans generally can exercise the understanding necessary to be civilized and that no group of people is by its nature immune from persuasion to embrace social order; however, there are individuals who show an insuperable impediment to learning. Las Casas anticipates this objection to his argument and, as a competent rhetorician, takes it on directly. “What I have written is not contradicted by the fact that we will sometimes find a simpleton (“hombre mentecato”), inept and incapable of instruction.”14 It is not clear on the face of his opening description what degree of separation from healthy rational exercise Las Casas has in mind. Covarrubias defined mentecato simply as “falto de juicio,” but in early modern Spanish usage the term mentecato or mentecapto could take on a range of meanings depending on context.15 Readers of Golden Age Spanish literature will most likely be familiar with mentecato as an epithet, a term of derision addressed directly to another character. Don Quixote rebukes Sancho in this way for leading the two of them to a dead-​end alley in search of Dulcinea’s castle: “The curse of God on you for a blockhead [“mentecato”]! […] Where have you ever heard of castles and royal palaces being built in alleys without an outlet?”16 In moments of less tension, mentecato could describe someone who has acted foolishly, but without the direct address or scornful tone. Las Casas himself uses mentecato consistently with this second shade of meaning when he alludes to the myth of the titan Epimetheus, who, unlike his brother Prometheus, lacked foresight and so had no gifts to give to the newly created humans and animals.17 There is a third way that mentecato was used in early modern Spanish, and this usage differed from the other two in the scope and severity of the person’s 14 15 16 17

“A lo dicho no contradice que alguna vez acaece que vemos algún hombre mentecato, inhábil e incapaz de doctrina.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259. Sebastián Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (Madrid: Luis Sánchez, 1611), fol. 546v. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, ed. Kenneth Douglas and Joseph Ramon Jones, trans. John Ormsby (New York: Norton, 1981), 469. “Ésta [Pandora] envió Júpiter a la tierra para que tuviese oficio de engañar los hombres, y fue dada por mujer a Epimeteo, mentecapto, hermano de Prometeo, etc.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:109:579.

250 McCallister failure to exercise rational understanding. This kind of mentecato was not one who simply engaged in foolish acts, for which a term like necio would be a suitable synonym, but one who, from birth or following a traumatic event, was unable to carry on basic life functions because of cognitive impairment.18 Aquinas recognized a degree of intellectual impairment that was so severe as to render the individual excused from the attribution of a venial or mortal sin should that person commit an act of fornication. He categorized the kind of person with this level of impairment as “furiosi vel amentis”—​a phrase that came down to early modern Spanish as “furioso y mentecato” and served as a catch-​all term for one who was insane or incompetent.19 The designation of a person as mentecato—​in the sense of incompetent—​had political as well as theological implications. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo wrote of Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, who was deemed unfit to inherit the duchy of Medina Sidonia because he was recognized to be “mentecapto.”20 Alonso Pérez de Guzmán’s impotence was a second factor in the decision to withhold from him his inheritance, a condition not uncommonly associated with this kind of mentecato. Again, the Apologética sheds light on the usage of the term. Las Casas follows Aristotle’s theory that those who engage in sexual intercourse while intoxicated

18

The helpful distinction between mentecato and necio comes from Juan de Arce Otárola (c.1550), Coloquio de Palatino y Pinciano, ed. José Luis Ocasar Ariza (Madrid: Turner, 1995), 68: “A este propósito dijeron algunos filósofos, y Eneas Silvio entrellos, que era menos mal que el rey fuese totalmente loco o mentecapto, que no necio o mal entendido, porque siendo enteramente falto de juicio no se gobierna el reino por él, sino por varones sabios y prudentes; pero siendo mal entendido, gobierna por su mal entendimiento, en perjuicio de todos.” The author sets off “mentecapto,” glossed as “enteramente falto de juicio,” against “necio o mal entendido” to contrast what these two degrees of cognitive impairment imply for the rule of a kingdom. A king who is “mentecapto” can be deprived of the exercise of government, whereas there is no recourse for a kingdom governed by one who is “necio o mal entendido.” This example and subsequent examples of the early modern Spanish usage of mentecato come from the Corpus Diacrónico del Español (corde), http://​cor​pus .rae.es/​corde​net.html, accessed August 1, 2020. 19 Aquinas, S. th. ii–​i 88.6 r. 2; “… y se publicaba que los que le seguían procuraban que se hiciese curador de la persona del rey don Pedro su primo, diciendo que era furioso y mentecapto.” Casas, Apologética, 3:98:512: “en esto parece Nabucodonosor haber diferido de otros, en que totalmente perdió el uso de razón y fue hecho furioso y mentecato.” Jerónimo Zurita, Anales de la corona de Aragón, Primera parte, ed. Ángel Canellas López (Zaragoza: csic, 1967), 259. 20 “E como era mentecapto suçedió en sus días en la casa [del] Ducado de Medina Sidonia el Duque don Johan Alonso de Guzmán, que al presente tiene aquel estado.” Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Batallas y quinquagenas, ed. Juan Bautista Avalle-​Arce (Salamanca: Diputación de Salamanca, 1989), 251.

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risk producing offspring who are incompetent (“mentecapto”) and impotent, children with ill-​proportioned bodies and disordered habits.21 In summary, the words mentecato or mentecapto could—​depending on context—​connote a range of meanings in early modern Spanish, from an insult for one’s foolishness to a severe and persistent state of cognitive impairment. From Las Casas’s opening description of the hombre mentecato in his discussion of the imago dei, it seems that he has in mind a persistent state of cognitive impairment. This is a person categorically incapable of instruction. The degree of impairment, however, is not apparent without additional context to clarify. The critical evidence comes later in the paragraph when Las Casas further categorizes the kind of person he is describing as a “monster of rational nature or the human species”—​a designation that narrows the category considerably.22 Consistent with an understanding of marvelous phenomena that goes back to antiquity, monsters in the natural world were dramatic deviations from the normal course of things.23 Sixteenth-​century catalogs of monstrous human births included giants, dwarfs, hermaphrodites, human-​animal hybrids, and people born with excess or missing limbs.24 Monsters of nature were inherently rare and easy to identify. As an analog to the hombre mentecato, Las Casas offers the example of an animal with two heads or six legs, a marvel of creation that occurs “very rarely” (“rarísimamente”). By his estimation, there should be no more than one person among a hundred thousand “incapable of instruction and submission to law, order, and governance.”25 The identification of the hombre mentecato as a monster of nature is sufficient in itself to suggest that Las Casas is circumscribing a class of people with a severe cognitive impairment, those whom medical professionals would today diagnose with an intellectual disability or intellectual development disorder.26 In Las Casas’s 21

22 23 24 25 26

“… y, por tanto, como mentecapto es inhábil para concebir e engendrar; porque verisímile cosa es que las criaturas que engendraren los tales nazcan de desiguales complixiones, instábiles y vanos, torcidos en los miembros como en las costumbres desordenados.” Casas, ahs (1967), 2:36:185. “… monstruo en la naturaleza racional o especie humana.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259. The most thorough account of monsters and the marvelous in medieval and early modern thought is Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–​1750 (New York: Zone Books, 1997), especially 48–​57 and 173–​214. Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 192. “… por esta manera y mucho más raras veces vemos y podemos ver un hombre mentecapto entre cient mill que no sea capaz de doctrina y de ser puesto debajo de ley y orden y regimento.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259. The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (dsm-​ 5) authorizes the terms intellectual disability and intellectual developmental disorder for people with deficits in intellectual and adaptive functioning that become manifest during

252 McCallister understanding, those who are incapable of instruction belong to a tiny subset of the population, with cognitive difficulties as drastically different from the norm as the drastic physical differences between a two-​headed sheep and the rest of the flock. In the case of the hombre mentecato, Las Casas faced an urgent need to account for this category of person in a way that did not contradict his high view of the human as a rational being whose capacity for understanding was God’s unique ontological stamp on the species. The threat to his anthropology was twofold. The more pressing threat was that the existence of an hombre mentecato somewhere raised the specter of whole cultures of people incapacitated from the full use of their reason. Las Casas could assert outright that the hombre mentecato was a rarity, but without support grounded in the theology and natural philosophy of his day, he risked undermining his earlier conclusion that humans, wherever they were, were essentially alike. One of Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda’s tactics during the 1550–​1551 Junta of Valladolid was to point to the supposed intellectual inferiority of the indios as evidence of their barbarity, a legal classification used to justify Spanish conquest.27 The second challenge that the hombre mentecato posed threatened holy ground. The imago dei is by definition a work of the Creator God. If the image of God guarantees the ability to reason, then the existence of someone incapable of instruction and the process of civilization might seem at first blush to imply a defect in the imago dei. This possibility opens the divine artificer to charges of defective workmanship—​a charge that might undermine the very notion of divine beneficence, wisdom, providence—​in short, divine perfection itself. Las Casas summarily fends off any threat to the integrity of the imago dei and the character of God. The existence of the hombre mentecato “is on account of an error of nature,” which we should read as distinguishing this error from any shortcoming on God’s part.28 This defense might seem counterintuitive since Las Casas would undoubtedly accept the Thomistic teaching that the intellective soul is the result of God’s special act of creation—​the immaterial ­producing the immaterial; however, Las Casas is able to apply a Thomistic understanding of knowledge formation to draw a careful net of

27 28

the developmental period. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (Arlington: American Psychiatric Association, 2013), 33. Lewis Hanke, Estudios sobre fray Bartolomé de las Casas y sobre la lucha por la justicia en la conquista española de América (Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, Ediciones de la Biblioteca, 1968), 315–​317. “… es por error de naturaleza.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259.

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protection around the soul as created, in contrast to the psychosomatic unity that develops in the womb. Following Aristotle over Plato, Aquinas rejected the notion that humans came into existence with any preconceived knowledge. This means that all knowledge, apart from the divine revelation of the Christian faith, is purely natural.29 In Thomism, knowledge begins as impressions that are made upon one or more of the five external senses. These are transmitted to the intellect and processed by the intellect’s four interior senses: common sense, imagination or fantasy, the estimative sense, and memory.30 An oversight mechanism called the agent intellect coordinates the work of the interior senses to abstract an intelligible form from sensory impressions.31 Though knowledge formation is, in Thomistic terms, a natural process, the passage of sensory impressions from body to soul implies a passage from the corporeal to the incorporeal.32 Almost all of these ideas are present in Las Casas’s discussion of the monstrous and the image of God. Following his first invocation of the imago dei, Las Casas writes that “all humans possess their five exterior senses and their four interior senses, and are moved by the same objects presented to them; all have an innate principle and foundation by which to understand and learn and come to true knowledge of what is unknown.”33 As he explains, even the hombre mentecato possesses his exterior and interior senses. The problem is that “the constellations and other natural forces were not in alignment when such a body was conceived, and because of this defect, the powers of that soul are stunted as long as it is housed in the flesh, for it cannot make use of its powers to produce reasonable works.”34 The force of Las Casas’s explanation is in locating the defect solely within the body, which allows him to maintain 29

Jason T. Eberl, The Routledge Guidebook to Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (New York: Routledge, 2015), 101. 30 Aquinas, S. th. i 78.4. 31 Eberl, Routledge Guidebook, 102–​103. 32 Aquinas, S. th. i 84.7–​8. Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, 135–​136. 33 “… todos los hombres tienen sus cinco sentidos exteriores y sus cuatro interiores, y se mueven por los mismos objetos dellos; todos tienen los principios naturales o simientes para entender y para aprender y saber las ciencias y cosas que no saben.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:258. Earlier in the Apologética, Las Casas describes the work of the agent intellect (“el entendimiento que llaman agente”) and speculates that in children and the intellectually disabled the agent intellect does not communicate freely with the interior senses. Casas, ahs (1967), 2:26:134, 3:40:212. 34 “no convinieron concertadamente las constelaciones y causas naturales cuando aquel cuerpo se engendraba, y por aquella falta están impedidas las potencias de aquel ánima mientras estuviere dentro de las carnes, que no puede usar dellas para producir obras razonables.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259.

254 McCallister that the intellective soul, which bears the divine image, remains untouched. Not only does Las Casas confine impairments in the ability to reason to the material realm, he erects a further safeguard to the divine character and the divine image by describing the pathology of cognitive impairment in entirely naturalistic terms. The alleged cause of the condition, a misalignment of the stars at the time of conception, is a natural phenomenon. His explanation of the mechanism by which the constellations damage the body of the fetus is not entirely clear. He seems to suggest that the stars impaired the formation of phantasms (“fantasmas”), corporeal images of sense impressions that are projected onto the interior senses.35 In any event, once the hombre mentecato dies, his soul is free of the bodily impairments that have hampered the function of his rational soul.36 There is no longer any earthly limit to the imago dei’s ability to form knowledge and exercise right understanding. With this pathology of cognitive impairment, Las Casas adds plausibility to his argument that the New World is not rife with those unable to learn and to be civilized. The misalignment of stars should not be a greater concern in the Americas, since Europeans should expect to find the hombre mentecato with the same low frequency on both sides of the Atlantic. In earlier chapters of the Apologética, Las Casas has made a painstaking case that the physical environment of the New World—​topography, natural resources, and climate—​is ideal for the cultivation of human intellect, which buttresses his argument that their numbers would be small. 3

The Dignity of the imago dei

In Las Casas’s final attempt to dismiss the impact that the hombre mentecato has on his claim of universal human rationality, he returns to the imago dei as evidence of God’s special providential relationship with his human creations. Although there are monstrous births among humans and animals 35

The inference can be drawn from Las Casas’s accompanying statement on the nature of knowledge formation: “como mientras el ánima está en el cuerpo no podamos entender sin volvernos sobre las imágines de las cosas, que decimos fantasmas.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259. Las Casas states elsewhere in the Apologética that he takes phantasms to be corporeal in nature. Casas, ahs (1967), 2:26:136. Scholars are divided as to the nature and purpose of phantasms in Thomism. A recent account understands phantasms to be the effects of sense data that are created in the inner sensorium. Anthony J. Lisska, Aquinas’s Theory of Perception: An Analytic Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 299–​328. 36 Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259.

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alike, he stipulates that those defects among humans are rarer than in other creatures—​a disparity that he attributes to the “particular care” (“más singular cuidado”) of divine providence for the human species.37 God governs the creatures in his likeness “on their behalf, or for their proper ennamely, their well-​being,” while he governs creatures not made in his likeness for the benefit of his image-​bearers.38 In one sense, this line of reasoning amounts to an awkward attempt to harmonize the order of grace and the order of nature—​more broadly, to reconcile the biblical category of providence with the Aristotelian category of the intellective soul. Las Casas can make a fair argument within the strictures of Thomism that imperfections of reason are strictly natural phenomena that result from bodily affliction. But if the imago dei supposes a providential blessing that inheres in human nature, then the argument that its work is of marginal, rather than absolute, benefit inadvertently undercuts divine plenitude. Las Casas, at some level, seems to be aware of this tension. Only two of the three claims circulating in the background—​the existence of the hombre mentecato; an omnipotent, omniscient, and infinitely good God; and God’s unwillingness to let nature deform his image-​bearers—​can be true at a time. Not surprisingly, it is the third claim that gives way to the others. Las Casas restates categorically that divine providence did not suffer “nature to err in making monsters of so excellent a race of creatures”—​but, he follows his bold claim with the qualification, “at least, this occurs on a much rarer basis than with the others.”39 With this caveat, Las Casas effectively wraps the hombre mentecato in the folds of divine inscrutability. Perhaps of greater consequence to the history of ideas is the appearance of the word “dignity” among the overlapping appeals to providence as a guarantee that the hombre mentecato is rare in the New World. Las Casas argues that since rational creatures are formed in the image and likeness of God, they possess “a dignity and excellence over all other creatures,” which demands preferential treatment in the created order.40 The Spanish construction is awkward, but it 37 Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259. 38 “… por sí mismas o para sí mismas, conviene a saber, para provecho de sí mismas.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259. 39 “Luego no parece que la Divina Providencia quiere permitir que la naturaleza yerre haciendo monstruos en la especie de tan excelentes criaturas, tanto si no mucho menos más raras veces que en las demás.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259. 40 In the original, there is an ungrammatical substitution of subjects in the subordinate clause headed by “because” (“porque”): “La razón de aquestos monstruos en la especie humana puedan acaecer muchas más raras veces que en las otras cosas naturales, es porque las creaturas racionales, como sean formadas a la imagen y semejanza de Dios, su dignidad y excelencia sobre las otras criaturas no parece que sufre que la naturaleza sea con ella

256 McCallister is clear enough that human “dignity and excellence” is so formidable a force for Las Casas that it can be personified in opposition to nature and empowered to disdain any inclination that nature might have to give the human species substandard care. Las Casas, of course, would have been unaware that the term “dignity” has come to be a central point of debate in human rights discourse. There seems to be no consensus about what dignity means, what it has meant over time and, even if any meaning could be agreed upon, whether it is a useful basis for human rights.41 While Lascasian thought will not settle any of these disagreements, there are a few tentative observations to be made. The most basic is that Las Casas uses the word dignity in a way that is consistent across his writings and with the time in which he lived. When Las Casas writes of dignity, he does so in reference to the elevated rank of an individual or group. A form of the Spanish dignidad or the Latin dignitas make regular appearances in his writings, often paired with “status” or “preeminence,” or, as here, “excellence.”42 In this vein of thought, dignity can connote a range of related meanings, whether the honor that inhered in the rank, the honor due the rank, or the majestic bearing of those who possessed the rank.43 Las Casas’s dignity discourse is most consonant with the first two usages. His writings presuppose that a certain measure of esteem or of value is attached to a status or office, with the implication that there is a hierarchy, or sliding scale, of dignities. In Historia de las Indias, for instance, the king of Portugal balked at Christopher Columbus’s offer to cross the Atlantic Ocean under his kingdom’s flag because Columbus demanded “such great concessions, so much dignity,

41

42

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menos o tanto, sino mucho más diligente que con las otras cosas inferiores a no errar, y así evite más en ellas los monstruos que en todas las demás.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:259. Las Casas makes essentially the same argument in Historia de las Indias, that the dignity of human nature keeps the number of people born with cognitive impairments to a minimum, although in that text he leaves out mention of the imago dei altogether. Casas, Historia de las Indias, 3:552–​553. Michael Rosen, Dignity: Its History and Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 1–​8. For the full spectrum of recent scholarly approaches to human dignity, see Christopher McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, Proceedings of the British Academy 192 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). For example, of the Spanish king’s subjects: “de cualquier estado y condición, preeminencia y dignidad que sean.” Casas, Historia de las Indias, 102; of Indigenous royalty: “el señorío y dignidad y preeminencia real”; Bartolomé de las Casas, Tratados de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela y Bueso, vol. 1 (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1965), 473. Jeremy Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights, ed. Meir Dan-​Cohen and Jeremy Waldron (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 21–​22.

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and such preeminence” as were beyond the king’s willingness to provide.44 In this example, the relative value that attaches to dignity allows it to become commoditized. Both Columbus and the king of Portugal understood that noble titles confer social prestige; the point of disagreement was over their value in a barter for services. The notion of dignity as rank is clearly present in Las Casas’s argument that the imago dei entails a dignity that renders cognitive impairments uncommon. He does not write of human dignity in itself, but of human dignity as compared to the lesser dignity of the lesser creatures—​an indication that he has in mind a hierarchy. Historians of philosophy like Jeremy Waldron have puzzled over how a notion of dignity as rank, the honor due a particular office or social class, could have evolved into the modern notion of dignity as the basis for human rights, a conceptualization that is irrespective of hierarchies. Article 1 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights succinctly encapsulates the modern egalitarian view: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”45 The declaration establishes human dignity without respect to any other beings and asserts that it is a quality that all humans possess in equal measure, which accompanies claims to freedom and a related set of rights. Waldron’s theory proposes that our modern notion of dignity is still a dignity of rank, but that the rank has been leveled up—​such that now every person is due an honorable treatment by virtue of membership in the human race.46 Las Casas gives some credence to this theory. A writer who reflexively employs the term dignity elsewhere to describe an honored office applies the same term when the argument calls for the praise of an honored species. The expanded and elevated notion of rank provides a plausible historical framework for a high view of humanity, but it is not sufficient to explain the moral imperatives drawn today from the dignity category, which an advocate like Waldron is quick to admit. A notion of dignity based on rank is still a measure of relative value, which allows this dignity—​like Columbus’s coveted titles—​to be subject to negotiation. Another strain of modern dignity discourse, perhaps the dominant strain, provides a more secure foundation for human rights. In this view, dignity is never relative and therefore never 44 45 46

“tan grandes mercedes, tanta dignidad y preeminencias.” Casas, Historia de las Indias, 1:153. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations, last modified October 6, 2015, https://​www.un.org/​en/​univer​sal-​decl​arat​ion-​human-​rig​hts/​index.html. “Transvaluation” is the term that Waldron uses to describe the process by which dignity of rank has been expanded to include all people in equal measure. Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights, 31–​32.

258 McCallister subjected to negotiation because dignity supposes an absolute worth. Humans are not simply the most excellent species—​a noble class of creatures who are due individually and collectively rights to freedom, justice, and humane treatment. They are of incomparable value, without any reference point in the universe.47 Las Casas does not hold up the dignity of the imago dei as the foundation for any moral claims, particularly as a basis for natural rights. This fact is easy to overlook, first, since Las Casas was the most vociferous exponent of natural rights during the age of New World conquest and a pioneer in bringing natural rights to the center of public policy debates.48 The passage of time further clouds our vision. Since the mid-​twentieth century, the concepts of dignity, the imago dei, and natural rights have formed an unbreakable chain in Catholic and Protestant ethics. To mention one is to imply the other two. The signal example in this regard is the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae. Pope John Paul ii’s defense of natural rights—​with an eye to vulnerable groups, such as the disabled—​builds on the basis that the imago dei supposes a morally meaningful dignity.49 It is in striking contrast to Christian ethics of recent decades that Las Casas invokes in the imago dei and its attendant dignity—​not to plead for the humane treatment of the disabled but to assure his readers that their numbers are few. Where dignity does crop up in a Lascasian appeal to natural rights, it takes its accustomed place as a subset of individuals in the larger category of humans and plays no role in establishing those rights. Instead, Las Casas wishes to make the point that natural rights exist independently of the characteristics that differentiate human beings. Thus, he can advocate that the New World Indigenous peoples be treated equally, regardless of “sex, age, status, or

47 Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights, 27–​30. Debes refers to this understanding of dignity as the “moralized” concept of dignity. Remy Debes, “Introduction,” in Dignity: A History, ed. Remy Debes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 1–​3. 48 Brian Tierney, “The Idea of Natural Rights–​Origins and Persistence,” Northwestern Journal of International Human Rights 2.2 (2004), http://​schol​arly​comm​ons.law.north​west​ern .edu/​njihr/​vol2/​iss1/​2. 49 “God has granted to man a dignity which is near to divine (Ps 8:5–​6). In every child which is born and in every person who lives or dies we see the image of God’s glory.” God’s commandments suppose “an absolute value for human freedom” and “[make] clear that the choice of certain ways of acting is radically incompatible with the love of God and with the dignity of the person created in his image.” Pope John Paul ii, “Evangelium Vitae,” https://​w2.vati​can.va/​cont​ent/​john-​paul-​ii/​en/​ency​clic​als/​docume​nts/​hf_​jp-​ii_​enc_​2503​ 1995​_​eva​ngel​ium-​vitae.html, accessed October 30, 2019.

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dignity,” and his use of language is perfectly consistent with his worldview.50 His argument decouples a moral claim that applies to all Indigenous peoples as human beings, a call to egalitarian treatment, from the degrees of honor that they would otherwise be due in their various stations and offices. The historical ascendance of the absolute worth notion of dignity likely benefited from Kant’s concept of Würde, but there were gestures toward it well before Kant, including in Aquinas.51 The possibility that an understanding of dignity as absolute worth could arise from Christian teaching should not be difficult to see, since in any Christian theology that holds the imago dei to survive the fall, there is a universal point of contact between God—​the ultimate and infinite standard of value—​and every human that is inherent in human existence. Sacred worth encompasses but goes beyond absolute worth since it grounds a moral valuation in an ontological reality. Where there is an ontological ground in Las Casas’s writings for natural rights, it is not in the imago dei but in human rationality. “God did not make one person slave to another,” he writes in a typical passage, “but to all he gave the same free will; and the reason is that a rational creature is never subordinate to another, such as a man to another man.”52 The informed reader may infer that rationality is the capacity guaranteed by the imago dei, but the connection is not explicit. Even if Las Casas were to have spelled out the link between the imago dei and rationality in an argument for natural rights, he would still be holding these rights at arm’s length from the image of God. In other words, natural rights cannot reach their grounding in the image of God in Lascasian thought without first passing through the belief in the rational capacity. It is this notion of the rational capacity as gatekeeper to the imago dei that ultimately keeps Las Casas from a full-​throated commitment to human sacred worth. 50 51 52

“sin hacer diferencia de sexo ni de edad, ni de estado o dignidad.” Casas, Historia de las Indias, 1:16. On Kant, see Rosen, Dignity, 19–​31. For a defense of a dignity of sacred worth in Aquinas, see Pinckaers, “Aquinas on the Dignity of the Human Person,” and James Hanvey, “Dignity, Person, and Imago Trinitatis” in McCrudden, Understanding Human Dignity, 209–​228. Bartolomé de las Casas, Tratados de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela y Bueso, vol. 2 (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1965), 1249–​1251, quoted in Ramón-​Jesús Queraltó Moreno, El pensamiento filosófico-​político de Bartolomé de las Casas (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-​Americanos, 1976), 100–​101. Queraltó Moreno states that Las Casas’s argument for liberty is grounded in humanity’s creation in the likeness of God, who is the paragon of freedom. (“El ser humano es libre por naturaleza, y este carácter le viene dado porque ha sido creado a semejanza de Dios que es la suma libertad.”); however, none of the Lascasian texts he adduces establishes this connection. Queraltó Moreno, El pensamiento filosófico-​político, 100.

260 McCallister 4

Las Casas and the Margins of Humanity

Las Casas’s treatment of the imago dei in the Apologética bears out David Gushee’s observation that “a ‘capacities’ rendering of the divine image has proven vulnerable, and not just to the problem of setting up a persistent human-​over-​animals dichotomy. Its vulnerability has resurfaced whenever claims about the supposed intellectual, spiritual, or moral incapacity of individuals or groups have been made.”53 As should be evident from Las Casas’s discussion of the hombre mentecato, he has difficulty articulating rationality in a way that encompasses all of humanity. His approach might be scientific (in the late medieval sense), but his tone is apologetic—​as if those with cognitive impairments are not to be explained, but explained away. In a philosophical system that defines humanity as the capacity to exercise a certain threshold of intellectual activity, his defense that those who do not meet that threshold are rare is really no defense at all. Medieval writings on anomalous births and the exotic Plinian peoples imagined beyond the fringes of European contact took the human status of these people as very much an open question.54 Regardless of how medieval thinkers ultimately decided on the question of humanity, they relied on a common set of terms for what constituted a human—​all of which were centered around the question of rational exercise. With the dawn of European exploration and conquest in the New World, the debate lost some of its fantastic proportions, but the analytical tools did not change.55 Las Casas might have been vociferous in his defense of the humanity of the New World peoples, but his reliance on the same medieval calculus of rationality all but guaranteed that his defense would expose its own weaknesses. By undermining the universality of human rationality, Las Casas ends up undermining his conception of what it means to be human.56 When Las Casas argues 53 54 55 56

David P. Gushee, “A Christian Theological Account of Human Worth,” in McCrudden, Understanding Human Dignity, 275–​288 (279). John Block Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 184–​196. Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 173–​177. The humanity of the New World Indigenous peoples was not assumed in sixteenth-​ century European thought. Pope Paul iii in his 1537 encyclical Sublimis Dei found it necessary to state unequivocally that “the Indians are truly men,” which he justifies on account that the Indigenous peoples possess the capacity for understanding. Pope Paul iii, “Sublimus Dei,” Papal Encyclicals Online, https://​www.papal​ency​clic​als.net/​pau​l03/​ p3su​bli.htm, accessed October 30, 2019. Epithets in Sepúlveda’s writings like “homunculi in whom one barely finds a vestige of humanity” and “hominid slaves of nature” approach an open denial of humanity. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, “Democrates alter, sive de justis belli caussis apud Indos,” ed. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Boletín de la Real Academia

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that the imago dei supposes a dignity that generally inoculates humans from mental defects, we are left wondering whether the hombre mentecato lacks the “dignity and excellence” that he ascribes to humans at large. Notions of dignity and humanity, and with them any rights that might follow, come to depend on fact-​based showings of rational exercise. Las Casas effectively allows the debate over the treatment of the New World Indigenous peoples to be driven by evidence collected in European encounters across the Atlantic rather than a deductive theological framework that would be impervious to anecdotes. Recent debates over Las Casas’s anthropology have approached his understanding of humanity from a different perspective. Scholars like Cristián Roa-​ de-​la-​Carrera and Daniel Castro have called into question the legitimacy and sincerity of Las Casas’s arguments that New and Old World peoples are fundamentally equal.57 There is a plausible argument to be made that Las Casas conceived of the Indigenous peoples of the New World as a single ethnic group within the larger category of human beings. The chapters of the Apologética that follow the opening treatment of the geography and climate of the New World go to show that the natural features of the New World have been propitious for the development of people who are not only reasonable in every way but also docile and of genial dispositions. These latter two qualities have captured the interest of Roa-​de-​la-​Carrera, who suggests that Las Casas in effect posits a race of people ripe to be subordinated, the indios, over against the race of people uniquely suited to subordinate them, the Europeans or Spaniards.58 In the context of his invocation of the imago dei, Las Casas affirms that Europeans and the New World Indigenous peoples, understood as arising from a common creator and bearing a common birthmark, turn out to be more alike than different. They are siblings who might not resemble each other at first glance until closer inspection shows the unmistakable signs of a common paternity. He writes that “there is but one lineage of men and in their creation and their nature, all are men alike.”59 His endorsement of the imago dei as the basis of a common humanity would seem to run counter to Roa-​de-​ la-​Carrera’s two-​race theory and instead give support to the view espoused by

57

58 59

de la Historia 21 (1892): 259–​369 (309). Mariano Delgado, “Bartolomé de Las Casas y las culturas amerindias,” Anthropos 102.1 (2007): 91–​97 (94). Cristián Roa-​de-​la-​Carrera, “El ‘Indio’ como categoría antropológica en la ‘Apologética Historia Sumaria’ de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas,” Confluencia 25.2 (2010): 81–​93 (86–​ 88); Daniel Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007). Roa-​de-​la-​Carrera, “El ‘Indio’ como categoría antropológica,” 86. “Así que todo linaje de los hombres es uno, y todos los hombres cuanto a su creación y a las cosas naturales son semejantes.” Casas, ahs (1967), 3:48:258.

262 McCallister Rolena Adorno—​that in Lascasian anthropology “[o]‌therness, with respect to the Amerindian, does not exist. Alterity in its modern philosophical sense was an impossibility in the theological world of sixteenth-​century Spain.”60 Roa-​de-​la-​Carrera accepts that the category of indio in Lascasian thought depends on the accidents of place rather than the essence of the people who live there.61 Stated differently, there is no ontological grounding for Las Casas’s category of indio. However one might criticize the subservience of the imago dei to rationality in Las Casas’s anthropology, the claims that he makes go squarely to the question of human essence. In Thomistic theology, God is “per se the pure act of being,” the essence from whom all creatures derive their existence.62 When Las Casas casts the rational capacity of humans as the divine image that all bear, he is grounding his definition of humans in the most secure ontological foundation conceivable in his philosophical system. The two-​race view of Lascasian anthropology has staying power in part because Las Casas fails to make the most of a Christian ontology unalloyed to Aristotle. The very scarcity of the imago dei in the Apologética and in Las Casas’s output in general undercuts its significance as a central characteristic in the Dominican’s conception of the human. The most generous quotes in the imago dei section of the Apologética are not from the Bible or the Church Fathers but from Cicero. The imago dei does not function in isolation as a sufficient grounding for claims about human value, but is instead part of the rhetorical accumulation layered over the central claim of the reasoning human. Scattered comments in other Lascasian writings press the image of God beyond its limits as a synonym for understanding, and these come closer to a theology of the imago dei that is uniquely Christian and of universal application. In the Brevísima relación, after recounting a particularly savage series of Spanish atrocities against the Indigenous peoples of Mexico, Las Casas summarizes: “These examples should suffice to give some idea of the brutality of the Spanish throughout this territory, of how far God has given them over to a reprobate mind, and of the attitude they take towards a local people created in God’s image and redeemed by His blood.”63 In a similar vein, in Unico

60 61 62 63

Rolena Adorno, Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 5. Roa-​de-​la-​Carrera, “El ‘Indio’ como categoría antropológica,” 84. D. Juvenal Merriell, “Trinitarian Anthropology,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Peter Wawrykow (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 126. Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Nigel Griffin (London and New York: Penguin, 1992), 74.

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modo vocationis, Las Casas indicts Spanish colonists for “their lust for power over foreign kingdoms—​that is to say, over the vast number of souls made in God’s image. Many weak souls are thus damned because of the unholy, the damned soul of the brutal warrior, the weak souls Christ the Son of God died to save.”64 In both of these examples, Las Casas declines to equate the imago dei with Aristotle’s conception of the human as an essentially rational creature. Instead, he associates the image of God—​and we can be no more definite than to note an association—​with the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. It is noteworthy that these arguments emerge in contexts where Las Casas is writing foremost as a missionary and not as an anthropologist or ethnographer. Ideas that are peculiarly Christian displace the dominant Aristotelian stream in his Thomistic anthropology, which allow him to come very close to the expression of human sacred worth.65 This alternative valuation of the human vanishes as soon as it appears, which is one reason that it would not be sufficient to answer the critics who see in Las Casas a two-​tiered anthropology of Europeans and indios. Another is that in the capacious definition of imperialism that prevail among these scholars, the peaceable attempt to persuade a person to abandon one religion and embrace a new one is itself a hallmark of the imperialist enterprise.66 Yet when untethered from the idea that human essence is anima intellectiva, Las Casas is capable of providing an antidote to what he considers to be problematic about the hombre mentecato, and by extension any people who do not meet European standards of civilizational achievement. His appeal to humans as objects of Christ’s sacrificial love succeeds in ascribing value to all human life without recourse to fact-​based showings of rational exercise and does so in a way that harmonizes with his Catholic worldview. With the imago dei equated to intellectus, as long as there is one hombre mentecato among a hundred thousand—​Las Casas’s guess at their frequency—​there is a challenge to his anthropology that requires an answer.67 64

Bartolomé de las Casas, The Only Way, ed. Helen Rand Parish, trans. Francis Sullivan (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1992), 162. 65 Thomism or Renaissance humanism could certainly have led Las Casas to these ideas. These readings of Christian anthropology are not central or unique to any contemporary way of thinking, so it is as likely that they arose in Las Casas’s own reflections on his faith. On the view that Las Casas might have been exposed to humanistic thought, see Mauricio Beuchot, Los fundamentos de los derechos humanos en Bartolomé de las Casas (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1994), 143–​148. 66 “Despite the contradictions in proselytism, many of the Dominican’s admirers still view this vocation as virtuous and worthy of praise instead of as an act of ecclesiastic imperialism.” Castro, Another Face of Empire, 6. 67 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:259.

pa rt 4 Bartolomé de las Casas and Early Modern Philosophy

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­c hapter 12

Hospitality or Property? The Natural Right of Communication and the “New World” Natsuko Matsumori 1

The Encounter with “Barbarians”

Today, with the advance of globalization, early modern thinkers are attracting more scholarly attention, especially those engaged in the affairs of the Indies, such as members of the School of Salamanca and Bartolomé de las Casas, who seemingly provided ideological foundations for the process of globalization.1 In fact, during this early modern period European expansion brought about encounters among various regions and stimulated the development of cross-​ border thinking.2 As a result, early modern Europeans needed to elaborate on the idea of a common legal order that included not only the “old barbarians,” such as Muslims—​who, according to some Europeans, accepted despotism

1 This chapter’s author uses original primary and secondary sources unless otherwise indicated. When English translations are available, their page numbers are shown after those of the originals, but because of the difference in the editions used, all translations are the author’s. Biblical citations are from The New American Bible, edited by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Terms such as “Indies” and “Indians” constitute historical terminology, although today both terms are considered inaccurate and sometimes derogatory. See Natsuko Matsumori, The School of Salamanca in the Affairs of the Indies: Barbarism and Political Order (London: Routledge, 2019), 33 n. 1 and 34 n. 11. 2 Certainly, in medieval Europe, people also moved for various reasons, such as war, persecution, begging, pilgrimage, crusades, missionary work, diplomacy, studies, and trade, but most movements were in and around the world of “Christendom.” See Marianne O’Doherty and Felicitas Schmieder, eds., Travels and Mobilities in the Middle Ages: From the Atlantic to the Black Sea (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Aristotle and Ptolemy were reevaluated and travel increased both on land and by sea. Nevertheless, the “ecumene” continued to refer generally to present-​day Europe and to a small part of Asia and Africa. Other regions were imagined to contain monsters and fantastic societies. This situation drastically changed after the fifteenth century. See Evelyn Edson, The World Map, 1300–​1492: The Persistence of Tradition and Transformation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007); and Boies Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1420–​1620 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_014

268 Matsumori despite their high level of civilization—​but also the “new barbarians,” such as the Indians—​who for some seemed to even lack rational capacity.3 In the course of elaborating this idea of a common legal order, one of the main issues was the law of nations (ius gentium), which was regarded as a set of universal rules established by agreement among peoples.4 In fact, based on this law, Vitoria argued that the Spanish domination of the Indians might be a legitimate consequence of their rights to transit and to propagate Christianity, as well as of their obligations to protect converts, Christians, innocents, and allies. Among these duties was included the obligation of responding to Indian requests to be recognized as subjects of the Spanish crown.5 Vitoria’s disciples critically followed this argument and offered ideological bases for the Indian policies of the Spanish monarchs.6 The right of free passage, or communication, is worth closer examination. This right allows everyone to transit, trade, and migrate everywhere. The permission, however, comes with a proviso: as long as it does not harm others. Thus, the right of communication is prescribed as a natural right with a condition. This right played an important role in the development of cross-​ border thinking because theoretically, it provides the foundation for the free

3 Regarding images of “barbarians,” this author broadly classifies them into two categories. One category indicates cultural difference: for example, Aristotle’s “Asians” (those who accept despotic rule), Las Casas’s second meaning of barbarian (those who have no letters and speak different languages), and Las Casas’s fourth meaning of barbarian (non-​Christians). Another category indicates supposed human inferiority: for example, Aristotle’s “primitive people” (who lack political society), Las Casas’s first meaning of barbarian (those who lost reason by accident), and Las Casas’s third meaning of barbarian (those who lack reason by nature). Matsumori, The School, 54–​63 and 95–​100. 4 For more on Las Casas’s understanding of humanitarianism and just war, see the following chapters: Claus Dierksmeier, “Globalization Ethics in the Sixteenth Century? Why We Should Re-​read Francisco de Vitoria,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David T. Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 197–​217; Daniel R. Brunstetter, “Las Casas and the Concept of Just War,” in Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., 243–​259; and Víctor Zorrilla, “Just War in Las Casas’s Tratado de las doce dudas,” in Orique and Roldán-​Figueroa, Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., 243–​259. 5 Francisco de Vitoria, De indis in Relectio de indis o libertad de los indios, ed. L. Pereña et al. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1967), 76–​96, trans. 277–​290. 6 Melchor Cano, De dominio indorum in De bello contra insulanos: intervención de España en América, ed. L. Pereña et al. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1982), 579–​580; and Diego de Covarrubias y Leiva, De iustitia belli adversus indos in Relectio de iure belli o paz dinámica, ed. L. Pereña et al. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1981), 359–​363.

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movement of people and goods, as well as for nonintervention and protectionism. In other words, the right of communication, which is often linked with the concept of hospitality, guarantees the free movement of people and goods. In contrast, when the influx of both seems to harm the domestic order and to threaten the right of property, free movement can be limited and, in this case, the right of communication becomes the theoretical ground for nonintervention and protectionism. This chapter examines the tension between the concepts of hospitality and of property as addressed by European thinkers who speculated about the legal order encompassing the “New World.” Furthermore, this examination demonstrates that the natural right of communication could provide a common ground for both positive and negative attitudes toward globalization. Frequently, modern discussions about international hospitality are said to have started with Vitoria and continued with natural law theorists, such as Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, Emmerich de Vattel, and Immanuel Kant.7 However, before Pufendorf and Vattel, heated discussions had already taken place when the disciples of Vitoria and Las Casas made implicit criticisms of Vitoria’s arguments about the natural right of communication. Las Casas’s significance in relation to the discourses on communication and hospitality has been relatively ignored by scholars—​a lacuna addressed in this chapter.8

7 Gideon Baker, “Right of Entry or Right of Refusal? Hospitality in the Law of Nature and Nations,” Review of International Relations 37.3 (2011): 1423–​1455; and Georg Cavallar, The Rights of Strangers: Theories of International Hospitality, the Global Community, and Political Justice Since Vitoria (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 8 For example, Annabel S. Brett, Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), and Baker’s “Right” do not mention Las Casas in this context. Mauricio Beuchot, La querella de la conquista: una polémica del siglo xvi (Madrid: Siglo xxi, 1992), 56, offers several lines insisting that Las Casas defended the Spanish right of communication in the Indies—​free migration and trade, and cultural and ideological exchange (missionary work)—​although no one would deny that he was a champion of the Indians’ rights. Manuel María Martínez, “Las Casas–​Vitoria y la bula ‘sublimis Deus,’” Estudios sobre Fray Bartolomé de las Casas 24 (1974): 34–​35; Cavallar, The Rights, 2; and Beatriz Salamanca, “Early Modern Controversies of Mobility within the Spanish Empire: Francisco de Vitoria and the Peaceful Right to Travel,” Tropos 3.1 (2015): 17. These contemporary scholars use a few lines to describe Las Casas’s thought in order to show Vitoria’s concept of communication or hospitality is more compulsory than Las Casas’s. This chapter analyzes Las Casas’s contribution in more detail to the discourses on communication and hospitality.

270 Matsumori 2

Vitoria in the Discourses on Communication and Hospitality

Vitoria is regarded as a source of the modern discourse on communication and hospitality. According to Vitoria, the law of nations permits all people to go, stay, and trade wherever they desire. This law also permits the use of common things and of the things that belong to no one, as well as permits their becoming citizens—​if they were born locally.9 In all these cases, Vitoria added the proviso: as long as they do not harm others. He reasoned: “Ambassadors are inviolable in the law of nations. Spaniards are the ambassadors of Christians. Therefore, the barbarians are obliged at least to kindly hear them and not to expel them.”10 Based on this assumption, if the Indians do not permit the Spaniards to exercise those actions and respond to them with force, then Spaniards can defend themselves and take action to protect their own security.11 Furthermore, Spaniards are also permitted to wage war, occupy cities, deprive goods, enslave Indians, and depose Native rulers in response to their hostile actions.12 If the Indians prohibit Spaniards from fulfilling the rights and duties under the law of nations, they cause injury to them. Thus, it could be said that the Indians themselves caused their own conquest. In these arguments about the right of communication, Vitoria did not directly mention that the Indians could exercise the same rights as Spaniards. However, his theory of communication should be considered reciprocal because he regarded the Indians as equal legal subjects. In fact, Vitoria said clearly that Spaniards could not possess the lands of the Indies under the right of discovery—​just as the Indians could not possess the lands of Spain even if they had discovered them.13 According to this right of discovery, in Vitoria’s theoretical arguments, the Indians had the same right of communication in Spain, although practically they could hardly exercise it. Vitoria’s arguments are often considered as the origin of the idea of a modern universal society based on common rules—​such as the right of communication—​or are considered as the earliest ideological origin of modern international hospitality—​which leads to Kant.14 Nevertheless, as is often 9 Vitoria, De indis, 77–​83, trans. 278–​281. See also Matsumori, The School, 132–​166. 10 Vitoria, De indis, 86, trans. 283. 11 Vitoria, De indis, 83–​85, trans. 281–​283. 12 Vitoria, De indis, 85, trans. 283. 13 Vitoria, De indis, 54, trans. 265. 14 For the former interpretation, see Anthony Pagden, “Introduction: Francisco de Vitoria and the Origins of the Modern Global Order,” in At the Origins of Modernity: Francisco de Vitoria and the Discovery of International Law, ed. José María Beneyto and Justo Corti Varela (Cham: Springer, 2017), 1–​17; and Pablo Zapatero, “Legal Imagination in Vitoria: The

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pointed out, the natural right of communication was not Vitoria’s invention.15 Rather, he developed it by building on the traditional concept of hospitality, which was inherited from ancient times. Today, the word “hospitality” is generally used to mean acts of warm reception in service industries, which offer, for example, accommodations, food and drink, health care, and welfare. Etymologically, the concept is much broader and derives from the Latin word hospitalitas (“hospitality”), which means the warm reception of a stranger (hostis) by a host (hospes). According to Émile Benveniste, hospes originated from *hosti-​pet-​s (“a host who welcomes a guest”).16 He argued that the concept of hospitality was originally based on the social system of gift and exchange, and inferred the reception of strangers to one’s own house, as well as provision of their protection. Furthermore, he asserted that since hospes meant both “host” and “guest,” the concept of hospitality assumed reciprocity. In addition, as hostis meant both “stranger” and “enemy,” this concept contained a sense of hostility, which could provoke the feeling that strangers were not welcome. In terms of historical practices, various cultures commonly offered food, clothing, and shelter to visitors as well as the convenience of transit and lodging to merchants. Kevin D. O’Gorman suggested that these acts were already recorded in “Ancient Near East texts,” which date back to around 3500 bc.17 Hans Conrad Peyer, René Schérer, and Kunio Yanagida determined the existence of similar practices and of a general view of hospitality in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania.18

15 16

17 18

Power of Ideas,” Journal of the History of International Law 11.2 (2009): 221–​271. For the latter interpretation, see Cavallar, The Rights; and Baker, “Right.” Anthony Pagden, “Human Rights, Natural Rights, and Europe’s Imperial Legacy,” Political Theory 31.2 (2003): 171–​199; Pagden, “Introduction”; and Cavallar, The Rights. Émile Benveniste, Indo-​European Language and Society, trans. Elizabeth Palmer (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1973), 5–​7. The following sentences in this paragraph are also from Benveniste’s text. The descriptions that follow Benveniste are found in Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2000), 3–​74; and in Kevin D. O’Gorman, “Dimensions of Hospitality: Exploring Ancient and Classical Origins,” in Hospitality: A Social Lens, ed. Conrad Lashley et al. (Oxford: Elsevier, 2007), 17–​18. Following the conventional usage, an asterisk is added to the theoretically reconstructed word. Kevin D. O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism (Mesa: Goodfellow Publishers Limited, 2010), 3–​6. Hans Conrad Peyer, Von der Gastfreundschaft zum Gasthaus, Studien zur Gastlichkeit im Mittelalter, trans. Takao Iwai, Ijinkantai no rekisi: chūseiyōroppa ni okeru kyakujinkōgū, izakaya, sosite yadoya (Tokyo: Harvest, 1997), 1–​8; René Schérer, Zeus hospitalier, trans. Keiji Yasukawa, Kantai no yūtopia: kantaishin reisan (Tokyo: Gendaikikakushitsu, 1996), 15–​49; and Kunio Yanagida, Tōno monogatari (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2016).

272 Matsumori The oldest European descriptions of hospitality are found in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Homeric Hymns. They described reciprocal and successive customs of domestic hospitality among families.19 These Greek customs of hospitality were also written by thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle.20 These were followed by the Romans, as evidenced in the texts of Virgil and Livy.21 Today’s researchers often consider that the continuous friendships among rulers contributed to the emergence of asylum practices and to the custom of granting diplomatic immunity.22 In this process, the disparity between a warm reception in one’s house (the upper classes) and the business hospitality in taverns and inns (the lower classes) widened. In addition to the Greek and Roman traditions, in medieval Christendom—​which also inherited the Germanic culture—​similar customs were extended, especially to pilgrims, merchants, and intellectuals.23 Cosmopolitanism (as developed by sophists and stoics) and the idea of a universal community (as developed in Christian doctrine) served as philosophical backdrops for these ancient and medieval practices of hospitality. For example, Hippias, Diogenes, Antiphon, and Anaxagoras envisioned a community larger than a polis.24 Similarly, Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Seneca, and

19 Benveniste, Indo-​European Language, 5–​7; Peyer, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 1–​8; and Steve Reece, The Stranger’s Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of the Homeric Hospitality Scene (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993). [Homer,] The Iliad, trans. A. T. Murray, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 1:408–​443 and 2:586–​ 615; The Odyssey, trans. A. T. Murray, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1910), 1:10–​27, 69–​143, and 320–​321; and Diane J. Rayor trans., The Homeric Hymns (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 2 (Hymn to Demeter) and 5 (Hymn to Aphrodite). 20 Plato, Timaeus, trans. R. G. Bury, Plato, vol. ix, 1–​253 (London: William Heinemann, 1929), 1; Euripides, Medea of Euripides, trans. Gilbert Murray (2011), 613; and Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, trans. F. G. Kenyon, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2:2347–​2345. 21 Virgil, Aeneidos, in P. Vergili Maronis Opera, ed. R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 120; and Livy, Ab urbe condita libri, trans. R. Conway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914–​1929), ii 14 and v 13. 22 O’Gorman, “Dimensions,” 17–​ 18; Peyer, Von der Gastfreundschaft, 7–​ 8; and Rüdiger Wolfrum, ed., The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, vol. iv (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 871–​873. 23 Peyer, Von der Gastfreundschaft. 24 Plato, Protagoras in Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), 337D; Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, ed. James Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 63; Jacob Viner, The Role of Providence in the Social Order (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1972), 27–​54; and Cavallar, The Rights, 13–​74.

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Marcus Aurelius stated definitely that all things of the universe should observe a natural common law.25 Under these influences, Ulpian, Gaius, and Cicero further theorized the concept of natural law.26 References in the Old and New Testaments also contributed to the nascent Christian idea of universal community.27 Augustine, Gratian, and Aquinas also further developed these ideas as part of natural law theory.28 Consequently, all these ancient and medieval thoughts became common sources of the idea of hospitality based on the existence of a certain universal order beyond various political communities. Vitoria based his theory of communication on these ancient and medieval hospitality theories. Indeed, he cited the following to justify free transit and trade, which were generally regarded as acts permitted in the context of hospitality:29

institutes:



virgil:

25

“Those rules prescribed by natural reason for all men […] are called the law of nations.”30 “What kind of men (is) this? Or what country is so barbarous as it permits this custom? We are prohibited from hospitality at the seashore […].”31

Diogenes Laertius, Lives, 86–​89, 128, and 138–​143; Seneca, Epistula 48, 3, 66, 71, 94, and 122 in Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, ed. Richard M. Gummere, 3 vols. (London: William Heinemann, 1918–​1925), 1:314–​315; 2:235, 72–​95; and 3:10–​59, 410–​423; and Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, in Marcus Aurelius, ed C. R. Haines (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1916). 26 P. Krueger, ed., Corpus iuris civilis (Dublin: Apud Weidmannos, 1872), ji. 1. 2. 6, D. 1. 1. 1, D. 1. 2. 9; Cicero, De officiis, ed. Walter Miler (London: William Heinemann, 1913), 11–​14; and Cicero, De legibus, ed. C. W. Keyes (London: William Heinemann, 1928), 42–​46. 27 Leviticus 19:15–​18, John 15:12–​13, Acts 2:44–​47, Romans 12:3–​21, 1 Corinthians 12:25–​27, and 1 Peter 4:8–​11. 28 Augustine, De libero arbitrio, ed. Victorino Capánaga, Obras Completas, vol. 3 (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2009); Decretum Gratiani, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. Emil Friedberg, 2 vols., reprint (Graz: Verlagsanstalt, 1959), 1:2; and Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ed. Francisco Barbado Viejo et al., Suma teológica, 16 vols. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1950–​1964), 6:127–​131. 29 Vitoria, De indis, 77–​81, trans. 278–​280. 30 Krueger, Corpus, ji. 1. 2. 1. Vitoria changed the phrase “all men” (omnes homines) to “all peoples” (omnes gentes) when he cited this sentence. Some scholars regard this change as evidence of Vitoria’s modernity, but in Vitoria’s thought, this change of words does not create such a big difference as they indicate. Ernest Nys, Les origines du droit international (Brussels: Castaigne, 1894), 11. 31 Virgil, Aeneidos, 120.

274 Matsumori



old testament: “Every living thing loves its own kind […].” (Sir 13:15) new testament: “A stranger and you gave me no welcome […].” (Matt 25:43) institutes: “The following things are, by natural law, common to all: the air, the running water, the sea, and consequently the seashore. Therefore, no one is forbidden access to the seashore […].”32 augustine: “He who taught that we love the neighbor exempted no one.”33 new testament: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.” (Matt 7:12) criticism of plautus: “Man is not a wolf to man, but a man.”34

Furthermore, from this legitimacy of free transit and trade, Vitoria derived the legitimacy of sharing common things, and the legitimacy of acquiring citizenship; he cited the following texts:35

institutes:

“Things [belonging to] nobody [are] by natural reason given to the first occupant.”36 new testament: “Be hospitable to one another without complaining.” (1 Pet 4:9). new testament: “Therefore, a bishop must be […] hospitable, […].” (1 Tim 3:2).

Based on these authorities, Vitoria declared that no one could refuse to receive guests without just reason—​such as causing injuries and committing crimes. Conversely, they should mutually permit free traffic.37 Thus, he tried to reconstruct ancient and medieval hospitality theories in the context of the rights and duties under the law of nations.

32 Krueger, Corpus, ji 2. 1. 1 and 5. 33 Augustine, De doctrina christiana (n.d.), liber i, 31. 34 Cf. “Man is a wolf, not a man, to whom he does not know.” Plautus, Asinaria, vol. i, ed. Paul Nixon (London: William Heinemann, 1979), 176. 35 Vitoria, De indis, 81–​83, trans. 280–​281. 36 Krueger, Corpus, ji 2. 1. 12. 37 Vitoria, De indis, 77–​83, trans. 277–​281.

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275

Hospitality and Property: Las Casas’s Implicit Criticisms of Vitoria

As seen in the preceding section, Vitoria has been respected as the pioneer of the idea of universal order. At the same time, his arguments have been criticized because they may legitimize Spanish retribution against the Indians on the basis of their refusal of Spanish claims to the natural right of communication. According to this interpretation, Vitoria’s arguments constituted the ­ideological foundations for colonialism over time.38 As such, he has been considered the founder of imperialism. As this dual interpretation of Vitoria shows, the concept of communication, or hospitality, contains its own dualism—​and provides the bases for both welcome and conquest. Vitoria’s disciples as well as other thinkers that he influenced already knew this welcome–​conquest dualism. Among these scholars, Las Casas is important in that he clearly indicated that the right of communication could result in the logic of “might makes right.” This section considers Las Casas’s arguments about communication and situates them in the gradation of attitudes among thinkers after Vitoria. The welcome–​conquest dualism was possible because of the historical situation at that time. It was difficult for the Indians to advance beyond the ocean. Therefore, although the right of communication was technically reciprocal, this right was practically one-​sided and only benefitted Europeans. In this historical situation, the proviso of the right of communication played an important role: “Europeans harmed no one. They just exercised the rights and duties promulgated by the law of nations.” This view could be derived from Vitoria’s text. Yet, in contrast, Las Casas declared: Therefore, any king or universal ruler of any kingdom who does not recognize his superior can prohibit by royal law that strangers, foreigners, or any person of any other kingdom from entering the kingdom, province, or city of his jurisdiction with the purpose of commerce, exchange, purchase, sale, dwelling, or any other reason, if he considers it useful for the peace, quiet, avoidance of bad customs, defense, security, and conservation of his kingdom or commonwealth.39

38 Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 13–​31; and, China Miéville, Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 173–​178. 39 Bartolomé de las Casas, De thesauris, ed. Ángel Losada (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1992), 70–​73.

276 Matsumori All commonwealths have authority to prohibit foreigners from transiting, dwelling, and trading on their lands in order to maintain peace and security. Thus, Spaniards could not legitimately conquer the Indians—​even if they forbade the Spaniards’ entrance into their territories. According to Las Casas, people who enter other domains without permission—​and even the entrance itself—​could cause disruptions. Las Casas based his arguments mainly on the following authorities:40





justinian code:

“Not only merchants who are subject to our empire, but also those who are subject to the king of the Persians, ought not to keep at work in places other than what we agreed at the time of concluding the treaty with that nation, to prevent the secrets of either kingdom from being searched (which is improper).”41 bartolus de saxoferrato: “[The king] can prohibit his subjects from carrying on trade beyond the territory.”42 andrés de isernia: “A king can prohibit the entrance or passage into his kingdom, namely, the entrance or passage of the wanton multitude and military forces.”43 baldus de ubaldis: “Exactly [the ruler] can prohibit the entrance of the merchants who want to enter the country which is not their own lands.”44

Thus, Las Casas emphasized the need to obtain permission from local rulers when strangers entered their territories, while Vitoria stressed the traditional practices of communication. In other words, Vitoria paid more attention to the right of communication, and Las Casas to the proviso. These contrasts were a 40 Casas, De thesauris, 152–​155. 41 Krueger, Corpus, cj 4. 63. 4. Casas, De thesauris, 152 n. 6, indicates the source of “Cod. 4. 43. 4.” 42 Bartolus de Saxoferrato, In secundam Digesti Novi partem commentaria (Venetia: Apud Iuntas, 1570), 206. Casas, De thesauris, 152 n. 7, indicates the source of “Dig. 48. 2. 7.” 43 Andrés de Isernia, Commentaria in usus et consuetudines feudorum (Frankfurt: Wechel, 1629), “Imperator an possit iniurias imperii punire, & Rex regni & Papa ecclesiae,” 86, 722. 44 Baldus de Ubaldis, Super feudis (Lyon: Jacques Myt., 1522), “De forma fidelitatis, Rubrica,” 1, fol. 64.

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consequence of the differences in their understanding of the Spaniards in the Indies. Vitoria supposed that Spaniards were not harmful to the Indians. So, according to the natural right of communication, Spaniards could transit through, trade in, and migrate to the Indies. Certainly, he doubted the legitimacy of the inhuman actions of the conquerors, but he never thought that the Spaniards were deprived of their right of communication because of those actions.45 Furthermore, based on the concept of things that belong to no one in common, Vitoria examined the possibility that Spaniards—​like other strangers—​ did have legitimate access to gold, pearls, and all other things in the ground, seas, and rivers in the Indies. He never affirmed that the Indies were common to all people, but reasoned from a hypothesis: “if among the barbarians there are common things both to their citizens and strangers, the barbarians are not permitted to prohibit the Spaniards from sharing and participating in them.”46 Nevertheless, Vitoria’s arguments could offer Spaniards the grounds for legitimate access to the Indies. In contrast, Las Casas judged that Spaniards inflicted injuries on the Indians by the massacres, the enslavement, and the plunder of gold, silver, and pearls.47 Therefore, he argued against using the right of communication to excuse the inhumane conquest. Moreover, when he treated the legitimacy of entrance into foreign lands, he mainly questioned the Spanish exploitation of the treasures of tombs in Peru, which he regarded as the Indians’ possessions and not as ownerless goods. Certainly, after the arguments of Vitoria, the conquest became more widely known and people emerged who questioned the application of the right of communication to the Indies. For example, his three Dominican disciples, Domingo de Soto, Melchor Cano, and Diego de Covarrubias, as well as his Jesuit disciple, Francisco Suárez, still agreed on the validity of the natural right of communication under the law of nations. However, Soto maintained that Spaniards could not legitimately obtain gold without the consent of the Indians, because the law of nations established the divisions within the regions. According to this, the Indians would have had dominion over the natural resources in their own lands.48 Cano doubted whether the Indians did 45

Francisco de Vitoria, “Carta de Francisco de Vitoria al P. Arcos sobre negocios de Indias,” in Relectio de indis o libertad de los indios, ed. L. Pereña et al. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1967), 137–​139. 46 Vitoria, De indis, 77–​82, trans. 278–​281. 47 Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias in Obras completas, ed. Ramón Hernández, vol. 10 (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1992), 29–​94. 48 Domingo de Soto, In causa pauperum deliberatio in Relecciones y opúsculos, ed. Jaime Brufau Prats, vol. ii–​2 (Salamanca: Editorial San Esteban, 2011), 236–​237; and De iustitia

278 Matsumori Spaniards any injustice against the right of communication, based on the contention that Spaniards went to the Indies as invaders, not as travelers.49 Covarrubias said that the Indians could prohibit the entrance of Spaniards and other foreigners for the purpose of digging gold, fishing pearls, and trading goods—​just as Spaniards could prohibit the entrance of foreigners into their lands.50 Suárez considered the denial of the right of communication to be one of the just causes of war, but he never justified the Spanish war in the Indies on this basis.51 Thus, these Salamancans—​Soto, Cano, Covarrubias, and Suárez—​did not justify the Spanish conquest of the Indies from the viewpoint of the natural right of communication. Even so, they still believed—​following Vitoria—​ that the Spaniards should educate the Indians. They considered that the rights of intervention (Cano, Covarrubias, and Suárez), of gospel preaching (Soto, Covarrubias, and Suárez), and of defense against those who impeded preaching (Soto, Covarrubias, and Suárez) were derived from the right of communication.52 Therefore, even when compared with these Salamancans, Las Casas’s stance was more radical. He insisted that the Indians had complete dominion over their lands and that Spaniards could enter the Indies only for missionary work, and only if allowed to do so by the Indians. He rejected the Spaniards’ right to compel the Indians to be converted to Christianity, and their right to force

et iure, ed. Venancio Diego Carro et al., 5 vols. (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Políticos, 1967–​1968), 3:423. Soto’s discourse on the right of communication is considered in more detail as a beggar’s right to cross territorial borders, rather than as the Spaniards’ right in the Indies. Jaime Brufau Prats, El pensamiento político de Domingo de Soto y su concepción del poder (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1960), 50–​52; José María Garrán Martínez, La prohibición de la mendicidad: la controversia entre Domingo de Soto y Juan Robles en Salamanca (1545) (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad Salamanca, 2004), 63–​94; Brett, Changes, 11–​36; Andreas Blank, “Domingo de Soto on Justice to the Poor,” Intellectual History Review 25.2 (2015): 133–​146; and Beatriz Salamanca, “Domingo de Soto and the Vagueness of Vagrancy: The Wickedness of Itinerant Lives,” Tropos 4.1 (2017). 49 Cano, De dominio, 579. 50 Covarrubias y Leiva, De iustitia, 363. 51 Francisco Suárez, De triplici virtute theologica: fide, spe et charitate, in Opera omnia, ed. Charles Berton (Paris: Vivès, 1858), 12:744. 52 Vitoria, De indis, 30–​31, trans. 250–​251, and 97–​98, trans. 290–​291; Francisco de Vitoria, De temperantia, in Obras de Francisco de Vitoria, ed. Teófilo Urdanoz (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1960), 1024–​1059, trans. 217–​230; Domingo de Soto, De dominio in Relecciones y opúsculos, ed. Jaime Brufau Prats, vol. 1 (Salamanca: Editorial San Esteban, 1995), 176–​177; Cano, De dominio, 579–​580; Covarrubias y Leiva, De iustitia, 356–​363; and Suárez, De triplici, 436–​441.

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the Indians to listen to the teachings of Jesus.53 Furthermore, Las Casas never applied the right of humanitarian intervention to the Indians—​primarily because of the difficulty of distinguishing perpetrators from innocents, which threatened to produce more victims than the intervention saved.54 For him, the Spanish right of communication in the Indies was only potential—​as was all its dominion: “Accordingly, as long as the aforementioned people and inhabitants and their rulers do not consent freely, etc., our monarchs will have only the title and right to those kingdoms, not the right over them.”55 Spaniards had no natural right over the Indies. Las Casas’s arguments constituted early criticisms about the right of communication that would later be developed by Luis de Molina, Pufendorf, and Vattel. Molina refuted Vitoria’s concept of the right of communication. He argued for protecting the legal right of owners. In so doing, Molina distinguished between the concept of hospitality and the right of communication. According to him—​and based on the law of charity—​strangers can transit, stay, trade, and use common things without the permission of their owners.56 However, according to the law of nations, owners can legitimately prohibit such actions of visitors except in the case of grave need. By applying this logic of private law to the public law, rulers can refuse strangers’ entrance—​particularly when their actions may harm the rulers’ commonwealth.57 This denial does not give cause for just war. Accordingly, the right of communication gives rulers the base of nonintervention and protectionism, rather than serve as the base of free movement and conquest—​because if the influx of people and goods seems to harm the domestic order, it should be limited. Pufendorf further developed this kind of argument by insisting on the superiority of property over hospitality. For him, hospitality is not a right or a duty under the law of nations, but an act of charity, which could be denied.58 A small number of innocent people who are oppressed in their own countries—​especially if they are wealthy—​should be allowed to enter other 53

Bartolomé de las Casas, De unico vocationis modo, ed. Paulino Castañeda Delgado and Antonio García del Moral (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1990), 16–​303, 376–​481, and 484–​ 495. Cf. Matsumori, The School, 172–​173. 54 Bartolomé de las Casas, Adversus persecutores et calumniatores, ed. Ángel Losada, Apología (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1988), 392–​409 and 470–​481. Cf. Matsumori, The School, 173. 55 Casas, De thesauris, 316–​317. See also 35, 74–​75, 138–​143, and 376–​377; and Matsumori, The School, 173–​177. 56 Luis de Molina, De iustitia et iure (Venetia: Apud Sessas, 1611), 385–​386. 57 Molina, De iustitia, 386–​387. 58 Samuel von Pufendorf, De iure naturae et gentium, libri octo (Frankfurt: Knochiana, 1744), 334–​337, trans. 238–​240.

280 Matsumori lands—​if they never harm its religion and law. However, a large number of people—​especially those with weapons—​could be refused, because they are dangerous.59 In general, it is necessary to have sufficient reasons to enter into foreign lands. Authority to judge and give permission for the entrance lies in states. As such, Pufendorf criticized Vitoria’s assertion that Spaniards can exercise the right of communication in the Indies.60 Because of this, Pufendorf is often considered the first modern natural law theorist who insisted on the communal right to refuse visitors.61 Moreover, Vattel further clarified theoretical grounds for this right of refusal. According to him, the spirit of hospitality has been highly recommended since ancient times, so all people have the right to stay and trade in other lands.62 At the same time, for their own security, all people can justly refuse the entrance of foreigners into their land; rulers could judge whether or not they would permit the entrance and commerce.63 In the course of the demonstration of these ideas, Vattel mentioned the isolation policies of China and Japan as examples of countries that gave priority to the right of the state rather than to hospitality.64 He also denied that the right of communication could be the legal basis of an attack on the “New World.”65 In one aspect, these critical arguments against Vitoria’s right of communication seem to reflect the shift from hospitality to property in the understanding of others, which the establishment of the modern sovereign states system brought about. Some scholars offer analyses to support this interpretation. For example, Georg Cavallar described this shift as the process in which the modern natural law theorists, such as Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel, and Kant, changed Vitoria’s hospitality theory into a thin concept (moral minimalism).66 However, other scholars opposed this interpretation. For example, Gideon Baker pointed out the continuous confrontation between an emphasis on communication (Vitoria, Grotius, and Kant) and an emphasis on property (Pufendorf and

59 Pufendorf, De iure, 345–​347, trans. 245. 60 Pufendorf, De iure, 342–​345, trans. 244. 61 Baker, “Right,” 1433. 62 Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law, trans. Joseph Chitty (Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson, 1853), preliminaries, §13, book 1, chap. 8, §85 and 87, chap. 19, §229, book 2, chap. 2, §21 and 24, and chap. 8, §99. 63 Vattel, The Law, Preliminaries, §14–​16, book 1, chap. 19, §230, and book 2, chap. 2, §25 and 27. 64 Vattel, The Law, book 2, chap. 8, §99–​104. 65 Vattel, The Law, book 2, chap. 2, §25. 66 Cavallar, The Rights.

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Vattel) in the modern hospitality theories.67 Despite this difference, Cavallar and Baker shared the view that modern theories on hospitality and property started with Vitoria and formed a kind of gradation among later natural law theorists. However, worth noting again, the gradation of attitudes in the modern natural law theorists were already shown by thinkers concerned with the affairs of the Indies from Vitoria to Las Casas. Paying attention to this point, the critical arguments of the right of communication would appear in a new light, as shall be seen in the following section. 4

The Future of Hospitality: Beyond Dichotomous Thinking

In the nineteenth century, when positivism became dominant in both law and state theory, the idea of hospitality tended to be considered pre-​modern and obsolete because positivism regarded hospitality to be based on a view of order that does not distinguish law from morality. Against this tendency, hospitality attracted attention again in the second half of the twentieth century as the influx of immigrants and refugees became one of the major political issues in “developed” nations. For example, based on Kantian cosmopolitanism, Jacques Derrida and Seyla Benhabib sought ways to protect the natural and inalienable rights of all people on the horizon beyond the confrontation between universal norms and sovereignty.68 Scholars who have examined this topic have often argued about the relationship between universal norms and sovereignty, as well as the relationship between hospitality and property, as an either-​or question: for example, the confrontation between the natural rights of communication and property (Baker), or the tense relationship between natural justice and consent (Cavallar).69 However, these two concepts are not necessarily dichotomous, 67

68

69

Baker, “Right.” Cf. Hugo Grotius, Mare liberum (Leiden: Lodewijk Elzevir, 1609); Immanuel Kant, To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, trans. Ted Humphrey (Cambridge, Mass.: Hackett Publishing, 2003), 15–​18; Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Kindle Edition, 2017), Part 1, 2, chap. 3. Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality; Jacques Derrida, Cosmopolites de tous les pays, encore un effort!, trans. Takashi Minatomichi, “Bankoku no sekaishimintachi mohito doryoku da!” Sekai 628 (1996): 298–​313; Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); and Robert Post, ed., Another Cosmopolitanism: Hospitality, Sovereignty and Democratic Iterations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Baker, “Right”; and Cavallar, The Rights.

282 Matsumori as shown in the historical interpretations of the natural right of communication and its proviso. Actually, the relative importance between these shifted—​ depending on the situation. Moreover, the gradation of attitudes in the affairs of the Indies from Vitoria (who gave great importance to natural right as far as possible) to Las Casas (who highly respected the will of the rulers), overlap with the gradation of attitudes toward immigration in our time, for example, from the “open border” theory of Joseph H. Carens to the “freedom of association” theory of Christopher H. Wellman.70 As such, early modern discussions about the “New World” might provide some clues to find a middle ground among various opinions on hospitality-​ property in the global society. In such discussions, Las Casas occupied a highly important ideological position in that he offered precursory arguments to question the right of communication, although his arguments have been relatively ignored by later scholars and today’s researchers. Acknowledgements I am particularly grateful to David T. Orique, Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, Yoshiki Ohta, and Dolores Poelzer for their thoughtful and incisive comments on a draft of this chapter. I would also like to thank David Armitage (Harvard University); Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Boston University); Thomas Duve, Christiane Birr, and José Luis Egío García (Max Planck Institute for European Legal History); and José María Beneyto and Carmen Roman Vaca (University San Pablo ceu) for their warm reception while conducting research at these institutions as a visiting scholar. The following supported this work: the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (18kk0366 and 20H01452); the Toyota Foundation (D17–​R–​0149); and the Egashira Hospitality Foundation (19–​13 and 20–​2). 70

Joseph H. Carens, The Ethics of Immigration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); and Christopher H. Wellman and Phillip Cole, Debating the Ethics of Immigration: Is There a Right to Exclude? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

­c hapter 13

The Epistemology of Bartolomé de Las Casas: An Introduction David Thomas Orique, O.P. 1

Introduction

Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–​1566), a Spanish cleric, Dominican friar, and New World bishop, was a major figure in the sixteenth-​century critique of the conquest and colonization of the Americas. During his life, this juridical scholar became known as the Protector of the Indigenous, a champion of justice, a prophet of human rights, and the conscience of Spain, as well as public enemy number one for anti-​Indigenous forces. Over time, this Renaissance humanist became known in a variety of ways: religiously, as the Apostle of the Indians; anachronistically, as the Father of Liberation Theology; insightfully, as an early proponent of democracy; inspirationally, as a herald for Latin American Independence leaders; inaccurately, as an instigator of the Black Legend; and, unconvincingly, as an agent of imperialism. During the late nineteenth century and for most of the twentieth, Lascasian scholarship was underdeveloped and, for the most part, reflected the historiographic tension between over-​vilification and over-​encomiastic perspectives of the role of Las Casas in the critique of the conquest and colonization of the so-​called New World (later denominated America) and its new people.1 As fuller access to edited versions of his writings became available, scholars initiated more critical examination of these texts, which resulted in a better understanding of his life, labor, and legacy. As such, scholarship increasingly 1 For a brief summary of Las Casas’s critics, see Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruícion de las Indias, ed. Isacio Pérez Fernández, Estudios Monográficos, 3 vols. (Madrid: Punto Print, S. L., 1999), 3:917–​938 (hereafter cited as Pérez Fernández, Brevísima). Scholars who praised Las Casas include the following: Manuel Giménez Fernández, Lewis Hanke, Manuel M. Martínez, Vicente D. Carro, Marcel Bataillon, André Saint-​Lu, Helen Rand Parish, Isacio Pérez Fernández, and Gustavo Gutiérrez, among others. Perhaps the most famous derision of Las Casas was written by Ramón Menéndez Pidal in his El padre Las Casas: Su doble personalidad (Madrid: Espasa-​Calpe, 1963); his scorn was echoed by Julián Marías in his Understanding Spain, trans. Frances M. López-​Morilla (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 211–​212.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_015

284 Orique moved toward more specialized considerations through the optic of his works. In keeping with this current trend, this investigation offers an introduction to Las Casas’s epistemology. This chapter first presents its source in his academic formation and personal experiences, and then elucidates the foundation of Las Casas’s epistemology in certain ontological, anthropological, and metaphysical assumptions that undergirded his responses to the challenges generated by the mutual encounter between Europeans and Indigenous peoples, as well as the subsequent all-​too-​frequent vicious conquests, unjust enslavement, relentless colonization, and violent Christianization. To do so, this chapter references Las Casas’s Brevísima relación because this emblematic treatise reflected his major epistemological premises in his theory of knowledge, in addition to his pivotal concerns in his battle for justice: viz., equality, natural rights, and evangelization. Finally, this chapter considers the distinctiveness of Las Casas’s epistemology, and in particular the epistemological corrective he initiated in 1514. This experience—​grounded in faith—​deepened increasingly throughout the course of his life and resulted subsequently in his epistemology of solidarity with the Indigenous miserabiles personae of the Indies. 2

Sources of Las Casas’s Epistemology

2.1 Formation Las Casas’s formation was firmly rooted in the Castilian-​Christian tradition as well as in late-​medieval Renaissance Liberal Arts education. In 1493, Las Casas began his academic formation in studia humanitatis at the Sevillian cathedral school of San Miguel.2 The first part of the curriculum consisted of the trivium subjects of grammar, rhetoric, and logic. In gramática, Las Casas would have learned to write, speak, memorize, and copy examples of good Renaissance Latin, as well as what the Latin texts and their commentaries taught about moral behavior and civic virtue. In retórica, he would have been schooled in the arts of letter-​writing (ars dictaminis and epistolar), of poetic compositions (ars poetriae), of forensic speech and preaching (ars arengandi and praedicandi); he would have learned how to evaluate works from the perspective of 2 José Sánchez Herrero, “El estudio de San Miguel de Sevilla durante el siglo xv,” Historia, Instituciones y Documentos 10 (1983): 297–​333; Susana Guijarro González, “Las escuelas y la formación del clero de las catedrales en las diócesis castellanos-​leonesas (siglos xi al xv),” in La enseñanza en la edad media: X Semana de Estudios Medievales, Nájera 1999, coord., José Ignacio de la Iglesia Duarte (España: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2000), 68–​69 (hereafter cited at Guijarro González, “Las escuelas y la formación del clero”).

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moral philosophy. In lógica, he would have studied Aristotle and the commentaries by Boethius, learned syllogistic reasoning as well as how to apply reason to historical experience, and how to integrate gramática and retórica with ars histórica and its innovative philological and incipient empirical method.3 Research on library holdings of cathedral schools from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries also demonstrated that the humanist ethical dimension of studia humanitatis learning was an integral part of trivium studies during the quattrocento.4 At San Miguel, Renaissance humanism would have been present in these studies in great part because the famous Latinist and grammarian Antonio de Nebrija (1444–​1522) lectured there from 1488 to 1491.5 Building on these trivium studies, Las Casas would have then completed the second part of the Liberal Arts curriculum—​the quadrivium, which consisted of arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and music.6 He would also have initiated the study of philosophy, and possibly the nonprofessional study of both canon law and theology that were offered by the cathedral schools for those preparing for the secular priesthood.7 In any case, these Liberal Arts areas of study were foundational for any future specialization in theology or law, as well as for future employment in crown and/​or ecclesial administration.8 3 Cesare Vasoli, “The Renaissance Concept of Philosophy,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler, and Jill Kraye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 64–​65 (hereafter cited as The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy); Donald B. Kelley, “The Theory of History,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, 746–​747. 4 Guijarro González reconstructed the study programs from her extensive research on the library holdings of Castilian and Leonese cathedral schools. See her “Las escuelas y la formación del clero.” 5 Manuel Giménez Fernández, “La juventud en Sevilla de Bartolomé de las Casas,” Miscelánea de estudios dedicados a Fernando Ortiz, por sus discípulos, colegas y amigos, con ocasión de cumplirse sesenta años de la publicación de su primer impreso en Menorca en 1895 (Havana: Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, 1956), 2:670–​717. This lends credence to the suggestion of some scholars that Las Casas began his studies at the age of six in 1490. José Alcina Franch, “Introducción,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, Obra indigenista, introduction and edited by José Alcina Franch (Madrid: Alianza, 1985), 13. 6 Sánchez Herrero, “El estudio de San Miguel,” 297–​323; Guijarro González, “Las escuelas y la formación del clero,” 68–​69. 7 James A. Brundage, “The Teaching and Study of Canon Law in the Law Schools,” in The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–​1234: From Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory ix, ed. Wilfried Hartmann and Kenneth Pennington (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 115. 8 Daniel Sánchez Sánchez, “Catedral y universidad en sus origins,” in La Universidad de Salamanca, 3 vols. dir. Manuel Fernández Álvarez (Salamanca: Europa Artes Gráficas, S.A., 1989), 1:329; Juan Gutiérrez Cuadrado, “Christian Universities,” in Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia, ed. E. Michael Gerli, Samuel G. Armiested, et al. (New York: Routledge, 2003), 817.

286 Orique Las Casas’s subsequent academic formation in canon law at the University of Salamanca resulted from his expressed desire in 1498 to become a secular priest and from his father’s ability to send his son to this top-​rank institution—​ thanks to the newfound wealth that Pedro de las Casas garnered in the New World.9 The study of canon law, which was text-​based, rigorous, lengthy, and indeed costly, focused on the basic legal texts of Gratian’s Decretum (1140) and Gregory’s Decretales (1234) as well as on subsequent papal decrees.10 Gratian’s collection, which codified the canons of Church discipline and regulations, sought to reconcile these canons with recourse to scripture, Roman law, the Church Fathers, and other ecclesial writers, in addition to papal and conciliar legislation, and to secular law. Gregory’s compilation, which was garnered from conciliar decisions and papal letters, was promulgated as the universal, binding, and exclusive authoritative text of medieval ecclesial law. Ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1507 and having earned a Bachillerato in canon law by 1516, Las Casas continued to mine the quarry of three centuries of legal opinion by persistent autodidactic study. Accordingly, even during periods at court, he proposed projects to remedy the evils and harms done in the Indies, as he studied under and consulted with royal canonist preachers and Dominican scholastics, as well as earned a Licenciatura in canon law from the University of Valladolid by 1519.11 Indeed, canon law shaped his weltanschauung, and his use of the logic of law as an authoritative source was guided by the premise that all practices and rules deemed valid in the ecclesial polity ought to be valid in the secular polity.12 In 1522, Las Casas initiated four years of formation with the Dominicans; this time of seclusion and concentrated study constituted another significant occasion for deepening and broadening his epistemology. In addition to studying the charism, history, and tradition of the Dominicans, he would have been socialized during the novitiate year into the daily routine of religious life, which likely consisted of regular prayer, spiritual meditation, common liturgy, spiritual reading, sacred study, instruction from the Novice Master,

9 10 11 12

Bartolomé de las Casas, The Only Way, ed. Helen Rand Parish, trans. Francis Patrick Sullivan (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 13. Brundage, “The Teaching and Study of Canon Law,” 51–​56. David Orique, The Unheard Voice of Law in Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias (New York: Routledge, 2021), 63. Kenneth Pennington, “Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Tradition of Medieval Law,” in Popes, Canonists and Texts, 1150–​1550, ed. Kenneth Pennington (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 1993), 13:1–​17.

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acts of mortification, manual labor, and cloistered silence.13 Formal intellectual formation included the study of Latin, patristics, and martyrology (the lives of the saints), as well as ecclesial and secular history.14 Given his proven linguistic ability in Latin, his significant understanding of canon law, and his considerable knowledge of the classical authors, the Church Fathers, and the saints, as well as of the history of Church and society, Las Casas’s program of studies was likely accelerated.15 For all friars, including Las Casas, systematic study of the scriptures also began in the novitiate and continued throughout the next formation period of the studium and beyond. As a student friar, he would have concentrated on the study of philosophy and theology, especially scholastic Thomism, including Cardinal Tomás de Vio Cajetan’s (1469–​1536) Commentaries on Aquinas’s writings, which Las Casas would use in his defense of the Indigenous peoples.16 His formation in the Order of Preachers thus both shaped his lifestyle in the Dominican habits of study and reflection, and formed his knowledge in the intellectual and moral tradition of the School of Salamanca. Indeed, his contributions to the canonistic, philosophical, theological, and moral debates of contemporaneous neo-​scholasticism placed him at the center of the peninsular school of juridical, philosophical, and theological Iberian thought.17 2.2 Experience Las Casas’s personal experiences were profoundly shaped by the heady times and consequent events generated by the Europeans’ encounter with the Indies and their treatment of its inhabitants. Many significant experiences contoured the development of Las Casas’s epistemological understanding. In 13

14 15 16

17

While the specific details of Las Casas’s novitiate are unknown, its substance can be inferred from the Dominican ratio—​the standard for the friars’ formation that has changed little since the Order’s foundation. Manuel Giménez Fernández, Bartolomé de las Casas. Capellán de S.M. Carlos i, Poblador de Cumaná 1517–​1523, 2 vols. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1984. Reimpresión de 1960), 2:1222–​1223 (hereafter cited as Las Casas: capellán). Manuel María Martínez, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas: “Padre de América”: Estudio biográfico-​crítico (Madrid: La rafa, s.l. Abato, 1958), 2–​3. Giménez Fernández, Las Casas: capellán, 2:1222–​1223. Ramón Jesús Queralto Moreno, El pensamiento filosófico-​político de Bartolomé de las Casas (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-​Americanos, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1976), 389–​403. Among his 115 works, Cajetan is best known for his 10-​volume Commentaries on the Secunda Secundae of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, which Cajetan began to write in 1507, partially published in 1517 and finished in 1522. Professor Pedro José Calafate Villa Simões, Professor Catedrático do Departamento de Filosofia da flul, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa.

288 Orique 1493, at age nine, he first saw the Indigenous “Other” on Palm Sunday, when Columbus paraded seven Taino Amerindians through the streets of Seville. Later, while studying canon law at Salamanca, Bartolomé lived for two years with Juanico—​a Taino teenager whom Las Casas’s father brought back from the Indies in 1498. In 1502—​on the first of his ten crossings of the Atlantic between 1502 and 1547—​Las Casas traveled to the New World and saw firsthand this place previously unknown to the Europeans. There, he worked as an agriculturist, labored with his father in the provisions business, and ministered as a doctrinero (sacristan and catechist). In time, Bartolomé was given an encomienda of Indigenous laborers and reportedly functioned as a benevolent encomendero-​colonist. During his terms of residence in the Indies—​ first in Hispaniola (1502–​1506) and then in Cuba (1507–​1516)—​he observed firsthand the maltreatment and initial “pacification” of the Amerindians on encomiendas. He witnessed the destruction of Native life by the Spaniards’ enslavement of the Indigenous people for gold mining. The gentleman-​cleric also accompanied several military expeditions and witnessed the horrific massacre of Indigenous people at Caonao in 1513. These and other early formative experiential epistemological episodes aided Father Las Casas’s ability to see the Indigenous inhabitants in qualitatively different and quantitatively more sustained ways than did his contemporaries, such as Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478–​1557).18 Indeed, these experiences, as well as the example and teaching of the Dominican friars in Hispaniola, contributed to the development of Las Casas’s life of faith. In 1514, while meditating on Ecclesiasticus 34:18–​22 in preparation to celebrate Mass in Espiritu Santo, Cuba, he was seized with the tragic reality of the occupation, conquest, and colonization—​and of his part in them. He experienced a profound conversion, which inspired him to change his life.19 Accordingly, he completely abandoned the priest-​merchant-​encomendero life and fully embraced his diocesan

18 19

Las Casas, The Only Way, 11–​17. “Unclean is the offering sacrificed by an oppressor. [Such] mockeries of the unjust are not pleasing [to God]. The Lord is pleased only by those who keep to the way of truth and justice. The Most High does not accept the gifts of unjust people; He does not look well upon their offerings. Their sins will not be expiated by repeat[ed] sacrifices. The one whose sacrifice comes from the goods of the poor is like one who kills his neighbor. The one who sheds blood and the one who defrauds the laborer are kin and kith.” Las Casas, The Only Way, 188. See also Roberto S. Goizueta, “Bartolomé de Las Casas, Modern Critic of Modernity: An Analysis of a Conversion,” Journal of Hispanic/​Latino Theology 4.4 (1996): 6–​19; Lawrence A. Clayton, Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 76–​79.

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clerical vocation and unflinchingly pursued “a total remedy” for the evils and harms done in the Indies.20 However, in Las Casas’s initial labors to establish settlements for peaceful Christianization, the secular cleric experienced failure—​in his 1516 community proposal for Hispaniola and Cuba, in his 1517 farmer-​settler scheme, and in his 1521–​1522 Cumana missionary project. Later, as a Dominican friar, his firsthand experiences of the plight of the Indigenous people in various settings increased. For example, as prior at Puerto la Plata (1527–​1531), he saw Indigenous “bodies floating by … face down” in the ocean; he acted as mediator with Enriquillo (the rebel cacique) in 1534; he witnessed the consequences of the dehumanizing encomienda system and of the devastating conquests in Hispaniola and Cuba and beyond. As such, his travels and ministry gave him experience in two major regions of conquest (the Antilles and New Spain), as well as in key areas of modern Central America and Venezuela. For example, during his tenure in Nicaragua and Guatemala (1535–​1540), he witnessed public floggings of Indigenous people and massive exportations of Indigenous slaves, and he denounced the governor’s planned armed foray into Nicaragua’s Desaguadero region of free Amerindians; in Guatemala, he reached out to the Indigenous communities in Tierra de Guerra and was successful in his pioneering 1537 peaceful evangelization experiment in Guatemala.21 Furthermore, Las Casas garnered experience during his lifetime from a variety of ecclesiastical roles—​as doctrinero, secular priest, friar, and bishop. In the Indies, he interacted with Indigenous and non-​Indigenous authorities. On both sides of the Atlantic, he advocated for justice for the Indigenous peoples at assemblies, as well as with ecclesiastical and civil officials: in the Indies, on the ground among and with (and at times against) other clerics as well as secular authorities; and in Spain, at court and personally with three consecutive monarchs, as well as with letrados. As bishop of Chiapa (1544–​1550), he also 20

21

Las Casas, The Only Way, 15; Isacio Pérez Fernández, Cronología documentada de los viajes, estancias y actuaciones de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Estudios Monográficos, 3 vols. (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 1984), 2:183–​186 (hereafter cited as Cronología). About this time, Las Casas learned that African slaves were being captured in unjust wars, and he realized that he erred in ignorance of the facts. He quickly condemned this practice, and compared the Africans’ unjust capture to that of the Amerindians. See Isacio Pérez Fernández, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., Brevísima relación de la destrucción de Africa (Salamanca: Editorial San Esteban, 1989); Isacio Pérez Fernández, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: De defensor de los indios a defensor de los negros (Salamanca: Editorial San Esteban, 1995); Juan Comas, “Fray Bartolomé: la esclavitud y el racismo,” Cuadernos Americanos 205.2 (1976): 145–​152.

290 Orique experienced persecution for his efforts. He lived the last sixteen years of his life in his homeland, where he continued as a royal councilor to the king’s privy council, and he added to the narration of his lifetime of significant experiences and theoretical perspectives; he continued to observe, write, and advocate until his death in 1566. 3

Epistemological Methods and Approaches

From these principal two-​fold sources of Las Casas’s epistemology—​formation and experience—​he acquired a range of styles and devices to impart knowledge, as well as proficiency in the deductive and inductive approaches that generated and/​or expanded knowledge. For example, in his Historia and Apologética historia sumaria, he employed a historical narrative style to understand the past and subscribed to Josephus’s reasons for writing history. In 70 ce, this first-​century Romanized Jewish historian witnessed and recorded the fall and destruction of Jerusalem by Roman troops in order to articulate the veritas about the misunderstood Jewish nation; in a like manner, Las Casas sought to articulate the truth about the denigrated and devastated Indigenous people and their lands.22 When needed, he used a mode of narration and commentary designed to communicate at the emotional level; for example, in the Brevísima relación, as literary devices he employed horrific verbal images of war dogs attacking Indigenous people. In this legal account, he also utilized Aristotle’s poetic form of writing to narrate the conquests in terms of general principles or universal aspects rather than of particular historical events. Las Casas deployed concepts such as metaphors, tropes, and analogies to enhance the knowledge he imparted, as did his linguistic ability to communicate in Spanish and Latin. In his copious writings, he also went beyond humanists’ predominant emphasis on the good, to which he was exposed during his cathedral school days, to emphasize what he regarded as the true, an intellectual approach that was surely honed by his later Thomistic scholastic studies. Moreover, his first written response to the continuing plight of the Indigenous people clearly reflected his ability, knowledge, and penchant for canon law—​ first begun during his early formation period and enduring until the end of his life. Indeed, in this first response, he utilized a popular early-​sixteenth-​century 22

Lawrence A. Clayton, “Teaching Las Casas Through the Lens of a Historian,” in Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008), 34.

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genre of juridical literature known as the memorial. This form of juristic writing combined a description of the facts (los hechos) with an exposition of the juridical (el derecho)—​on which foundation some merced (favor or action) was solicited from the authority addressed.23 Finally, Las Casas’s method of imparting, generating, and expanding knowledge, as well as the source of his knowledge and argumentations, consisted of a combination of deductive and inductive approaches gleaned from his rationalist formation and empirical experiences. From rationalism, knowledge based primarily in reason, he deduced a priori knowledge from textual sources; from empiricism, knowledge elicited principally from experience, Las Casas generated a posteriori knowledge about the land and the peoples of the New World. For example, in his geographic epistemology about the New World land, Las Casas portrayed the natural world in the Indies as part of an ordered rational universe—​a representation drawn from natural philosophy—​a branch of scholasticism based on Aristotle’s work on nature. Employing this rational approach, filtered through Christian doctrine in the works of Albertus Magnus and Aquinas, Las Casas depicted the Indies as a perfectly ordered and harmonious earthly paradise.24 He used a central trope in the Apologética historia sumaria to describe the paradisiacal nature of the island of Hispaniola as a series of vueltas—​routes he journeyed in the southern, central, and northern parts of the island. As an eyewitness of places, peoples, and events, he further established his credentials with detailed empirical descriptions of sweet waters, lush vegetation, craggy cliffs, and fertile valleys in his narrations that he gleaned from travel experience, and thus expanded and communicated empirical knowledge of that New World. His narration about these paradisiacal aspects culminated in the Vega Real (Royal Meadow)—​an ideal, most perfect, and meaning-​generating center situated at the heart of the island of Hispaniola; he characterized this meadow as an earthly paradise set apart from and above the territories traversed in the vueltas. Indeed, a recurring theme in Las Casas’s portrayal was that of a garden of edenic beauty with incredibly bounteously fertile land; another constant depiction was the overall tone 23

24

Miquel Luque Talaván, Un universo de opiniones: la literatura jurídica Indiana (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Instituto de Historia, 2003), 253–​254; Stephanie Merrim, “The Counter-​Discourse of Bartolomé de Las Casas,” in Early Images of the Americas: Transfer and Invention, ed. Jerry M. Williams and Robert E. Lewis (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993), 152. Katherine Anne Thompson, “Monsters in Paradise: The Representation of the Natural World in the Historias of Bartolomé de Las Casas and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 2010).

292 Orique of wonder (enhanced by hyperbole and superlatives) as well as praise for the marvelous island landscape. Descriptions in Las Casas’s Brevísima relación of the fertility and wondrous state of Indigenous territories before the conquest and colonization confirm the fact that he extended the edenic landscape of the island to the landscape of the Indies in general, the discovery of which new world he lauded as “marvelous.” He contended that, in all these lands, people lived in prelapsarian innocence; they were, as he denominated them in the Brevísima relación, “­innocent” people. Furthermore, using deductive and inductive argumentation, Las Casas also asserted that the ideal temperate—​and thus paradisiacal—​ climate lent itself to producing humans capable of rational organization. As in the Brevísima relación, he made a climatic epistemological assertion about the rationality of the Indigenous inhabitants of this earthly paradise. However, as will be seen, Las Casas went far beyond this almost universally accepted theory of environmental determinism in his responses to the epistemological challenges of the encounter with a new people. 4

Foundation of Las Casas’s Epistemology

In addition to theorizing about the natural environment of the Indies, Las Casas’s deductively-​and-​inductively-​generated epistemology addressed the human reality of these previously-​unknown people of the New World. His depiction of the Indigenous people manifested the foundation of his epistemology, which he derived principally from certain anthropological assumptions: human beings’ ontological status in the order of nature and the order of grace. At the order of natural revelation, he upheld the full humanity of the Indigenous people in accordance with accepted philosophical-​anthropological teaching that humans were rational, free, and social. In the Brevísima relación, for example, he stated categorically that they were “reasonable creatures … [and] reasonable [human beings],” that they “all were once free,” and demanded their right to be “truly free as I,” as well as acknowledged the capability of the Indigenous people’s sociability in his description of how they lived as a “beehive” of “well-​ordered” and “loyal” people, who were “notable in prudence and policy.”25

25

For example, see Bartolomé de las Casas, An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies, trans. Andrew Hurley, intro. And ed. Franklin W. Knight (Indianapolis: Hackett

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At the order of supernatural revelation, he upheld the dignity of the Indigenous people in accordance with the Christian-​anthropological belief that God created human beings in the divine image and likeness, that Jesus Christ redeemed them, and that they were destined for eternal salvation. In the Brevísima relación, for example, he insisted that the Indigenous people were “born and raised up in the image of God,” “redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ” “to save their souls.”26 Furthermore, Las Casas canopied these philosophical and Christian anthropological assumptions with the Christian epistemological meta-​narrative of divine Providence (eternal law as exemplar and governance of all creation) as well as of the hierarchy of divine, natural, and human law—​which tripartite scheme subordinately participated in God’s eternal law. In the Brevísima relación, for example, he introduced his narrative with a forceful statement about God’s providential example and the governability of the world. These foundational assumptions and beliefs formed and informed Las Casas’s epistemological contributions to three major issues of the time of the mutual encounter between two worlds: the equality, natural rights, and Christianization of the new people of the Indies. 4.1 Equality Not all Europeans upheld the full humanity and equality of the Indigenous people. For example, the Scotist logician and theologian John Major assessed them using the philosophical anthropology of Aristotle, who taught in his Politics that some people were ontologically slaves by nature. In Major’s 1508 academic lectures, he opined that the people of the Indies belonged to the Philosopher’s third category of savage uncivilized barbarians and, as such, they were at best “infra-​hombres” (subhuman). However, Major also added the caveat that this ascription of the Indigenous people’s inferior ontological status needed to be proven with empirical evidence. Las Casas persistently refuted this designation of inferiority using empirical evidence. More than forty years later, in 1552, the philosopher and humanist Juan Ginés Sepúlveda championed this same Aristotelian theory, which Las Casas combated this time with both deductive theorizing and inductive arguing as well as with direct empirical knowledge of the Indigenous way of life (firsthand knowledge that Sepúlveda lacked) to assert their human equality.

Publishing, 2003), 5, 7, 10. 12, 22, 23, 28, 44, 47, 66, 70, 74 (hereafter cited as Knight, An Account). 26 Knight, An Account, 5, 50, 59, 60, 64, 86.

294 Orique Furthermore, in the discussions of the junta that produced the 1512 Laws of Burgos for the governance of the island of Hispaniola, the Dominican theologian Bernardo de Mesa and the secular jurist Licenciado Gil Gregorio (both royal preachers and clerics) also espoused the Aristotelian theory of natural inequality. According to their philosophical-​anthropological assessment, the people of the Indies were irrational and total liberty would do them harm. However, as Las Casas pointed out, these assessments reflected interest-​based political and economic assumptions given that these members of the junta took counsel from and championed the personal interests of those who held natives in encomienda. Their view of the inequality of the Indigenous people ascribed to them an epistemological position of ontological subordination and, to the Spaniards, one of political domination. In contrast and at that same time, a Dominican at Valladolid, Matias de Paz, repudiated Aristotle’s theory by assessing the ontological status of the Indigenous peoples in accord with the dictates of reason and revealed doctrine—​that is, based on assumptions from both philosophical and Christian anthropology as Las Casas would do. Yet at the Burgos junta, jurist Juan López de Palacios Rubios argued for a middle position. He insisted on the equality of the Indigenous people, as rational and free human beings, but contended that they could be forced into legal servitude by justly waged war—​if they resisted peaceful evangelization or payment of taxes owed the Spanish monarch.27 In addition to these kinds of assessments of the rationality and freedom of the people of the Indies, the presence of a new people generated a different response from the initial reformed Franciscans, particularly Pedro Gente ofm, and then Los Doce: one related to the overarching domain of Providence—​ God’s eternal plan and all-​encompassing governance. In like manner, Las Casas extolled the “discovery” of the Indies as “an episode of salvation history” and saw “Providence at work” in the encounter with and the needed Christianization of this “major part of the human lineage.”28 While the Franciscans and Las Casas shared the same foundational epistemological assumptions about the ontological status of the Indigenous people, the Friars Minors were concerned with biblical historical continuity—​a position precipitated by attempting to locate

27

28

Juan López de Palacios Rubios, De las islas del mar Océano, introduction by Silvio Zavala, translation, notes, and bibliography by Agustín Millares Carlo (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1954), 25–​39. Gustavo Gutiérrez, Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ (Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1995), 282–​283. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Historia de las Indias in O.C., 3:393; The Only Way, 116; Carta al Consejo de las Indias 1531, in O.E., 5:43b, 45b (hereafter cited as O.E.); Carta a un personaje de la Corte 1535 in O.E., 5:60b. See also Knight, An Account, 1, 5.

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these people in existing deductive sources of sacred scripture.29 They sought to identify these new people genealogically as a lost Old Testament tribe, and to evangelize them in preparation for the perceived imminent eschatological second coming of Jesus Christ as portrayed in the New Testament. Even though the Franciscans had empirical access to the Indigenous peoples, however, because of their narrow epistemologically deductive lens (wherein they saw this lineage of new people as a tribe that was lost in the biblical past), they were unable to consider them as truly “Other”—​as truly a new lineage of human beings, as Las Casas referred to them in the Brevísima relación.30 An earlier epistemological response by the Hispaniola Dominicans to the question of the equality of these new people in the Indies was articulated in Montesinos’s 1511 community-​generated sermon, and encapsulated in their thunderous cry, “Are they not human?” Drawing from philosophical, theological, and canonistic teachings of medieval Thomistic thought, as did the emerging escuela española as well as other catedráticos and academics, these Blackfriars upheld the full humanity and dignity of the Indigenous people. In the 1517 letter from Pedro de Córdoba and the Hispaniola Dominicans to the Hieronymite monks (of which letter Las Casas had a copy), the friars assessed the situation in the Indies using the Thomistic tripartite scheme of divine, natural, and human law.31 Subsequently, this scheme of law became a persistent and consistent refrain in Las Casas’s copious writings and particularly in the Brevísima relación, as he vigorously condemned the evils and harm done to Indigenous people by certain Spaniards as violations of toda ley divina, natural, y humana. Indeed, he applied this triadic law–​based epistemological foundation throughout the entire narrative of the Brevísima relación. Las Casas’s epistemic argument for the equality of the Indigenous people progressed developmentally. His epistemology first mirrored the perspective of the Hispaniola Dominicans, and it drew on his canonistic studies in his initial response to the 1512–​1513 Laws of Burgos and to the plight of the Indigenous 29 30

31

John Leddy Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World: A Study of the Writings of Gerónimo de Mendieta (1525–​1604) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), 40. Historia, O.C. [Alianza], 3393; The Only Way, 116. Las Casas first referred to the Indigenous peoples as “the major part of the human lineage” in his 1531 “Carta al Consejo de las Indias,” in O.E., 5:43b, 45b, and his 1535 “Carta a un personaje de la Corte,” in O.E., 5:60b. See also Knight, An Account, 5. Pedro de Córdoba, O.P., “Carta del vice-​provincial y sacerdotes del convento de Santo Domingo, dirigida a los reverendos padres,” in Miguel Angel Medina, Una Comunidad al servicio del Indio: la obra de Fr. Pedro de Córdoba, O.P. (1482–​1521) (Madrid: Instituto Pontificio de Teología, 1983), 249.

296 Orique people. As such, in his 1516 Memorial de Remedios para las Indias, besides presenting the exploitation of the natives and requesting the implementation of his community plans, he explicated the Indigenous people’s ontological status as fully human, as revealed in the order of nature and in the order of grace. In doing so, Las Casas adhered to the medieval Thomistic conception of natural law as an objective moral order for human life, and equated natural law with divine law in accordance with canon law’s foundation in scripture and with Gratian’s first definition of natural law.32 Accordingly, for Las Casas, the treatment of Indigenous people (as well as any legislation with respect to them) must be in keeping with the first principle of natural law, viz., “do good and avoid evil.”33 Three years later, when Las Casas argued against Aristotle’s theory of natural slaves at the court of Emperor Charles v, the secular cleric again utilized an ontological premise and jurisprudential teaching found in Greco-​ Roman antiquity and in canon law tradition to assert the universal equality of Indigenous human beings—​individually as persons and collectively as nations. From the latter tradition, he drew on Gratian’s second definition of natural law: that “natural law is common to all nations because it exists everywhere through natural instinct, not because of any enactment.”34 After Las Casas’s Dominican formation, when his juridical approach to the issues of the time was greatly enhanced by his theological, philosophical, and historical studies, he asserted: All nations of the world are human beings, and all human beings and each of them are one, and this is because they are rational; all have intellect and volition and free will, since they are formed in the image and likeness of God … Thus, the entire human race is one.35 In this statement that utilizes a syllogistic method of imparting knowledge, Las Casas’s epistemology gave centrality to the inalienable attributes and dignity 32

“Natural law is what is contained in the Law and the Gospel in virtue of which each is commanded to do to others what he wants done to himself.” Gratian, The Treatise on Laws (Decretum dd. 1–​20) with the Ordinary Gloss, Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law 2, trans. Augustine Thompson, O.P. and James Gordley; introduction by Katherine Christensen (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 2012), Distinction 1, Part 1 (hereafter cited as Gratian, Decretum). 33 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947), Ia, q.94, a.2, a,5 (hereafter cited as st). 34 Gratian, Decretum, Distinction 1, C. 7. 2. 35 Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, in O.C., 7:536, 634 (hereafter cited as Apologética historia sumaria).

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inherent in human nature to argue for the universal unity, dignity, and equality of all human beings—​of all peoples, races, and nations—​an epistemological position that he held and applied all his life. 4.2 Natural Rights Like canonists, philosophers, and theologians of his time, Las Casas sought to apply Aquinas’s teachings concerning natural law to the novel reality of a new place and new people—​to the epistemological “problem” occasioned by a “new lineage” of humankind in the Indies. His epistemological understanding of natural law subscribed to Thomistic teaching about the universal jurisdiction of this objective moral standard, which was both rationally knowable by and morally binding on human beings.36 According to Aquinas, rationality constituted the foundation of natural law.37 However, human rationality was imperfect, and differences existed among cultures concerning the knowability and application of the principles of natural law (consider, for example, Las Casas’s appraisal of human sacrifice in some Indigenous cultures as compared with that of Sepúlveda). Moreover, rights-​related discourse and practice from centuries of civil and ecclesial jurisprudence existed in abundance. Consequently, and using canonistic principles, Las Casas postulated natural rights as the proper expression of natural law. That is, he filtered natural law through the epistemological lens of natural rights, or, as Brian Tierney stated, he “quite consciously” grafted “a juridical doctrine of natural rights onto Aquinas’ teaching on natural law.”38 Like Aquinas, Las Casas based these rights on assumptions from philosophical-​Christian anthropology about humans’ ontological status and equality; unlike Aquinas, Las Casas posited subjective rights, which he recognized as individual rights inherent in all human beings, as well as included those objective collective rights granted by human or divine law.39 Natural rights thus became Las Casas’s epistemological starting point for his defense of the Indigenous people. He derived these rights (known by natural revelation—​and present necessarily and per se in all human beings) from Thomistic teachings about human nature and its attributes of freedom, rationality, and sociability. He pointed out that Divine providence had ordained

36 37 38 39

st Ia IIae, q.94, a. 2, 3, 4. st Ia IIae, q.94, a 5. Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 276. Canon law had long since set a precedent for subjective natural rights when it stipulated that the miserabiles personae could take from the rich what was needed for life’s basic necessities. See Gratian, Decretum, Distinction 86, c.21, Distinction 42 ante c.1, C.12, Q.1 c.2, Distinction 47, c.8.

298 Orique that all rational creatures were born free because they were created in the image of God—​Who was suma libertad—​and therefore humans possessed the right to freedom.40 Rationality or human reason (composed of intellect and will) and freedom were also fundamental to humans who, as moral creatures, were endowed with the capacity to know the true and to choose the good freely. Las Casas regarded such natural liberty as “the most precious and greatest” of all the good to which humans were naturally inclined.41 Because of humans’ identical nature as free beings and their ability to exercise consciously and responsibly their understanding and free will, Las Casas upheld liberty as a right inherent in all rational creatures.42 He also regarded sociability—​the natural inclination to conserve and develop one’s nature as a person in association with others—​as a natural individual and collective right, and upheld its communal expression in Indigenous societies, as well as linked this attribute to freedom because individual liberty was grounded and expressed in community. Furthermore, natural rights were also derivable from the God-​given human faculties of intellect and will, in addition to liberty, since human beings were obliged by natural law to exercise these faculties and to freely conduct their lives in accordance with the Creator’s designs for their eternal destiny. Because humans were thus obliged, Las Casas contended that their human nature must also be richly invested with attendant or corresponding God-​ given primordial natural rights. These natural rights (as well as those rights granted by ecclesial or civil authority and any other source) were the object of justice. Out of Las Casas’s conviction about the appropriateness and centrality of natural rights, he augmented his epistemological toolbox with the optic of justice; moreover, according to Las Casas, the jurist’s task in the canonist tradition was to establish right relationships by determining the objectively right. In Thomistic teachings, justice directed humans in their relations with others as equals, and did so in two ways: as a knowable objective moral norm demanding conformity with what was “right” or (as Las Casas stated) “the just thing,” and as a virtue requiring personal commitment to habitually rendering to others their due.43 Throughout the Brevísima relación, Las Casas copiously narrated how

40 41 42 43

st Ia, q.83, 1. Las Casas, Se han hecho esclavos, in O.C., 10:238–​239; Las Casas, El octavo remedio, in O.C., 10:258. In his De Regia Potestate, he extended this right when stating that “from the beginning all humankind, all people, all lands and all others things were free and allodial due to the right of nature and people.” Bartolomé de las Casas, De Regia Potestate, in O.C., 12:35. st 1a, q.21, a. 1–​2; st IIa IIae, q.57, a 1; q.58, a 1.

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the Spanish (and German) “tyrants” did not do “the just thing,” and so failed to observe the objective criterion of justice.44 For example, the Dominican friar and bishop drew on ius gentium to assert that the Spaniards’ causes for waging war on Indigenous people were never just, and that “not one Indian has been justly enslaved in the Indies since the discovery.”45 To the contrary, he argued that the Indigenous peoples had just cause for war and had “always waged the most just and defensible war against the Christians.”46 Las Casas’s judgment was clear: in addition to his major charge in the Brevísima relación about the Spaniards’ violations of divine, natural, and human law, the warfare and bondage as well as their pervasive consequences violated a wide—​indeed, an all-​encompassing—​range of natural rights of the Indigenous people. The “unnatural and irrational” warfare, which Las Casas characterized as “iniquitous, diabolical, tyrannical and infinitely unjust,” violated Indigenous people’s right of freedom and their rights to life and its necessities.47 The “hardest, harshest, most heinous oppressive bondage to which [humans] or beast might be bound,” as Las Casas described and denounced the encomiendas, repartimientos, the forced labor in mining, pearl diving, and shipbuilding, as well as the enslavement of persons through “infinite abominable” wars and “cruel commercial” trade, further violated Indigenous people’s right to exercise their freedom.48 The “infernal” warfare and “perpetual” bondage also violated the Indigenous persons’ right to association and development by destroying their familial, communitarian, and societal ways of life. At the cultural level, autochthonous New World cultures were obliterated, religious artifacts were destroyed, and languages were lost; at the level of political jurisdiction, Indigenous kingdoms and lines of succession were irrationally annihilated—​even though their demonstrated capacity for political self-​governance testified to their rationality.49 These losses of rights as

44 Knight, An Account, 7, 14, 23. 45 Knight, An Account, 14, 59, 68; Las Casas, Se han hecho esclavos, in O.C., 10:221–​223. 46 Knight, An Account, 16, 34–​35; Las Casas, De thesauris, in O.C., 11.1:335–​337; idem, “Memorial de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas y Fray Rodrigo de Andrada al Rey (1543),” in O.E., 5:191a–​193b; Las Casas, In Defense of the Indians: the Defense of the Most Reverend Lord, Don Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, of the Order of Preachers, late Bishop of Chiapa, against the Persecutors and Slanderers of the Peoples of the New World Discovered Across the Seas, trans. Stafford Poole (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974), 355; Las Casas, The Only Way, 163. 47 Knight, An Account, 16, 29–​30, 86; Las Casas, The Only Way, 159, 158 n. 115. 48 Knight, An Account, 7, 16, 17, 27, 50, 59, 66, 74, 83. 49 Las Casas devoted 245 chapters (that is, from ­chapter 23 on) in the Apologética to demonstrate that Indigenous people were capable of self-​government: “insofar as it is possible by

300 Orique free, social, and rational human beings—​including rights to their possessions and to restitution for the evils and harm done as well as to their ownership of lands—​demanded compliance with other rights, such as those of sovereignty and autonomy. In Las Casas’s penchant for a juridical approach as he honed his epistemology, and in accordance with Bartolus’s methodological tenets from the mos italicus tradition, the Dominican friar and bishop assiduously excavated time-​ honored practices and principles of law from ecclesial and civil jurisprudence and applied them to the socio-​political realities of the Indies.50 For example, he espoused the position of Innocent iv (that legitimate secular power existed outside of the church) to argue that the Indigenous people had both the right to own and to rule, and that their dominium by natural law and ius gentium was legitimate and just.51 Another example drew on the long-​standing traditional differences in diocesan episcopal rights: a bishop simply appointed and not actually operating in his diocese had ius ad rem (right toward a thing), that is, jurisdiction de jure, while a bishop actually functioning and residing in his diocese had ius in re (right over a thing), or de facto jurisdiction. Applying this tradition, Las Casas argued that by virtue of the papal donation the Spanish monarch had title to the Indies ius ad rem or only de jure, but not the right to actually rule the Indigenous peoples, that is, not ius in re or not de facto sovereignty/​jurisdiction.52 Las Casas also excavated and applied the rule from Roman law that “what touches all must be approved by all” (quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbari debet) to contend that the Spanish monarch’s right to sovereign rule needed the consent of the governed—​that is, of the Indigenous people.53 In the Brevísima relación, he narrated how certain Indigenous societies in the Yucatan region exercised this right to institute a ruler. According to the testimony of the Franciscan friar Jacobo de Tastera, “twelve or fifteen lords, possessors of many vassals and lands,” gathered together their respective peoples and, after receiving their approval (as is their right to consent), “subjected the natural and human way and without the light of faith.” Apologética história sumaria, O.C., 6:488–​491; 7:577–​1052; 8:1123–​1575. 50 George Mousourakis, The Historical and Institutional Context of Roman Law (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), 181, 289, 305. 51 Knight, An Account, 15; Las Casas, “Carta al Consejo de las Indias (1531),” in O.E., 5:44a, 45b, 49b, 53b; Pennington, Popes, Canonists and Texts, 1150–​1550, 3–​4. 52 Las Casas, De Thesauris, in O.C., 11.1:316–​317, 325, 327, 357; Brian Tierney, “Aristotle and the American Indians–​Again: Two Critical Discussions,” in Rights and Laws and Infallibility in Medieval Thought (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1997), 5:300–​304. 53 Mousourakis, The Historical and Institutional Context of Roman Law, 188, 219; Tierney, The Idea, 283–​284.

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themselves of their own will to the rule of the monarchs of Castile, taking the emperor, as the king of Spain, for their supreme and universal lord.”54 Such innovative epistemological argumentation also characterized Las Casas’s understanding of religious freedom. In pre-​contact times, Europeans were unaware of these new people and their religions. In the post-​contact period, however, Las Casas’s innovative epistemological approach built on Cajetan’s three categories and distinctions of infidels by classifying the New World people as a fourth kind of infidel, those “excusable and simply inculpable” in their unbelief because, as he asserted, they “have never been under Christian rule, [and] live in lands never reached by the name of Christ.”55 In Las Casas’s 1542 Memorial de remedios, he explicitly proclaimed the right of religious freedom for this fourth kind of infidel. In his later writings, when addressing idolatry, he inferred this right as the fruit of common knowledge of God that was naturally implanted in the human mind, and thus the Indigenous people would naturally worship God, since “nature itself teaches that every race must worship God.”56 Because the desire for God was a universal and natural phenomenon expressed collectively and individually in religion and particularly in latria (worship), Las Casas both affirmed Indigenous religions and upheld religious pluralism.57 4.3 Christianization Las Casas’s juridical approach to the issue of the Christianization of the Indigenous people generated three epistemic premises—​ each of which were reflected in the Brevísima relación.58 The first of his epistemic premises declared that the primary justification for the Spanish presence in the Indies was evangelization. To argue this, Las Casas called attention to the crucial condition that Alexander vi attached to the 1493 papal donation to Spain of the “discovered and yet-​to-​be discovered” lands and peoples. In Inter Caetera ii, the pope specifically stipulated that “the residents and inhabitants” of the New World be brought “to the worship of our Redeemer and the profession of the Catholic faith.”59 Queen Isabella also reiterated this primary goal in her Last 54 Knight, An Account, 51. 55 Las Casas, The Only Way, 66–​67; st, IIa-​IIae, q.10, a. 1. Also see Cajetan’s commentary on st, Ia IIa, q.66, a. 8. 56 Bartolomé de Las Casas, Apología, in O.C., 9:153–​155, 299–​301 (hereafter cited as Apología); Las Casas, In Defense, 69, 151; Apologética historia sumaria, in O.C., 7:640–​643. 57 Las Casas, In Defense, 69; Apologética historia sumaria, in O.C., 8:1567; 7:633–​634; The Only Way, 64–​65. 58 Knight, An Account, 3,6, 8, 22, 47, 50–​51, 59, 86. 59 Inter Caetera i (May 3, 1493); Inter Caetera ii (May 4, 1493); Pérez Fernández, Brevísima, 237–​238.

302 Orique Testament wherein she asserted that “our principal intention was, at the time of our request to Pope Alexander vi [to grant us concessions to these lands] … to bring these peoples to our Holy Catholic Faith.”60 In the Brevísima relación, Las Casas reminded Prince Philip of this mandate to “convert [the Indigenous people] to belief in Christ and the Holy Catholic Church.”61 The second of Las Casas’s epistemic premises maintained that the method of evangelization must be rational and peaceful. He advocated this method because humans apprehended what was reasonable to the intellect and inviting to the will. He asserted that the Catholic monarchs’ intentions (which Las Casas said “obliged as law”) and their “principal end” in requesting the papal donation were (as also enunciated in Queen Isabella’s Last Testament) “to induce and attract [the Indigenous] and to convert them to our Holy Catholic Faith.”62 Las Casas further argued that this method of evangelization was also implied in the papal donation. Accordingly, in his debate with Sepúlveda, Las Casas argued for a textual reinterpretation of the Alexandrian bulls of donation.63 The Dominican friar and bishop fought to limit the violent meaning of the word “subiicere” (to subject) in the 1493 Inter caetera bulls by understanding the word as “a subjection that will be born of the mild and gentle preaching of the divine word.”64 He insisted that that word “subiicere” be reinterpreted because the pontiff could not have meant violent subjection. He supported this interpretation by recourse to Gratian’s dictum that “words should serve the intent, not the intent the words,” as well as to the juridical maxim from De Regulis Iuris, c. Intelligentsia that “the understanding of what is said is to be taken from the things that caused them to be said, because reality is not subject to speech, but speech to reality.”65 In the spirit of this recasting of the narrative of the bulls of donation, Las Casas reminded the monarch as he did in the Prologue of the Brevísima relación of what “God and the Church” had conceded and entrusted “to the King and Queen of Castile”: the Indigenous peoples’ peaceful conversion “to belief in Christ and the Holy Catholic Church.”66 60

Vasco de Puga, “Cédula de testamento de la muy católica Reyna Doña Isabel de gloriosa memoria,” in Provisiones cédulas instrucciones para el gobierno de la Nueva España (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1945), fol. 5. 61 Knight, An Account, 3. 62 “Memorial de denuncias (1516),” in O.E., 5:27a; De Puga, “Cédula de testamento de la muy católica Reyna Doña Isabel,” fol. 5. 63 Las Casas, Apología, in O.C., 9:656–​667; Glen Carman, “On the Pope’s Original Intent: Las Casas Reads the Papal Bulls of 1493,” Colonial Latin American Review 7.2 (1998): 193–​204. 64 Apología, in O.C., 9:661. 65 Apología, in O.C., 9:661. 66 Apología, in O.C., 9:657; Knight, An Account, 3.

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After his formation as a Dominican, Las Casas articulated and expanded the juridical basis of peaceful and rational evangelization in his first published and thrice-​redacted missionary tract on the method of rational and peaceful evangelization, known as De unico vocationis modo omnium gentium ad veram religionem (The Only Way to Call All People to a Living Faith).67 Drawing on canonistic, patristic, theological, and philosophical sources, he explicated how divine law as well as natural law mandated the rational and peaceful method of evangelization.68 For example, from natural law, he explained that the “one way only” established by God for people to receive the true religion was “the way that wins the mind with reasons, that wins the will with gentleness, with invitation.”69 In the Brevísima relación, Las Casas asserted—​as he had done since his early years in Hispaniola—​that the Indigenous peoples were “of lively understanding, [as well as] very apt and tractable for all fair doctrine.”70 Given the equality of all persons and of all nations, he further contended that the method of preaching must be common among all people regardless of distinction. Nevertheless, a contrary attitude also prevailed. For example, the 1530 papal bull of Clement vii, Intra Arcana, advocated an aggressive militaristic approach to evangelization, which included conversion “by force and arms, if needful”; others such as Sepúlveda argued that wars could be waged “so that once the path has been totally cleared for the preachers of the gospel, the Christian religion may be spread.”71 However, Paul iii mandated the peaceful approach in his 1537 papal bull Sublimis Deus, which pontifical proclamation closely manifested the thoughts and rationale of Las Casas’s missionary treatise The Only Way. The third of Las Casas’s epistemic premises asserted that the ultimate goal of the Spanish presence in the New World was the salvation of the Indigenous people. In his 1516 Memorial, Las Casas clearly stated that “the principal goal

67

The tract is published in Latin and Spanish in Bartolomé de Las Casas, De unico vocationis modo omnium gentium ad veram religionem, O.C., 2:13–​557. The English version of the tract is published in The Only Way, 59–​182. See also The Only Way, 211–​221; Pérez Fernández, Cronología, 510; Pérez Fernández, Inventario documentado de los escritos de Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 1981), 272. 68 Hanke contended that it was clear in The Only Way that Las Casas knew well the juridical basis of the rational and peaceful approach. Lewis Hanke, “Notes and Comments: Bartolome de Las Casas, an Essay in Hagiography and Historiography,” Hispanic American Historical Review 33 (1953): 136–​151; Hanke, “Notes and Comments,” 141–​142. 69 Las Casas, The Only Way, 68. 70 Knight, An Account, 29, 5–​6. 71 Hanke, All Mankind Is One, 66–​67; Apología, 9:501; Las Casas, In Defense, 267.

304 Orique for which all has been ordained, or might be ordained” and “the ultimate and final end” of the Spanish presence in the Indies was “the salvation of [its Native inhabitants].”72 In this same Memorial, he reiterated the means to such salvation by reminding his readers that royal authority had legislated that the salvation of the Indigenous inhabitants was “to be effected through the Christian doctrine that His Highness commands to be imparted to them.”73 In the Brevísima relación, he also reminded his readers that the Queen “took exceeding great care and admirable zeal for the salvation … of those peoples and those nations.”74 In the Brevísima relación, and in accordance with Church teaching that persons who were not baptized would be condemned for all eternity, Las Casas deplored the loss of “souls” as the Indigenous “died without faith and without the sacraments of the Church.”75 In this, he employed the exclusivist tradition based on ecclesial and divine law that baptism was necessary for salvation. Yet, in the Brevísima relación and other writings, he proposed several alternative inclusivist pathways for salvation, viz., those based on the eternal law of God’s Providence and on the role of Christ in salvation history as head in actu of all unbelievers, and as well as those in which people live in accordance with natural law.76 5

The Distinctiveness of Las Casas’s Epistemology

Las Casas’s practical application of his knowledge and experience was distinctive in its focus on three principal arenas of action. One significant arena was his persistent appeal to authority. For example, Las Casas approached King Ferdinand ii in 1515 (and the royal regents in 1516) to notify them of “the ways that the greed of the Spaniards was killing the gente naturales” and to appeal for a “total remedy.” Others to whom Las Casas appealed without intimidation included governors, audiencias, viceroys, and the Council of the Indies. Las Casas also met with Emperor Charles V in 1519 and then repeatedly in 1542 “to present to him the other face of the discoveries and conquests of the Indies” and to persuade the monarch to reform the governance of the Indies—​which 72 Las Casas, “Memorial” (1516), in O.E., 5:20a. 73 Las Casas, “Memorial” (1516), in O.E., 5:20a. 74 Knight, An Account, 17. 75 Knight, An Account, 18. 76 David Orique, “To Heaven or Hell: An Introduction to the Soteriology of Bartolomé de Las Casas,” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 93.9 (2016): 1495–​1526.

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the emperor did by legislating the New Laws. Las Casas also voiced his assessments to Prince Philip ii in 1547 and thence forth during the bishop’s subsequent years at court. A second notable arena of action pertained to his written narration of the facts concerning the ongoing destruction of people, culture, and land in the Indies. In addition to the reports required of every royal appointee, the “Protector of all the Indigenous people” also articulated what he had witnessed (and included reliable third-​person testimony) in cartas and peticiones to civil and ecclesial authorities, as well as preserved the observed facts in chronicles such as his Historia and Apologética. Indeed, toward these ends, he produced more than 300 memoriales, cartas, tratados, peticiones, denuncias, informes, and obras mayores. A third key arena of action was his recourse to the law. Depending on the facts of the situation, Las Casas sought to remedy the abuses, corruption, and destruction taking place in the Indies by clarifying, upholding, and, where necessary, reforming the law. His remedies ranged from legislative and structural reform initiatives to peaceful evangelization endeavors, which he framed in substantive discourses that articulated his evaluation of the situation from the perspective of law. Examples of such assessments generated by his untiringly and progressively deeper “inquiry into the law” included the crucial condition of Christianization attached to the bull of donation, the only lawful method of evangelization, the inviolability of divine and natural law, and the need to reform human law.77 In addition to these three principal foci of action that were discernible in his labors and writings, including the Brevísima relación, his practical applications also developed progressively in scope and tenacity. For example, as bishop of Chiapa, he sought to enforce diocesan-​wide compliance with the faltering 1542 New Laws by wielding the arm of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in both the public legal and the private confessional realms to halt the enslavement and to mandate restitution for harms done to the Indigenous people—​a rectification that he also championed for the Indigenous inhabitants of Peru. Later, toward the end of “almost fifty years” of battling for justice in the crucible of action on behalf of the autochthonous people in the Indies, his final action was to demand the complete abandonment of Spanish ownership and sovereignty in the Indies. Albeit with seemingly desperate urgency for a “total remedy,” this radical proposal reflected what he stated in his Last Will and Testament about 77

Anthony Pagden, “Ius et Factum: Text and Experience in the Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas,” in New World Encounters, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 153.

306 Orique his life’s God-​given mission: “to act … on behalf of all those people … in the Indies.”78 These actions informed by Las Casas’s critical reflection on the situation(s) through the lens of deductive and inductive knowledge constituted praxis. The epistemic interplay of such theory and experience illuminated his praxis—​his reflections and subsequent actions—​as he pursued justice as a “total remedy” for the sufferings of the Indigenous people. In this process, Las Casas’s theoretical formation constituted a distinctive epistemological baseline—​initially and enduringly juridical as well as abundantly distinguished by Liberal Arts styles of writing, and progressively enhanced by Dominican philosophic-​ theological studies, their deductive methods, and by his life-​long pursuit of the autodidactic study of canon law. This enduring baseline knowledge both shaped and was shaped by his equally abundant empirical observations. The epistemic interplay of theory and experience also generated as well as accompanied his innovative epistemological insights, which contributed significantly to contemporaneous issues concerning equality, natural rights, and the Christian obligations of the Spaniards in the Indies. In like manner, his pioneering designation of the inhabitants of the Indies as a fourth category of infidels who had never been exposed to the Christian culture coupled with his groundbreaking anthropological study of their culture called attention to certain laudable cultural differences (which Las Casas asserted that the Spaniards could learn from) and to differing stages of cultural evolution, as well as recognized the religious freedom of the Indigenous inhabitants and defended religious pluralism. However extensive the formative and experiential sources—​and the theoretical achievements and practical applications—​of Las Casas’s epistemology, the most distinctive character of his understanding was his experiences (and subsequent epistemology) of solidarity with the miserabilis personae of the Indies—​a solidarity initiated by his 1514 conversion experience.79 Arguably, this solidarity enabled Las Casas to rise above prejudicial limitations inherent in his social status as a member of the privileged class—​given that he was a citizen of Spain (the invading group), the son of a Sevillian merchant, a friend of the Columbus family, a cleric in a male-​only religious profession, 78 79

Paul S. Vickery, Bartolomé de Las Casas: Great Prophet of the Americas (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2006), 151. The doctrine of miserabiles personae was in keeping with scripture, the ordinances of Constantine and the Siete Partidas, as well as in Aquinas’s teachings. Brian P. Owensby, Empire of Law and Indian Justice in Colonial Mexico (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2008), 55–​56.

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a university-​trained Licenciado, the head of the diocese of Chiapa, and a confidante of many in royal, civil, and ecclesial circles. With his conversion, Las Casas began to see the conquest and colonization “from below,” and to live differently. Driven by his conviction that the facts were most fully perceived from the perspective of the Indigenous victims, he embarked upon the struggle for justice on their behalf—​on achieving “what is their due.” Unlike Vitoria, who developed a theory of justice in the halls of academia, Las Casas espoused a practical justice-​oriented solidarity with the Indigenous people in the real world of the Indies, which became an important source of positive action as he searched and lobbied for applicable laws to remedy the harms done to the Indigenous and to recover their lost freedom. Las Casas’s life of poverty as a Dominican mendicant friar further expressed his “incarnate nearness” to the “poorest of the poor” in the New World. Some bishops, friars, and priests also manifested these justice, liberty, and poverty dimensions of solidarity with the Indigenous people; others did not. For example, Las Casas severely censured and forcefully denounced those clergy and colonists who became rich on the sweat of the enslaved poor and lived sumptuously off what belonged to others. While injustice, oppression, and poverty sundered solidarity among humanity, Las Casas insisted that the Indigenous people were “our brothers and sisters,” and, in so doing, affirmed the bonds of solidarity that arose out of the intrinsic social nature of the human person and the universal equality of all persons and nations—​out of people’s human dignity and natural rights. In addition to this solidarity with the natural order, Las Casas had recourse to solidarity at the supernatural level. His solidarity with the Indigenous people was inextricably connected to his faith—​which pointed to his understanding of God as the source, progression, and end of all human striving and ­longing. Las Casas understood this God as a God of life—​life manifested in the incarnation and resurrection of this God who dwelled among humans in the human form of Jesus Christ. Las Casas saw Christ’s face in the Indigenous people. Indeed, in them, he saw “Jesus Christ our God scourged, and afflicted and buffeted and crucified, not once but millions of times.”80 Such faith was the ultimate foundation of Las Casas’s epistemology. 80

Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, ed. André Saint-​Lu, 3 vols. (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1986), 3:510, c­ hapter 138.

­c hapter 14

Bartolomé de las Casas and the Foundation of Latin American Philosophy Mario Ruiz Sotelo A ningún infiel, sea moro, árabe, turco, tártaro o indio o de otra cualquiera especie, ley o secta que fuere, no se le puede ni es lícito al pueblo cristiano hacerle guerra, ni molestarle ni agraviarle en daño alguno en su persona ni en cosa suya. [To any infidel, be he Moor, Arab, Turk, or Tartar or Indian or whatever kind, law or sect there might be, one cannot, nor is it licit for the Christian people to make war on him, not to bother him, nor to cause any damage to his person nor to what is proper to him.] bartolomé de las casas Historia de las Indias, Vol. i, Chap. xxv

∵ 1

Introduction

Bartolomé de las Casas is arguably one of the most influential authors in modern history.1 As a genuine protagonist during the emergence of modernity, he sought to understand the Indians from a perspective that others seemingly had not considered. As such, the Native peoples of a “discovered” continent became the starting point for his heuristic observations, theoretical considerations, and broad discussions on human nature, as well as for a revisionist history of all humankind. As a priest, friar, bishop, lawyer, historian, anthropologist, philosopher, and a Renaissance man, Las Casas sought rebirth not 1 For a contrasting account of Las Casas’s originality as a political thinker, see Diego A. von Vacano, The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity, and Latin America /​Hispanic Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 26–​55; Daniel Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University, 2007), 105–​134.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_016

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only in classical culture but also in the lives and cultures of the Native peoples of the Americas. An authentic researcher of his time, he immersed himself in what we now call the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America. From the American Otherness of these places and their inhabitants, he forged a new idea of universality. As a typical modernist, universality was Las Casas’s greatest concern. Yet, unlike most of his contemporaries, he did not confine universality to a Eurocentric cultural uniqueness, rather he desired to unleash this perspective into the diverse worlds that the same modernity seemingly discovered. The originality of Las Casas’s political thought pertained to the precision with which he sought to understand the human condition from the Amerindian, non-​Christian, and non-​European perspectives. He indicated the need to understand that the plus ultra of the sixteenth century did not consist of imposing one civilization on another, but rather in possible dialogue between them. This chapter first characterizes Las Casas’s thought and then introduces an original thesis anchored in a new philosophical school that he founded, which was different from the denominated School of Salamanca—​in which he is frequently located. Categories of analysis drawn from the work of Enrique Dussel will help to identify a new historical subject that emerged with modernity itself, and which hereby is called the Lascasian subject. Las Casas constructed a complex, original, and critical political philosophy, which in a manner similar to an x-​ray revealed a hidden disease; as such, his thought unmasked the decay and inadequacies of sixteenth-​century philosophy. This chapter examines this interpretative philosophy in order to understand the nature of the modernity that emerged as a result of the so-​called European discovery of one quarter of the world beginning in 1492. Accordingly, this chapter reviews the philosophical schools employed to interpret such a transcendental event—​those that first described the modern world and then those that focused on the study of the event that led to its foundation; that is, the incursion into the Americas. Thus, this study addresses four distinctive philosophical schools. The first, typified by the thought of John Major (1467–​1550), was the School of Paris. Next, there was the School of Salamanca, headed by Major’s disciple, Francisco de Vitoria (1483–​1546). The third was the Spanish-​Colonialist School, best represented by Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1490–​1573). Lastly, the chapter introduces the Critical Latin American School that openly opposed the previous three and uniquely drew from the reality that Amerindians suffered; Bartolomé de las Casas was this school’s main representative.

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Bartolomé de las Casas and the Creation of Latin-​American Philosophy

Bartolomé de las Casas founded Latin American philosophy. Arguably, he did so because he was the first to think of the world from the perspective of the Americas. While the Americas was a historical novelty for Europeans, it was precisely Las Casas who would formulate philosophical thought based on this new reality; he would take into account the Native peoples, the nature of the Spanish invasion, and the incipient colonialism, as well as the various laws and policies that arose from these unprecedented circumstances. Las Casas’s critical awakening began after he became aware of Dominican Antonio de Montesino’s famous sermon on the fourth Sunday of Advent (December 21, 1511) in which the friar invoked the phrase attributed to Saint John the Baptist: “Ego vox clamantis in deserto” (“I am the voice crying in the desert”).2 Delivered on that day on the island of Haiti (“Mountainous Land” in Taíno)3 or La Española (as named by Christopher Colombus, 1451–​1506), Montesino (1475–​1540), as the spokesperson for the resident community of Dominican friars, voiced their critique of nearly two decades of Spanish colonization in the Caribbean as follows: (…) you are all in mortal sin, that you live and die in it, for the cruelty and tyranny you use in dealing with these innocent people. Tell me, by what right and justice do you keep these Indians in such cruel and horrible servitude? On what authority have you waged such detestable wars against these people who dwelt quietly and peacefully on their own lands, where you have destroyed an infinite [number of] them with unheard-​of death and devastation? (…) Are these not humans? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not bound to love them as you love yourselves? (…).4

2 Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, vol. 2 (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995), 440. 3 Hieronymite missionary Ramón Pané wrote the first European account of the so-​called new world, his Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios. In this 1498 Spanish report on the customs of the Caribbean peoples he affirms the following: “… on the said Spanish island, which before is called Haiti, and that is what the inhabitants of it call it …” (“… en la dicha isla Española, que antes se llamaba Haití, y así la llaman los habitantes de ella …”). Ramón Pané, Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los indios (Mexico: Siglo xxi, 2008), 9. 4 Las Casas, Historia de las Indias (1995), 2:440–​442. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are the author’s.

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At the time of Montesinos’s sermon, Padre Las Casas had an encomienda on the island of Cuba, which meant that he had Indians at his service. Gradually, the cleric-​encomendero realized that he was reaping the benefits of an unjust system of power. Indeed, three years later, in 1514, meditating on a passage in Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) compelled him to rethink the message of the Dominican’s sermon. A portion of the biblical text that Las Casas read stated: “The bread of the needy is the life of the poor; whoever deprives them of it is a man of blood. To take away a neighbor’s living is to murder him; to deprive an employee of his wages is to shed blood” (Ecclesiastes 34:25–​27).5 This scriptural passage seems to describe what would later be called a situation of exploitation or class ­struggle.6 When applied to the situation in the Americas, this implied the condemnation of profiting from the forced labor that the Spaniards obtained from the Indians. About the same time, a Dominican friar denied Las Casas absolution in the sacrament of confession, because he held Indians encomendados. This event contributed to his conversion, and conceivably marks a hermeneutical starting point that would establish Lascasian philosophical thought. This can be clearly seen in an autobiographical excerpt that he wrote around the year 1556 in the third person: (…) getting surer and surer from what he read concerning what was legal and what was actual, measuring the one by the other, until he came to the same truth by himself. Everything in these Indies that was done to the Indians was tyrannical and unjust. Everything he read to firm up his judgment he found favorable, and he used to say strongly that from the very moment he began to dispel the darkness of that ignorance, that never had he read a book in Latin or Spanish—​[of the] countless number [that he read] over the span of forty-​four years—​where he did not find some argument or authority to prove or support the justice of those Indian peoples, and to condemn the injustices done to them, the evils, the injuries.7

5 “Panis egentium vita pauperis est: qui defraudat illi homo sanguinis est. Qui aufert in sudore panem, quasi qui occidit proximum suum. Qui effundit sanguinem, et qui fraudem facit mercenario, fratres sunt.” Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, in O.C., 5:2081. See Sirach 34:23–​27. 6 Karl Marx himself was inspired by biblical texts to formulate his criticism of capital. As Enrique Dussel has shown, Marx’s theological metaphors are fundamental to understanding his theory. See Enrique Dussel, Las metáforas teológicas de Marx (Mexico: Siglo xxi, 2017). 7 Las Casas, Historia de las Indias (1995), 3:93.

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Las Casas hesitated in general because, after all, he personally benefited from the Indians, but in particular because his formation in the dominant ideology made what Spaniards did to the original inhabitants of the Americas seem natural and fair. In time, this led to a moral awakening—​a conversion that would propel Las Casas to seek to destroy that hegemonic political and philosophical colonial perspective. To criticize this ideology, he needed to change his point of view and to take the perspective of the conquered Indian peoples themselves. As such—​and after 1514—​he viewed the Indians as fully rational humans. As a consequence, he considered them entitled to full rights. Moreover, contrary to Spanish belief, Las Casas demonstrated that the conquerors were the barbarians and invaders of the “discovered” lands. He thus understood that Montesino’s questions needed answers with sufficiently critical and intelligent arguments to transform the de facto established order in the Indies. To do so, Las Casas sought to unite philosophical rationale, theological thought, and political action in dialogue over fifty-​two years of advocacy with the Spanish monarchs: Ferdinand (V of Castile, r. 1475–​1504, ii of Aragon, r. 1479–​1516), Charles (I of Spain, r. 1516–​1556, and V of the Holy Roman Empire, r. 1519–​1556), and Philip ii (r. 1556–​1598). Las Casas’s pursuit of philosophy from the perspective of the Indies and of the Indians resulted in his becoming the founder and main architect of the Critical Latin American School of thought. At that time, the question of the rights of the peoples of the Americas was being discussed at the University of Paris as a result of Louis xii’s (r. 1498–​1515) fallout with Pope Julius ii (r. 1503–​1513) on account of the failure of the League of Cambrai to take over the Republic of Venice. This French monarch demanded that the University of Paris adopt a position on the matter, which resulted in the revival of conciliarism, i.e., in weighting the role of ecumenical councils, questioning the absolute power of the pope, and reconceiving the subject of popular sovereignty and of pacts as elements of a political regime. Louis xii contended that the Council should take the place of the absolutism of the pope.8 Initially, related arguments were also drawn up and guided by the Scottish thinker John Major, who would in turn teach Francisco de Vitoria—​the visible head of what would become the School of Salamanca. Major directly addressed the issue of the Americas in his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (1510), in which the questions of inter alia addressed the pope’s universal authority and defended the right of European monarchs to undertake ventures of Christianization—​invoking

8 Quentin Skinner, Los fundamentos del pensamiento político moderno (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993), 2:27–​140.

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this as a reason to justify the conquest of the natives of the Americas. Major contended that “these people live like beasts; on either side of the equator and beneath the poles, they are wild men as Ptolemy says in his Tetrabiblos. And this has now been demonstrated by experience.”9 Las Casas severely criticized this claim and soundly reproached Major for his lack of empirical data to substantiate it. In contrast, Las Casas affirmed that the Indians “(…) have an exceptional intellectual capacity. We are witnesses of this and having traveled through these regions for many years and having come to know their intelligence, we know that the reality is very different from what Major so frivolously describes.”10 Meanwhile in his Relecciones (1537) Vitoria addressed the issues raised by Major by comparing the illegitimate and legitimate custody that the Spaniards may have had in the Indies, as will be analyzed below. The academic prestige of both the Parisian and Salamancan institutions and their authors meant that their lectures were recognized for their originality and consistency; as such, they have regularly been used as the main references for understanding the philosophical foundations of this sixteenth-​century political and anthropological issue—​an approach initiated by Sepúlveda himself. Nevertheless, despite lacking universal support, Las Casas created a current of thought that engaged his academic peers in dialogue on equal footing, and consisted of philosophical discourse built on direct and concrete contact with colonized Amerindian peoples, rather than being based on distant and abstract individual study or on European university lectures and debates. Herein lies one of the main ingredients of Las Casas’s methodical originality: he established a full-​fledged Latin American philosophy based on scholasticism—​whose argumentation resurfaced with the emergence of modernity itself—​that is, from the worldview that emerged after 1492. Therefore, conceivably this current of thought is modern scholasticism, because its mission would be the interpretation of the dawn of the modern world. Significantly, Lascasian philosophy possessed the advantage of having an empirical basis to reach conclusions that were frequently the opposite of those of European academia. Lascasian philosophy was located in the Americas and was formulated in accordance with its rootedness in the world. Indeed, Lascasian philosophy is distinguished by being formulated out of the Latin American reality—​and particularly for recognizing the Amerindian peoples as its foundation. In other words, this philosophy not only tried to defend 9

Bartolomé de las Casas, Apología o declaración y defensa universal de los derechos del hombre y de los pueblos (Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de Educación y Cultura, 2000), 340–​341. 10 Casas, Apología, 343.

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Amerindian political rights and to condemn the Spanish presence, but was also aimed at recognizing the absolute rationality of the inhabitants, the logic of their customs, and the value of their history, or in other words, the vindication of their world or everyday life (Lebenswelt).11 In this sense, the Lascasian project is presented as one that opposes the hegemonic model depicting the Americas as an unprecedented opportunity to further develop European culture. As the Mexican historian Edmundo O’Gorman demonstrated through a Heidegger-​type analysis, the Americas did not exist before Columbus’s arrival, since its historical existence is actually an invention of the European mind that saw in it a chance for renewal and expansion: “The new lands being granted the possibility of being another Europe found its proper expression in the name of New World (…) an unpredictable extension of the old house.”12 The Americas, then, is an invention, not a discovery, since it was not there when the Europeans arrived, because the latter took it upon themselves to forge such an unprecedented reality. For Las Casas, however, the first thing to be done was to recognize the being that was there—​that of the rational people who inhabited this place and that of its historical reality. For Las Casas, European evangelization should be done through dialogue and consensus—​that is, through a rational and peaceful approach established on the basis of the recognition of substantial similarities between the participants, as asserted in his De unico vocationis modo.13 Perhaps because Las Casas thought the name “America” was an unacceptable counterfeit, he refused to call the “new” hemisphere by this name. At different times, he even pointed out that “we vulgarly call [its inhabitants] Indians,” and noted that this was an imposed label incapable of giving a full account of what and who they really were.14 Indeed, this “vulgar” and 11

12

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In the sense of Husserl, who pointed out that “a human person contemplates above all the diversity of nations, their own and those of others, each with their own world of everyday life, considered with their traditions, their gods, demons, mythical powers, such is the world absolutely obvious and real.” Edmund Husserl, Philosophy as strictic science [La filosofía como ciencia estricta], as cited in Guillermo Hoyos, “El mundo de la vida como tema de la fenomenología,” Universitas Philosophica 20 (1993): 137–​147. Edmundo O’Gorman, La Invención de América (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1984), 151. O’Gorman states that talking about a New World implied the unprecedented possibility of renewing Western culture, not recognizing the being of the peoples that inhabited it. Such an implication meant accepting the historical insignificance of the being of the Amerindian peoples. Las Casas seems to notice this, and for that reason he acts in opposition to it. Bartolomé de las Casas, Del único modo de atraer a todos los pueblos a la verdadera religión (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992). Las Casas, Apología (2000), 15. Such distancing is also present in Vitoria’s Relecciones.

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inaccurate name, imposed by an Old World view, had to be overcome insofar as this constituted a European cultural product of ignorance that wrongly labeled the Indians of the also erroneously denominated Indies. As such, Las Casas implicitly accepted the reality that they were not actually “Indians”; he recognized that they had their own way of being called and conceived in the world. Las Casas asserted that they must be known and respected. As such, the Spaniards would have to learn to communicate with them. This is one of the lessons of his De unico vocations modo. If the European civilizing project established in the Americas was portrayed as an invention, Las Casas rejected this conception and preferred to consider its portrayal as a discovery—​thus recognizing the legitimacy of being and of the beings already there. In order for the Europeans to accept the Indians as equals, Las Casas embarked on a fierce political struggle based on an unprecedented philosophical foundation. As pointed out, Major contended that Amerindians were in a “wild state,” which is why he concluded that “(…) the first to occupy those lands can rightfully govern the people who inhabit them, as they are slaves by nature.”15 Thus, from the University of Paris, the basic line of argument to formulate a philosophical understanding of the Amerindians drew from the Aristotelian notion of slaves by nature and the consequent right of Europeans to conquer them. The very same notion was defended in 1519 by the Franciscan Bishop of Tierra Firme Juan de Quevedo (1450–​1519), and by chronicler and colonizer Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478–​1557) in his Historia general y natural de las Indias; and, of course, by Sepúlveda, who in the 1540s argued with significant philosophical consistency that contributed to the famous 1550 Valladolid controversy with Las Casas. On comparing the Spanish cultural principles (that is, Western) with those of the Amerindian peoples, Sepúlveda used Major’s logic based on obvious Eurocentrism to argue: “Compare now these qualities of prudence, ingenuity, magnanimity, temperance, humanity, and religion, with those little men (homunculos) in whom you will hardly find vestiges of humanity.”16 Major and Sepúlveda asserted that the conquered peoples were slaves by nature—​an insurmountable inferior human condition that made the European conquest a just war, and a morally irreproachable historical necessity. With Sepúlveda, the position of what we could call the Spanish-​ Colonialist School acquired strength and, unlike the one in Paris, defended Alexander vi’s papal donation. 15 16

Silvio Zavala, Filosofía política de la conquista (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993), 48. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Tratado sobre las justas causas de la guerra contra los indios (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996), 105.

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As Enrique Dussel has explained, what is often called the “discovery of America” led to the foundation of modernity. Indeed, modernity was built on the basis of European colonial expansion that generated—​for the first time in human history—​a Eurocentric world system,17 one which cannot be understood without the existence of a colonial world, an excluded otherness, and a concealed Other—​in this case, the colonized Indian and the enslaved African. At this stage of modernity, the “I conquer” of the material foundation of the Cartesian ego cogito was forged.18 In that sense, Sepúlveda became the great defender of hegemonic modernity—​and Las Casas its first critic. Although Las Casas’s discourse is also modern, he interprets the reality that emerged in the sixteenth century from the reality of the subjugated Indians and of the captured Africans—​whom he also defended after recognizing that they too had been subjugated. Beyond the totalizing and excluding character of modernity, Lascasian philosophy evolved from the denied being to the exteriority that exhibited a new historical reality.19 This was not possible without the participation of the Indians—​who behaved as a radical Other, and thus made an unprecedented philosophical exercise possible. 3

Dismantling the Notion of Slavery by Nature: The Lascasian Revolution

Perhaps Las Casas’s most difficult philosophical battle was his criticism of the characterization of the Indians as slaves by nature, since this was the logic largely used to justify “wars of conquest” (which he called “invasions”), as well as the subsequent dispossession and exploitation suffered by the inhabitants of the Americas.20 In the preface of his Historia de las Indias, Las Casas proclaims the aim of his labor and of his life: 17 18 19 20

Immanuel Wallerstein coined this concept of world-​system and Dussel incorporated it into his approach. Enrique Dussel, 1492: El encubrimiento del Otro (Madrid: Nueva Utopía, 1994), 49–​61. The concept of otherness as suggested by Dussel is used here; he drew this from Emmanuel Lévinas. Enrique Dussel’s notion of exteriority is articulated in Enrique Dussel, Filosofía de la liberación (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2011), 76–​78. The differentiation between the concepts of “conquest” and “invasion” is very important for Las Casas. He points out: “the Spanish have killed (…) women, children, young men and old men, of four million souls, while they lasted (…) what they call conquests, being violent invasions by cruel tyrants, condemned not only by the law of God, but by all human laws.” Las Casas points out that the Spanish call their war “conquests,” but in

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(…) to liberate my Spanish nation from the error and very grave and very pernicious illusion in which it lives and has always lived by denying these people the condition of human beings, (…) to stretch out our hands to them in some way, so that they would not remain oppressed and kept permanently down in the darkness, as at present, because of this very false opinion of them.21 This text recognizes that the dominant European ideology already considered the Amerindians as inferior—​and particularly in the Spaniard’s perspective. Of course, this belief goes beyond an accusation of “racism”: European hegemony engendered this mentality through the establishment of modernity itself. As a consequence of modern colonialism, this perception was justified almost from its inception from a philosophical interpretation that made the enslavement of Amerindians, as well as of Africans, appear “natural.” Las Casas understood that the crux of the matter was philosophical, and that the general view of Amerindians as inferior, which he fought head-​on, could be found among conquerors, philosophers, and colonialists. Therefore, in his work, Las Casas did not hesitate to oppose the ideas of Major, Oviedo, Hernán Cortés (1485–​1547), Sepúlveda, and even Vitoria. The task was not easy, because deep down the cause of this claim of inferiority was grounded in the philosophical anthropology of Aristotle, who in his Politics argued for a division of humans into free persons and slaves by nature, which argument was key to understanding political issues in those influenced by this Greek philosophy.22 As noted above, to dismantle the philosophical logic that considered the Amerindians slaves and inferior by nature, as well as to justify their submission to European power, Las Casas needed to confront Aristotle’s arguments. Hence, in various texts and particularly in his Tratados (Treatises), Las Casas analyzed the Aristotelian-​based inferiority argument in detail. After considering the different ways in which barbarism (that is, slaves by nature) was conceived, Las Casas concluded that such slavery referred to a particular behavior and not to an essential condition. Even when confronted with the thorny issue of human sacrifice, which was practiced by some Amerindians, Las Casas did

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reality they are invading a territory to which they have no right. That is, the conquest is referred to as a just war, while the invasion constituted an illegitimate war, a difference that will be one of the central themes in his controversy with Sepúlveda. Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias, in Tratados, ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela y Bueso, vol. i (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1997), 67. Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias (1995), 1:20. See Aristotle, Politics, books i–​i v.

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not change his assessment; rather, he argued that this practice must be understood “within the limits of the natural law of reason.”23 Furthermore, Fray Bartolomé did away with the justification of enslavement of Africans—​that he himself had supported a few decades earlier—​by extending all his arguments in favor of the Amerindian peoples to include Africans; he concluded that “the same reason is for (the Blacks) as for the Indians.”24 Las Casas became more than the Protector of the Indians: he was the first modern philosopher to fight slavery in all its forms and to dismantle the foundations that sought to justify it. Therefore, in Las Casas’s view, those who most deserved the epithet of barbarians were the Spanish conquerors: “In the absolutely inhumane things they have done against those nations, they have surpassed all other barbarians.”25 Such a conclusion is surprising since barbarism was in the realm of morals, and its characterization should be done in the realm of ethics, and not at the ontological level. Furthermore, there were no elements to validate the idea of degrees of humanity, or a division between peoples with and without political rationality. Worth noting is the notion of universalization present in Lascasian texts. The idea of the universal in his writings was radically modern—​simply because this universalism was merely a regional idea prior to the global interconnection implied by modernity. An important part of the rise of modernity was the “discovery of America,” which represented an overturning of the old tripartite vision of the world as Africa, Asia, and Europe. One of the virtues of Las Casas’s universalist notion was to include the Indies as a “new” part. When speaking of all peoples, he recognized an anthropological universalism upon which the human condition, and consequently rights—​in this case, based on natural law—​should be generalized. This would naturally include political rights, which is why he asserted: “(…) every human being, either infidel or faithful, is a rational and social animal and, therefore, society or living in society is natural for all men and women. Therefore, it will also be so if the faithful or unfaithful have a king or a chief.”26 Accordingly, this meant that since there 23 24 25 26

Las Casas, Apología (2000), 234. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias (1995), 3:177. Las Casas, Apología (2000), 17. Bartolomé de las Casas, Algunos principios que deben servir de punto de partida [Tratado noveno], Tratados, vol. ii (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1997), 1247. Las Casas developed a genuine political philosophy based on the consensus of the people, which must be applied to all the peoples of the world. This topic was addressed in an early work: Mario Ruiz Sotelo, Crítica de la razón imperial. La filosofía política de Bartolomé de las Casas (Mexico: Siglo xxi, 2010).

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are no slaves by nature, there are only political human beings—​people with the right to govern themselves. For humans denied this full rationality and sociability—​those considered slaves by nature, their non-​being status is recognized as a new historical subject—​called the Lascasian subject. This constituted the grounds of the critical philosophy arising from the Americas.27 More specifically, Montesino’s questions (“Are these not humans? Have they not rational souls?”) served as a single philosophical question, a hypothetical doubt, which can be called the Montesinian doubt—​a doubt directed towards the rational capacity of those who were robbed, subdued, enslaved, and stripped of their full humanity by the vision of the dominant colonial world at that time. In the aforementioned terms of Dussel, these rational humans were denied their otherness—​they were the excluded Other. Behind the Montesinian doubt was a questioning of the legitimacy of the existing order and the Laws of Burgos of 1512—​or of the New Laws of 1542, although such suspicion about illegitimacy would not disappear entirely. The Lascasian answer to the Montesinian doubt is clear: “the Other” was incontrovertibly a subject who thought, and consequently had rights. The Lascasian subject was in the antipodes of the Cartesian subject that would be formulated a century later: one points out that “the Other” thinks, unlike the second, where “the I” thinks. From the ethical point of view, the first considers that “I” must think about “the Other,” while the Cartesian considers it absolutely dispensable. In this context, there should be no doubt about Las Casas’s contributions to modern thinking. Copernicus’s discoveries in physics did away with many traditional notions, a number of which originated with Aristotle and led to the Copernican Revolution. Likewise, in the context of the destruction of ancient notions of slavery, one can appropriately speak of a Lascasian Revolution, after which the philosophical defense of such ideas was reduced to the absurd.

27

Natural subjective rights date back to Henry of Ockham (1285–​1347) and were employed by the School of Salamanca in the sixteenth century. Las Casas could have derived them from here. See Mauricio Beuchot, Derechos humanos. Iuspositivismo y Iusnaturalismo (Mexico: unam, 1995), 93. Fray Bartolomé knew how to apply them to the Indigenous Africans, unlike his Salamanca colleagues, as will be seen in the following section. Dussel sets out the notion of non-​being in Dussel, Filosofía de la liberación (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2011), 26–​27.

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What Salamanca Does Not Give, Latin American Philosophy Does Not Lend28

The deconstruction of the idea of a slave by nature was a necessary condition to establish a political philosophy capable of including all peoples. In other words, if there were no people with an inferior political rationality and if there were no people that required a ruler to govern them, then it was only fitting to recognize the philosophical-​political principles as universally valid. Lascasian political philosophy developed under this logic and without losing sight of the fact that its locus enuntiationis (place of enunciation) was the Americas—​the place where Native peoples suffered from a situation of colonial domination that was founded on illegitimate bases and needed rectification. Perhaps the most notable success of what we shall call the Critical Latin American School can be found in the famous papal bull Sublimis Deus promulgated by Pope Paul iii (r. 1534–​1549) on June 2, 1537. As Helen Rand-​Parish researched, a series of meetings took place in Mexico City in 1536 with the participation of the Franciscan Bishop of Mexico City Juan de Zumárraga (1468–​ 1548); the Dominican Bishop of Tlaxcala, Julián Garcés (1452–​1542); the former Bishop of Santo Domingo Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal (1490–​1547); the first Bishop of Michoacán, Vasco de Quiroga (1470–​1565), and, among others, Las Casas himself.29 Three important declarations resulted from these ecclesiastical meetings: one on baptism, another on slavery, and yet another on missionary methods. In the subsequent papal responses, Sublimis Deus was the most comprehensive document and coincided fully with what Las Casas wrote at that time in his treatise De unico vocationis modo.30 Consequently, Las Casas’s thought is seen throughout Paul iii’s text: (…) The enemy of the humankind (…) invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God’s word of 28 29

30

Paraphrase of the Spanish saying “Lo que natura no da, Salamanca no lo presta,” according to which, the University of Salamanca cannot correct intrinsic deficiencies. This originally was a Latin proverb: “Quod natura non dat, Salmantica non præstat.” Helen-​Rand Parish and Harold E. Weidman, Las Casas en México (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996), 15–​37. An oidor was an appointed official of the Royal Audiencias—​the high courts created by the Spanish crown to audit and monitor the administration of the viceroyalties of New Spain. In turn, De unico vocationis modo also coincided with the principles set forth in his first treatise—​the Memorial de remedios para los indios, written in 1516—​and addressed issues such as the defense of the full rationality of the Indians, the need to evangelize them through dialogue, and the criticism of the wars of occupation in their territories.

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Salvation to the people: he inspired his satellites who, to please him, have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people from whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes animals for our service (nostra obsequia), and pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith. And [indeed] they reduce them to slavery, squeezing them with so many afflictions with how many sorrows they squeeze the gross animals that serve them.31 Paul iii pointed out that the main obstacle to preaching Christianity to the Amerindians consisted of the greedy pursuit of individual material goods by the conquerors and colonists. The main driver for such a passion for ownership was precisely the approach that considered the Indians as insurmountably intellectually inferior. Because of this, many Spaniards wanted to legitimize enslaving the Indigenous and treating them like “brute animals” submitted to “our service”—​not only to the conquerors in particular, but also to the Spanish crown in general, and even more universally to Europe itself, which also implied the Roman Catholic Church. However, the pope explicitly condemned the method of enslavement already in force and denounced its basis as illegitimate. Yet, prevailing philosophical arguments at the most prestigious European universities justified slavery as a founding principle of modern colonialism. All of this was seemingly a conspiracy of the “Enemy of humankind”—​an enigmatic figure—​a kind of spirit of anti-​brotherhood—​an Antichrist—​an Anti-​ Reason; the goal was to present a Christian and rational principle as part of an argument that justified war for the dispossession of goods and the exploitation of one group of people over others. However, contrary to this line of reasoning, a clearly anti-​colonial judgment developed based on an implicit recognition of the rights of the Amerindian people and on overcoming the anthropological differentiation between “us”—​the civilized Europeans, and “them”—​the barbaric and irrational Indians. In this sense and following the logic of Montesino’s critical approach—​ which Las Casas later deepened—​Paul iii subsequently proposed a synopsis that sought to overcome the previously criticized colonial order by proclaiming: We therefore (…) considering that the Indians themselves, as true human beings, are not only capable of Christian Faith, but that (as we have

31 “Sublimis Deus,” in Rand Parish and Weidman, Las Casas en México, 311.

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known) approach the same Faith with great alacrity (…) we determine and declare: That said Indians and other peoples (infidels) who in the future will be brought to the knowledge of Christians, although they may be outside the Faith of Christ, are not deprived nor ought to be deprived of their freedom or dominion over their things; moreover, that they may lawfully enjoy, possess and exercise freedom and such dominion, and must not be reduced to slavery. Anything done to the contrary is invalid, null and without force or value. And that the Indians themselves and other peoples should be drawn to said faith of Christ by the preaching of the word of God and the example of the good life.32 In this manner, Paul iii addressed the false nature of arguments in favor of “slavery by nature.” He proclaimed that the Indians were “true human beings” and fully rational; as missionary practice demonstrated, they could be engaged in dialogue. While this was one of the key elements in the Latin American philosophical proposal, its consequences were even more important: Indians could not be treated as slaves; their freedom must be respected, their rights to govern themselves and to their possessions must be honored. All this disqualified the regime of dispossession, so characteristic of colonialism from 1492 onwards. These elements in Paul iii’s encyclical Sublimis Deus, which mirrored the elements of Las Casas’s De unico vocationis modo, suggest that the pope greatly influenced Las Casas’s writings. However, in fact, Las Casas’s writing influenced the content of the pope’s famous bull! For example, with respect to the right of Native people to govern themselves, Rand-​Parish regards this right—​proclaimed first in De unico vocationis modo—​as the laudable origin of international law, which was also recognized in the bull, two years before Vitoria’s 1539 Relecciones. As such, the concept of international law actually bears Las Casas’s indelible imprint; for this, he was given considerable acclaim by Rome, which still held much authority in Europe—​particularly among Roman Catholics. However, in time, this papal recognition was disregarded and disobeyed by European Catholics themselves, beginning with the Spanish. It is not very difficult to find the reasons for such an attitude. The academic prestige that Vitoria had gained by 1538—​when he had already announced his Relectio de Indis (although it had yet to be written)—​ surely prompted Paul iii to invite him to a conciliar meeting in Mantua (Italy); 32 “Sublimis Deus,” in Rand Parish and Weidman, Las Casas en México, 311–​312.

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however, Vitoria was unable to attend. Arguably, the pope thought that the renowned Salamancan theorist could reinforce the papal bull written the previous year, which undoubtedly generated a confrontation with broader power groups and, to a certain degree, with the Spanish crown itself. However, the support sought in Salamanca tended to be weak, and in some sense non-​existent. The School of Salamanca did not provide the pope with the radical arguments used by the Critical Latin American School, either before or after the famous bull. Contrary to expectations, Vitoria himself could not completely dismiss all the principles that legitimized a colonial presence. The first part of his Relectio de Indis prior defended the rights of the Amerindian people to govern themselves without any tutelage from either the pope or the Spanish monarch. In the second part, perhaps the most critical, Vitoria points out the non-​legitimate ways in which the Indians could be governed by the Spanish. However, in the third part, when he talks about “the legitimate claims by which barbarians might come to the power of the Spaniards,” he left the doors open to justify the material elements of the imperial presence in the Indies, and more emphatically, of the colonial mode of production carried out by the encomenderos. In this economic aspect, the acceptance of mining activities was defended under an early endorsement of freedom of trade and commerce. He argued that the Spaniards could legally trade with the Indians “by importing the products they lack and extracting from them gold or silver or other things that abound there; and neither can their [Indian] princes prevent their subjects from trading with the Spaniards nor, on the contrary, can the Spanish princes prohibit them [the Spaniards] from trading with them [the Indians].”33 Here, to say the least, there was no condemnation about the disadvantages that this type of freedom of commerce represented. Moreover, the Spanish prince was forbidden to hinder this type of relations, which was in clear opposition to what was stated by the Critical Latin American philosophy, which rightly demanded the intervention of the monarch to discredit the encomenderos.34 But even more importantly, this proposal contradicted the papal bull Sublimis Deus, which recognized the Indians’ “dominion of their things”—​that is, of their territories and their properties; this right was implicitly denied—​given the implied consideration that gold and silver were ownerless goods and could

33 34

Francisco de Vitoria, Relecciones sobre los indios y el derecho de guerra (Madrid: Espasa-​ Calpe, Colección Austral, 1975), 91. In almost all his writings, since the Memorial de remedios para los indios (1516), Las Casas asked the Crown to intervene to prevent the type of exploitation that had been instituted in the colonies in the Indies. In Bartolomé de las Casas, O.E., 5:5–​27.

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be seized by whoever extracted them. This was, in fact, a justification for mining, which by then was already a very profitable economic enterprise. In another place, Vitoria would also recognize the legitimacy of an assessment of a government as despotic, as well as the legitimacy of prohibiting religious rites deemed barbaric, such as human sacrifices. Thus, he pointed out that: Another title may exist, founded on the tyranny of the lords of the barbarians or on the inhuman character of laws that prevail among them in the harm of the innocent, such as those that order sacrifices of innocent people (…) to eat their flesh. I affirm that, even without the need for the authorization of the Pontiff, the Spaniards can prohibit the barbarians from all these nefarious customs and rites.35 This consideration, like the previous one, was also seemingly communicated to Paul iii. Yet, when papal power was undermined at this point, the existing power of “the Spaniards” was recognized at the same time—​in other words, those who controlled the colonial regime in order to legitimately “employ against [the Indians] all the rights of war.”36 This consequently implied a unilateral imposition of a European world vision on the subjugated peoples, because the Spaniards arrogated to themselves the right to present themselves as civilized and, for the same reason, they could wage war against those they considered barbarians. After all, the defense of the univocal universalist vision of Western culture at the time regarded Christianity as its spearhead, as can be seen in the School of Salamanca’s agreement with the Spanish-​Colonialist School. This same logic converged in the delicate issue of the so-​called rational inferiority of the Indians, which implied the acceptance of the anthropological bifurcation that had existed at least since Aristotle, and which was the philosophical cornerstone of colonial justification. As Vitoria pointed out, with a certain hesitancy: Those barbarians, although (…) they are not entirely lacking in judgment, however, they are not far from the people of unsound mind [amentes], which shows that they are not capable of forming or managing a legitimate republic in human and civil forms (…) what was said before may

35 Vitoria, Relecciones sobre, 101. 36 Vitoria, Relecciones sobre, 101.

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be valid, that some are servants by nature. And as such these barbarians appear to be, they could therefore be governed like servants.37 In the end, the scholar from Salamanca ultimately endorsed the description of the Native people of the Americas not only as barbarians, which is a cultural conceptualization, but as lacking full political rationality, which is a bias situated at an ontological and anthropological level. Again, in this case, Vitoria clearly departed from the directive of Sublimis Deus, which was generated from Lascasian criticism. Thus, De Indis prior begins by accepting the pope’s proclamation and ends in a distinct confrontation by accepting the argument of slavery by nature: “what was said before,” that is, by the School of Paris under Major. The reasons for Vitoria’s hesitation can perhaps be found in the “suggestions” coming from the Spanish crown. Charles himself wrote directly to the Salamancan scholars, reprimanding them with the intention of intervening in the theoretical direction of their texts: (…) I have been informed that some religious members of that house have spoken about the right we have to the Indies, islands and mainland, in their talks, sermons, and academic discourses, and also about the strength and value of the compositions that have been made with the authority of our Holy Father (…) because dealing with things without our knowledge and without first notifying us of it, [is] more than harmful and scandalous, it could cause great inconvenience and disservice to God (…).38 This text, dated November 19, 1539, revealed Charles’ annoyance with the questions that had arisen regarding his authority over the territories in the Indies, which began with Montesino, continued with Las Casas and Pope Paul iii, and then manifested itself in Salamanca. The king’s clear motion of censure influenced Vitoria’s spirit in particular as well as the members of the School of Salamanca in general. In fact, it is not difficult to suppose that the section on lawful Spanish titles in the Indies was due to the pressure, since this contradicts the first part wherein Vitoria discusses unlawful titles. Why did Charles censure the School of Salamanca and not Las Casas? First, in principle, seemingly the monarch must have realized that the two schools had different logics: one could and should be constrained to imperial logic; the other lacked a 37 Vitoria, Relecciones sobre, 103, 105. 38 Quoted by Antonio Gómez Robledo, in “Introduction,” in Francisco de Vitoria, Relecciones del estado, de los indios y del derecho de guerra (Mexico: Porrúa, 1975), xix.

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specific institutionality, as it was not supported by a given university, which made it harder to subdue. Secondly, as seen above, the Critical Latin American School dealt with the issue at hand before the School of Salamanca did, and the monarch was able to act so as to prevent criticism from being reinforced by the prestige of the said institution; so he decided to intervene personally. However, Las Casas himself was aware of the weakness of Vitoria’s position, to such a degree that Sepúlveda tried to align his ideas with those of the scholar from Salamanca, which led Las Casas to declare: Sepúlveda, to prove his ungodly doctrine, quotes the learned father Francisco de Vitoria, saying that he approves of the war against the Indians (…) Now, whoever reads the two parts of the Prima Relectio will easily observe with clarity that this learned man proposes and catholically refutes, in the first part, the seven titles [reasons] by which the war against the Indians could seem just. However, in the second part, he invokes eight titles [reasons] by which or by some of which, the Indians may be brought under the jurisdiction of the Spaniards. They assume some very false things, for the most part, by which this war can be considered just and those bandits who overwhelmingly devastated that region of the world were denounced. In some of those titles [reasons] he was more moderate, wanting to temper what the emperor’s men deemed he had expressed with some harshness; although to lovers of the truth there is nothing overly severe in what he sets forth in the first part of his work, on the contrary, it is not only true as to the past, but is Catholic and most true currently. In this way he makes it sufficiently understood by speaking conditionally for fear that what is false should be supposed or said to be true. But as the circumstances that this learned father supposes are false, and he says some things with certain hesitation, Sepúlveda should not set his opinion, based on false statements against us.39 As Las Casas observes, Vitoria’s approach is full of doubts, which Sepúlveda would exploit so that his interpretation of the Indians and his subsequent defense of the wars of conquest could later coincide with the position of the School of Salamanca. Las Casas himself was aware of Vitoria’s contradictions, which he explained stemmed from fear when formulating his conclusions—​a fear that he felt might have come from the crown itself. But beyond such justification, Las Casas knew that Vitoria’s position was not exactly the one he held; 39

Las Casas, Apología (2000), 343.

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that is, the Salamanca thinker was willing to make too many concessions to the colonialist position, the most important being the doubt about the intellectual capacity of the Indians; as such, Las Casas could not fully admit Vitoria as an ally. In other words, the school of thought in which Las Casas articulated his philosophical position was different from that of the School of Salamanca. 5

Conclusions

So, according to what has been stated in this chapter, at least four philosophical currents are identifiable at the beginning of modernity, whose main objective was precisely to give an account for the appearance of the Americas in the European imagination, that is to say, to formulate for the first time the foundations of modernity. These recognizable currents are the following: 1. The School of Paris, sponsored by King Louis xii, characterized the “discovered” peoples as barbarians, so that, in keeping with the Aristotelian model, these were “slaves by nature” and consequently needed “civilized” peoples to govern them. Moreover, this school of reasoning questioned Alexander vi’s contribution, so its political objective seems ­evident: to promote European colonialism in the Americas beyond the Iberian powers. 2. The Spanish-​Colonialist School shared the principles of the School of Paris regarding the barbarity of the Indian but defended Spain’s suitability to subjugate the peoples of the “New World” from the papal concession. In this sense, this school of thought was a pioneer in the defense of colonialism on the basis of modern nationalism. 3. The School of Salamanca recognized the political rights of the Amerindian peoples and questioned papal authority over them prior to their Christianization, as well as that of the Spanish monarch. Nevertheless, this school also asserted the supposed right of Europeans to extract gold from the Indies even without the authorization of their rulers. Moreover, it did not confirm, but cast doubt on the full political rationality of its inhabitants, thus validating Spanish domination at the behest of the Spanish monarch himself. 4. The Critical Latin American School—​ with Las Casas as its main architect—​ had the virtue of questioning imperialism, colonialism, Eurocentrism, racism, and the exclusionary nature that dominated the conceptions of the three European Schools, to develop its own philosophical proposal from the perspective of Otherness, from externality, from the denied being of the Native peoples of the Americas.

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As such, it does not seem an exaggeration to state that Bartolomé de las Casas is the most revolutionary thinker of the sixteenth century. Forged at the dawn of modernity, he learned to recognize, to assimilate, and above all to criticize modernity. Predominantly self-​taught, he turned the seeming disadvantage of not developing his work from a specific academic group into a virtue that translated into remarkable originality.40 Unlike most of his colleagues, he did not make his conclusions from the “ivory tower” of a European university; he did not start from theory to learn about reality, but began with reality to build his own theory. The reality from which his thoughts flowed was that of the Amerindian peoples, their customs, and their political nature, as well as the alternative world they offered and from which he wanted to learn. Las Casas drew important understanding from his experience with the Amerindian people, but his main interest was not only them, but all peoples. In fact, he realized that the principles of political philosophy had to reconstruct their pretense of universality to include peoples unfamiliar to them. Far from negating them, he thought they should be understood. He was aware that the great obstacle to embark on such a task was the Aristotelian remnant of “slavery by nature” defended in Paris and Valladolid, yet overcome in Salamanca. Hence, he focused much of his work on criticizing this dehumanizing concept. In this way, slavery ceased to be an essence and became an accident—​an accident that, in turn, was an injustice: the deprivation of a freedom inherent to human nature. The idea of slavery lasted for centuries; however, in time, its demise was largely due to an initial wound inflicted by Las Casas. Bartolomé de las Casas’s philosophy was already an American one—​a Latin American one. This is because his philosophy conceptualizes the Americas as a historical novelty needing interpretation. However, the Eurocentric colonialist project rejected the truth of these people and this place, and regarded them as an invention—​thus denying the truth of their being. Las Casas rejected their interpretation; instead, for him, these people and this place was a discovery, and required recognition and acceptance of the legitimacy of being and of beings already there, as a new historical subject—​as the Lascasian subject. Las Casas also understood that these peoples—​their history and their lives—​required engaging in dialogue. Modernity would become a new world of worlds previously unconnected but now linked. In the midst of the late Renaissance at the dawn of modernity, Las Casas did not develop a European humanism encoded in the resurrection of classical culture, but a different 40

For more on the status of the question regarding Las Casas’s intellectual formation, see David Orique, The Unheard Voice of Law in Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Brevísima Relación de la Destruición de las Indias (New York: Routledge, 2021), 59–​99.

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one based on the emergence of the unprecedented idea of universality. His was humanism from the Americas, capable of pondering the condition of human beings originating from the Americas. His was humanism forged from Otherness—​from the non-​being, with the idea of building a decentralized and diverse modernity in which Indians, Africans, Jews, Turks, and Arabs, that is to say, all the peoples in the world, would participate fully.

­c hapter 15

Las Casas’s Apologética historia sumaria and His Vision of the Other Luis Mora Rodríguez The Apologética historia sumaria (ahs) was first written as part of the History of the Indies. Some authors consider that the written text was begun in Hispaniola around 1527 and completed in 1551 for use at the Valladolid debate with Sepúlveda.1 Others do not consider that the text had a polemical objective; therefore, according to these, the full text might have been completed after Valladolid, between approximately 1555 and 1559. Arguably, this last interpretation seems more accurate in terms of explaining Las Casas’s efforts to build his formal vision about humanity. In this text, the Dominican friar develops a philosophical anthropology on American Indians based on the thoughts of Aristotle and Aquinas. However, Las Casas adds his original understanding of history and an extraordinary empirical approach in his study of the Indigenous societies of the American hemisphere. In order to understand Las Casas’s vision of the Other, this chapter will follow Emmanuel Lévinas’s thought as well as Enrique Dussel’s interpretation of this concept. Indeed, Lévinas reflected upon the relationship between philosophy and war. For him, philosophical reflection has been understood as an ontology wherein the consciousness of the subject seeks to understand and to seize the world. This prevailing philosophical trend has silenced philosophy as metaphysics—​that is to say, as a relationship with the transcendental, the divine, or as expressed by Lévinas—​the Infinite. In fact, for Lévinas, the Other is the Infinite, which means the demand for justice that is imposed on the self. The Other is not an object that can be completely captured by the subject’s consciousness. To recognize the Other is to grasp what he or she possesses as divine—​that is to say, as transcendental. In this way, it is understood that the Other represents the human, and therefore appeals to the humanity of the self.2 1 Bartolomé de las Casas, ahs (1967); Lewis Hanke, Bartolomé de las Casas: pensador político, historiador, antropólogo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1968). 2 For Lévinas, the Other is the element by which the self escapes solipsism (Ego cogito). In solipsism, totality is expressed as the will to know and as cognition. Philosophy has been

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_017

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Dussel takes this notion of the Other from Lévinas and applies it to the relationship between the conquerors and the Indians during the conquest of America. For him, in the very act of conquest, an ego conquiro is expressed—​ that is, an individual will to power that is incapable of recognizing the Other.3 In his texts, Las Casas demonstrated an effort to reach the Other through reason and not through force. The Other must be understood as fully human, and therefore his or her culture is also a manifestation of this immeasurable humanity.4 As Restrepo points out, this understanding of the Other is progressively built up in the texts of Las Casas. The “Indian” is the Other in front of whom there is an ethical call for responsibility, which is not paternalistic and humanitarian but suggests an ethical challenge. Only in defense of the Other do we affirm our own humanity.5 Lévinas’s and Dussel’s understanding of the Other helps us make sense of the ahs’s argumentative strategy. Las Casas’s demonstration of Indigenous culture and of the conditions for a full and rational life make possible a fuller understanding of the place of the Other, and therefore inserts them in the “communication community” as an equal.6 This means that Las Casas’s vision of the Other is not simply an anthropological account that seeks to make the culture of the Indians known as something worth remembering. It is an ethical effort to recognize their humanity that completely overcomes the logic of conquest and subverts the affirmation of the inferiority of the Indians. That is, it contradicts the arguments about the material colonization of the continent.

a search for wisdom equated with or understood as “knowledge” or “conceptual content.” Thus, the “self” seeks to seize what it knows in the mere act of knowing. The Other is that which escapes such apprehension. The Other cannot be conceptualized and is presented as the idea of infinity—​an idea that exceeds its own concept. The relationship with the Other is then posed as desire. But this is a desire that is not a necessity. It is a negative desire, never satisfied and always restarted. This negativity of desire is the basis of metaphysics, not as the satisfaction of need, but as the phenomenology of face-​to-​face. The experience of the face-​to-​face reveals the need for the Other—​its absolute fragility. The face-​to-​face challenges our responsibility. The presence, the epiphany of the face demands justice. See Emmanuel Lévinas, Totalidad e Infinito: Ensayo sobre la exterioridad (Salamanca: Editorial Sígueme, 2002). 3 Enrique Dussel, 1492: El encubrimiento del Otro (La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Dirección de Participación Ciudadana, 2008), 39–​47. 4 Dussel, 1492: El encubrimiento, 72–​75. 5 Luis Fernando Restrepo, “The Colonial Face-​to-​Face and the Human Condition: Writing and Subjectivity in Bartolomé de las Casas,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David Thomas Orique and Rady Roldán-​ Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 272–​275. 6 Dussel, 1492: El encubrimiento, 75.

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This chapter analyzes three main questions about the Apologética historia sumaria in order to present Las Casas’s vision of the Other. First, this study presents the natural conditions established by Las Casas to justify the development of human intellectual capacities. Then, attention is turned to Las Casas’s historical and social analysis of Indigenous political and religious life. Lastly, a selection of postcolonial readings of this sixteenth-​century text are analyzed and criticized. 1

Natural Characteristics Allowing the Development of Human Rationality: The Indies as a Paradise for Human Life

In the first chapters of the ahs, Las Casas described the natural character of the Caribbean islands as they were at the time of Columbus’s arrival.7 His description emphasized the balance and the richness of the land, as well as the “happiness of those lands”—​whose geographical and cosmological qualities abundantly allowed for the development of rational beings. Indeed, all the fruit, bread, animals, and trees were useful and necessary means for the construction of an environment that could embrace human life in its most perfect way. Las Casas theorized about the link between the natural elements of a land and the influence in human activities and human bodies.8 Following Aristotle in this matter, Las Casas considered that the movements of the celestial bodies had a particular influence on the temperance of the lands, and therefore on the possibility of developing a fruitful and healthy life.9 However, for Las Casas, the cosmological influence was not enough. Like a doctor who considered the internal causes of health and disease, the richness and quality of the land had to be found in what one would call today the “environment.” In this case, the islands were perfect places where nature was balanced. Moreover, Las Casas insisted that the universal causes were completed by some particular causes which also contributed to the nurturing of life and its preservation. These causes were analyzed in every case by describing the geographical features of the Caribbean islands, and by generating the conclusion that the location of the Indies was perfect for the development of life and nature.10

7 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:10–​55. In these chapters Las Casas describes Columbus’s arrival to Hispaniola and gives some details of his journey. 8 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:135–​138 [ch. 27]. 9 Aristotle, Acerca del cielo. Meteorológicos (Madrid: Gredos, 1996), 131–​144. 10 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:83–​87 [ch. 17].

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These arguments in favor of the natural conditions of the land were completed by several observations that must also be presented in order to elaborate a perfect scenario for the human mind. Indeed, the islands had a natural balance between day and night, and pure water was abundant. Other particular and internal causes were related to the behavior of people. Among these were sobriety in eating, the temperance of sensual affections, the lack of interest for material things, and the absence of perturbations coming from passions. Hygiene and cleansing habits as well as the age of parents were also important considerations.11 Following Las Casas’s thinking, there was a link between the composition and the structure of the body and the perfection of the soul; two elements were closely related. As shown in Aristotle’s De Anima, a good soul could only be found in a good body.12 The soul could only be in different places of the body according to the composition and the organization of that body. However, before the soul could reach the body, the body was influenced by the celestial sphere. The possibility of having a “good” body—​which was essential for thinking—​was a matter of luck. While such an understanding of the soul showed the diversity of the human mind, it did not prove an essential difference between the souls.13 Las Casas also addressed the transformation entailed by the conquest and colonization of those lands. He described the diseases that had troubled the islands, especially in Hispaniola. He contended that although plagues of fleas did not touch Hispaniola, there had been other problems linked to human presence and environmental alterations. In the development of his argument, Las Casas always took into account the conditions found in the Indies and the social, economic, and “environmental” modifications brought by the conquest. With respect to the plagues, Las Casas clearly distinguished three affected populations: Spaniards, Indigenous people, and Black people. Despite these human alterations of the natural order, the conditions of Hispaniola could also be compared with several well-​known islands of Europe, such as Crete, Sicily, or England. The memory of numerous kingdoms that existed there also showed the state of the region.14 Accordingly, Las Casas claimed:

11 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:116–​117 [ch. 23]. 12 Aristotle, Acerca del alma (Madrid: Gredos, 1978). In this text, Aristotle studies the composition, structure, and movement of the celestial bodies. He is also interested in the influence they have on the earth (the sublunary world). 13 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:117 [ch. 23]. 14 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:92–​103 [ch. 19].

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Thus, we can truly say that all these Indies are the most temperate, the healthiest, the most fertile, the happiest, the brightest, the most gracious and in agreement with our human nature, of all the world, even though, in some parts the contrary happens as consequence of some particular causes, which are very rare.15 With these natural conditions established, Las Casas then focused his attention on the intellectual capacities of the Indigenous people.16 2

The Characteristics of the Human Mind, Intelligence, and Rational Behavior

In his description and analysis of Indigenous societies, Las Casas again drew on the theoretical frameworks of Aristotle and Aquinas—​and particularly on the notion of “prudence,” which was also understood as “wisdom” or “discretion.” Las Casas sought to demonstrate that the Indigenous people were political nations that had good policy and a sound social order—​both essential characteristics of the human attribute of sociability. Thus, their “policy” as a part of political prudence depended also on “economic prudence” and “monastic prudence.” Las Casas methodically compared the social, religious, and political life of the Indigenous with his understanding of these three modes of prudence.17 Furthermore, Las Casas also stated that the main goal of moral virtues was the human good, which could be reached only when people lived according to reason. This universal principle allowed for consideration and comparison of

15

16 17

“Y así diremos con verdad que todas estas Indias son las más templadas, las más sanas, las más fértiles, las más felices, alegres y graciosas y más conforme su habitación a nuestra naturaleza humana, de las del mundo, aunque en algunas partes acaezca ser el contrario por algunas particulares causas, las cuales son muy raras.” Casas, ahs (1967), 1:108 [ch. 21]. O’Gorman establishes two parts in this demonstration of the rationality of the inhabitants of the Indies. The first one extends from c­ hapter 23 to c­ hapter 39 and the second extends from ­chapter 40 to the end of the text. Aristotle describes different kinds of prudence in Nicomachean Ethics, vi, 10. See, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). Aquinas systematizes these forms of prudence; he states that for Aristotle “good counsel” (“ad prudentiam pertinere eubuliam”), “synesis” (“synesim”), and “gnome” (“gnomen”) belong to prudence. Las Casas writes of monastic prudence, economic intelligence, and political intelligence. The first one guides oneself, the second one organizes household and life together with others, and finally, the last one organizes the polis. See Aquinas, Summa Theologica, ii–​i i q. 48 a. 1 c.

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the different nations of the world.18 According to Las Casas, God had imprinted this attribute of reason upon all people. This natural light pushed them to realize the goal of their nature in the following manner. First, all people engaged in self-​preservation by moving away from pain, and by pursuing their sexual appetite for the sake of procreation. Then, they were motivated to search for truth and knowledge as a way to develop their social life. Subsequently, the virtue of prudence entered in and generated the necessary actions to achieve the universal purpose of human nature.19 Accordingly, through monastic prudence, individuals could rule themselves by trying to attain their own good. This type of prudence governed the individual will and was a characteristic of rational people. Economic prudence depended on this first type by helping to constitute all issues pertaining to family and home in a convenient way. The third type of prudence was necessarily the common good of the res publica. Thanks to this political prudence the common good of the reign could be fulfilled; however, only the authorities and leaders of the republic had the specific type of political prudence that was called “architectonic” prudence.20 A historical study is needed to analyze these different types of prudence employed.21 Whether a nation had been ruled according to those virtues was only possible to determine through long-​term acquired knowledge of such nation’s social institutions and way of life. The Dominican friar Las Casas contributed to this discussion through a study of the historical origin of nations. He quoted Pliny the Elder and Diodorus Siculus, who explained that the common origin of social life was the search for refuge, the organization of the hunt, and finally, the beginning of agriculture.22 Once Las Casas established 18

Las Casas uses indifferently the words “republics,” “peoples,” or “nations” to refer to Indigenous societies. I will follow the same words. The word “nation” does not have to be understood in its modern sense. It refers to an organized society but not to an “imagined community” such as described by Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso Books, 2006). 19 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:212–​213. Las Casas follows here Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, vi, 10, and also Aquinas, Summa Theologica, ii–​i i q. 48 a. 1 c. 20 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:214–​218 [ch. 40]. Las Casas uses the same terms used by Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1141 b25. 21 See the chapter by Thomas Eggensperger in this volume. 22 Pliny the Elder, or Gaius Plinius Secundus (23–​79), was a Roman officer and encyclopedist, author of the Natural History; see Pliny the Elder, Natural History (London and Cambridge: Loeb, 1991). For a good introduction to Pliny the Elder see Roy K. Gibson and Ruth Morello, Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts (Leiden: Brill, 2011). Diodorus Siculus (c.80–​20 bce) was a Greek historian from Agyrium in Sicily. He wrote forty books of world history, called Library of History, in three parts: mythical history of peoples, non-​ Greek and Greek, to the Trojan War. A good introduction to Diodorus Siculus’s work can

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this model as a common path for all societies, he referred to examples from Indigenous societies. According to him, the life of the inhabitants of the Indies followed these criteria. He explained that there were numerous examples of this in agricultural labor and beverage production among Indigenous societies—​including their production of clothing, which was better than the textile produced in Castile.23 To prove his point, Las Casas used some hypotheses followed by empirical examples.24 Under the first type of prudence, the cleric analyzed the procreative abilities of the Indigenous and confirmed that they were healthy populations who had managed to increase the number of inhabitants in the past. For Las Casas, this great number of souls proved the capacity of the Indigenous people to rule themselves. They had been living politically prudent for centuries; therefore, they had good judgment and fruitful discourse; they exercised reason as did other people.25 The second type of prudence pertained to support of the family. The union of different families created the polis—​a self-​sufficient organization. The logic that structured the “home” was the logic of conservation and reproduction of life. Las Casas underlined the fact that empirical experience demonstrated the practice of this economic prudence among the Indigenous inhabitants, because they had numerous communities, towns, and councils. Without this prudence, the existence and duration of all these communities throughout the years—​with their property rights, and self-​sufficient institutions—​would have been impossible to conceive. This generality might be proven by particular cases. Accordingly, Las Casas gave examples of remarkable architectural structures in New Spain and Peru.26 He compared the situation of the Indigenous people with the teachings of history about the economic traditions of the Greeks and the Portuguese. However, Indigenous people did not have slaves, although some slaves served the principal leaders and authorities. While slavery was not a regular practice among them, in a few cases, a master-​slave relationship existed. Las Casas argued that this relationship was akin to the one between a father and his sons; as such, slaves had the right to get married and to work their own land. Generally, the

be found in Charles E. Muntz, Diodorus Siculus and the World of the Late Roman Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). 23 Las Casas uses the expression “vinos y brebajes” to refer to the alcoholic drinks that the Indians habitually used. 24 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:219–​222 [ch. 41]. 25 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:224 [ch. 42]. 26 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:229 [ch. 43].

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lives of the Indigenous inhabitants were simple and frugal—​which explained their happiness: “I said ‘happy’ because they truly were happy, they only took of this world what they needed to live, they had it in abundance, without care or anxiety, without quarrels (…) They lived in peacefulness, calm, love, peace, and joy (…).”27 Certainly, this happiness could not be complete, because the Indigenous people lacked the Christian faith. However, the really important matter at this moment was to prove the rationality of those Indigenous nations. Their intellectual capacity expressed itself in the economic prudence which was the ground upon which huge cities were created and complex systems of life were built—​such as those founded by the Spaniards. For Las Casas, this was also a proof of political prudence. The third form of prudence belonged to those who governed themselves by following their own will. For these people, the objective of res publica was an orderly, pacifistic, and social life; other people, as Las Casas pointed out, could only see in the republic a way to power and pleasure. For Las Casas, whose perspective was based on a long medieval tradition, the best form of government was the Christian republic. In such a republic, the laws and the social life were meant to accomplish the will of God—​that is to say, to live a life ruled by charity and the pursuit of salvation. In other words, only this kind of republic could be defined as “civilized.” For Las Casas, the Christian republic was the only one that could expunge nations of their horrific and barbaric imperfections because without faith and Christian doctrine, there could not be any perfection in a human community.28 While these points were developed before analyzing the Indigenous people’s political prudence, they could also be understood as a precedent for the discussion about peaceful conversion. Only by proving the political capacity of the Indigenous inhabitants, and their almost perfect social organization, was it possible to defend a voluntary and rational conversion process. Later, Las Casas described the elements that constituted the perfect polis. Following Aristotle, he cited six categories of citizens: workers, warriors, rich men, priests, judges, and rulers.29 These types formed the social base for analyzing the organization of the Indigenous polis. Consequently, through an

27

“Dije felices porque verdaderamente así lo eran, pues sólo tomando de este mundo lo que necesario les era para vivir, lo tenían en abundancia, sin cuidados y sin zozobras (…) en toda quietud y sosiego, amor y paz y en alegría vivían (…).” Casas, ahs (1967), 1:235 [ch. 44]; Casas, ahs (1967), 1:231–​232 [ch. 43]. 28 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:239 [ch. 45]. Las Casas repeats this idea in Apología (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1975), 128. 29 Aristotle, Política (Madrid: Gredos, 1988), vii, 8, 1328b, 421–​423.

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historical analysis, the next segment explores these categories of citizens in Indigenous societies and focuses on the key category of religion. 3

A Universal History of Nations and Culture

This segment compares Aristotelian definitions with the reality of Indigenous societies as experienced and studied by Las Casas. According to his representation of the historical evolution of the Indigenous people, the Other needed to be seen as part of universal humankind. To elucidate his treatment of the Other, Las Casas focused on the role of priests in Indigenous groups.30 By analyzing the category of priesthood, Las Casas integrated the Indigenous people into the broader perspective of universal history; in addition, he studied other religious phenomena, which were an important point in his arguments in favor of peaceful conversion.31 Accordingly, first, Las Casas’s study of religion allowed him to demonstrate that the Indigenous people had full knowledge of the divine and, second, that this was in direct response to those who claimed that the Indigenous were barbarians. As such, the element of religion was the basis for understanding these peoples as organized and well-​governed political societies that belonged to the common history of humankind. In the religious domain, Las Casas ascertained that all nations had the possibility to reach—​by natural ways—​knowledge of God.32 Moreover, the human conscience of mortality pushed them to conceive of a superior being that could be a source of protection and rest. This was a rational characteristic of human beings and was also the result of divine intervention that had planted 30

31 32

Las Casas defines the religious men of the Mexica culture according to the hierarchies of the Catholic Church. He uses the method of analogy in order to bring this reality closer to the reality of his readers. He uses the word “priest” to bring the reader closer to a better understanding of the religious culture of the Indians. The author gives the different names that each of the religious authorities have. For example, “tehuatecotl” means the supreme one of all those consecrated to God. The “bishops” are called “huey teopixqui,” which means great minister of God. The common priests are called “teopixqui.” Chapters 89 and 90 are dedicated to explaining the education of young people who wanted to become “priests,” as well as what the author calls “women dedicated to worship” or “priestesses.” Las Casas, ahs (1967), 2:24–​32 [ch. 89–​90]. Bartolomé de las Casas, Del único modo de atraer a todos los pueblos a la verdadera religión (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1975). “Por lo cual dijo Aristóteles en el principio de su Methaphisica; Omnes homines natura scire deiderant.” Casas, ahs (1967), 1:213. Las Casas follows Aristotle, Metaphysics, i, 980a21. See Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. Hugh Lawson-​Tancred (London: Penguin Group, 2004), 4.

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its will in the human mind. The more complex the religious institutions were in a society, the more this society was civilized and organized by reason. In fact, if the rites and sacrifices ordered by God were elaborate and complex, that society might be considered rational. For instance, Las Casas argued that the religious ceremonies of the Indigenous groups were more venerable, devout, and awe-​inspiring than those of the Romans.33 Nevertheless, for him, Indians had a confused knowledge of God. The intervention of an external agent was necessary in order for them to reach full knowledge of God, and the only possible way to do this was through Christian conversion. Therefore, Las Casas established his position as a missionary before he carried out a study and a description of the idolatry and rites of the Indigenous groups. The way to prove the rational capacity of the Indigenous people was to compare their “barbarian” practices with those developed by the nations of Western antiquity. For this, Las Casas quoted several ancient authors, such as Herodotus, Xenophon, Apollonius of Rhodes, and Diodorus Siculus, to secure lengthy descriptions of ancient religious practices.34 By analyzing these descriptions, Las Casas concluded that idolatry was a natural predisposition of humanity, and that all humans were naturally compelled to worship something superior to themselves.35 Las Casas then analyzed the practices of the Jews, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, that is, the nations that represented the basis of Western Christian culture. This long list of nations constituted a precise description of different forms of what he regarded as idolatry and worship of divinity.36 Las Casas did not choose some random examples of nations. Instead, he studied those who worshipped honorable and exemplary gods, and were more civilized and worthy to be followed than those who believed in gods with unusual practices (such as sodomy, incest, etc.). As such, it was possible to distinguish an evolution in the cult of the divine. On the one hand, there were nations that had complex and refined religious practices due to a better and more abstract understanding of divinity. On the other hand, the nations that had an inferior

33 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:369 [ch. 71]. 34 Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c.480–​c.429 bce) is considered the world’s first historian. In The Histories, he describes the expansion of the Achaemenid empire, and the wars between the Greek and the Persian. See Herodotus, The Histories (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013). Apollonius of Rhodes (c.295 bce) was a Greek poet and grammarian, author of the Argonautica. For further information, see Theodore D. Papanghelis and Antonios Rengakos, Brill’s Companion to Apollonius Rhodius (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008). 35 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:382 [ch. 74]. 36 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:388–​403 [ch. 75–​76].

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knowledge of divinity tended to characterize their gods in negative human ways.37 To prove his point, Las Casas used the example of Quetzalcoatl of Mesoamerica, who was defined as a pacific, moderate, and virtuous god. That is, “Precious serpent” or “Quetzal-​feathered Serpent” taught Indigenous inhabitants the art of silverwork—​and he never allowed human or animal sacrifices. According to Las Casas and his informers, Quetzalcoatl was a chaste and honorable god. The experience also showed that Indigenous groups had very pure forms of divinity, even reaching the understanding and intuition of a unique God, which knowledge was close to Christian teachings.38 According to Las Casas, there were numerous narrations from missionaries and explorers that supported this example.39 Las Casas also used the definition of divinity to compare the rites between the nations of Western antiquity and Indigenous practices. For this, Las Casas enumerated a long list of what he called “perversions” as well as bloody sacrifices from well-​known nations. For instance, human sacrifices were offered to Saturn by the people of Libya, and to Jupiter by the Romans.40 He also wrote a long description of the rites and the ancient gods.41 The purpose of Las Casas’s erudite study was to review the different forms of relationship with divinity; those forms explained the social organization of nations. The comparison with antiquity also helped to contextualize the diverse expressions of religion that could be found among Indigenous nations. Las Casas also compiled and systematized the diverse religious understandings in the stories he gathered and that had been circulating about the Indigenous groups, their rituals, and their religious practices. In this historical writing about religious phenomena, Las Casas also criticized the opinions of missionaries and conquistadors who regarded the Indigenous groups as barbaric. Given such negative responses,

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Víctor Zorrilla, El estado de naturaleza en Bartolomé de las Casas (Navarra: Universidad de Navarra, 2010). 38 About this god of Mesoamerica, the reader can consult the work of Enrique Florescano, The Myth of Quetzalcoatl (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) and the work of David Carrasco, Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire: Myths and Prophecies in the Aztec Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 39 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:645–​648 [ch. 122]. Las Casas refers to the Orbe novo decades of Peter Martyr D’Anghiera and the accounts of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. See, Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, Orbe Novo decades (Project Gutemberg, 2004): Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003). 40 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:62–​63 [ch. 147]. 41 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:77–​141 [ch. 150–​161].

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Las Casas had recourse to many different sources to create a complete view of Indigenous religions. Therefore, in Las Casas’s estimation, human sacrifice could appear as a natural way of worshipping God. When their knowledge of God was consistently increased, men and women would seek to offer their most precious gift, i.e., a human life. Since God appeared as the unique source of everything that existed, he could be worshipped only in a special manner. For Las Casas, it was natural that human beings engaged in this kind of sacrifice, because they wanted to honor God with the most important aspect of life: existence itself. Accordingly, Las Casas deemed it important to underline first that there was no positive law that regulated religious practices, and second, that even if these sacrifices were offered to a false god, they were not less valued, because they represented the relationship between religious people and their god.42 This position revealed the influence of Renaissance humanism on Las Casas in the argument that he developed using analytical and universal criteria derived from classical and Christian authorities about the natural tendency of reason to search for the divine. Through this understanding of religious phenomena, Las Casas made an anthropological assessment of religion, and he analyzed different cultures and religious practices as expressions of a common human principle. As a consequence, the degree of complexity in religious institutions constituted a criterion to evaluate the level of natural knowledge of divinity. For instance, Las Casas described the preparation undertaken by the Tlaxcala priest before their sacred celebrations, as well as the penitence and fasting carried out by other Indigenous groups in Mexico.43 He addressed the practice of confession between the Totonacas, and, quoting some missionaries, he 42 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:242 [ch. 183]. 43 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:192 [ch. 171]. Tlaxcala was a small territory whose inhabitants fought against the domination of the Aztecs. With the arrival of Hernán Cortés, the Tlaxcalans decided to ally themselves with him, in order to fight the common enemy. Important documents explain this alliance, such as the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, which describes the Spanish-​ Tlaxcalteca alliance and presents an impressive list of Spanish conquests in which Tlaxcalteca conquistadors participated. See Florine G. L. Asselbergs, “The Conquest in Images: Stories of Tlaxcalteca Quauhquecholteca Conquistador,” in Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of Mesoamerica, ed. Laure E. Matthew and Michel R. Oudijk (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007). The Totonacas were a people of the Veracruz region. Many Totonac cities were under the power of the Aztecs until the arrival of Cortés in 1519. The Totonacs became the first allies of the Spanish conquistadors. See Kathleen Ann Myers, In the Shadow of Cortés: Conversations Along the Route of Conquest (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015), and also Alan R. Sandstrom and E. Hugo García Valencia, eds., Native Peoples of the Gulf Coast of Mexico (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2005).

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affirmed that this practice also extended to Chiapa.44 He wrote: “They practiced this confession twice a year (…) and during those days (…) they never laughed or admitted any kind of pleasure, only sadness, sorrow, and grief; they called it majolcuita in refined Mexican language.”45 The relationship of those practices to Christian traditions was an essential element of cultural and religious comparisons. This seemingly undercuts the idea that Las Casas would lie about the Indigenous traditions, as some authors stated. For instance, Menéndez Pidal affirmed that the friar built an extremely positive portrait of the Indigenous people only to serve his own purposes.46 To the contrary, Las Casas organized and analyzed different sources—​such as material provided by the Dominican missionaries of Chiapa. In other parts of the text, he referred to individuals who had empirical experiences living among Indigenous groups. However, Las Casas did not want to follow those who considered the Indigenous people as descendants of “Christian Princes” or as part of the lost tribes of Israel.47 Instead, he wanted to prove the existence of a common historical core of religious matter that shared a similar level of abstraction with the Judeo-​Christian tradition. The conception of divinity as a unity and the relationships established by some Indigenous gods with their believers allowed him to link the great Indigenous cultures with Christian ritual. Las Casas went even further and explained how ritual cannibalism was a religious responsibility of Indigenous priests—​a responsibility that implied both a terrific and admirable relationship with God. Eating human flesh was not related to trivial and daily food. On the contrary, this consumption was sacred and only a few selected people of the community could access it.48 This was a universal reflection on the culture of the Other, similar to that explored by Jean de Léry, and later by Lévi-​Strauss.49 Las Casas’s reflections anticipated those 44 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:213 [ch. 176]. 45 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:212: “Esta confesión hacían dos veces al año (…) y los días que duraban (…) nunca se reían, ni admitían placer alguno, sino todo tristeza, pesar y amargura; llamábase en la lengua polida mexicana, majolcuita.” “Majolcuita” can be translated as “confession of sins,” see Manuel Azcar Ezquerra, ed., Vocabulario de Indigenismos en las Crónicas de Indias (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1997), 242. 46 Ramón Menéndez Pidal, El padre Las Casas: su doble personalidad (Madrid: Espasa-​ Calpe, 1963). 47 Giuliano Gliozzi, Adam et le Nouveau Monde (Paris: Ed. Théethète, 2003), 23–​86. As Gliozzi points out, Las Casas evoked in his works the theory of the Jewish origin of the Indians. However, everything indicates that he did not believe it. This theory, as Gliozzi shows, was used by the encomenderos to justify the slavery of the Indians. 48 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:221 [ch. 178]. 49 Jean de Léry, Histoire d’un voyage faict en terre de Brésil (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1994), 354–​377. Claude Lévi-​Strauss, Tristes tropiques (New York: Penguin, 2012), 335.

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perspectives developed later in philosophical terms by Mircea Eliade on the relationship between the homo religiosus and the sacred.50 As Eliade argued, the behavior of the cannibal was not natural, nor was it a result of the need for food. Instead, this behavior was a cultural expression of a religious conception of life. This constituted a huge responsibility for those in charge of mediation with divinity. Las Casas explained that the Totonacas of New Spain felt grief and sorrow when they practiced human sacrifices, and that they begged their gods to free them of such obligation.51 He underlined this relationship with the divine in order to prove that Indigenous people were deeply religious and might be converted easily to Christianity. The specific description of Indigenous religion was a key element in Las Casas’s conception of history developed throughout the ahs. This understanding of history was based on inquiry into the past for an explanation of the present. Las Casas employed historical examples to place the Indigenous people in the universal history of humankind. His historical work allowed for the establishment of the evolution of nations through different stages. Starting in savagery or barbarism, nations transformed themselves to reach more complex forms of social relations. In this evolution, divinity played an important role. Las Casas then compared the practices of the nations of antiquity to assess the level of Indigenous cultures. For the Dominican friar, the conquest generated an unjust historical event, which developed into the cruel submission of Indigenous groups. Therefore, the necessary task was to narrate a history of their subjection in order to judge and penalize the Spaniards for the evils and harm done.52 The Apologética historia sumaria brought new proofs to the defense of Indigenous peoples and generated clear knowledge about them. In his comparison and classification of the nations that had existed, Las Casas established a typology of barbarism, because the definition of the Indigenous nations as “barbaric” would justify the Spanish imperial efforts and its logic of conquest. This typology had produced analysis and critiques from authors who defined Las Casas as an actor of Western domination. This chapter now turns to an analysis of the ahs through the lens of decolonial theory and especially from the perspective of Walter Mignolo.53

50 Mircea Eliade, Lo sagrado y lo profano (Barcelona: Labor, 1967), 91–​92. 51 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:221 [ch. 178]. 52 Felipe Castañeda, “Conflictos mayores y concepciones de la historia: los casos de Agustín de Hipona, Bartolomé de las Casas e Immanuel Kant,” Historia Crítica 27 (2004): 5–​8. 53 Walter Mignolo, Historias locales/​diseños globales (Madrid: Akal, 2003).

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Excursus: Decolonial Readings of the Apologética

In La idea de América Latina, Mignolo explained the basis of decolonial theory and its function as a decrypting matrix for the contemporary world.54 One of his assumptions was that there was no modernity without coloniality—​ meaning that the origins of the modern-​colonial world had to be found in the sixteenth century and in the “discovery” of America. This discovery was the colonial element of modernity and had a visible face called the Renaissance. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century were derived moments of this logic. These moments transformed the colonial matrix of power.55 Modernity was the historical process that allowed Europe to become hegemonic and was also linked with colonial transformations and power struggles that developed in the peripheries of Europe. For Mignolo, modernity was an unfinished process.56 As such, to understand the contemporary world, Mignolo analyzed the historical emergence of America—​that is to say, the “discovery” from a European viewpoint. This term “discovery” was also studied by Edmundo O’Gorman, who spoke of the “invention” of America.57 Following this idea, Mignolo affirmed that “America” was an invention produced by the development of European colonial history, as well as by the consolidation and expansion of Western ideas and institutions. Mignolo’s critique then demonstrated how privileged places of discourse or locus enuntiationis were historically created. This ­process established a special position in the construction of knowledge: “occidentalism” is the name of the epistemic place of those who defined and classified the world. This classification, and the authority of those who imposed it, formed the geopolitics of knowledge, which on the one hand defined those who possessed wisdom, knowledge, and science, and, on the other hand, those who became “objects of knowledge.”58 Thus, Mignolo made a particular reading of the last chapters of the Apologética wherein Las Casas defined four categories of “barbarian.”59 This classification was related to the conquest of America, and also to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and of Moors in 1609. Therefore, according to Mignolo, Las Casas suggested a racial classification of humanity

54 Walter Mignolo, La idea de América Latina (Barcelona: Gedisa, 2007). 55 Mignolo, La idea, 18. 56 Mignolo, La idea, 20. 57 Edmundo O’Gorman, La invención de América (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2006), 19–​67. 58 Mignolo, La idea, 28. 59 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:637–​654 [ch. 264–​267].

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in a descending scale, one which took Christian ideals and values as a central criterion.60 Mignolo listed the categories of “barbarians” according to Las Casas’s classification. After quoting the first type, which said “barbarian” was a synonym for a “lack of reason (…) softness and docility,” Mignolo argued that Las Casas thought some nations forgot the rules of reason and generosity and adopted violent behaviors; they lost cordiality and benevolence, which were characteristics of a civilized social attitude.61 In Mignolo’s second category, Las Casas situated those nations and communities that lacked “literal language.” For Mignolo, this definition excluded the nations that did not have literature and therefore did not have an alphabet. He concluded that this definition corresponded to the importance that written language had during the Renaissance—​a scale to distinguish different nations. Hence, Greek and Latin were considered the languages for civilized and advanced nations. According to Mignolo, those nations which did not possess a written language did not have a “history.” Mignolo’s third category of barbarian complemented the first type.62 These nations were fierce and uncontrollable. In general, as Las Casas defined them, they were nations with strange, rough, and bad manners.63 But Mignolo saw a key distinction among these barbarians—​between those who could rule themselves and those who could not. Based on this distinction, he considered that the Ottoman Empire, or the Inca and Aztec empires, could be placed under the category of those who could rule themselves.64 Besides, Mignolo completed his view by saying that these types of barbarians were close to human beings in the “the natural state” as described by Hobbes and Locke.65 In Historias locales/​ diseños globales, Mignolo repeated that idea, but he confused the definition of the first category with the third one. In addition, he said that this classification corresponded to the idea of a human scale going from “nature” to a superior human society that, in Las Casas’s conception, was the Christian society of his time.66

60 Mignolo, La idea, 41–​43. 61 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:637 [ch. 264]; Mignolo, La idea, 44. 62 Mignolo, Historias locales/​diseños, 37. 63 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:641 [ch. 265]. 64 Mignolo, Historias locales/​diseños, 37. 65 Mignolo, La idea, 45. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2004). 66 Mignolo, Historias locales, 36.

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Mignolo’s fourth category of barbarian was the “infidel”—​that is to say, those nations lacking a “true religion.” Las Casas affirmed that all non-​Christian nations had something lacking that prevented them from becoming as perfect as Christian nations.67 According to Mignolo, Las Casas presented the first, the second, and the fourth categories of barbarians—​as barbarians “secundum quid,” which means “almost barbarians.” They only lacked Christian faith. Nevertheless, the real barbarians stricto sensu were those of this third type. There was a fifth category of barbarism that Mignolo defined as a “contrary barbarism”—​one that did not have a clear criterion or specificity.68 He also argued that Las Casas used this category to define all those nations and communities that sought to weaken Christendom. Mignolo called this a “negative barbarism”69 and added that this denomination corresponded to the hate expressed by those barbarians against the Christian faith.70 They opposed the spread of Christianity and fought it; hate and jealousy encouraged their efforts. According to Mignolo, Las Casas defined several “externalities” by identifying different kinds of barbarians and establishing their colonial and imperial differences. This fifth category of barbarism—​those fighting and seen as threatening to Christian values and ideas—​joined both conceptual differences. They could also be identified with the Turks, the Indigenous people, and even the Protestants. This classification was used during the formation of the colonial-​ modern world to identify potential and actual enemies. Historically, “negative barbarism” was redefined to incorporate all those who fought against Western civilization and its ideas, such as freedom, democracy, and the market.71 Mignolo’s conclusions aimed to demonstrate that Las Casas was the first example of “Occidentalism”; that is to say, of the ideology that considered Western civilization as essentially superior to the rest of the world and, through that argument, acts of violence committed against any other were justified. Nevertheless, this chapter has demonstrated that this was a partial and misleading interpretation. In fact, Mignolo moved away from Las Casas’s text in order to justify his point. He extrapolated what Las Casas said and used the reflection on barbarism as a proof of his own theory.

67 Mignolo, Historias locales, 38. 68 Mignolo, La idea, 45. 69 Mignolo, Historias locales/​diseños, 38. 70 Mignolo, La idea, 45. 71 Mignolo, La idea, 46.

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A Coherent Reading of Las Casas’s Typology

First, Las Casas’s characterization of barbarism was far more complex than Mignolo’s interpretation. For instance, the barbarians of the first category could be humans with stubborn opinions and passionate feelings.72 In his analysis, Mignolo alluded to Las Casas’s initial words in his epilogue. This was a fundamental text to grasp the context of Las Casas’s study. He underlined the confusion around the concept and the definition of “barbarian.” The Indigenous people had been wrongly defined as barbarians. This meant that the conceptual work developed by Las Casas in this short epilogue was a defense of the Indigenous people against this accusation of their barbaric state. Hence, for instance, the first category of barbarians could be perfectly identified with the Spaniards during the conquest. Las Casas’s effort aimed to distinguish between cultural difference and natural inferiority.73 For the second category of barbarians, Las Casas used several different examples. First, the “barbarians” could be defined as those who lacked a ­written language corresponding to their oral tradition.74 Those were nations without knowledge of letters or study. Mignolo added that they did not have a “history.” But this interpretation was not accurate. Las Casas pointed out that these nations could be very wise and civilized. They were considered barbarians secundum quid. Immediately after that, he gave a literal definition: persons were called barbarian when compared to others, because their language was not understood.75 In this case, there was not a cultural evaluation. Las Casas only evoked the impossibility of communication among peoples with different languages. Mignolo did not quote this example, which was extremely important, because Las Casas underlined here that incomprehension could also happen beyond language. In fact, he said that obstacles in communication, and also the different traditions observed by Spaniards, resulted in the qualification of the Indigenous people as “barbarians”: “So, these people of the Indies, 72 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:638 [ch. 264]. 73 Natsuko Matsumori, Civilización y Barbarie: Los asuntos de indias y el pensamiento político moderno (1492–​1560) (Madrid: Editorial Biblioteca Nueva, 2005), 85. 74 In the debate about the idea of the superiority of writing in some civilizations, see Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years (New York: Norton, 1996), and the response of Mathew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). An accurate response to Diamond’s arguments can also be found in Michael Wilcox, “Marketing Conquest and the Vanishing Indian: An Indigenous Response to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse,” Journal of Social Archaeology 10 (2010): 92–​117. 75 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:638 [ch. 264].

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as we considered them barbarians, they also considered us as barbarians (…), because they did not understand us.”76 Las Casas went even further: he explained that the Indigenous situation of “confusion and melancholy” sometimes resulted in suicide. He presented this situation’s socio-​historical origin as the consequence of violent conquest and brutal slavery, which disorganized social relations, caused deep cultural changes, and destroyed their political life. All of this was the result of the actions of the Spaniards.77 For Las Casas, those men and women who could not rule themselves and who had savage customs constituted the third category. They were lonely beings and refused to live in society. They were slaves by nature—​barbarians in a simple way.78 Nevertheless, they differed from the demented—​that is, those born without reason but within a political society. As pointed out above, Mignolo argued that these barbarians were similar to people in the “natural state,” as described by Hobbes and Locke. This interpretation was incorrect. First, Las Casas did not mention any “natural state,” as these later philosophers understood it.79 For him, by virtue of the attribute of sociability, humans’ natural tendency pushed them to live in society. In the contractual definition proposed by Hobbes and Locke, there was a rupture with the “natural state.” Both philosophers presupposed some rationality in these individuals. The feelings, thoughts, and their free will pushed them to live in society in order to preserve their life. Individuals who lived in the “natural state” were not savages; they could organize themselves and were rational.80 For Las Casas, this third category of barbarians resulted from climate and general conditions of certain regions, as he showed in the first chapter of ahs.81 Matsumori underlined that this category of barbarianism was defined by a criterion of inferiority.82 The fourth category of barbarism corresponds to infidelity. Las Casas said that despite the fact that Turks and Moors were nations that practice justice and have a political organization, they could not reach the same degree of social perfection as the Christians because they lack the “true God.”83 Mignolo used this to affirm that Las Casas established the imperial difference between

76

“Y así, estas gentes destas Indias, como nosotros las estimamos por bárbaras, ellas, también, por no entendernos, nos tenían por bárbaros (…)” Casas, ahs (1967), 2:639 [ch. 264]. 77 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:639 [ch. 264]. 78 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:642–​643 [ch. 265]. 79 Victor Zorrilla, El estado de Naturaleza, 27–​45. 80 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 86–​100; John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 3. 81 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:642 [ch. 265]. 82 Matsumori, Civilización y barbarie, 86. 83 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:645.

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Christians and the threat of the “Ottoman” and the “Islamic” empires.84 This statement extrapolated Las Casas’s argument. Additionally, the definition of Mignolo’s “Islamic Empire” was not completely clear because he did not identify this “empire” with any political structure existing in the sixteenth century. The term “Moors” also had an important history necessary to understand.85 That Las Casas established a borderline between “infidels” and Christians was true, but during that time this distinction was common sense.86 In addition, he also distinguished the nations that, historically, could not have had contact with the Christian faith. Those nations were in ignorance. They were “purely negative infidels” because they had never heard about Christ or even about the Christian faith: they were called Gentiles.87 Mignolo argued that the tendency to classify the non-​Christian other came from a Western self-​perception as superior, and their subsequent efforts to spread geopolitical and epistemological control over the world. However, Las Casas grounded his analysis in a long Christian tradition that sought to order relationships with other peoples. Remember that on the Iberian Peninsula, for centuries Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived together, which resulted in the conditions of coexistence. Las Casas did not share the idea of a “Western civilization” dominating the world. The Christian realms were in a peripheral position, so these classifications had the objective of distinction, rather than of domination. The fifth category of barbarism as defined by Las Casas was the “contrarian barbarism.” This category did not include all the others, as Mignolo understood it. The Dominican friar explained clearly that “it is different from the other ones.”88 This category applied to those who attacked Christendom. Here Las Casas identified Christendom with the Roman Empire.89 And he chose the example of Goths and Huns who attacked a Christianized Roman Empire. However, he explicitly underlined that the Church must not battle against barbarians who were peaceful and harmless. This was jus gentium.90 Las Casas’s work aimed at precisely defining concepts used by Aristotle and church theologians in their studies of relations with the non-​Christian nations. One cannot affirm, as Mignolo did, that the fifth category of barbarism 84 85

Walter Mignolo, Historias locales, 46. Kenneth Baxter-​Wolff, “The ‘Moors’ of West Africa and the Beginnings of the Portuguese Slave Trade,” Journal of Medieval & Renaissance Studies 24.3 (1994): 449–​469. 86 Matsumori, Civilización y barbarie, 87. 87 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:647. 88 “Es diferente de la de los precedentes.” Casas, ahs (1967), 2:649. 89 See David A. Lupher, Romans in a New World: Classical Models in Sixteenth-​Century Spanish America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006). 90 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:653.

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united all the others. On the contrary, Las Casas established a clear separation between inferiority and difference.91 This separation allowed him to prove the rationality and peacefulness of the Indigenous people—​which was his starting point at the beginning of the ahs. He could then denounce the abuses generated by the misuse of the concept of “barbarian.” For him, there was no such thing as “Western” in the sense that Mignolo understood this term. The notion of Western civilization—​understood as a civilization with a specific destiny of superiority—​was a product of the seventeenth century, and above all of the eighteenth-​century Enlightenment. Many of the utopian experiments carried out by Spanish missionaries demonstrated a particular faith in the promise of the new lands, as well as in the aptitudes of their inhabitants. The Dominican friar insisted on the fact that even his fellow Spaniards could be called “barbarians.”92 His study of the Indigenous peoples purported to integrate them into the history of humankind by considering their customs and local evolution. 6

Conclusion

In the ahs, Las Casas developed an original insight that demonstrated that the history of the Indigenous people belonged to the history of humankind. Las Casas’s reflection on the notion of “barbarism” and his analysis of this concept through the long medieval tradition proved the possibility for them to be integrated in the Christian conversion effort. As a consequence of that, a new colonial policy needed to be developed wherein the Indigenous people were considered as fully developed human beings with essential rights. Las Casas tried to attain political and cultural recognition of those nations. Accordingly, his text went beyond description and tried to build a portrait of the Other. This was the case because, for Las Casas, a political question was at stake. He knew that the main argument to sustain the colonial enterprise was the rational limitation of the Indigenous people. He was aware of the power of discourses in the colonial experience. Information that traveled to and was produced in Europe constituted the beginning of complex colonial policies that were felt in the territory, and especially in the bodies of men and women. Through his experience in the Indies, Las Casas understood that false information about the inhabitants of America had terrible social and political consequences. Defamation, he said, could cause great pain and terrible disasters.93 91 Matsumori, Civilización y barbarie, 87. 92 Casas, ahs (1967), 2:653. 93 Casas, ahs (1967), 1:3.

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Las Casas’s vision of the Other in the ahs was quite new and revolutionary for his time. He denied the “rarity” of the Indigenous people—​a notion that was used to understand the novelty of this part of the globe. On the contrary, he aimed to demonstrate that the Western Indies were a part of Asia. This comprehension integrated them into the Christian vision of the oekumene.94 In this sense, Las Casas’s vision of the Other integrated the Indigenous people in the evangelical effort of the Spanish crown, that is, into the political effort to build a modern Catholic empire. This integration was preceded by acknowledgment of the intellectual abilities and political behavior of the Indigenous nations. Las Casas is not a modern relativistic thinker. By accepting the rational and political abilities of the Indigenous people, Las Casas gave them a position that none of his contemporaries were willing to give. They were defined as the cultural equivalent of Romans and Greeks, which made them closer to the Christians. This reconciliation was at the same time an acknowledgment that freed them from their status as supposedly “inferior” beings. 94

“Oekumene” means the permanently inhabited portion of the earth. This term was used to define the global perspective of Christianity. See Edmundo O’Gorman, “Estudio Preliminar,” lxxiii, in Bartolomé de las Casas, ahs (1967), 1:lxv.

pa rt 5 Historical Receptions of Las Casas: Utopians, the Black Legend, and Revolutionaries

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­c hapter 16

Political Hermeneutics of Utopias in Europe and the Americas: Thomas More, Bartolomé de las Casas, Vasco de Quiroga María Cristina Ríos Espinosa 1

The Importance of Utopian Thought

Utopian thought has a place in political philosophy as a way to critique political reality.1 For Ernest Bloch, in The Principle of Hope, the concept of utopia was not abstract, but referred concretely to the real. For him, the possible and ideally governed utopia illuminated and guided the real political arena to indicate what was unjust, as well as what to correct in errors in performance.2 The force of utopian thought is its capacity to judge reality—​to indicate existence as contingent—​not necessary—​as well as to show that reality could be different, since possibility can judge the concrete and objective realm of things. As a symbolic force, the forms of utopias go beyond law, and therefore transgress what is real by shaping a new order of justice; in this manner, the unprecedented is opened up. The theme of this chapter has been studied by prominent scholars specializing in sixteenth-​century colonial historiography. Their analyses of the utopias of Thomas More, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Vasco de Quiroga constitute the basis of this chapter’s hermeneutical analysis. The most recent historiographical literature about these three thinkers is found in Virginia Aspe Armella’s Tomás Moro y Vasco de Quiroga: Utopías en América (eunsa 2018). Also worth mentioning are the contributions of three other contemporary scholars: Víctor Zorrilla Garza, “La evolución intelectual de Bartolomé de las Casas: consideraciones a partir del Memorial de remedios para las Indias de 1516”; Ma. Idoya Zorroza, “La utopía renacentista y el modelo de Vasco de Quiroga”; and Cecilia Sabido Sánchez Juárez, “El programa humanista en la utopía práctica de Vasco de Quiroga.”

1 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are the author’s. 2 See Ernst Bloch, Principio de Esperanza, vol. 1 (Madrid: Trotta, 2004), 182–​183.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_018

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Zorrilla’s chapter analyzed Las Casas’s 1516 Memorial, and the most interesting point was Bartolomé’s controversial suggestion about royal rents and revenues obtained through Indigenous labor. Las Casas said that a new public order would be built to serve the king of Spain and to obtain royal rents that the monarch would not otherwise receive, if the lives of Indigenous workers were not protected. Zorrilla maintained that Las Casas’s proposal was a subterfuge to obtain approval for his project to organize endangered populations. My criticism differs, because I compare the proposals in the three utopias about the organization of labor and government, which Zorrilla does not. Zorroza reviewed the relationship between More and Quiroga in the context of Renaissance utopias. She read and quoted what traditional historiographers—​in particular Silvio Zavala—​had already said about the subject. The originality of Zorroza’s research rests on her treatment of prehispanic forms of organization and communal property, upon which Quiroga drew an analogical comparison to Christian views on prelapsarian life. However, she did not say what kind of prehispanic forms they were, which I refer to in this chapter. In addition, she did not contemplate the possible influence of las Casas upon Quiroga, which I suggest. I notice the comparison between Christian views on prelapsarian life and prehispanic mores—​a mestizaje of signs and symbol, which missionaries and Indigenous devotions used in a bilateral hermeneutical relationship. To prove this, I review the interpretation of an Ecuadorian philosopher named Bolivar Echeverría, who argued that this cultural mestizaje is seen as a “semiotic codigofagia,” which will be explained. However, Echeverría was not the only one to sustain this thesis. Interesting evidence of this is found in research by two anthropologists and ethnographers: Félix Báez Jorge, “Las hagiografías populares y la religiosidad en el México indígena”; and Serge Gruzinski, La guerra de las imágenes. De Cristóbal Colón a “Blade Runner” (1492–​2019).3 3 See Félix Báez Jorge, “Las hagiografías populares y la religiosidad en el México indígena,” in Cosmovisión mesoamericana: Reflexiones, polémicas y etnografía, ed. Alejandra Gámez and Alfredo López Austin (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2015). Baéz Jorge says: “In these rich streaks of the collective imaginary, mythical characters and primeval deities are associated or merged (in a selected way) with saints, or diverse Marian advocations and with the image of Christ, assumed by different perspectives.” Báez Jorge, “Las hagiografías populares,” 304; Gruzinski makes an interesting analogy between the interexchange of images, between Spaniards and natives, which function as substitutes due to the miraculous force that they produce for their owners. He sustains that Cortés maintained an ambivalent attitude towards pagan images; he used Christian altars to celebrate Catholic Mass in Tenochtitlan’s Templo Mayor (Aztec Temple), for example, and used Native shamans or pagan Native priests as operators of sacrality, see Serge Gruzinski, La guerra de las imágenes: De Cristóbal Colón a “Blade Runner” (1492–​2019) (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003), 50.

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Yet, perhaps, for this research, Cecilia Sabido´s chapter, “El programa humanista en la utopía práctica de Vasco de Quiroga,” in Aspe Armella’s edited volume, is the most relevant.4 Sabido’s research coincides with one of this chapter’s hypotheses about the influence of American utopias upon European ones. She sustained that the discovered Caribbean islands of Cuba and Jamaica inspired More, because he read Americo Vespucci’s travel diaries. Juárez quoted the most recent historiographical scholarship that sustained this thesis, but she did not mention Victor Baptist’s theory, which I do. Moreover, this chapter seeks to prove the emergence of a new critical version of modernity—​ one that demonstrates that if any state jeopardized and risked the means for human preservation in society, that state was unjust and tyrannical. That was the meaningful message of Las Casas’s, Quiroga’s, and More’s ideal republics. This chapter hermeneutically compares the proposals of Quiroga and Las Casas about the ideal model of organization of imaginary indigene republics, and thus hermeneutically preserves the collective memory to allow contemporary readers to understand past events. As Georg Gadamer sustains, the task of hermeneutics is to build a bridge of significant connection between spirits.5 A hermeneutical approach represents events of the past as abundant in symbolic meaning for our present lives, because it significantly connects us with a past as something familiar, as if it were happening in the present. As such, this comprehensive experience of historical events is significant in our contemporary human existence, since hermeneutic philosophy functions as a conceptual bridge that connects past events with the present as a symbolic experience.

4 See Cecilia Sabido Sánchez Juárez, “El programa humanista en la utopía práctica de Vasco de Quiroga,” in Tomás Moro y Vasco de Quiroga: Utopías en América, ed. Virginia Aspe Armella (Pamplona: Eunsa, 2018). “As a matter of fact, Quiroga was convinced that America was the source of More’s Utopia. He states so in paragraph 244 of Legal Report (Información en Derecho) […] Quiroga believes that Thomas More inspired himself in the qualities of the New World when he wrote Utopia,” see Tomás Moro, Utopia (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1999), 123. Sabido also offers additional evidence for this claim, her own interpretation of More’s Utopia: “In fact, Thomas More published Utopia in 1516 and takes as reference the letters of Americo Vespucci that he must have read during his stay in Amberes in 1515.” Sabido Sánchez Juárez, “El programa humanista,” 124. What I find interesting in Cecilia Sabido’s research is that she quotes the most important researchers on this subject, Pedro Borges Morán, “La inspiración americana de la Utopía de Tomás Moro,” Mar oceana 2 (1995): 91–​111 (96). But she never mentions Víctor Baptiste’s thesis about More’s Utopia. Baptiste claimed that More knew about Las Casas’s Memorial de Remedios of 1515. See Victor Baptiste, Bartolomé de Las Casas and Thomas More’s Utopia (Culver City: Labyrinthos, 1990). 5 See Georg Gadamer, Estética y hermenéutica (Madrid: Tecnos, 2001), 55.

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The original philosophical approach of this chapter identifies the hermeneutical analogies in the sixteenth-​century utopias proposed by the three contemporaneous humanists. More’s and Quiroga’s utopian proposals were not entirely anti-​colonial—​even when not opposing greed and violence, they did not radically break with the European colonization project as did Las Casas—​his ideal republic was no longer a mere replica of European culture in the Indies. A comparative analysis of these three utopian proposals reveals that past meaning is kept alive and still has something to say today. Their deep meaning holds that the moral limits of justice in organized republics—​and their teleology—​must be the preservation of human life. Indeed, the fulfillment of distributive justice must be its most sacred mission—​one that allows material and spiritual human reproduction. The humanists’ texts considered in this chapter have been studied by historians, anthropologists, ethnographers, and scholars of literary studies without exhausting their meanings. Nevertheless, for contemporary historiographical consideration, a hermeneutical approach offers a methodological framework to further reveal the meaning of these texts. In this way, these older texts are not read merely as past events—​as containing unique and closed messages with no need for further interpretation. As such, these three humanists’ proposals contain the ontological foundation of the defense of human existence. This fact is still true today and is the meaningful message of Las Casas’s, Quiroga’s, and More’s ideal republics to contemporary readers. The methodology of this chapter includes a comparative analysis of the models of community organization proposed in the Americas by Las Casas and Quiroga in their utopias. Both Las Casas’s 1516 Memorial and Quiroga’s 1535 Informe en derecho and his 1538 Reglas y ordenanzas para el gobierno de los hospitales de Santa Fe de México y Michoacán demonstrate their mutual relationship and their level of influence on political practices in New Spain. Although Quiroga followed More’s 1516 Utopia, Las Casas’s influence on Quiroga’s model of organization is also evident, and was implemented almost twenty years after Las Casas’s manuscript was written and after his failed Cumaná experiment in 1521. In contrast, Quiroga’s particular utopia was relatively successful after its implementation in 1532, as he reached the targeted fulfillment of Las Casas’s utopian ideals pertaining to the Indigenous population. To explore Quiroga’s utopian efforts, his main writings, such as the Información en derecho and his Reglas y ordenanzas, are analyzed because they contain his political ideology and his practical proposals for the construction of Indian republics. Another of Quiroga’s works, written in a clear colonist style and titled De debellandis indis

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(or De la guerra justa hacia los indios), will also be examined—​although the work’s authorship has been questioned.6 To investigate Las Casas’s utopian vision, his 1516 Memorial and his Memoriales of 1518–​1519 served as political criticism of the encomienda—​along with his other written denouncements—​and contributed to rectifying abuses of power by the first Audiencia.7 These documents wonderfully echoed Antón de Montesinos, O.P.’s well-​known sermon in Hispaniola in 1511—​a homily that arguably led to the creation of the 1512 Leyes de Burgos, as well as encouraged Las Casas to give up his encomienda and become a friar of the Order of Preachers. Yet, tragically, these proposed remedies and laws had little practical effect because corruption persisted—​a fact that led Las Casas to devote his entire life to monitoring and denouncing the facts, and to precipitating in the legislation of the 1542–​1543 Leyes Nuevas. 2

Hermeneutic Analogies between Utopias in Europe and the Americas

This chapter’s hermeneutical comparison of the utopias of More, Las Casas, and Quiroga examines their common symbolic ideas as well as their main economic, social, and political organization. The analogies are specifically 6 Silvio Zavala mentions in his study, “En torno al tratado de Debellandis Indis de Vasco de Quiroga,” that P. Benno Biermann, O.P., published a study titled “Don Vasco de Quiroga und seine Schrift De debellandis Indis” in Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 22.3 (1966): 189–​200. See Silvio Zavala, “En torno al tratado De debellandis indis de Vasco de Quiroga,” Historia Mexicana 18.4 (1969): 623–​ 626, https://​histo​riam​exic​ana.col​mex.mx/​ index.php/​RHM/​arti​cle/​view/​1242/​1133, He said he had found the treatise of De debellandis Indis of Vasco de Quiroga in the British Museum, in the manuscript “Add. 22683, fols. 320–​ 339.” Zavala doubted this authorship and began a debate with this researcher starting in 1968 in the journal Historia Mexicana. See Zavala, “En busca del tratado de Vasco de Quiroga, De debellandis indis,” Historia Mexicana 17.4 (1968): 485–​515, https://​histo​riam​exic​ana.col​mex. mx/​index.php/​RHM/​arti​cle/​view/​1170/​1061. Zavala maintains that the manuscript found in the British Museum corresponds to a copy of an original manuscript in the Muñoz Collection in the Academy of History in Madrid of the printed catalog no. 312, fs. 198–​209, vol. 92 of the Collection. Lewis Hanke also mentioned this Collection in his Bibliografía Crítica, p. 250, no. 576. Juan Bautista Muñoz wrote in his collection it could probably be written by Quiroga, but he never sustained it as a proven fact, as Benno Biermann does. 7 An encomienda was a Spanish labor system that rewarded Spaniards with the labor of particular groups of subject people, officially for the care and evangelization of the Native people. The beneficiaries of this reward were known as encomenderos. The First and Second Audiencias were high courts created by the Spanish crown for the purpose of auditing and checking the administration of the viceroyalties of New Spain.

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addressed as follows: the first is the distribution of the labor force without specializing in agriculture in order to avoid dependence, as well as to preserve freedom and autonomy in the face of other organized communities or nations; the second is the importance of agriculture as the main economic activity to ensure the community’s material well-​being in conformity with Christian ethical obligations, which follow natural law and serve as a guide to political governance; the third is the promotion of communal property, as organized by the early Christians—​thus keeping the law of Christ that says: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”8 The implications of the commandment to love others as oneself was interpreted as avoiding private ownership and consequently corrupting the soul. This corruption led to sins such as greed—​as seen among the Spanish encomenderos. This in turn jeopardized the spiritual health of Indigenous people and risked them with eternal damnation. Moreover, the friars’ entire mission in the Indies was at risk. The fourth is the importance of labor as a sign of justice and of solidarity towards the other members of the community, which necessitated a sense of Christian love and charity toward the other as based on Saint Paul’s teaching: “For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”9 These four analogies will be demonstrated in this hermeneutical comparison of the three aforementioned texts. Consequently, this chapter tests three hypotheses: (1) the influence of Las Casas’s models of work and land organization on More’s utopia and these, in turn, on Quiroga’s; (2) the emergence of a new version of modernity of a utopian nature that no longer was simply a reproduction of European culture in the Indies, but rather something unprecedented; and (3) the continuity in Quiroga’s thought about Las Casas’s utopian criticism of the dominant colonial rhetoric—​although Quiroga does not completely break with such rhetoric. During the early modern period, utopias in Europe and in the Americas included an economic, social, and political model, which was reflected in a material administration of goods, community work, education, and moral values. In other words, biopolitics existed exactly as Michel Foucault understood them.10 When applied to particular sixteenth-​century figures, the term should be understood as control over the lives of the members of a community through a discourse of power—​a discourse discernible in the Franciscans’ 8 9 10

John 13:34, New Revised Standard Version (nrsv). Thessalonians 3:10, New Revised Standard Version (nrsv). Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France 1978–​1979 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 10–​21.

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prelapsarian perspective during their golden age in New Spain wherein the Americas were seen as a prime opportunity to put biopolitics into practice.11 In addition, this vision was seen in the work of the Dominican friars and of other religious orders, as well as among jurists who addressed the spiritual conquest. Indeed, this effort to establish a new Europe in the Americas could be understood as a rectification of the corruption of the old continent. In particular, that of the Spanish-​Catholic project of the Counter-​Reformation that aimed to rescue the venture of Christianization was defeated by two historical events: the first pertained to the victory of Martin Luther and his Protestant reform from 1517 to 1546 in northern Europe, its repercussions on the political and religious landscape in Spain, and its effects on New Spain. The second event consisted of the corruption of the conquistadors and their betrayal of the original intention of the monarchs of Castile and Aragon—​specifically the power struggles between Hernán Cortés and the crown, those of Núñez de Balboa, and the abuses of the encomenderos that decimated Indigenous populations. Such acts forced the crown to send investigators—​appointed as auditors and prosecutors—​to the Americas as part of the Second Audiencia of 1531, which ordered the inspection of the administrative and political state of their domains. Members of this group included Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas and Canon lawyer Vasco de Quiroga. The criterion of analysis requires the study of the forms of the symbolic evolution of these utopian civilizing alternatives in transgressive and critical opposition to the forms of organization of the encomienda and to the laws in force in New Spain in the sixteenth century. As symbols, utopias powerfully generate a meaningful evolution of forces of creative power and their coming to fruition. Likewise, as significant forces of creative power, utopias are revealed and expressed as narratives in their specific historical realization. In the particular comparative case of this chapter, they are the forms of economic, social, and legal organization proposed by these authors; they embody, reveal, or manifest the potential transgressive load that their utopias encompass. On the one hand, the Renaissance ideals of More and Quiroga were

11

Enrique Dussel speaks of these first Franciscan friars called “the spirituals” who had a utopian perspective of millenarianism in their evangelizing project in the Americas. See Enrique Dussel, “El primer debate filosófico de la Modernidad,” in El pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano, del Caribe y “latino” (1300–​2000), ed. Enrique Dussel, Eduardo Mendieta, and Carmen Bohórquez (Mexico City: Siglo xxi, 2009), 59. Likewise, Robert Ricard explains who the first friars were and in what order they arrived in these lands. See Robert Ricard, La conquista espiritual de México (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2013).

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nourished on the Adamic paradises of a golden age revival of Greco-​Latin literature that included Hesiod and Lucian’s Saturnalia. The idea of a new Europe in the Americas also inspired them. In his Work and Days, Hesiod posited that there was a time when men [and women] rested in peace and without sorrow: Or if you will, I will sum you up another tale well and skilfully—​and do you lay it up in your heart—​how the gods and mortals sprang from one source. First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortals who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bore them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks, and loved by the blessed gods.12 Lucian shows this ideal world in his Saturnalia—​a dialogue between a priest and Cronus. In the words of this god, his reign was a pure time without vices and corruption: But it occurred to me to reserve these few days for the employments I have mentioned; during them I resume my authority, that men [and women] may remember what life was like in my days, when all things grew without sowing or ploughing of theirs—​no ears of corn, but loaves complete and meat ready cooked, when wine flowed in rivers, and there were fountains of milk and honey; all men [and women] were good and all men [and women] were gold. Such is the purpose of this my brief reign; therefore, the merry noise on every side, the song and the games; therefore, the slave and the free as one. When I was king, slavery was not.13 The Greek and Latin versions of the golden age influenced the Renaissance ideals of perfection as normative principles of the real realm. On the other hand, the Renaissance utopias of the sixteenth century—​as well as the proposals 12 13

Hesiod, “The age of man,” in Homeric Hymns: Epic Cycle; Homerica, trans. H. G. Evelyn-​ White (London: William Heinemann, 1914), 109. Lucian, “Saturnalia,” in The Works of Lucian of Samosata, trans. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1905), 4:111.

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for administrative land reform, including Las Casas’s 1516 Memorial—​had as their aim the reconstruction of a corrupt Europe along the lines of an idealized primitive Christian community and the Greco-​Roman world.14 All these utopian narratives in Europe and in the Americas served as ideal principles to criticize the factual realm of injustice and of corruption in both continents. While the initial Spanish-​Catholic civilizing project was successful in terms of feudal capitalist exploitation, ultimately the project was corrupt due to conquest, dehumanization, ambition, and greed. The project had to be reformed. While More’s and Quiroga’s utopian proposals criticized Europe’s civilizing movement, they did not radically break from the colonial or biopolitical project. Quiroga condemned the manner of civilizing, because he thought that civilization would occur through education and peaceful evangelization—​ instead of by enslavement and violence. However, criticism of the English and Spanish humanists was not distant from the political discourse of legitimizing the original evangelizing colonization, which was distorted by violence against Indigenous people. Quiroga’s utopian proposal in communal societies (hospitales pueblos) fits into the project of an “impure” European modernity insofar as the process of mestizaje was tolerated as a survival strategy for the Mediterranean project of modernity.15 That is, Quiroga proposed a compromise with ancient “pre-​ modern” forms of Native Indo-​American cultures by a semiotic resignification of their religious, administrative, and political practices.

14

15

This was reclaimed by Thomas More in the second book of Utopia, which was published in the same year, according to the evidence provided by Baptiste on weaving a story against the grain, as understood by Walter Benjamin. See Baptiste, Bartolomé de Las Casas. Here the author shows the historical connection of both manuscripts at the hand of Erasmus of Rotterdam, advisor to Cardinal Cisneros, who was in turn an advisor to the Spanish court. More and Erasmus met during a diplomatic mission in Antwerp, Belgium. The latter delivered the manuscript of the Memorial de los remedios that Las Casas had written in Latin, during his visit to King Ferdinand in December 1515, which served to denounce the excesses of the encomenderos in the Caribbean islands. See Bartolomé de las Casas, Memorial de remedios para las Indias (1516), O.E., 5:5–​27. Erasmus had a copy that had probably been provided to him by Adrian of Utrecht and Cisneros during an interview with Las Casas in March 1516. Erasmus gave Tomas More the commission to include it in his “fiction” of Utopia. I use the adjective “impure” to compare it with the civilizing Project of (North) America, which could be called “pure” in the sense of rejecting mestizaje and where there was an effective “blood cleansing” of Native Americans. It did not uphold a commitment to pre-​existing natural forms and advanced successfully and without any concessions. See the chapter “Modernidad americana” in Bolívar Echeverría, Modernidad y blanquitud (México: Era, 2010), 91.

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This civilizing project—​ through the system of hospitales pueblos—​ constituted an alternative approach to evangelization, while defending the material reproduction of Indigenous communities.16 Quiroga’s semiotic survival strategy proposed the utopian form of a new Europe, which served to defend the Indians from their temporal and spiritual extermination. In these communal societies (hospitales pueblos) of mixed government, the Indians accepted the utopian model of land organization and an educational system modeled on the ideals of the Renaissance community. Quiroga’s ideal political community required pre-​modern ways of land organization (contrary to those of the feudalistic encomienda) that utilized the methods of early Christian communities—​those of the “utopians” in More’s Utopia and those of the pre-​Hispanic altépetl and tequio17 (if Baptiste’s thesis on Las Casas’s influence on More is correct). The same cannot be said of the Lascasian project, which Dussel regards as the first anti-​modern discourse; he sustained that Las Casas’s biography contains his ethical, political, and philosophical critical position against what Dussel called “the first modernity expansion.”18 At the beginning, Las Casas was just another Andaluz adventurer, who in 1502 went to the Indies. He became a Catholic priest in 1507. Subsequently, in 1514, with a new existential orientation, he started to defend the Indigenous

16

17

18

Hospitales pueblos referred to a semi-​autonomous government of Indigenous people with laws of their own, a system of division of labor, and the material reproduction of the inhabitants through agriculture. They were established as an alternative form of government to the encomienda. The pre-​hispanic word altépetl can be understood if we separate this name in two suffixes, atl and tepetl, which mean “water” and “mountain,” respectively. In Mesoamerican cultures, it was a synonym of an organized and populated territory with a sense of belonging. It can be understood as a village (pueblo). In the political organization of Mesoamerican communities, the ancestral goddess took the form of an “altépetl”; that is, the existence of a territory and the presence of local communities (barrios). Each group of communities (barrios) formed altogether a “calpolli” (calpulli); they were divided into four, six, or eight local communities (barrios) oriented symmetrically towards the four cardinal points. Each calpolli had its own chief, who was at the same time the head of a linkage and had a piece of land called altépetl, as private property. The addition or regrouping of different calpolli formed an altépetl governed by an elected Native chief called tlatoani, who functioned as the head of the whole reign, chief of the army, and supreme priest in charge of religious rites. See Enrique Florescano, “El altepetl,” Fractal 11.42 (2006): 11–​50, http://​www.mxfrac​tal.org/​F42Flo​resc​ano.htm. The name tequio derives from Triquitl and means tribute. It was a non-​paid form of labor in pre-​hispanic times that was offered as a gift or tribute to collaborate in the maintenance of the city, constructing temples, roads, and streets. See Enrique Dussel, Política de la liberación: historia mundial y crítica (Madrid: Trotta, 2007), 199.

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against injustice; this was the beginning of his critical thought and action. In 1547, he realized that African slaves suffered the same injustice. Dussel sustains that Las Casas had a theoretical maturity throughout his life, he believes that his philosophical thought has not been sufficiently recognized by intellectual historians.19 Dussel regards Las Casas as the first critic of modernity: Bartolomé represents the first head-​on critic of Modernity […] in 1514 in Cuba, in the hamlet of Sancti Spiritus, and three years before M. Luther put forward his theses in Erfurt or Machiavelli published his Il Principe, […] When Europe still had not awakened from the shock provoked by the discovery of an entire New World, Bartolomé had already begun his critique of the negative effects of this modern civilizational process […]20 In this sense, Las Casas’s radical criticism sets him apart from Quiroga’s modernizing and civilizing corrective discourse. In 1550, in Valladolid, Spain, Las Casas seriously argued with Quiroga about the legitimacy of the war against the Indigenous people.21 He defended this violence as a necessary way to pacify the Indians in order to successfully evangelize them. For Quiroga, this sort of “charity” would save from spiritual damnation the souls of those who did not recognize Spanish government (or policing), because the Amerindians were considered tyrannical or barbaric. The Lascasian utopia had innovative proposals that evolved from 1516 to 1519—​along with remedies from 1520 to 1550—​for the administration of labor and the architecture of cities for the Indigenous people. The proposals of 1516 and 1519 were more utopian than those proposed from 1520 to 1550, which pertained to the realm of juridical reality wherein he defended indigenes’ rights and governmental skills. The critical project of modernity proposed by Las Casas did not adopt the idea of an old Europe in the Americas. Rather, he envisioned an unprecedented new Europe developed by administration processes that replicated the material life of the communities as well as incorporated vestiges of Amerindian cultures. Las Casas respected the Indians’ forms of government, which demonstrated his non-​paternalistic attitude towards them. However,

19 Dussel, Política de la liberación, 200. 20 Enrique Dussel, “El primer debate filosófico de la Modernidad,” in El pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano, del Caribe y “latino” (1300–​2000) (Mexico City: Siglo xxi, 2009), 60. 21 At the meetings of Valladolid (1550), he opposed Bartolomé de las Casas and voted in favor of the distribution or encomiendas being permanently given to the conquerors, according to Mauricio Beuchot, Historia de la filosofía en el México colonial (Barcelona: Herder, 1996), 77.

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some conservative historiographic interpretations, as well as those scholars not specializing in Lascasian studies, accuse him of paternalism.22 Unlike Las Casas, Quiroga considered the Indians incapable of fair government: he believed that their caciques (chiefs) were tyrants and, to a certain degree, constituted obstacles for the propagation of the evangelizing Catholic doctrine. As such, for Quiroga, this became a justification for waging war on them: For it is enough to live in notorious offense to God their Creator, and in the worship of many and varied gods, and against natural law and their tyranny as barbaric and cruel people, and in the ignorance of everything including decent political life, and without law or king, as these natural ones are, who beside and beyond their infidelity were cruel, barbaric, ferocious among themselves and they are still barbaric nations and their main tyrants have oppressed minors and poor men that little can do, without having among them any political life [government] that was free and good as any reasonable human should have, in three ways in which any good policing is and can be divided, as proposed by Aristotle and referred to by Juan Gerson. Most Christian doctor, in De origine juris… […] Because I do not see among these natives that they have the first [monarchy] … nor the second [aristocracy …] And least of all the third [timocracy] that […] is said to be policing, that it is a congregation of a perfect community […] Since among them there is good and bad policing, if policing can be called, […] which […] are forcibly guided […] under a despotic and servile yoke.23

22

23

The term paternalism is often used to describe attitudes in defense of Indigenous people from misconduct and death, especially as they were considered children, or immature. Some Spaniards believed indigenes were not able to defend themselves and that they needed protection from the friars and missionaries in order to speak for them in front of legal authorities or encomenderos. See Arturo Andrés Roig, “Desde el padre Las Casas hasta la guerra del Paraguay,” in Teoría y crítica del pensamiento latinoamericano. Andrés Roig says “We would speak of three types of paternalist discourse: Lascasian paternalism, the idealistic bolivarian paternalism, the populist paternalism of Alberdi and we will show at the end how this last kind of paternalism explains the war in Paraguay as a consequence. In each kind [of paternalism] we will show that behind their humanitarian ends we find illegitimate forms of recognition.” Arturo Andrés Roig, “Desde el padre Las Casas hasta la guerra del Paraguay,” in Teoría y crítica del pensamiento latinoamericano (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1981), 108. Vasco de Quiroga, Información en derecho, ed. Carlos Herrejón (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo, 1985), 72–​74.

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Thus, in Quiroga’s words, Indigenous governments were tyrannical. War against them was justified to free the Indians from their bad government. His utopian modernity employed traces of Amerindian cultures, but only as long as they did not go against Christianity. This civilizing or “biopolitical” proposal implied a high degree of symbolization and semiotic codification (or sub-​ codification) between two worlds: the Indigenous and African coexisting with the Spaniards’ project.24 However, despite the differences between Las Casas and Quiroga, some specialists like Diego Mundaca alluded to a sort of inspiration of the hospitales pueblos stemming from Las Casas’s actions: The future oidores found New Spain in deplorable conditions, similar to the ones Bartolomé de las Casas tried to remedy in Santo Domingo, Cuba, and other Antillean islands, which led to the implementation of his well-​known project conceived between 1515 and 1516 for the reform of the Indies. The measures taken by Las Casas encouraged and helped Quiroga from the outset to formulate in the near future his idea of hospitales pueblos in Mexico and Michoacan.25 Las Casas was not the only influence. Quiroga’s approach was in keeping with the humanist spirit of the time, especially with regard to the social reforms, which became a necessity after exploring the Indies and coming into contact with a civilization that offered a radical social and ideological organization for European thought at the time. Diego Mundaca noted the relationship of theoretical thought and practical implementation between More and Quiroga: 24

25

Semiotic codification means a resignification of symbols between cultures, like a melting pot of signs. This is precisely what Bolívar Echeverría in his book Modernidad de lo Barroco understands as an alternative modernity and calls a “baroque ethos,” a way of life that takes advantage of what already exists as a semiotic cultural survival strategy. Echeverría was an Ecuadorian-​born philosopher who lived in México and made a school of thought called “Critical Theory in the Americas,” and in La modernidad de lo barroco he mentions that between the Indigenous population and creoles in New Spain there was a semiotic interchange of symbols and signs, as a melting pot (mestizaje) of symbols in order to maintain the cultural survival of the Indigenous people. This strategy allowed them to keep their original beliefs alive, but in a disguised way, while using Christian symbols, such as the image of the Virgin Mary, and other saints or angels, like Michelangelo, but only as an external image. Behind Christian images Native deities remained alive in a disguised form. This work will not further explore this idea since it goes beyond the scope and hypothesis of this research. See Echeverría, La Modernidad de lo barroco. Diego Mundaca Machuca, “Vasco de Quiroga en Nueva España (1470–​1565): Rasgos de una mentalidad utópica,” Tiempo y Espacio 21 (2010): 39–​56 (43).

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It is mainly based on the writings of the Latin classics (Plato and Luciano) and the Bible, with an emphasis on the simple life of Apostolic inspiration, with a clear rejection of the ritual and pomp of the Roman Church. The work that perhaps most effectively helped systematize these thoughts was More’s Utopia. In it, he found elements that expressed his desire to materialize a new way of organizing and evangelizing the indigenous people.26 This was how More’s utopian project entered into Quiroga’s utopia of the Indies—​although not completely, since Quiroga does not agree with the ideas of tolerance and respect for other religions that appear in More’s “fiction.” Nor does he concur with their perspective on euthanasia, divorce, and government (policing). More’s influence is clear in matters of land administration, the division of labor, and the distribution of hours of work and leisure—​so much so that it will later be examined by comparing quotations from both works: Utopia and Información en derecho. The Reglas y ordenanzas27 for the administration of the hospitales pueblos of Santa Fe of Mexico and Michoacan (1538) by the first bishop of Michoacan (Quiroga) were meant as an organization manual of mechanical and other trades that were useful and necessary for the common good of the hospitales pueblos.28 The types of trades and their distribution in the community included weavers, stonemasons, carpenters, bricklayers, and blacksmiths needed for what Quiroga already called a “republic.” He sought fair organization and administration, and the avoidance of corruption. 3

Utopias in Europe and in the Americas: Las Casas, Quiroga, and More

The reforms Las Casas proposed in his 1516 Memorial to abolish the encomienda, and the criticism More articulated about the justice system of

26 27

28

Mundaca Machuca, “Vasco de Quiroga en Nueva España,” 41. See Vasco de Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas para el gobierno de los hospitales de Santa Fe de México y Michoacán, dispuestas por su fundador el Rmo. y Venerable Sr. Don Vasco de Quiroga, primer Obispo de Michoacán,” 1538. Memoria Política de México, http://​ www.memo​riap​olit​icad​emex​ico.org/​Tex​tos/​1In​depe​nden​cia/​1538​ROG.html accessed September 19, 2020. This rules of administration in these Indigenous communities had been put into practice by Quiroga since 1532, but they were finally published in 1538.

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sixteenth-​century England, as well as the proposal Quiroga offered to organize republics in his hospitales pueblos, responded to a profoundly revolutionary line of thought in the search for more just societies. Certain common religious principles, such as the defense of freedom of religious conscience and of justice, were remarkable.29 In the case of Quiroga, despite having adopted More’s organizational model, he disagreed with divorce and euthanasia, and openly defended more conservative Christian ideals than did More. The latter was tolerant of other religions based on principles of natural religion30—​at least in theory—​unlike Quiroga, who considered other religions erroneous and idolatrous, and persecuted anyone who opposed the Christianization of Indians. Such was the case of pre-​conquest caciques who opposed evangelization of their subjects and who showed legitimate resistance, which Quiroga did not recognize—​hence the political-​religious debate between him and Las Casas. Unlike Quiroga, Las Casas defended the religion of the Indians from the perspective of natural law, as More did in his Utopia. Along this line, the three humanists recognized the value of a community’s economic sustainability and its political oversight. In addition, they agreed that the issue of punishment and penance should include redress of harm, not only in its moral aspect, but also materially by restitution of gains immorally obtained. However, a substantial discernible difference in the “utopias” of Las Casas, Quiroga, and More is More’s negative utopia in the sense that it criticized the state of affairs, viz., the injustices observed in sixteenth-​century English society. His utopia remained at an abstract level, and circumvented an actual implantation of true social reform. In contrast, Las Casas and Quiroga transformed 29

30

These humanists defend religious tolerance strongly in their “utopias.” However, it is possible to see that during his time as chancellor in the court of Henry viii, More was involved in three of the six important executions related to the persecution of heresy. He would even go on to build a network of spies to obtain information on the accused heretics. In contrast, Las Casas gives practical witness to his ideas on religious freedom and defends the sacrificial practices of the Indians, equating them to the sacrifices made by the Israelites in the Old Testament, specifically on the test of obedience put to Abraham, who in dreams was asked to sacrifice his firstborn and only son. See Mario Ruiz Sotelo, Crítica a la razón imperial: El pensamiento político filosófico de Bartolomé de Las Casas (Mexico City: Siglo xxi, 2010), 127–​152. Natural religion is a notion taken from the theory of iusnaturalism or of natural rights; it means we must respect other confessional religions and convictions even if they are different from the Christian faith, for example, Judaism, Indigenous religion or any other confession, because those believers had a notion of God—​an imperfect one, but no matter what it was God’s commandment to respect those worshippers by divine law, just as iusnaturalism understands it. This developed as a theory of religious toleration in the sixteenth century and afterwards in history.

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the state of affairs into positive and concrete utopias, which led to their actual implementation. Arguably More’s utopia only served as a basis for criticism, while Las Casas and Quiroga objectified their utopias in the concrete and generated an historical experiment. Unlike Las Casas and Quiroga, More’s utopia remained at the level of genuine thought without becoming a reality through practice. Las Casas’s utopia not only worked as the critical political basis against the Spanish encomenderos’s corruption, but also strove to attain concrete administrative and social reforms to correct the facts. Las Casas implemented a social experiment similar to the one carried out almost twenty years later by Quiroga in Michoacán (1532) and Santa Fe (1536). Mario Ruiz Sotelo contends that since Quiroga’s arrival in New Spain in 1531, he wrote about the need to create a new way of governing the Indians and proposed the creation of a communitarian republic made up of friars and Indigenous people who would work as a hospital pueblo. Inspired by More’s Utopia, and as an oidor, Quiroga himself led the work, using money from his own pocket to acquire the land [in 1532] to establish [the hospital pueblo] in the area of Santa Fe, west of Mexico City. The following year, he founded a second town in Tziriate, and in 1539 a third in Santa Fe del Rio—​both in Michoacan territory.31 In this regard, clearly the utopias of the Indies—​those of Las Casas (1516 and 1518) and of Quiroga (1532 and 1536)—​were strategically efficient in transcending negative criticism and in focusing on specific positive aspects. In the case of More’s and Las Casas’s utopias, these two thinkers announced the critical development that would be accomplished two centuries later in the Enlightenment, in particular with respect to Kantian deism. Here reference is made to defending the “use of reason” in the acceptance of the dogmas of religious faith, in which, if not processed through the filter of reason to achieve tacit agreement, the conversion is rendered illegitimate because it must be the result of rational and conscious consent. More postulates that the idea of legitimacy of creed was based on natural law; that is, any religion needed to be within the limits of reason in the above-​mentioned sense. Long before Kant’s deism in the eighteenth century and Hegel’s in the nineteenth century, Las Casas denounced religious conversions carried out through violent means 31

Mario Ruiz Sotelo, “Pensadores y filósofos del siglo xvi,” in Pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano, del Caribe y “latino” (1300–​2000), ed. Enrique Dussel et al. (México: Siglo xxi, 2009), 708.

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as illegitimate. Conversion needed to involve conviction of conscience—​ something that obviously did not happen with the Indigenous people, who accepted Christianity as a way of preserving their life—​an act that, in the end, proved their wisdom.32 In his Utopia, More gives several examples that satirize the values of a market society, such as the sin of greed—​a source of excessive appropriation that confused the “use value” with the “exchange value” and those inverted values. Indeed, the human aspect was displaced by money, and one’s work went from being something alive and creative to something dead—​like perishable and undesirable merchandise. Similarly, Quiroga criticized greed in the fifth ordinance of his Reglas y ordenanzas: That by keeping, and complying with these ordinances shall be pleasing to the benefit received, and what benefit of bodies and of souls is this, that they thus receive, and will receive, and of Christian doctrine, a printed copy of which and approved by His Holiness is left to you for this purpose, in addition to these ordinances and without lack of due and honest diligence, and prudence, that is expedient for all of you to have all you lack, and out of the danger of the three wild beasts that destroy and corrupt everything in this world, which are pride, greed and ambition, that you have kept and desire from which you have and much desire to set apart, removing yourself from evil and allowing what is good in your customs, manner and condition.33 The insistence on the way to dress was remarkable since, for Bishop Quiroga, apparel was to be simple and without distinctive features, or denoting social status in his hospitales pueblos, as ordained in Rule 21: “Of the garments they must wear, and which, and how they are to be made at a lower cost, and [with] 32

33

Friar Sahagún views the pilgrimages to the hill where Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego with suspicion because he affirms that this hill was where the Mexica goddess Tonantzin was venerated. For him it was a sign of disguised idolatry and not of the Indians’ true Christian conversion. Another indication is found in the unproportionate influx of worshippers to this place compared to that to other churches where the Virgin was worshipped. See Enrique Florescano, Imágenes de la patria a través de los siglos (Mexico City: Taurus, 2006), 74. Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas para el gobierno de los hospitales de Santa Fe de México y Michoacán, dispuestas por su fundador el Rmo. y Venerable Sr. Don Vasco de Quiroga, primer Obispo de Michoacán” (1538), 226, in Memoria política de México, http://​ www.memo​riap​olit​icad​emex​ico.org/​Tex​tos/​1In​depe​nden​cia/​1538​ROG.html accessed September 18, 2020.

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more harmony, and honesty, and what the married ones and what the maidens [are to wear].” The critical stance continues to the point of adding apparel aimed at appearances or social hypocrisy: that the garments in which you are dressed be as you are now wearing them, of cotton and wool, white, clean, and decent, without pictures, without other expensive works, and not too fancy. And such that protects you from cold, and from heat, and of the same color, if possible, because they last longer, and do not cost as much, because they have less work, and are less expensive, and cleaner. […] or if possible, all of you be content to dress in the same way as much as you can, and with garments that are like one another in everything, for that brings about more consistency among you, and thus avoid the envy and pomp to go dressed and outstanding some more and better than others, of which is habitually born envy among vain and imprudent men, and dissension and discord.34 Quiroga also indicated a specific dress code for women: and the women should wear white cotton headdresses, with which they cover the head, and most of the body over the other garments they customarily wear without prints [pinturas, “drawings,” or “patterns”] nor works of color, that are not very expensive, nor very fancy, especially when you go to church; and those who are not married, but young women, maidens, may go with uncovered heads if they so wish, because married women are differentiated from those who are not, and within the family for work days, and non-​feast days, you should also have other garments, which are not such that you work in.35 Meanwhile, Las Casas proposed the following for making clothing and cotton hammocks for sleeping: because it will be necessary to make shirts and cotton hammocks for people to wear and sleep in, and to make them, you need women, your most reverend lordship orders that either the male Indians be taught to make such garments, just as in Jamaica, or be sent from other islands that want to learn from them, or that the women be paid for their work, if they

34 35

Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas,” 232–​233. Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas,” 233.

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want to accept to do [the work]. And may payment be that each be given so much per pound or per bushel of cotton spun and likewise for each shirt or hammock they make, because they do it from their homes and do not work in haste, as heretofore, that countless women have died, being made to spin or weave all day without getting up from their places, and not being fed. And [that they] have freedom and [for them to] know that if they do not want to, they do not have to serve or work.36 The difference between Las Casas’s work proposal and that of More and Quiroga lies in Las Casas defending gender equality by affirming that the making of garments and hammocks could be done by Indigenous men and not only by women. Moreover, women needed to be paid a salary, and the decision to work in this trade was to be based on freedom, as it was completely voluntary. Women needed to be allowed to rest, and if no one wanted to devote themselves to this trade, garments and their confection could be provided through commerce with other islands and importing the products. Concerning the criticism of the processes of impoverishment, just as More attacked the structural problem of poverty based on the trade and justice systems of the England of his time, so was Las Casas’s political activism directed at the structural problem of poverty. In book two of Utopia, More criticized market-​based lifestyles and social systems, greed among men, and the paradox of a society in its admiration for the superfluous. Instead, the ideal society should focus its attention on the wonders and gifts of nature as non-​marketable goods—​pleasures for which no effort or payment was required: Indeed, they are amazed that any mortal can take delight in the dubious sparkle of a tiny gem or precious stone when he can look at a star or even at the sun, or how anyone could be so insane as to imagine that he is nobler because of fine-​spun woolen thread, since that wool (however fine-​spun) was once worn by a sheep, which was at the same time nothing more than a sheep.37 In terms of greed, Las Casas devoted an entire section of his 1516 Memorial de denuncias against the abuses and corruption of Lope de Conchillos, who was the embodiment of greed. Earlier, Las Casas was very careful in planning the time of work dedicated to the extraction of gold and to leisure. Work rotation 36 37

Bartolomé de las Casas, “Memorial de Remedios para las Indias (1516),” O.E., 5:22. Thomas More, Utopia, trans. Clarence H. Miller, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 78.

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in the mines would be done in shifts of two months of labor and two months of rest, but replacement by the change of shifts enabled the rendering of the corporal life of the Indians without the king losing the “royal fifth.”38 This proposal of work rotation in the mines constituted a remedy against the sin of greed seen in the Spanish encomenderos and not in the Indians—​who were considered victims of exploitation. Greed was the fundamental cause of the decimation of the Indians. Quiroga did not have a proposal of this type for work in the mines, because in his hospital pueblo, this activity did not exist. The sustainability of his community republic was food. In this sense, in his Reglas y ordenanzas he attached great importance to the cultivation of one’s own food, as seen in the eighth ordinance: “The manner in which children practice the trade of agriculture, which should be common for all from childhood and for them to learn not to be idle” and which should be taught from early childhood as something indispensable for the community’s survival: that, besides and beyond this, all of you should also know how to do well and to be experienced, and skilled in the trade of agriculture from childhood, with much earnestness, and willingness, because it must be this trade of agriculture and it is necessary that you know about it as should everyone know about said hours in each day and no more, that comes [from the daily profit], and the same for all for each [one], and when and how and according to how you are commanded, he may go forth for two or three days of work from sunrise to sunset per week each one more or less, and according to the necessity, comfort, and use of the time, and the field work afforded.39 Therefore, concerning agricultural work, everyone needed enough knowledge to cultivate and to harvest; this sustained communities and provided food security—​and consequently afforded political sovereignty. In Las Casas’s Memorial, Spaniards and Indigenous villagers needed to work the land together and to pay a tithe to the friars. This suggests the idea of “non-​specialization” in the community, since both clerics share the common view that specialization would lead to dependence and misery for many.40 38 39 40

The “Quinto Real” or the Quinto del rey, the “King’s fifth” was a 20% tax established in 1504 that Spain levied on the mining of precious metals. Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas,” 222–​223. Similar criticism can be found two centuries later in Jean-​Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men in the late eighteenth century. Jean-​Jacques

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With respect to Las Casas’s proposal for the sustainability of the community through agricultural work and food production, he said: … that the Indians who work in the farms and ranches, and things other than taking gold, work six months of the year, two months working and two months resting, and that each day they be given, when they eat, four hours to rest, bringing them [something] to eat at ten [in the morning], and returning them to work after two o’clock [in the afternoon]; and this all year round, because it is very sunny all year round, and it is summer because of the intense heat, from which the Indians experience great suffering and torment. And if in the days of May, June, July and August, they are given five hours of recreation; it would be very good for them, because the days are long and because they are very exhausting there, and with the work, they feel it very much.41 Las Casas carefully considered the conditions of production in his proposals for food sustainability—​such as the physical effects of weather on the Indigenous people. Like Las Casas, More knew that food was the means that made human fulfillment possible as a substantive principle for reproducing life; there was no other point of departure from which other freedoms could materialize. Likewise, working hours proposed by Quiroga were similar to those proposed by Las Casas and More. then in the case of the abovementioned six hours of work in common as it is, after having been so, and taken, let it be distributed among all of you, and each one of you in particular who works, comfortably and honestly, according to that which each one, according to his quality, and need, manner, and condition, may need for himself, and for his family, so that no one suffers in the hospital pueblo from need.42 With respect to charity and self-​sufficiency, Quiroga recognized colegios as something that should be embraced by towns or any community of persons; he said the following:

41 42

Rousseau, Rousseau: The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). Casas, “Memorial de remedios para las Indias (1516),” O.E., 5:21. Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas,” 226.

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Having accomplished all this, and the other things, and the expenses of the hospital pueblo, the remainder shall be employed in pious works, and relief for the needy, as stated in the second ordinance above, to the vote, and having appeared above, and this said after having congruently redressed said poor Indians therein, orphans, wards, widowers, widows, old men, old women, the healthy and the sick, the crippled, and the blind of the said hospital pueblo as said, all of whom at any time in keeping with these ordinances, and in accordance [with them], so that never will anyone lack what is necessary, and honest in abundance in this hospital and colegio quietly and calmly without too great a burden of work with service to God our Lord.43 These quotes show that Quiroga, like More, proposed work rotation to avoid the tedium of extreme specialization, and that the lands of the hospitales pueblos remained community property. In the fourth ordinance, “The orchards, and piece of land, which must only be used for its enjoyment, and for no longer than the time in the hospital, according to the ordinances, they dwell and live,” Quiroga warned that neither the hospital, nor the orchards, nor any good should be alienated or commercialized, otherwise “the good work and alms of the compensated destitute people remedied would be lost.”44 One difference between Las Casas and Quiroga is that the former’s ideal republic did not separate Spaniards from the Indigenous people; accordingly, all were needed to work the land, unlike in Quiroga’s, where they were separated to avoid corrupting the Indigenous people. Another divergence between the two humanists’ perspectives was that while Las Casas wanted to put an end to the encomienda because he considered it unfair, Quiroga did not assume such a radical stance. However, he did advocate that friars be sent to Indigenous communities to evangelize. In this way, he applauded the readiness of the Indigenous people to receive the Gospel—​given their simplicity of life, which was comparable to that of the first Christians, as noted in Las Casas’s Carta al Consejo de Indias (Letter to the Council of the Indies) sent in 1531.45 However, according to Mauricio Beuchot, Quiroga’s political ideology contained elements of a philosophy of liberation that opposed the enslavement of the Indigenous peoples. In his Información en derecho of 1535, Quiroga drew on the Dominican Cardinal Thomas Cajetan to state his opinion about 43 44

Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas,” 224. Silvio Arturo Zavala, La “Utopía” de Tomás Moro en la Nueva España (México: Antigua libreria Robredo, de J. Porrua e hijos, 1937), 8. 45 Beuchot, Historia de la filosofía, 80–​81.

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the injustice of war against the Indians.46 Cajetan did not address directly the situation of the indigenes, but Quiroga applied his interpretation of Cajetan’s commentaries to Aquina’s Summa. He argued that “holy preachers should be sent to the [indigenes], as Cajetan says in 2a, 2a and 66, article 8, to convert them to God with word and example, and not to oppress, rob, scandalize, or enslave them, making them twice the children of hell like the Pharisees.”47 The Indigenous people were not subjects of Spain in law or in fact since Christianity was unknown in their lands. Quiroga also read Cajetan’s commentaries on Aquinas’s Summa theologica, specifically in ii–​i i, q. 66, a. 8. Here Cajetan distinguished three kinds of infidels: (1) those who were subjects of Christian rulers de facto and de jure, such as Jews and Turks in Christian lands; (2) those who were subjects de jure but not de facto, because they occupied 46

47

Thomas de Vio Cajetan was a cardinal and a member of the Order of Preachers. As general of the Order he authorized the travel of the first Dominican friars to the New World. From them he obtained information about what was happening in the New World. He found it absurd to deny the natural right of sovereignty of the Indigenous people and to preach the gospel to them under coercion. He considered that to do so was incompatible with the Christian spirit. Only in the cases where the infidels hindered preaching, killed missionaries, or persecuted Christians could the latter defend themselves. See Cajetan, in ii–​i i, q. 10 art 8. Thomas de Vio Cajetan, Summa theologica, ii–​i i, q. 66, a. 8. Angelici Doctoris S. Thomae Aquinatis Summa Theologica, cum Commentariis Thomae de Vio Card. Cajetani, et Elucidationibus Litterarlibus P. Seraphini Capponi a Porrecta Ordinis Praedicatorum (Rome: Typographus D.C.Q., 1773), no pagination. Cajetan’s most relevant influence in the historical events of the first half of the sixteenth century was his theological debate with Luther. He had three interviews with Luther in 1518 and 1519. He fought against conciliarists, he excomulgated Luther from the Church, and he opposed the extreme imperial power and the imperial dominion of Charles I of Spain over the Indies. He was a commentator of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. See José Juan Galán, Razón práctica y virtudes en el comentario del Cardenal Cayetano al Tratado de las virtudes de la Summa theologiae (i–​i i, qq. 55–​67) (Toledo: Instituto Teológico San Ildefonso, 2016), 27–​34. Tomas Aquinas says in q. 10, art. 8 of Summa Theologiae, “Whether unbelievers ought to be compelled to faith,” that “… we should not wish unbelievers to be put to death” or “Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as heathens and the Jews, and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, ii–​i i, q. 10, art. 8, Great Books of the Western World, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 18:432. For more, see Thomas Aquinas in José M. Gallegos Rocafull, El pensamiento mexicano de los siglos xvi y xvii (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1974), 60. “Mittendi enim essent ad hos praedicatores boni viri qui verbo et exemplo converterent eos end Deum et non qui eos opprimant, expolient, scandalicent, subjiciant et duplo gehennae filios faciant more phariseom.” Cajetan, In Summa Theologica, ii–​i i, q. 66, a. 8. Angelici Doctoris S. Thomae Aquinatis (1773), no pagination, as quoted in Quiroga, Información en derecho iii (1985), 69.

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Christian territories, such as the Muslims in Spain; and (3) those who were subjects neither de facto nor de jure, because they inhabited unchristianized lands;48 therefore, war to enslave them was unjust. However, Quiroga made one exception. War was justified for pacification and indoctrination: “a war against them [natives] is considered just, licit, and holy, as long as due and corresponding proportion is kept, or better said, their pacification or constrain [of the natives], not for their destruction but for their edification, as S. Paul says in 2 Corinthians [13:10] ad aedificationem non ad destructionem.”49 Quiroga denounced the tyranny of the caciques against their subjects and for subjecting them to slavery. He argued that war was justified as a way of preventing injustices. For Quiroga, the government of and by the natives was tyrannical. He offered examples throughout his Información en derecho iii. For instance, he mentioned Moctezuma (Aztec king), who when pressured gave his subjects to Spaniards as slaves. This was possible, even though his subjects were free, because they were bound by sacred obedience to their cacique. As he pointed out: There is another gender or difference of free men among these naturals, robbed as they were as slaves, just after the land had been pacified and distributed to the Spaniards. These caciques and barbarian rulers are tyrants. They gave their subjects [away] because of fear of being harmed or in order to obtain the grace of the Spaniards and to avoid suffering. Or they gave them to the invaders as a form of rescue, who paid almost nothing, or pleading for more power in return. The natives came persuaded, scared and sent by their caciques and chiefs, who told them to say they were slaves instead of free men … they obeyed their caciques because they respected them as if they were gods, they did as they were told.50 48 Quiroga, Información en derecho iii (1985), 67–​71. 49 “Contra éstos tales y para tal fin y efecto, cuando fuerza hobiese, por justa, lícita y santa, guardada la debida proporción ternía yo la guerra, o, por mejor decir, la pacificación o compulsión de aquestos, ‘no para su destrucción sino para su edificación,’ como lo dice san Pablo, 2a a los Corintios [2 Corinthians 13:10].” Article 26, Quiroga, Información en derecho iii (1985), 79; “[War is justified] for subjection and pacification of these barbarians under the power of Catholic Christian princes in order to instruct them, pledges the Church, but not for their destruction, only to humiliate their force and bestiality, and humiliated, convert them, bring them to the guild and mysteries of Christianity and to the true knowledge of their Creator and things created.” See Article 25, Quiroga, Información en derecho iii (1985), 78. 50 Article 144, Quiroga, Información en derecho iii (1985), 140–​141.

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In his Ideario de Quiroga, historian Silvio Zavala was very favorable with respect to Quiroga’s civilizing project. Zavala pointed out that Quiroga embodied and incorporated the noblest political idea of the Renaissance, and elevated “Spain’s civilizing mission to a rank and a moral purity of which few examples exist in the history of the thought about colonizations.”51 Concurrently, Mario Ruiz Sotelo also affirmed “the creation of hospitales pueblos [which] represent[ed] one of the most original forms of social organization developed during the colonial government.”52 However, Quiroga’s work is controversial. He legitimized war of conquest and described the conditions that justified war against the Indigenous people. In fact, Quiroga, by authoring De debellandis indis, could be characterized as a colonialist of the first order and an apologist for the conquest of the Indies.53 As for slavery, More explained in his Utopia that prisoners of war or those born into slavery were not the issue. For him, deep down, slavery was not an ontological condition, as Aristotle maintained. On this point, More concurred with Las Casas’s criticism of “ontological barbarism” or brutality by birth, and by cruel acts committed against others that denoted the condition of barbarian.54 The slaves in this “fiction” were delinquents. More rejected the belief that punishment made people better, but he insisted that offenders needed to compensate for damages—​i.e., to make restitution—​which, for the time, was part of the most forward-​looking legislation. This constituted another correlation with Las Casas’s opinions as expressed in his 1516 Memorial de los remedios. Quiroga’s view of trials and lawsuits was also very precise—​views found in his Reglas y ordenanzas: If any of the poor Indians of this hospital have any complaints of another, or of others, among yourselves, it will be investigated plainly and amicably

51 52 53

54

Silvio Arturo Zavala, “Ideario de Quiroga,” in Silvio Arturo Zavala, Recuerdo de Vasco de Quiroga (México: Porrúa, 2007), 56. Ruiz Sotelo, “Pensadores,” 708. We know of this treatise from the open opposition of one of his contemporaries, a friar called Miguel de Arcos, in “Parecer mío sobre un tratado de la guerra que se puede hacer a los indios” in 1551. See Lewis Hanke, Cuerpo de documentos del siglo xvi: Sobre los derechos de España en las Indias y en las Filipinas (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1977), 319. In the controversy about the authorship of De debellandis indis, the Mexican editor René Acuña gives the reasons why he thinks Quiroga is the author of this manuscript. However, there are others who believe it was not written by him. Critical questions around the authorship of this work can be seen in Silvio Zavala, “En busca del tratado De debellandis indis de Vasco de Quiroga,” Historia Mexicana 17.72 (1969): 615–​622. See Ruiz Sotelo, “Pensadores,” 104–​113.

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with the chancellor, and mayors (regidores), and all may speak the truth, and may no one deny it, because there is no need to go and complain to a judge elsewhere, where you pay fees, and then be cast into prison. And do this, though each one may lose; for it is better to lose with peace and harmony, than to will by litigating, and hating your neighbor, and seeking to defeat him, and to harm him; for in this hospital you are all to be brethren in Jesus Christ with a bond of peace and charity, as is entrusted to you, and are much commended to do so.55 His prescription for punishment was close to a form of exile: If any of you, or your successors in this said hospital, should do something bad, and gives a bad example, that is not deserved, nor fitting to be in it, and should scandal and uneasiness arise from it, for being unruly, or scandalous, or a bad Christian, or getting drunk, or [being] too lazy, or whoever does not want to abide by these ordinances, or is, or goes against them, and in doing so is incorrigible, or is, or goes against the welfare, and the common good of this said hospital, [you] should then be expelled from it, and restore what he has gained from [the hospital], for being ungrateful for the good received in it, and thus the principal, and mayors of the said hospital execute [this order] with the advice of the chancellor of the said hospital.56 Unlike Quiroga, More defended euthanasia, but always with certain restrictions. Quiroga did not take everything More argued in his “fiction” at face value since he would not be able to reclaim that which went against the Catholic doctrine of his time, as in the case of euthanasia. Diego Mundaca pointed out that: Vasco did not make a pure or schematic transfer of More’s work. His thoughts and actions mainly obeyed the historical circumstances he found immediately upon his arrival in New Spain: to stop the indigenous decimation, and consequently the weakening of the Spanish population as well, as a result of the management under the first Audiencia led by Nuño de Guzmán.57 55 56 57

Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas,” 236. Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas,” 238. Mundaca Machuca, “Vasco de Quiroga en Nueva España,” 49. Bartolomé de las Casas considered Nuño de Guzmán a “great tyrant.” He arrived in New Spain with the title of Governor of Pánuco in 1524, was named president of the Real Audiencia in 1528, and

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In Utopia, euthanasia was only legitimate when the patient—​whose suffering and illness had no cure—​voluntarily accepted the procedure. This measure needed to be official—​that is, administered by the state and under the strict supervision of the one accompanying the patient. However, if patients, in spite of the advice of priests and experts (the Tranibors),58 decided to bear their pain until the end, the decision needed to be respected by the community. In contrast, suicide was unacceptable—​the person who committed suicide suffered the punishment of not being buried and of not having a ceremony performed. In the same way, adultery was condemned, but divorce was possible on the grounds of incompatibility—​albeit granted only after an exhaustive investigation by the judges. In More’s criticism of the administrative systems of justice, he repudiated the confusing and incomprehensible laws that required the use of scholars to decipher them. What he actually sought was to remind society of its duties and obligations, that is, of the role of the law. Quiroga agreed with this English humanist, but he also stressed the need for the virtuous nature of legislators, and insisted that—​as guardians of peoples and doctrine—​they possess Christian humility: like all good policing, that again should be provided to like persons, that have so much need of it and of caution, as you have, it should be done, and it is good for it to be done, that is, and should be according to the quality, and manner, and condition of the people to whom it is given, and according to their wants, standards, and needs, and capacity, always protecting what is good in them, and not destroying it, nor exchanging it for what is not right for them, nor convenient (according to their lot, and way of living, understanding, status, and condition) and is more harmful than beneficial to them, already [with] their respectable Christianity, and its principles, that it is expedient for them to be good, and well settled, orderly, and guided, by Christian discretion, and that they do not end up on the precipice of souls, and bodies, as they go in some places, and it is usually done, which is to take away the good in them, what they have of humility, obedience, patience, and little greed, and good modesty, and to leave them, and to give them that which is evil, and contrary to [the above].59

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was dismissed the following year because of his abuses and cruelty towards Indigenous people. The Tranibors are the priest and experts in More’s fiction, Utopia. Quiroga, “Reglas y ordenanzas,” 226.

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Regarding the laws of government and their (clear and simple) form as defended by Quiroga, there was also a clear convergence between More’s point of view and that of Las Casas when, in the fourth remedy of his Memorial, the Dominican friar noted that the law should be translated into all the languages of the four islands: Fourth remedy: That having carried out such a suspension, in the first remedy [the abolition of slavery], most reverend lordship if you are pleased again proclaim and make understood, in the languages of the land of all the Indians of the islands. Since they want to make them a new concession in that they are not to serve as they [the Indians] used to, nor to be subject to Christians in the way of the past, but rather in another [way] that they can do better, so they do not die, and live instead.60 Clearly, Las Casas advocated for a law that would abolish the slavery of all Indians, which was understandable so that they might claim their legitimate right. As seen in More’s Utopia—​when the laws were obscure, there was a greater propensity to commit crimes. In his text, laws were few and simple and judges were the best administrators of justice because they were incorruptible, since money had no value for them: And certainly, these countries are providing very well and very effectively for the public welfare, which depends, for good or bad, on the character of the magistrates. What persons could they choose more wisely than those whose honesty cannot be undermined by bribes (since they will soon return to a place where money is useless) and who cannot be swayed by some person or faction, since they have no connections among that people? Wherever these two vices, favoritism and greed, get a hold on judicial decisions, all justice, which is the mainstay of the commonwealth, is immediately undermined.61 For More, the moral integrity of the administrators of justice was indispensable; otherwise, a crime would be committed against society for fostering impunity. He saw the evil of this corruption in the market system on which society was based. Similarly, in his 1516 Memorial, Las Casas laid down as a condition the incorruptibility of the friars sent by the king to the islands:

60 Baptiste, Bartolomé de las Casas, x. 61 More, Utopia, 102–​103.

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And if your lordship […] commands to send a religious person, of good and sound conscience, who has neither greed nor any [vested] interest in said Indies and who is hindered in examining the truth, nor of friendship or kinship or any other occupation, nor should have Indians, nor [vested] interest in them: and who shall consider a friar a companion on every island, who has been there and knows the things of the land and Indians, lest they deceive him and make him understand what is not.62 This quote, in addition to incorruptibility, demonstrated that friars were required to have in-​depth knowledge of the lands and their needs in order to sensitize them to Native customs. In this way, the new laws proscribing slavery and exploitation of the Indigenous peoples could be defended. Las Casas proposed the elimination of encomiendas on the islands as a land management system for one that favored agricultural communities of Spaniards and Indians. More also proposed a solution to eliminate injustice by substituting private property with goods allocated for the community, in addition to physical work appropriately organized, and intellectual work acknowledged and admired. This solution to injustice relied on education and on the principle of solidarity as the foundation of social relationships. In like manner, Quiroga decreed in his Reglas y ordenanzas that agricultural lands were for those who work them, and should be bequeathed to the community in the hospitales pueblos without ambition, greed, and appropriation. Like More and Las Casas, Quiroga defended the principle of communal property. 4

Conclusions

Hermeneutical comparison of the manuscripts of three sixteenth-​century utopians—​those of Bartolomé de las Casas, Thomas More, and Vasco de Quiroga—​have enabled the discernment of connections among European and American utopias, as well as generated an assessment of their level of influence on political practices in the Indies. This discernment and assessment employed transversal studies of models of economic-​political administration and the utopian proposals of these three humanists. In his Información en derecho and his Reglas y ordenanzas, Quiroga’s political ideology and practical proposals for building Indian reservations were unearthed. However, while the utopian projects—​More’s in Europe and Quiroga’s in New Spain—​were 62

Casas in Baptiste, Bartolomé de Las Casas, x.

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Ríos Espinosa

critical of the march of civilization, they were not entirely anti-​colonial, because they did not radically break with the European colonization project. This critique and break differ from Las Casas’s utopian ideas as articulated in his 1516 Memorial; he radically opposed the system of encomienda for having decimated the Indigenous populations. Therefore, the future Dominican friar and bishop proposed a system of village administration, which halted the distribution of Indigenous people among the Spaniards, so that the latter did not corrupt, degrade, or ontologically diminish the former. In contrast to Las Casas, the Canon lawyer Vasco de Quiroga defended the encomiendas in perpetuity in his Controversias de Valladolid (Controversy of Valladolid). He also justified war against the Indigenous people to pacify them, especially if their caciques were tyrannical or opposed the evangelization process. Finally, Quiroga did not recognize any kind of good government among the Indigenous people; Las Casas did—​and even went so far as to defend their inherent rights as American subjects.

­c hapter 17

The 1516 Project for the Colonization of the Indies: The Simulacrum of a Utopia Vanina M. Teglia The Memorial de remedios para las Indias of 1516 (Memorial of Remedies for the Indies)—​also known as Catorce Remedios (Fourteen Remedies)—​ was written mainly by Las Casas, but in collaboration with Dominican Fray Antonio de Montesinos and jurist Juan López de Palacios Rubios.1 This first project was primarily intended as a “cure” for the “evils and harm” wrought by the Spanish conquest in the Antilles. After the rejection of the proposal, the cleric Las Casas—​which was how he referred to himself in the narrative of this period—​began refining his plans and directing them towards Tierra Firme (the American mainland). He made this decision because of the depopulation of the islands, the changes taking place in Spain, the accusations by enemies of peaceful colonization, and the demands and needs of the crown itself. Las Casas continued refining his Memorial until its approval, which was agreed upon and validated by the king’s counselors. The final text consisted of a capitulation or pact dated May 19, 1520, signed in La Coruña, and authored by both Las Casas and the crown. The projects presented by the cleric during those years included elements similar to the utopias of the time, such as geographical isolation, self-​government, and communal goods typical of Ovid’s Golden Age, as well as simple and unpretentious fraternity.2 However, Las Casas also included elements of reform, such as the controversial replacement of Indian slaves with Africans; he also continued his support of the encomienda—​ always on the basis of humanitarian and imperialist Christianity.3 This chapter 1 This chapter is a summary in English of one of the chapters of my forthcoming book Utopías controversiales. Polémicas coloniales entre Bartolomé de las Casas y Fernández de Oviedo por el Nuevo Mundo. 2 See the classic study by Harry Levin, The Myth of Golden Age in the Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972). 3 Carlos Jáuregui and David Solodkow, “Biopolitics and the Farming (of) Life in Bartolomé de las Casas,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David T. Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 127–​166. I dialogue with this work throughout this chapter. In brief, their essay argues that the 1516 Lascasian Memorial actually sought to reform colonialism so that it would become

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_019

386 Teglia proposes that the essence of Las Casas’s utopia was a network of imaginary expectations, versatility, and simulations of what an accomplished utopia would entail. Because Lascasian interventions were foundational during the conquest, this chapter further considers that these aspects of simulation were frequent in Spanish-​American utopias that today are denominated “empirical utopias,” as Fernando Aínsa calls them.4 Also, these elements of simulation or apparent utopias in the process of American colonization—​present even in Latin American utopian thought—​contrasted with sixteenth-​century European humanist-​utopian ideas. Las Casas’s projects promoted mestizaje and accepted peaceful transculturation.5 Accordingly, his projects were founded on the coexistence of Native Americans and of Christian Castilian peasants brought to the Caribbean region. Toward this end, Las Casas’s projects outlined certain utopian concepts of a free and egalitarian community of humble people, and focused on distinctive features pertaining to the cultural values of freedom and equality as defined in the Spanish socio-​political reality and, more broadly, in the context of European humanism. As such, the following discussion seeks to determine the degree of possible provocation and the subsequent adaptation that these colonization projects implied when Las Casas proposed them. In this context, this chapter discusses the complexities and circumstances that defined the notions of community, community of goods, common good, peasant, humanitarian, evangelical, and biopolitical; accordingly, it would help imperial power in the American colonies to survive and to be preserved. In this sense, the ideological basis of this Lascasian text is both Christian-​humanitarian and colonial-​imperial. For more on postcolonial readings of Las Casas, see Diego A. von Vacano, The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity, and Latin America /​Hispanic Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 26–​ 55; Daniel Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 105–​134. 4 Fernando Aínsa, Necesidad de la utopía (Buenos Aires and Montevideo: Nordam Comunidad, 1990). 5 Following the theoretical line of Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Laura Catelli distinguishes, in Arqueología del mestizaje: colonialismo y racialización (Temuco, Chile: Ediciones ufro, 2020), the concepts of mestizaje, miscegenation, and métissage. In addition, Catelli differentiates carnal mestizaje from the one that was used during the conquest as a colonization strategy. In relation to Las Casas’s project, and for the purposes of this chapter, first, the concept of mestizaje is addressed as the equivalent of carnal mestizaje or blood mestizaje; that is, a biological crossing between Spaniards and Indians. Second, in relation to the phenomenon of cultural mestizaje, we prefer to use the more complex concept of transculturation, as defined by Fernando Ortiz, Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y del azúcar (Barcelona: Ariel, 1973), and Ángel Rama, Transculturación narrativa en América Latina (Montevideo: Fundación Ángel Rama, 1989), i.e., adopting foreign cultural forms by transforming one’s own forms, but without completely losing them.

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villager, agriculture, equality, and distributive justice. All of these endowed the Lascasian utopian projects with the semantic density of the time. For this reason, reviewing such notions is necessary to better understand his projects. For example, Las Casas’s first proposal of 1516 emphasized the need for agricultural communities in which Indians and Castilian peasants would live together. He trusted that the principles of freedom and equality could be combined, and wanted to base his ideal community on them. To this end, the cleric equalized the image of Native Americans to the bucolic representation of Castilian peasants. This study’s main hypothesis proposes that Las Casas’s projects reverse the subalterns’ usual colonial mimesis, which was typical in the colonial context. Las Casas conceived of a community reliant on the Christian empire to give an empirical dimension to this project and to its humanitarian purposes, as well as to oppose the semi-​improvised model of the devastating wars of conquest in these initial years. In this community—​to be created in the near future—​ the dominated peoples would not imitate the conquering culture to survive. Instead, the peasant colonists would simulate equality and similarity with the Amerindians, and they would do so in an apparently free environment to mitigate the impact of the acculturation process and to facilitate evangelization. In addition, in the context of these years, Spanish uprisings generated by the Revolt of the Comuneros of Castile and the Revolt of the Brotherhoods in Mallorca and Valencia cannot be ignored.6 The words “community” and “freedom” resonated daily in this context, and their meanings drastically changed in a very short time. 1

Community in the Transatlantic Renaissance

During the period from the initial drafting of the first Memorial in 1516 until its final writing of the provision in 1520, Las Casas rewrote and presented diverse texts, with divergent views regarding the relationship between these projects and reality, or the possibility of their realization. For some time, they have been taken as “fantasy,” or as proposals that had nothing to do with reality (Oviedo and Pedro Borges),7 or as a possible utopia that could be accomplished in the 6 7

On the topic, Joseph Pérez, Los comuneros (Madrid: La esfera de los libros, 2001), and the classic by Antonio Maravall, Las comunidades de Castilla. Una primera revolución moderna (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1963). See, for example, book 19, Chapter 5, and book 33, ­chapter 54, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Historia general y natural de las Indias [c.1526–​1548], ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela (Madrid: Atlas-​ Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1959); Pedro Borges, “Las

388 Teglia very long term, but at the same time was unimaginable in immediate terms (Maravall, Durán Luzio, and Cro).8 Others have defined Las Casas’s texts as proposals to reform the conquest, which clearly responded to imperial and colonial interests (Bataillon, and Jáuregui and Solodkow).9 Finally, some have regarded them as projects that could truly be realized (Giménez Fernández), and as antecedents of the Jesuit missions (Hanke).10 Arguably, that era was prolific in terms of utopias: Las Casas’s Memorial, Erasmus’s The Education of a Christian Prince, and Thomas More’s Utopia were all released within a period of a few years. It is not our intention here to establish a detailed comparison of these texts—​although they truly present interesting similarities and differences beyond their diverse genres.11 According to Durán Luzio, one of the most important objectives of the Fifth Lateran Council—​held between 1512 and 1517—​was the reform of certain religious practices with the aim of improving Catholicism.12 For this reason, the ideas of simplicity and peace—​typical of primitive Christianity—​left a mark in the Western world. The three texts in question were directly associated with the Flemish court of the promising King Charles i, where these reformist ideas were disseminated. Erasmus of Rotterdam, the prince’s advisor during these

8

9 10

11

12

utopías de Bartolomé de las Casas,” in Utopía y realidad indiana, ed. Luciano Pereña (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1992), 201–​221. José Antonio Maravall, Utopía y reformismo en la España de los Austrias (Madrid: Siglo xxi, 1982), see Chapter 3; Juan Durán Luzio, Bartolomé de Las Casas ante la conquista de América. Las voces del historiador (Heredia: Euna, 1992); Stelio Cro, Realidad y utopía en el descubrimiento y la Conquista de América Hispana (1492–​1682) (Madrid: Troy, International Book Publishers/​Fundación Universitaria Española, 1983), see Part 1, Chapter 3, on empiric utopias. Marcel Bataillon, Études sur Bartolomé de las Casas (Paris: Centre de recherches de l’Institut d’études hispaniques, 1965), 45–​177; Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 127–​166. Manuel Giménez Fernández, Bartolomé de las Casas. Capellán de Carlos i, Poblador de Cumaná (Madrid: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-​Americanos de Sevilla, 1984); Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949), see Part 2. Juan Durán Luzio has dedicated an extensive chapter to comparing Thomas More’s Utopia with Las Casas’s Memorial, both of them with very humanist content and tone, see Luzio, Bartolomé de las Casas ante la conquista de América, 13–​110. For other purposes and to achieve other results, so has Victor N. Baptiste in his Bartolomé de las Casas and Thomas More’s Utopia: Connections and similarities. A Translation and Study (Culver City: Labyrinthos, 1990). He argued—​based on both good information and on some not-​ so-​good speculation—​that both More and Erasmus would have read Las Casas’s project in 1516 and that this—​contrary to what is usually assumed—​would have inspired the second part of More’s Utopia. Durán Luzio, Bartolomé de las Casas ante la conquista de América, 29.

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years, wrote Institutio Principis Christiani (The Education of a Christian Prince) for the monarch. Thomas More met with chancellor Jean le Sauvage while on a diplomatic mission to Antwerp in 1515. Then, Le Sauvage accompanied Prince Charles upon his arrival in Spain in September 1517. This chancellor became of such paramount importance for More that he wrote Erasmus asking whether Le Sauvage had approved the Utopia manuscript that More had sent him. Although with different aims, Las Casas proceeded in a similar way. Knowing that the Gran Canciller’s circle of power had great influence on the prince, Las Casas decided to try to gain Le Sauvage’s support. Before the chancellor’s arrival in Spain, he sent him several letters in Latin to make him aware of the “destruction” to which the Indigenous peoples were being subjected, and of the poor governance in the Indies.13 In this way, Las Casas earned the trust of this high official to the point that he praised Las Casas greatly in the presence of the king, who “ordered the Great Chancellor to meet with the clergyman, and to both reform and remedy the evils and abuse in the Indies.”14 That being said, the first remedy proposed by Las Casas in his 1516 Memorial—​and the core of his proposal—​relates to the Indians’ liberty and to the abolition of the encomienda and slavery: May Your Majesty free all the Indians on all the islands, that they not serve or work […], because following the bad and pestiferous custom that the Spaniards have of serving themselves with the Indians, they will kill and give cause to kill, and many of them die in a short time.15

13

14 15

Of course, Le Sauvage was not the only one among the Flemish who helped Las Casas materialize his projects. Other court members also provided important support for his proposals, such as Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht—​later Pope Adrian vi (r. 1522–​1523)—​who was sent by Charles V to the peninsula after the death of Ferdinand the Catholic. Las Casas also received the support of the Laxao’s royal Sumiller de Corps, nephew of Le Sauvage, M. de la Mûre, and of the Italian humanist Mercurino Arborio Gattinara. “[…] manda al gran chanciller que juntarse consigo al clérigo, y a ambos a dos reformasen y pusiesen remedio a los males y daños destas Indias.” Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias (Mexico City: fce, 1951), 3:172. “V.A. mande suspender todos los indios de todas las islas, que en ninguna cosa sirvan ni trabajen […] porque siguiendo la mala é pestífera costumbre que los españoles en servirse de los indios tienen, matarán y darán causa á matar y á morir en poco tiempo muchos dellos.” Bartolomé de las Casas, “Memorial de remedios para las Indias” [1516], Colección de Documentos Inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1867), 7:14.

390 Teglia Las Casas emphasized the freeing of the Indians from the encomenderos. As such, imagine how provocative this joint proposal by Las Casas and the first Dominican friars on Hispaniola must have been—​especially considering that the encomienda system in the Indies had already enjoyed almost twenty years of uninterrupted validity. This constituted the conquerors’ main reward, and was regarded as the Indies’ greatest attraction for conquerors and colonizers. In addition, by this time there were news of great wealth in Mexico, which would be conquered a few years later. According to the Lascasian plan, there should be no place for the Indians to work in servitude, since the Spanish—​a term he used to refer to the conquerors, who were mostly hidalgos (humble noblemen) in the Indies—​were, for him, always exploiting the Native peoples. During these years, the cleric turned his back on the Aristotelian maxim of natural servitude. Las Casas’s proposal appealed to the new king’s court, partly because it followed the pattern of omnia sunt communia (“all things are common”) related to the classical topic of Ovid’s Golden Age. However, unlike the nostalgic unrecoverable past—​characteristic of this tradition—​in the New World the topic of classical and biblical tradition was updated and nuanced with the ideas of the time, which gave rise to the utopian hopes to define desirable proposals for the future. Specifically, in his 1516 Memorial, Las Casas imagined and projected a society of Indians and Spaniards in which all the individuals would work and distribute their property equally.16 On this topic of the Golden Age, the community of goods meant that what was earned out of everyone’s work should be distributed equally, as if workers were “brothers and sisters” without hierarchies. It is well known how the poet Ovid introduced this theme of community when he referred to the Golden Age in relation to the subsequent Iron Age.17 During the former, besides the fact that the land would provide abundant fruit and without much work, men and women would live together without problems and in the midst of pleasant peace. In contrast, during the latter—​the 16

17

“Que [indios y labradores] sean compañeros y trabajen de por medio; y sacada la parte de S.A., lo otro lo partan hermanablemente el tal labrador y los cinco indios” (“Let [Indians and farmers] be partners and work together; and once the part belonging to Your Majesty has been set aside, the other part is to be split between the farmer and the five Indians”). Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 19. “No one needed soldiers. People were unaggressive, and unanxious; The years went by in peace. And Earth, untroubled, Unharried by hoe or plowshare, brought forth all That men had need for, and those men were happy, Gathering berries from the mountain sides, Cherries, or blackcaps, and the edible acorns. Spring was forever […]” Ovid, Metamorphoses; The New Annotated Edition, trans. Rolfe Humphries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018), 6.

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Iron Age, the desire for possessions and ownership of the land would leave a fundamental mark, which would generate extensive disagreement within a community and, as Ovid imagined, competition for limited goods. As in Ovid’s Golden Age, community was also a prominent feature of Las Casas’s utopic plan. There would be no differences or selfish desires; Castilian peasants and Amerindians would be considered brothers and sisters. This would be possible because, with Columbian founding hyperboles in mind, the land in the New World was considered both very rich and very fertile—​as if in eternal spring. Hence, the projection of the locus amoenus (“pleasant place”) in America authorized the link with the other topic—​the one from the Golden Age—​and was projected into the future but with hope—​which was rather typical of Las Casas’s time—​that is, of the Early Modern Age. According to Las Casas, the Edenic Native Indians would share the land of their own will because the Castilian peasants would not exhibit the greed, mistreatment, and desire to loot typical of the encomenderos. Beyond the bucolic concept, Las Casas envisioned a community of Spanish farmers or peasants and Native Americans peacefully living together—​which is further analyzed below. Las Casas imagined that both colonists and natives would reject the idea of the land as property, which was commonly favored. Instead, he focused on its use for basic livelihood. Here, the utopian model of Christ’s life touched the Lascasian vision of peasants and natives, insofar as he symbolized the generosity of the destitute and of those pushed aside by power. In addition, the economy of Ovid’s Golden Age was based on fruit harvesting—​a satisfactory task for men and women. It was not necessary for agricultural labor to touch the land, nor was it necessary for it to “hurt” the land, since the land worked for itself. In contrast, in the Iron Age, wealth came from the entrails of the land, which stimulated evil. Mining opened up the land and everything hidden “near the Stygian shadows” was extracted. That is, geographically, according to Ovid’s poetic rendering, gold was located near Hades or the underworld—​a place symbolically forbidden to people.18 In addition, the desire to possess wealth always brought about fratricidal wars and mistreatments among human beings. In Las Casas’s Memorial, agriculture was closely linked to the idea of ennobling (“And let the land be cultivated and settled and

18

“The rich earth, Good giver of all the bounty of the harvest, Was asked for more; they dug into her vitals, Pried out the wealth a kinder lord had hidden In Stygian shadow, all that precious metal, The root of evil. They found the guilt of iron, And gold, more guilty still. And War came forth That uses both to fight with; bloody hands.” Ovid, Metamorphoses (2018), 7.

392 Teglia ennobled”),19 whereas metal mining was a violent, albeit necessary, seizure of the land. As such, Indians should exclusively work in agricultural labor, and for this he argued that mining “bends” them—​that is, it exhausted them. In many versions of the Lascasian remedy for the Antilles, he insists that once the Spanish colonists’ encomiendas were removed from them—​and before they were distributed to the farmers—​the Indians should rest for a while “until they get strong.” The representation of the horror of slavery in the mines was, in part, determined by a traditional rejection of mining work. Las Casas sought to recreate a pristine and noble landscape, and a context where Native Americans lived comfortably, unaware of modern elements and the associated dreaded vices, such as greed, property, and ambition for precious metals and material wealth. Jáuregui and Solodkow referred to the bivalence of the Lascasian project inasmuch as the community would have been a deadly dystopia—​since it would have preserved mining to please the king—​but it would also have been a utopia for seeking fraternity between Indians and Spaniards in noble agricultural labor.20 However, I consider this as part of the network of simulations and different substitutions underlying Lascasian proposals of this period, which he employed to make them palatable. Nevertheless, despite being against social hierarchies—​those that conquerors were seeking—​the cleric somehow preserved them in his community in favor of the Spaniards. In 1520, among other issues related to the pacification of Tierra de Paria and Santa Marta, the king granted Las Casas the espuelas doradas (“golden spurs”), an investiture that he requested on behalf of the colonists of Hispaniola.21 These crown-​financed colonizers would arrive from Spain to the Caribbean islands with their liveries, shields, coats of arms, and symbolic weapons, which their descendants would inherit. According to Las Casas—​but not for the Spanish colonists—​these elements were nothing more than illusory concessions of nobility and distinctions that would have no real value in the egalitarian and evangelizing community he had created, since they did not imply any assignment of encomienda.

19 “Y la tierra sea labrada y arraigada y ennoblecida.” Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 18. 20 “The Memorial seeks to reform colonialism, to make it humanitarian and evangelical, and ultimately, biopolitical. The paradox of this utopia is that it simultaneously champions the life, health, and sustenance of the Indians and their colonial exploitation.” Jáuregui and Solodkow, “Biopolitics,” 165. 21 “[…] fechos los dichos tres pueblos é fortalezas é todo lo demás que habéis de hacer, que [los colonos] gocen de las dichas preeminencias de caballeros armados de espuelas doradas é de traer las dichas armas, en todos los nuestros reinos é señoríos libremente.” Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 75.

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393

Equality in the Village

The Memorial’s third remedy petitioned the king to send forty farmers in order to inhabit each of the villages in the Antilles.22 An idea of the world’s natural and social balance underlay Las Casas’s pursuit of the harmony of the Christian world: the underprivileged needed go to the Indies (there were too many in Spain), where nature was rich and abundant, and where they were truly needed for evangelization, good colonization, and communal living. In this way, Castilian peasants would replace the greedy and ambitious colonists who had advanced over the islands. Thus, with the success of Castilian and Indian mixed communities, the abolition of the destructive encomienda would be decreed. Las Casas’s request to the crown for farmers to be sent to the Indies was neither the first nor the last regarding these lands. In 1493, Christopher Columbus had already made a similar request for 2,000 farmers.23 Afterwards, in 1559, Las Casas himself would continue to prefer Castilian peasants to any other social stratum of Christians to inhabit the Indies, advising that: “the remedy for it [Hispaniola’s depopulation] would be to repopulate it with farmers and simple people, since there are too many in the Spanish kingdoms.”24 However, the choice and permission to introduce individuals of this Spanish group into the Indies was found disturbing by Castilian society. Las Casas had some reasons to choose these farmers. He trusted that once the peasants arrived, they would choose to stay and to continue doing in America what they had already been doing in Castile: that is, working the land and not giving in to theft. After several years, Las Casas summarized the society he had conceived in those first projects with utopian imagery: It is worth mentioning that [the intention was] to send real settlers, farmers who would make a living out of happily cultivating the lands which were voluntarily granted by their natural inhabitants and owners, the 22 23 24

Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 18. Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle, 100. “El remedio della [Hispaniola] y todo lo dicho es poblarla de gente labradora y llana, que en estos reinos sobra.” In “Carta al Rey, en favor de la isla española” (Letter to the King in Favor of the Hispaniola Island) (February 20, 1559). Bartolomé de las Casas, Opúsculos, cartas y memoriales, O.E., 5:463. I owe this information and its reference to professor Hidefuji Someda, a Lascasian specialist from Osaka University. It is noteworthy that in this letter, Las Casas requests farmers for the deserted Hispaniola island, but he no longer requests that they be in charge of evangelizing the Indians into Christianity or to live in a community for equality and mestizo marriages.

394 Teglia Indians; they would marry among them, and out of both populations, one of the world’s best and maybe one of the most Christian and peaceful republics would be created. The intention was not to indifferently send any kind of heartless people, the ones who stole and destroyed the lands, etc.25 Two remarkable elements in this segment should be unraveled and contextualized. The first one was a particular conception of European peasants and of the Amerindians as naturally predisposed to agricultural labor. The other one was a conception of relationships among individuals that Las Casas understood as belonging to the same social group, being indisputably happy, and enjoying the essential importance of equality for the creation of a happy society. Las Casas was convinced that Castilian peasants would behave as equals to the Indians and that they would not feel entitled to make them their servants. At this early moment of his bio-​bibliography (between 1516 and 1520), he also had a merely socio-​productive conception of the Native Indians. By equalizing Castilian farmers and Indians, the representation of the Native peoples was, in this Lascasian utopia, both social and cultural. Moreover, since Las Casas’s project was utopian, these figures not only worked as social representations, but they also discursively materialized a utopian image that translated the principles of primitive Christianity, and guided future colonization. In this way, during these years, Las Casas conceived of Spanish peasant-​farmers and Amerindians as culturally equal villagers, indeed, as inverted mirrors of the Christians in the court or of the aspiring nobility and the noble colonizers. A few years after these projects were drafted, the official chronicler for Charles V since 1527 (then, the Holy Roman Emperor and Charles I of Spain), Antonio de Guevara, combined the valued principles of the villager as both a primitive Christian and a barbarian in the figure of Villano del Danubio (The Peasant of the Danube). The good peasant was rustic, modest, wise, and deprived of material goods by his own will. As an image of a virtuous life, both in Guevara’s and Las Casas’s representations, peasants embodied utopian visions from members of the court who idealized the small village.26 According to Las

25

“[Se procuraba] enviar verdaderos pobladores, conviene a saber, gente labradora, que viviese de cultivar tierras tan felices como éstas, las cuales de su propia voluntad concedieran los mismos naturales pobladores y dueños dellas, que eran los indios, y los unos se casaran con los otros, y de ambas se hiciera una de las mejores repúblicas y quizá más cristiana y pacífica del mundo, y no enviar indiferentemente a todo género de personas desalmadas, que las robaron, destruyeron, etc.” Casas, Historia (1951), 179. 26 Maravall, Utopía y reformismo, 322.

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Casas’s thoughts, seemingly there was a close and implicit connection between poverty or lack of resources and humility—​or lack of greed—​and virtue. For this reason, according to his conceptions in these first years of his American experience, the world’s poor and modest people, who were content with the bare minimum—​such as Castilian farmers and Indians—​lacked greed and ambition. Las Casas’s views implied a social equality between Castilian farmers and Amerindians. Along with biblical-​Christian thought that idealized poverty, manual labor, and work with raw materials, Las Casas’s utopia sought to imagine Amerindians as part of the early modern bourgeois European economic production system of those years.27 That is, Las Casas’s proposed colony would be equalizing not only in terms of evangelization, but also in productive terms according to the principles of pre-​modern social organization. The difference was that this attempt at the Westernization of Native production methods was the result of his views on social equality between one and others, although evangelization into Christian faith remained the main ambition explicitly stated in the project. According to the Historia de las Indias (History of the Indies), Las Casas—​ along with his squire Luis de Berrio—​finally received royal authorization to recruit peasants in Castile who appeared to exhibit similar humility and modesty.28 Although exact dates were not mentioned, this little crusade for the recruitment of humble people for the Indies must have happened at the beginning of 1519. The small village inhabitants—​the farmers—​quickly decided to follow the reform-​minded clergyman. They claimed to have enough fortune where they lived, but they still preferred moving to the Indies in order to leave their children in the land that the cleric “showed” to them with his

27 28

See, for example, the model of Vita Christi, but also the Beatitudes. The “good” squire Berrio, who “seemed a good person” (“parecía persona de bien”), finally “did not show such simplicity nor was he so grateful” (“no tenía tanta simplicidad ni tuvo tanto agradecimiento”). Casas, Historia (1951), 3:189. The bishop of Burgos, Rodríguez de Fonseca—​one of the fervent opponents of Las Casas’s ideas—​managed to modify the document that instructed Berrio to submit to Las Casas’s orders at all times. When the squire considered it necessary, he decided to go where his wife was and to continue recruiting on his own in Andalusia people who were, according to Las Casas, “most of them taverners, and some ruffians, vagabonds, and lazy people, and very few farmers” (“los más taberneros, y algunos rufianes y vagabundos y gente holgazana, y los menos labradores”). Casas, Historia (1951), 3:192. The squire took his 200 recruits to Seville and sent them to Hispaniola without identity cards or a command from the king, without salary or an arranged job, so they ended up getting sick or dying. Some of them became taverners, some became “cowboys,” and some escaped to rob the Indians.

396 Teglia “highly effective” tales: a land of happiness, fertility, health, and wealth. In Las Casas’s words: Somewhere called Rello, in a place of the Count of La Coruña [del Conde], which had 30 houses, 20 people signed up, and among them, two locals, siblings; seventy-​year-​old men, with 17 children; the clergyman said to the oldest one: “Sir, why do you want to go to the Indies when you are so old and so tired?” The good old man answered: “By my faith, sir—​he said—​to die and to leave my children in a free and blessed land.”29 Las Casas seemed to recruit land workers without much effort: locals seemed the most excited about embarking on the journey, even to his regret about and seeming objection to elderly overseas travelers. But these and the peasants’ children were the surplus inhabitants in Castile, as stated in the 1516 Memorial.30 The Historia de las Indias showed an ease of recruitment and of achievement of the ideal goals detailed in the projects. As such, everything answered to the ideals of the good peasant, which was close to the Christian idealization of the poor. The old man’s words were arranged in a syntax typical of a peasant’s modest way of speaking, and widely satirized by the literature of the Spanish Golden Age: a host of sayings and fixed expressions (“A la mi fe”) and noun phrases that did not inflect the verb (“a morirme” and “dejar”).31 However, these schemes that Las Casas used to represent the characters participating in his Historia are contradicted by the actual facts represented in the text. After several unsuccessful attempts in Spain, partly due to the work of his “enemies” at court, as well as to radical reforms and changes to the original project, Las Casas left in November 1520 for the American continent with the

29

30

31

“En un lugar del conde de Coruña, llamado Rello, que era de 30 casas, se escribieron 20 personas, y entre ellas dos vecinos, hermanos; viejos de setenta años, con 17 hijos; diciendo el clérigo al más viejo: ‘Vos, padre, ¿a qué queréis ir a las Indias siendo tan viejo y tan cansado?’ Respondió el buen viejo: ‘A la mi fe, señor, dice él, a morirme luego y dejar mis hijos en tierra libre y bienaventurada’.” Casas, Historia (1951), 3:191–​192. “May [the King] demand that […] forty farmers […] go to each village or city with their wives and children, all of whom there are many and in need in these kingdoms, so that they stay there” (“[El Rey] mande ir á cada villa ó ciudad […] cuarenta labradores […] con sus mujeres y hijos, de cuantos en estos reinos hay sobrados y por ventura necesitados, para que allí permanezcan”). Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 18. This is the way of speaking, for example, of the simple peasant and squire Sancho Panza in Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote de la Mancha, of the peasant characters in the Lope de Vega comedies, and in all the satirical-​burlesque Spanish Golden Age literature that portrays Castilian peasant characters of those centuries.

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capitulation signed by Charles on May 19 of that same year. Las Casas took 200 farmers and very little money with him. When he arrived on the island of Puerto Rico in February 1521, he heard that the Indians at Cumaná on the coast of Chiribichi and Maracapana had killed the Dominican friars who had initiated communities of peaceful evangelization in those areas, which he planned to continue. After leaving the peasants in San Juan, he traveled, greatly discouraged, to Hispaniola, where officials collaborated with his project in a very vague manner and only with the hope of taking part in the pearl harvests on the continent. Also affected by the recent death of friar Pedro de Córdoba, Las Casas journeyed to Puerto Rico to collect his farmers; however, “he did not find any, as they had gone with some robbers to steal from the Indians.”32 For Las Casas, this was a very devastating ending for his peasant community. This served his detractors well, who accused him of being utopian, dreamy, and even responsible for the ruin of the Indians and of Christianity. In addition, the Cumaná “disaster” served to inflame the stereotype of the peasant and Indian as ignoble, unreasonable, and fierce—​contrary to what Las Casas conceived of and wished to promote. 3

Colonial Differences: Distributive Justice and Dissimulation

Throughout his life, Las Casas labored for justice and equity. Aristotelian-​ Thomistic doctrine understood distributive justice as “harmony” between unequal social parts. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the term “justice” began to take on other meanings that brought it closer to “equality.” El Tesoro de Covarrubias (The Covarrubias Treasury) mentioned equity in the definition of justice.33 Later, for the Diccionario de autoridades (Dictionary of Authorities), reason and equity were already equivalent under that entry.34 Indeed, the interchangeability of justice, equity, and equality came from the social mores of the emerging bourgeoisie of European Christian cities that, with these principles and reevaluations, translated the Christian notion of equality of every soul into the essential equality of humanity.

32

“pero no halló alguno que llevar, porque se habían ido con ciertos salteadores a robar y saltear indios.” Casas, Historia (1951), 3:374. 33 “‘En rigor de justicia’, cuando no se admite epiqueya, ni moderación de equidad.” Sebastián de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (Madrid: Luis Sánchez, 1611), fol. 496r. 34 “justicia. Vale tambien razón o equidad. Latín. Aequitas. quev. Mus. 6. Rom. 42.” Diccionario de autoridades (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1734), vol. 4.

398 Teglia Las Casas’s politically imbued utopic colonization and evangelization project was first presented to Cardinal Cisneros; who was the regent of Castile and the main person in charge of the Christian empire. As such, Las Casas implored Charles I to protect the Indians. Secondly, Las Casas directed his focus to the Castilian peasants, whom he ordered to be peers of the Indians and to share with them what they obtained from working the land. The results of these provisions were expressed in the future tense, which was a typical element in the utopian imagination: [The Indians’] minds will soften and sharpen […] And they will live a pleasant life and they will not die. […] and they, seeing that the Christians’ work, will have a better disposition to do what they see […] And that way, the land’s people and fruit will multiply.35 In this Memorial, utopian and even prophetic designs were intended to envision an improvement of the Indians’ living conditions. However, none of these projects addressed them as interlocutors, or as subjects of transformation and improvement. Las Casas also believed that a transmutation of customs, virtues, and principles would be fostered by the coexistence of Spaniards and Indians. In this way, the equity or equality proposed by Las Casas wavers when delving into the diverse nuances and facets of the Lascasian discourse. From an anthropological perspective, and with different and cultural interests, Fernando Ortiz called these Lascasian colonizing proposals and projects “viable processes of transculturation.” Ortiz used the term transculturation to refer to the Lascasian-​desired process of opening the path in the kindest possible way for the Indians to transition from one culture to another, and, above all, to induce them to adopt the spirit of the faith.36 As such, here, mestizaje and transculturation were also part of the Westernization process described by Serge Gruzinski—​wherein the Indigenous peoples copy and appropriate European elements.37 In the Lascasian community, Indians were assimilated as a replica of Castilian peasants, and through coexistence, mestizaje, and

35

36 37

“Se han y hacerse han sotiles y aguzárseles han los ingenios [a los indios] […] Y estarán a su placer y no se morirán […] y ellos viendo que los cristianos trabajan, ternán mejor gana de hacer lo que vieren […] Y así multiplicarse ha la tierra de gente y de fruto.” Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 19. Fernando Ortiz, “Prólogo,” in Lewis Hanke, Bartolomé de las Casas, pensador político, historiador, antropólogo (Havana: Impr. de Ucar García, 1949), xxvii. Serge Gruzinski, La colonización de lo imaginario. Sociedades indígenas y occidentalización en el México español. Siglos xvi–​x viii (Mexico City: fce, 1991).

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transculturation, they would be pressured into making the Christian faith their own. Moreover, the utopian issue of the egalitarian community—​as seen above—​ was very prominent in the sixteenth century. In Thomas More’s Utopia, for example, the traveler, Raphael Hythloday,38 described how some utopians converted to Christianity after hearing that Christ had led several world nations to brotherhood and sisterhood; and, above all, that his disciples had lived a communal life. Communal work distributed tasks among many arms and “side by side,” which provided work with dignity and happiness, as well as with efficiency. However, although both Utopia and Las Casas’s proposal described a community that sought fairness for all, these communities were underpinned by a substantial structural inequality. More’s Utopia lavished equality and communal assembly-​based decisions, but the imposition of the utopian model over the wild city of Abraxa was mandatory and unfair. As More stated, peace was imperative—​and natives would join the true religion by their own verification of the authenticity of the Christian faith.39 38

39

Raphael Hythloday is the protagonist and, when turning the pages, he becomes the voice who describes the island of Utopia in the homonymous text by Thomas More. More, also a character in his own story, introduces Hythloday in this way: “A stranger, who seemed past the flower of his age; his face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him, so that, by his looks and habit, I concluded he was a seaman. […] He divided his estate among his brothers, ran the same hazard as Americus Vespucius, and bore a share in three of his four voyages that are now published. […] As he told us of many things that were amiss in those new-​discovered countries, so he reckoned up not a few things, from which patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live; of which an account may be given, as I have already promised, at some other time; for, at present, I intend only to relate those particulars that he told us, of the manners and laws of the Utopians: but I will begin with the occasion that led us to speak of that commonwealth.” Thomas More, Utopia (Project Gutenberg eBook, 2005). The beginning of the history of Utopia is conquest and, implicitly, war: “But they report (and there remains good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and uncivilised inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind. Having soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them.” In Utopia, some religions were considered superior: “There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of the island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the moon or one of the planets. Some worship such men as have been eminent in former times for virtue or glory, not only as ordinary deities, but as the supreme god. Yet the greater and wiser sort of them worship none of these, but adore one eternal, invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible Deity; as a Being that is far above all our apprehensions, that is spread over the whole universe,

400 Teglia For his part, Las Casas rekindled certain Columbian concepts of Amerindians as human beings lacking so much: money, weapons, education, and clothing. For this reason, in the Lascasian project, Castilian peasants, despite being the simplest and illiterate ones (“faltos de letras”), and despite everything seen above, were responsible, in the context of the sought-​after equality, for a colonial difference. The Spaniards would be in charge of transmitting part of their culture to the Indians: their knowledge, intelligence or “wit,” and the working society. In his 1516 Memorial, the cleric declared that, by replacing the tyrants of the encomienda system, Castilian peasants would be like tutors to the Indians, inducing them to work. Consequently, the Indians would not notice that they were captives of the Spaniards, and they would even find pleasure in this condition that would introduce them to modern production methods, as well as to faith in Christ and to life in the colonial village.40 This type of relationship between peasants and natives would simulate equality. Perhaps, in this, Las Casas was getting ahead of what would be the baroque simulations, in which senses were deceived until an illusory satisfaction was achieved. However, in the baroque, the subject liable to be deceived was the literate (“el letrado”) or, ultimately, the subject in power. In the corpus de Indias, this could have even reached the king, who might have had suspicions of having been deceived from a distance.41 Instead, Las Casas proposed that Indian transculturation would advance with the help of the peasants’ simulation of equality and freedom with the Indians:42 the ones and the others had to give the appearance of living as equal neighbors.43 In this way, Las Casas also showed a desire for colonial reform and the Westernization of otherness. But the method, contained in this utopian-​reformist treatise, was the imposition of a reform based on the (less subaltern) Spanish peasants imitating the (most subaltern) Indians. The Lascasian memorial was a bivalent utopia: valid for the king and God’s interests

40

41 42 43

not by His bulk, but by His power and virtue.” Thomas More, Utopia (Project Gutenberg eBook, 2005). “It will seem [that the Indians] are free and not prisoners, but they will not be entirely at their own will, because their companions [peasants] will be like their tutors and will induce them to work.” (“parecerá [que los indios] son libres y no cabtivos, y del todo no estarán a su querer, porque los compañeros que tuvieren [campesinos] serán como sus hayos, que los inducirán al trabajo.”) Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 19. In Literature Studies, corpus means an ordered set of texts that serve as a basis for research—​about the Indies here. This is what Jáuregui and Solodkow (“Biopolitics”) suggest when they detect a kind of “placebo freedom” in the Lascasian Memorial. Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 32.

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while at the same time it was a dystopian ordinance for Castilian peasants and a colonization discourse finally designed for the Amerindian natives. As a bottom line, Las Casas sought to install a paternalism based on an unequal relationship. For the Indies, he did not want individuals lacking greed, but men and women of little greed; not people desiring very valuable raw materials—​such as gold—​but producers of raw materials within a capitalistic economy; not accumulators of great wealth, but savers of basic things. Thus, the “souls” of the natives would halt their “downfall” and would “be saved.” In this way, Christianity in America progressively found its language and effective forms of inequality in the colonies, and for this it used both simulated equality and dissimulated inequality that allowed survival while spreading its discourse of community, equity, and identity. This was the apparent utopia of a good treatment, but not a full utopia. In part, Las Casas had to give up his possible utopia and this brought him closer to a more reformist stance. Nevertheless, the necessity or concession of the inequality clause of the 1516 text in the final capitulation of 1520 demonstrated, as mentioned, hierarchies and distinctions among the colony’s inhabitants: Once the three peoples and fortresses and everything else that you have to do have been done, may [the Spanish inhabitants] enjoy said preeminence of armed knights and golden spurs and of bringing said weapons, in all our kingdoms and lordships freely.44 The plan proposed a transfer of hierarchies and distinctions where the utopia of the simple peoples and of equality coexisted with and gave more space to the utopia of people greedy for nobility and hierarchy. In addition, the attention given to agriculture in the 1516 memorial was now limited, and it is constantly pushed aside in favor of “the inheritances and lands […] that you would buy in the said Indian land with your money or jewels, for lots, farms, and cattle pastures,” and by the capitulation’s main objectives: pacification, conversion, and the increase of the king’s patrimony.45 Shortly after the failed experience of Cumaná, the young cleric entered the Dominican Order in Hispaniola. During and after the completion of the formative years of the studium—​from 1522 to approximately 1527—​Las Casas began 44 45

Casas, “Memorial de remedios,” 75. “los heredamientos é tierras […] que comprárades en la dicha Tierra Firme de los indios, por vuestros dineros ó joyas, para solares é labranzas é pastos de ganados.” Casas, “Asiento y capitulación que hizo Bartolomé de las Casas con S.M. sobre descubrimiento y población desde la provincia de Paria hasta la de Santa Marta,” 76.

402 Teglia writing De unico vocationis modo (The Only Way). This missiological treatise also contained an additional utopian proposal to remove peasants and secular people from the task of the evangelization of natives: instead, the plan was to put friars alone in charge, whom he compared in this instance with teachers who needed to transmit their teachings to the disciples. Here, this detailed evangelization method proposed that those with a lack of religious knowledge copy or replicate the teacher’s knowledge: “the learner’s knowledge is similar to the teacher’s knowledge, as well as among natural beings, the begotten being’s form is similar to the being that begets.”46 The relationship between friars and Indians was obviously also paternalistic, but it no longer concealed, as in 1516, an equity based on the Indigenous life to achieve, on the one hand, the good treatment of the Indians and, on the other, the effectiveness of the colonization process. At this later time, Las Casas abandoned the formulation of possible utopias of equality between Amerindians and Castilians; yet another transformation in his biography as the Protector of the Indians. 46

“el conocimiento del que aprende es una semejanza del conocimiento del que enseña, así como entre los seres naturales la forma del ser engendrado es una semejanza del ser que engendra” Bartolomé de las Casas, Del único modo de atraer a todos los pueblos a la verdadera religion, ed. Agustín Millares Carlo (Mexico City: fce, 1942), 55.

­c hapter 18

Beyond the “Black Legend”: The Reception History of Las Casas in Late Sixteenth-​Century England Rady Roldán-​Figueroa An area of growing interest in Lascasian scholarship concerns the historical reception and appropriation of the Dominican missionary’s life and his ideas about the Spanish “conquest” and colonization of the Americas. For instance, Benjamin Keen visited this question with a broader scope in mind, making his remarks an indispensable backdrop to this chapter. In his introductory essay for the volume he co-​edited with Juan Friede, Bartolomé de las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work, Keen attempted a broad overview of the “approaches” to Las Casas from 1535 to 1970.1 He summarized his endeavor as an “attempt” to trace “the main currents of international opinion of Las Casas and his writings, to show the various uses made of those writings, and to identify the factors which determined the reception given to the man and his works.”2 He candidly admitted that such an endeavor could not be exhaustive; he proceeded to examine mostly English, French, and Spanish sources from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. About the English translation of the Brevísima that was published in 1583, he remarked that it “henceforth was to form part of the English ideological arsenal in the struggle with Spain.”3 Another prominent example of this line of inquiry comes from the work of Isacio Pérez Fernández. Among his many works, Pérez Fernández published the first critical edition of Las Casas’s Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias.4 The Dominican scholar fitted the volume with numerous reading aids, critical annotations, and appendices. Among these was a short essay 1 Benjamin Keen, “Introduction: Approaches to Las Casas, 1535–​1970,” in Bartolomé de las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and his Work, ed. Juan Friede and Benjamin Keen (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), 3–​63. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are the author’s. With very few and rare exceptions, all quotations from sixteenth-​and seventeenth-​century sources replicate original orthography. 2 Keen, “Introduction,” 3. 3 Keen, “Introduction,” 10. 4 Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias, ed. Isacio Pérez Fernández (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 2000).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_020

404 Roldán-Figueroa in which he discussed the leading “critics” (detractores) of Bartolomé de las Casas: “Presentación de los principales detractores de la ‘Brevísima’.”5 Pérez Fernández dealt first with those critics who were Las Casas’s contemporaries, continuing with others who were active in the sixteenth century. He moved diachronically, discussing eighteenth-​through twentieth-​century figures like Juan Nuix y Perpiñá, S.J. (1740–​1783), Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo (1856–​1912), and Manuel Serrano y Sanz (1866–​1932). He closed the essay discussing the leading Las Casas critics of the twentieth century: Constantino Bayle, S.J. (1882–​1953), Rómulo D. Carbia (1885–​1944), and Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–​1968). For Pérez Fernández these figures—​although separated by time—​were united in their criticism of Las Casas, especially in their objections to his Brevísima. The question of historical reception and appropriation has continued to attract the attention of scholars in recent years. For instance, Hart has explored the translation history of the Brevísima in the context of European rivalries with a special focus on French translations and issues of intertextuality.6 In addition, Mayer has documented the ways in which New England Puritans appropriated Las Casas’s writings and ideas.7 Inquiries into the reception history of Bartolomé de las Casas have not been limited to literary works, but have included the artistic rendering of the events that he narrated. For example, Adorno has explored the artistic history of the watercolor drawings “prepared (but not produced)” for the 1582 edition of Jacques de Miggrode’s (or Miggerode; 1531–​1627) French translation of the Brevísima.8 Adorno also reviewed the engravings that Theodor de Bry (1528–​1598) issued with the Latin and German translations of the Brevísima, respectively published in 1598 and 1599.9 Lastly, in this volume, Andrew Wilson examines how the figure of Las Casas was appropriated in the context of the Latin American wars of independence and the forging of new national identities.

5 Casas, Brevísima (2000), 917–​938. 6 Jonathan Hart, “Las Casas in French and Other Languages,” in Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de las Casas, ed. Santa Arias and Eyda M. Merediz (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008), 224–​234. 7 Alicia Mayer, “Controversial Cases on Humanitarian Doctrines: Bartolomé de las Casas’s Intellectual Legacy among New England Puritans,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David T. Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 167–​193. 8 Rolena Adorno, The Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 78–​79; idem, “The Not-​so-​Brief Story of the Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., 29–​57 (43). 9 Adorno, “The Not-​so-​Brief Story,” 43–​44.

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A prominent aspect of this line of inquiry is concerned with the ways that Las Casas’s Brevísima figured in the forging of various strains of “anti-​Spanish” sentiment and anti-​Catholic prejudice in England, which are customarily subsumed under the category of the “Black Legend.” Especially relevant for this present chapter are the contributions of Jeremy Lawrance and Sara Bradley.10 In Spanish Conquest, Protestant Prejudice: Las Casas and the Black Legend, Lawrance affirms that Las Casas’s Brevísima “gave rise to the Black Legend” and examines the Lascasian text through those lenses.11 Moreover, Lawrance sustains that the diffusion of the Brevísima was “due to Protestant polemicists who took it up as a weapon to blacken the name of Spain.”12 Drawing on Eric Griffin’s distinction between “‘ethnic’ (early modern) and ‘racial’ (modern)” prejudice, Lawrance argues that the “central dynamic of the Black Legend” is a “shift from religio-​political hostility to ethnic demonization” of Spain.13 The Brevísima paved the way, even if unintentionally, for the emergence of an essentialist Hispanophobic discourse that portrayed “evil” as “biologically imprinted on the Spanish gene.”14 The Black Legend, conceived in this way, linked “the behaviour of the conquistadors to racial corruption.”15 In Sara Bradley’s dissertation, “Pamphlet Literature and the Anglo-​Spanish War: A Study of Anti-​Spanish Sentiment in England Between 1580 and 1590,” she builds and expands on Griffin’s and Lawrance’s theses. Bradley closely analyzes English pamphlets published in the 1580s in order to trace how anti-​ Spanish tropes contributed to the dissemination of Hispanophobia. Bradley focuses on negative traits attributed to Spaniards, such as dishonesty, cruelty, pride, and cowardice. Once translated into English, Las Casas’s Brevísima—​ asserts the British scholar—​became a “pivotal text in the construction of the Spanish other in the 1580s.”16 Like Griffin and Lawrance, Bradley claims that

10

Jeremy Lawrance, Spanish Conquest, Protestant Prejudice: Las Casas and the Black Legend (Nottingham: Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, 2009); Sara Bradley, “Pamphlet Literature and the Anglo-​Spanish War: A Study of Anti-​Spanish Sentiment in England Between 1580 and 1590” (PhD dissertation, Nottingham Trent University, 2019), 17. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2019. 28376541. 11 Lawrance, Conquest, 7. 12 Lawrance, Conquest, 12. 13 Lawrance, Conquest, 12 and 12 n. 30; Eric J. Griffin, “From Ethos to Ethnos: Hispanizing ‘the Spaniard’ in the Old World and the New,” cr: The New Centennial Review 2.1 (2002): 69–​116; see also,Eric J. Griffin, English Renaissance Drama and the Specter of Spain: Ethnopoetics and Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 27–​48. 14 Lawrance, Conquest, 27. 15 Lawrance, Conquest, 26. 16 Bradley, “Pamphlet Literature,” 16.

406 Roldán-Figueroa the importance of the English translation of the Brevísima is its role in the dissemination of the Black Legend in England. In a similar vein, this chapter examines the reception history of Bartolomé de las Casas in late sixteenth-​century England. However, this chapter argues that the trajectory of Las Casas’s historical reception during this period is richer and cannot be reduced to the spread of Hispanophobia in England. Moreover, instead of imposing a diachronic perspective informed by the long-​ term evolution of the Black Legend, the analysis of the first foreign versions of the Brevísima—​in Brabantic, French, and English—​should endeavor to explain them as products of specific circumstances; that is, analysis should prioritize a more synchronic approach over a diachronic treatment of the theme of the Black Legend. The argument advanced in this chapter is that these translations were made in response to Spanish belligerence in the Low Countries, specifically as manifested during the sack of Antwerp in 1576 and the ensuing concerns that London could experience a similar fate. Jeremy Lawrance is probably the first historian to make reference to the sack of Antwerp in connection to the first foreign translations of the Brevísima. Lawrance raises the question: “In the tense years after the Spanish Fury at Antwerp and Pacification of Gent (1576) leading up to the Dutch declaration of independence (1581), who could fail to catch the intent of this nationalist rallying-​cry?”17 Bradley follows up on Lawrance’s observation, without further elaboration.18 In both cases, the “Spanish Fury” is only mentioned in relation to the first foreign translations of 1578 and 1579. This chapter, however, argues that the “Spanish Fury” not only explains why these translations were made and published, but also why the French translation was eventually translated into English and published in London in 1583. The first translations of the Brevísima in themselves did not say anything about the supposed “racial” or “ethnic corruption” of the Spaniards. Yet they offered a window into Spanish imperial belligerence in the Americas that was imaginable, seemed plausible, and made sense in light of similar acts of violence that transpired in the Low Countries. The conceivability of Las Casas’s American account had nothing to do with modern notions of objectivity. Instead, if Las Casas’s account was conceivable, it was because of the sheer correspondence and symmetry between the events that he described as occurring decades earlier across the Atlantic with events of recent memory that occurred

17 Lawrance, Conquest, 24. 18 Bradley, “Pamphlet Literature,” 17.

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in Europe. The apparent symmetry made Las Casas appear as a reliable and credible, and not just useful, source. Freeing up Las Casas from the diachronic fetters of the Black Legend enables us to have a better grasp of the actual circulation of his ideas in late sixteenth-​century England. Indeed, there was more of Las Casas in circulation at the time than just the Brevísima. His writings and ideas entered the streams of English print culture in the measure that other Lascasian texts were translated alongside the first foreign translations of the Brevísima. In addition, some of Las Casas’s ideas circulated in the form of “intellectual micro-​transfers.”19 Unfortunately, these translations are lost in discussions focused on the nexus between the Brevísima and the Black Legend. In fact, the first foreign translations of the Brevísima contributed to the formation of an English proto-​ Lascasian canon before the advent of the critical study of his literary corpus. Thus, this chapter initially sets the first foreign translations of the Brevísima against the backdrop of the sack of Antwerp. Then, it outlines the contours of the late sixteenth-​century English proto-​Lascasian canon and examines the transmission of Las Casas’s thought in the form of “intellectual micro-​transfers.” 1

Jacques Miggrode’s Tyrannies et crvavtez des espagnols and the “Spanish Fury” of 1576

The entry of Las Casas’s writings into the streams of English print culture began in the sixteenth century. His writings were rarely received directly from sources written in Spanish. Instead, the English reception of Las Casas was mediated through translations from Spanish into other languages, most prominently French. The first foreign translation of the Brevísima was published in 1578; a translation in the Brabantic dialect in use in Antwerp and other regions of the Duchy of Brabant.20 While the actual place of publication is unknown, worth noting is that the translator indicated in the preface the use of Brabantic and that this dialect was one of the “main constituents of Middle Dutch, apart from Hollandic and Flemish.”21 Thus, it is very likely that the Brabantic version of the Brevísima was published in Antwerp. 19 More on “intellectual micro-​transfers” later in this chapter. 20 Casas, Seer cort verhael van de destructie van d’Indien … ([Antwerp]: no publisher, 1578); John Alden and Dennis C. Landis, European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493–​1776, Volume i: 1493–​1600 (New York: Readex Books, 1980), 1:149a. 21 Author’s communication with Wim François, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, via email, July 2, 2021; Author’s communication with Violet Soen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,

408 Roldán-Figueroa In 1579, Jacques Miggrode’s French translation was published in Antwerp as well. The new rendering was probably done from Spanish given the inclusion of other Lascasian texts published in Seville in 1552 that were not included in the Brabantic.22 There were other translations of the Brevísima between 1578 and 1583—​the year the first English translation was published.23 However, the English translation of 1583 followed Miggrode’s translation published in 1579, while the two French translations issued in 1582 were reprints by different publishers of Miggrode’s translation of 1579. Hence, this chapter’s research follows the sequence of translations from the Brabantic (1578), to Miggrode’s (1579), and to the English (1583). The propagandistic value of the Brabantic version of 1578 and the French translation published in Antwerp in 1579 was subtle. Saint-​Lu described the Brevísima as a “psychological weapon against the despotism of the dominant nation.”24 The French Hispanist concluded that the most notable difference between Miggrode’s translation and the Spanish original was the translator’s preference to use the designation “Espagnol”’ in most places in which Las Casas used “cristianos.”25 However, worth noting, this practice was independent and unrelated to the revisions Las Casas himself made in 1552. According to Pérez

via email, July 1, 2021. The quotation is from Wim François; André Saint-​Lu, “Les premières traductions françaises de la ‘Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias’ de Bartolomé de las Casas,” Revue de littérature comparée52.2 (1978): 438–​449 (440 n. 11). 22 Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez des espagnols, perpetrees es Indes Occidentales, qu’on dit Le Nouueau monde […], fidelement traduictes par Iaqves de Miggrode (Antwerp: François de Ravelenghien, 1579). There are several treatments of the translation history of the Brevísima in the Low Countries. Maríaluz López-​Terrada and José Pardo-​Tomás place the Brevísima in a larger historical context. Maríaluz López-​Terrada and José Pardo-​Tomás, “Reading about the New World Nature in the Low Countries: The Editions of Crónicas De Indias, 1493–​1600,” in Translating Knowledge in the Early Modern Low Countries, ed. Harold J. Cook and Sven Dupré (Zurich and Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2012), 53–​78. 23 To be specific there were three: Casas, Spieghel der Spaenscher tiranÿe, waer inne verhaelt worden, de moordadige, schandelÿcke ende grouwelijcke feyten, die de selue Spaengiaerden ghebruyct hebben inden landen van Indien: mitsgaders de beschrijuinghe vander geleghentheyt, zeden ende aert vanden seluen landen ende lieden ([Brussels?]: no publisher, 1579); idem, Tyrannies et cruautez des Espagnols perpetrees es Indes Occidentales, qu’on dit le Nouueau Monde, brieuement descrites en langue castillane, par l’Euesque Don Frere Bartelemy de las Casas …; fidelement traduites par Iaques de Miggrode (Paris: Par Guillaume Iulien, 1582); idem, Histoire admirable des horribles insolences, crauautez, & tyrannies exercees par les Espagnols es Indes Occidentales, briefuement descrite en langue castillane par Don F. Barthelemy de las Casas …; fidelement traduit par Iaques de Miggrode ([Lyon?]: Par Gabriel Cartier, 1582). 24 Saint-​Lu, “Les premières traductions,” 440. 25 Saint-​Lu, “Les premières traductions,” 442.

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Fernández, Las Casas replaced the term “cristianos” in an earlier manuscript version of the Brevísima for that of “españoles” in the 1552 edition.26 Otherwise, the translation did not appear to be overly incommensurate with the Spanish original. In fact, Saint-​Lu also claimed that Miggrode had suppressed a certain passage related to Las Casas’s account of the “destruction” of Venezuela: However, we note a significant omission in the chapter devoted to Venezuela, territory that Charles V conceded to the Germans. While Las Casas, to strengthen his accusation, wrote: “Mandó el tirano alemán gobernador (y también, a lo que creemos, hereje, porque no oía misa ni la dejaba oír a muchos, con otros indicios de luterano que se le conoscieron) que prendiesen a todos los indios” etc., the translator, writing for both Reformed and Catholic audiences, and doubtlessly Protestant himself, thought it preferable to completely delete the passage in parentheses.27 However, Saint-​Lu could have been working with a later edition of Miggrode’s translation. In fact, Saint-​Lu makes reference to several of them in his article. As can be seen below, Miggrode translated that passage faithfully: Le tyran Alleman gouverneur, et aussi, comme nous croyons, heretique (car il n’oyoit point de messe, et ne la laissa point ouir à beaucoup d’autres, avec d’autres marcques de Lutherien qui furent cognus) commanda que lon prinse tous les Indiens qu’on pourroit […].28 Indeed, there was no need to manipulate the translation since there were obvious parallels between Spanish imperialist expansionism in the Americas and Spain’s policies of dynastic and military domination in the Low Countries. For sure the proper backdrop to understand the propagandistic value of both the Brabantic and French translations was the onset of the long and tortuous 26 27

28

See Casas, Brevísima (2000), 82–​83. “On relèvera cependant une omission significative dans le chapitre consacré au Vénézuela, territoire concédé aux Allemands par Charles Quint. Alors que Las Casas, pour renforcer son accusation, avait écrit : ‘Mandó el tirano alemán gobernador (y también, a lo que creemos, hereje, porque no oía misa ni la dejaba oír a muchos, con otros indicios de luterano que se le conoscieron) que prendiesen a todos los indios’ etc., le traducteur, écrivant à la fois pour un public de réformés et the catholiques, et sans doute protestant lui-​même, a jugé préférable de supprimer totalement le passage entre parenthèses.” Saint-​Lu, “Les premières traductions,” 441. I am reproducing the seventeenth-​century text with very minor changes. Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez, 95.

410 Roldán-Figueroa history of the Dutch Revolt (1566–​1648).29 Benjamin Schmidt referred to the span of time between 1576 and 1581 as the “culmination” of the Dutch rebels’ “verbal offensive against Spain,” characterized by the “most intense polemical violence of the Eighty Years’ War.”30 Yet, there is an even more specific context for both translations.31 Indeed, both translations were published just a few years after Antwerp was shell-​shocked in what became a critical episode in the Eighty Years’ War: the “Spanish Fury” or the “Sack of Antwerp.”32 The assault was the most recent in a series of episodes in which Spanish soldiers or mercenaries under Spanish command committed looting and mass murder—​ including but not limited to the massacres of Dokkum (1572), Naarden (1572), Mechelen (1572), Haarlem (1573), and Bommenede (1575). In 1576, Juan de Austria (1547–​1578) took the helm as the new governor of the Netherlands after the sudden death of the previous governor, Luis de Requesens y Zúñiga (d. 1576).33 Philip ii’s half-​brother was celebrated in Spain for his naval victory as head of the Holy League’s fleet during the Battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571). On May 3, 1576, Philip ii instructed him to move from Italy to the Netherlands to assume his new administrative role.34 Juan arrived in Luxembourg on November 3, 1576, when events in Antwerp were already in motion.35 After months of unrest following Requesens y Zúñiga’s death, Sancho Dávila, who was at the time governor of the Antwerp citadel, strengthened his garrison with reinforcements from Maastricht, Aalst, and Lier.36 He gathered a military force that exceeded 3,000 operatives, including 800 German mercenaries.37 On November 4, 1576, troops under Dávila’s command 29

Saint-​Lu, “Les premières traductions,” 440; Keen, “Introduction,” 10–​11; Hart, “Las Casas in French,” 224. 30 Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570–​ 1670 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 86. 31 Bradley, “Pamphlet Literature,” 17; Lawrance, Conquest, 23–​24. 32 Raymond Fagel, “The Origins of the Spanish Fury at Antwerp (1576): A Battle Within City Walls,” Early Modern Low Countries 4.1 (2020): 102–​123; idem, “La imagen de la furia española de Amberes (1576),” in Monarquías en conflicto. Linajes y noblezas en la articulación de la Monarquía Hispánica, ed. José Ignacio Fortea Pérez et al. (Madrid: Fundación Española de Historia Moderna–​Universidad de Cantabria, 2018), 51–​63. 33 Bartolomé Bennassar, Don Juan de Austria. Un héroe para un imperio (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2000), 179–​195. 34 José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, “Don Juan de Austria y la ‘trampa’ de Flandes, cartas a Felipe ii tras su llegada al nuevo destino (1576),” Cuadernos de investigación histórica 21 (2004): 201–​250 (201). 35 Tellechea Idígoras, “Don Juan de Austria,” 205, 223. 36 Luis de Carlos Bertrán, Alexander: La extraordinaria historia de Alejandro Farnesio (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 2018), 122–​124. 37 Bertrán, Alexander, 122–​124.

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cascaded into the city, ransacking and pillaging the civilian population until November 7, 1576. Estimates of the casualties have varied, but Raymond Fagel has noted that, at the time, the States General estimated the number of dead at 18,000.38 In addition, extensive tracts of the city were burned and destroyed, including the town hall. On November 18, Juan de Austria mentioned the sack of Antwerp in a letter to Philip ii. His letter may contain one of the earliest references to the “Spanish Fury”: What happened in Antwerp is truly a great misfortune and not a small disaster, for even with tranquility and order restored, I don’t know how that city could (in a great many years) recover so many lost and ruined treasures that ennobled and enriched it. Whoever could have restored order there would have done well to punish the rebels, such as they were, without resorting to such destruction and ransacking as our people did. And I have no doubt that neither high nor low ranking officers could resist the insolence and fury of the soldiers [“furia de los soldados”], which was as has been shown. With what has happened in these two locations [i.e., Maastricht and Antwerp] once more the hatred and abhorrence of these countries has been renewed, consequently even the name of Spaniard makes them want to puke […].39 Just like Juan de Austria feared, the sack of Antwerp contributed to a deep-​ seated resentment against the Spaniards. An engraving attributed to the printmaker Frans Hogenberg offered a dramatic representation of the massacre (see Figure 18.1). “De Spaanse furie te Antwerpen in 1576” consisted of multiple scenes of Spanish brutality.40 Organized in seven frames, the broadsheet depicted the burning of the town hall and included scenes of plundering,

38 39

40

Fagel, “The Origins,” 103. “Cierto lo de Anveres es gran lástima y no menor perdiçion, pues aun con toda quietud y establecimiento no se como podria volver aquella villa (en muy largos años) a cobrar tantas prendas perdidas y aruynadas que la ennoblecian y a otras enrriqueçia. Y así quien pudiera poner medio a los deshordenes de alli, hiziera bien en castigar a los rebeldes, como lo fueron, sin llegar a tanta destruycçion y saco como los nuestros hizieron. Y tengo por sin duda que ni ofiçiales mayores ni menores pudieron resistir a la insolençia y furia de los soldados, que fue qual se a mostrado. Con esto que en estas dos partes ha suçedido agora de nuevo, se a renovado el odio y aborreçimiento destos payses, de suerte que aun el nombre de español le haze asco …” Tellechea Idígoras, “Don Juan de Austria,” 232. Frans Hogenberg, De Spaanse furie te Antwerpen in 1576. Ware Kontrafactur Der statt Antorff sambt Darin verloffnen hanndlungen anno 1576 den 4 novemb (1577) (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).

412 Roldán-Figueroa

­f igure 18.1 Frans Hogenberg, De Spaanse furie te Antwerpen in 1576. Ware Kontrafactur Der statt Antorff sambt Darin verloffnen hanndlungen anno 1576 den 4 novembris (1577) source: rijksmuseum, amsterdam

hangings, and intimations of rape. For Frans Hogenberg, the Spaniards engulfed Antwerp in chaos and flames.41 For sure, the first foreign translators of the Brevísima could readily see a parallel between the sack of Antwerp and the destruction of the Indies as narrated by Las Casas. As Schmidt concluded, in 1578 the Dutch rebels discovered the “uses” of Las Casas’s account of the “destruction” of the Indies.42 Indeed, in his preface, the French translator depicted the Spaniards as unbound in their violence and cruelty. Interestingly, Miggrode did not regard belligerence as a biological trait of the Spanish people. Rather, he acknowledged that he disliked

41 Fagel, “La imagen de la furia española,” 51–​63. 42 Schmidt, Innocence Abroad, 97.

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them on account of their “pride,” and he recognized that there were many excellent people among them.43 However, their overreliance on the use of military force was undeniable. He argued that “[t]‌hey have destroyed lands three times the size of Christendom.”44 In his introduction, Miggrode alluded directly to the violence the Low Countries experienced under the Spanish Habsburgs. “The torments they have conceived,” he continued, “and their treachery has been so great and excessive, that posterity would not believe that there ever was in the world a nation so barbarous and cruel as this one, if, which is to say, had our eyes not seen it, nor our hands touched it.”45 One could even ask if the engravings that Theodor de Bry issued with the Latin and German translations of the Brevísima were originally inspired by Hogenberg’s “De Spaanse furie te Antwerpen in 1576.” As noted earlier, Adorno demonstrated that a series of engravings that De Bry published in Frankfurt with the 1598 Latin translation of the Brevísima, as well as with the 1599 German translation, were based on watercolor drawings that were prepared for “Miggrode’s Paris edition of 1582” but were not published then.46 The drawings in question depicted scenes that Las Casas narrated in the Brevísima, such as the “massacre of native lords” in Cholula, the “Tóxcatl fiesta massacre of native lords,” and the “hanging of Queen Anacaona.”47 Like Hogenberg, the artist of the original watercolors depicted Cholula, New Spain, and Jaraguá, Hispaniola, as places engulfed in fire, stormed and sacked by the Spaniards. The “hanging of Anacaona,” in particular, was reminiscent of scenes found in Hogenberg’s

43

“Ie confesse n’auoir iamais gueres aimé la nation en general, à cause de leur orgueil insupportable; combien que ie ne laisse de louër & aimer aulcuns excellens personnages qu’il y a entre eux.” Miggrode, Tyrannies et crvavtez, *2r–​*2v. 44 Miggrode, Tyrannies et crvavtez, *2r. 45 “Ils ont plus destruict de pais que la Chrestienté n’est grande trois fois. Les tourments excogités par eux, et les desloyautez ont esté si grandes et si excessives, qu’il ne seroit croyable à la posterité auoir iamais esté au monde une si barbare et cruelle nation que celle là, si, par maniere de dire, nos yeux ne l’auoyent veu, et ne l’auions come touché de nois mains.” Miggrode, Tyrannies et crvavtez, *2r. Perhaps a reference to doubting Thomas in John 20:25? Special thanks to Andrew Wilson for this nt reference. 46 Adorno, The Polemics of Possession, 78–​79; idem, “The Not-​so-​Brief Story,” 43; Casas, Narratio regionum indicarum per Hispanos quosdam deuastatarum verissima: priùs quidem … hispanicè conscripta, & anno 1551. Hispali, hispanicè, anno verò hoc 1598. latinè excusa (Francofurti: Sumptibus T. de Bry, & I. Saurii typis, 1598); Casas, Warhafftiger vnd gründtlicher Bericht Der Hispanier grewlichen, vnd abschewlichen Tyranney, von jhnen in den West Indien, so die Neuwe Welt genennet wirt, begangen ([Frankfurt am Main]: Johannes Saur for Theodor de Bry, 1599). 47 Adorno, “The Not-​so-​Brief Story,” 46–​56.

414 Roldán-Figueroa

­f igure 18.2 “Massacre of Queen Anacaona and Her Subjects.” Theodori de Bry and Ioannis Saurii, Frankfurt, 1598 s ource: courtesy of the john carter brown library

“De Spaanse furie te Antwerpen in 1576” that depicted women that were tortured and hanged by the invading soldiery (see Figure 18.2).48 2

The Early Reception of the Brevísima in England (1583–​c.1700)

To an important extent, the context of Miggrode’s translation predetermined the trajectory of the Brevísima in England. The first English translation of Las Casas’s Brevísima was published in London in 1583, three decades after the Seville edition of 1552. Issued by Thomas Dawson for William Brome under the title The Spanish colonie, the new work was based on the 1579 edition of Miggrode’s French translation.49 The new translation could be grouped with

48 Adorno, “The Not-​so-​Brief Story,” 51–​52. 49 Casas, The Spanish colonie, or Briefe chronicle of the acts and gestes of the Spaniardes in the West Indies, called the newe world, for the space of xl. yeeres: written in the Castilian tongue by the reuerend Bishop Bartholomew de las Cases or Casaus, a friar of the order of S. Dominicke. And nowe first translated into english, by M.M.S. (London: [By Thomas Dawson] for William Brome, 1583); Alden and Landis, European Americana, 1:172. For some unknown reason, Griffin claims more than once that The Spanish colonie was published

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the then growing body of books related to travel and explorations. Yet, the transformation of English versions of the Brevísima into travel literature was not immediate; it took time and was completed by the end of the seventeenth century. Instead, The Spanish colonie is better situated within the steady flow of books stemming from the religious and political struggle in the Low Countries. In addition to the appeal that the Brevísima might have had for those interested in travel literature, Miggrode’s French translation had a value of its own as a text that was produced in the aftermath of the sack of Antwerp for a readership shocked by such egregious abuses On the surface, The Spanish colonie barely reveals anything about the circumstances leading to the translation. Little is known of the English translator who used the initials M.M.S. and should not be confused with “James Aliggrodo.” Named in the preface as the translator, “Aliggrodo” was a typographical obfuscation that hid the identity of the French translation’s author. While Las Casas’s Brevísima was situated in a very different context—​accounts of Spanish abuse in the Americas compiled for a mid-​sixteenth century Spanish readership—​ the context of Miggrode’s preface was different. His preface spoke from the context of the Low Countries and in terms that framed Las Casas’s Brevísima in a different light. Indeed, there were no visible efforts to erase Miggrode’s explicit references to the situation in the Low Countries; this demonstrates that the propagandistic potential of the Brevísima for England derived from the specifically Dutch references in the French translation. Moreover, the English version preserved the cautionary tone of the French translation: “faithfully translated […] to serve as a president [sic] and warning to the xii provinces of the Lowe Countries.”50 In fact, the entire preface dedicated “To the Reader” was translated directly from Miggrode’s French.51 The English translator followed by John Day. “[…] The Spanish Colonie—​a text published by Foxe’s collaborator John Day in the same year that their final expanded fourth edition of the Acts and Monuments was printed […]” Griffin, English Renaissance Drama, 48; “… in John Day, Foxe and the Englished Las Casas of The Spanish Colonie shared the same printer.” Griffin, English Renaissance Drama, 50. Griffin does not provide the source of the claim that John Day published both works. In the bibliography, however, the work is properly cited. Griffin, English Renaissance Drama, 279. 50 Casas, The Spanish colonie, title page. 51 The preface, “To the Reader,” was not the original work of the English translator as Helen Rawling suggests, but a direct translation from Miggrode’s 1579 translation. Moreover, Rawling does not distinguish the French and English translators enough, recognizing that “Alligrodo” must be “an English rendering of Jacques de Miggrode,” while going on to treat “Alligrode” as a distinct historical character, the author of the preface. Helen Rawlings, “Bartolomé de las Casas’ Breve Relación de la Destrucción de Las Indias (Brief

416 Roldán-Figueroa Miggrode right down to the term “Espagnol,” which was not an original feature of the English translation.52 Consequently, scholars must bear this in mind before attributing intentionality to different aspects of the English translation that really reflect the Dutch context of Miggrode’s French translation.53 There is little doubt that The Spanish colonie could have been deployed as anti-​Spanish propaganda during the Anglo-​Spanish War (1585–​1604), and when in 1588 England faced the threat of the Spanish Armada. However, these

52

53

Account of the Destruction of the Indies) (1542) in Translation: The Politics of Linguistic and Cultural Appropriation,” in Key Cultural Texts in Translation, ed. Kristen Malmkjaer, Adriana Şerban, and Fransiska Louwagie (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2018), 37–​52 (41–​43). Indeed, compare Las Casas’s opening lines of his description of the colonization of Hispaniola: “En la isla Española, que fue la primera, como deximos, donde entraron cristianos e comenzaron los grandes estragos e perdiciones destas gentes e que primero destruyeron y despoblaron, comenzando los cristianos a tomar las mujeres …” Casas, Brevísima (2000), 391–​393. “Entraban en los pueblos, ni dejaban niños ni viejos ni mujeres preñadas ni paridas que no desbarrigaban e hacían pedazos, como si dieran en unos corderos metidos en sus apriscos.” Casas, Brevísima (2000), 393. “En l’isle Espagnola, qui a esté la premiere, comme auons dit, où arriuerent les Espagnolz, se commencerent les grandes tueries, et les pertes de gens, ayans les Espagnolz commencé à prendre les femmes et enfans aux Indies …” Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez, 12. “… ilz entroyent és villes, bourgz et villages, n’espargnans ny les enfans, ny les hõmes vieux, ny les femmes enceinctes, et accouchées qu’ils ne leur ouurissent le ventre, et les missent en pieces, comme s’ilz eussent donné dedās des agneaux enfermez en leur bercail.” Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez, 14. “In the ile Hispaniola, which was the first (as we haue said) where the Spaniards arrived, began the great slaughters and spoyles of people: the Spaniardes hauing begunne to take their wiues and children of the Indies …” Casas, The Spanish colonie, [A3r]. “… they entred into Townes, Borowes, and Villages, sparing neyther children, nor old men, neither women with childe, neyther them that lay In, but that they ripped their bellies, and cut them in pieces, as if they had been opening of Lambes shut vp in their folde.” Casas, The Spanish colonie, [A3v]. Clearly, the English translation is faithful to the French and follows Miggrode’s practice of using “Espagnolz” instead of “cristianos.” Cf. Bradley, “Pamphlet Literature,” 109. Griffin, for instance, interprets the preface of The Spanish colonie as if it was written for the English context: “The preface of The Spanish Colonie, or briefe chronicle of the acts and gestes of the Spaniards (1583), the earliest English edition of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Brevissima relación de la destruyción de las yndias (Sevilla, 1552), picked up on this typology by introducing the behavior of the Spanish as flowing from their ‘firste fathers the Gothes’ and ‘their second progenitors the Saracens’. The text’s translator offered this genealogical gesture in the spirit of national awakening, so that the Low Countries might ‘beholde as it were in a picture or table, what they are like to be at, when through their rec[k]‌essness, quarrels, controversies, and partialities themselves have opened the way to such an enemie’.” However, the passages Griffin quotes are found in Miggrode’s French preface. Griffin does not discuss Miggrode’s translation. Griffin, “From Ethos to Ethnos,” 95; Griffin, English Renaissance Drama, 48.

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later events cannot explain the publication in 1583 of the first English translation.54 Instead, more likely, The Spanish colonie was produced in response to the sack of Antwerp of 1576, as a result of developments in the Low Countries, and as a consequence of ensuing fears that London could experience the same fate. In fact, news of the sack of Antwerp prompted alarm about what could happen in London in case of war with Spain. The idea of a Spanish incursion did not seem far-​fetched to some, and there was interest in London for accounts related to the political and religious conflict taking place in the Low Countries. George Gascoigne wrote an eyewitness account of the events in Antwerp that was published in London in the same year of the sack.55 Alexandra Walsham observed that “the sacking of Antwerp by the Spaniards in 1576 led to a spate of admonitions in verse.”56 Among these ballads was Ralph Norris’s A warning to London by the fall of Antwerp (1577).57 According to Norris, the sack of Antwerp was a cautionary tale: Let Antvverp warning be, thou stately London to beware: Lest resting in thy glee, thou wrapst thy self in wretched care Be vigilant, sleepe not in sin: Lest that thy foe doo enter in58 Similar references to the sack of Antwerp were not rare in the years that followed. The event caused special concern among the soldiery. A military captain by 1574, Barnaby Rich (1542–​1617) listed Antwerp among the cities that had experienced spoiling and plundering of legendary proportions.59 In his Allarme to England, he referred to “warlike Numace, sumptuouse Corinth, 54 55

Rawlings, “Bartolomé de las Casas’ Breve Relación,” 43. George Gascoigne, The spoyle of Antwerpe. Faithfully reported, by a true Englishman, who was present at the same. Nouem. 1576. Seene and allowed (London: [J. Charlewood for] Richard Iones, 1576); Raymond Fagel, “Gascoigne’s The Spoyle of Antwerpe (1576) as an Anglo-​Dutch Text,” Journal of Low Countries Studies 41.2 (2017): 101–​110. 56 Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 311. 57 Ralph Norris, A warning to London by the fall of Antwerp to the tune of Rovv vvel ye mariners (London: At the long shop adioyning vnto S. Mildreds Church in the Pultrie, by Iohn Allde, 1577); Walsham, Providence, 311 n. 193. 58 Norris, A warning to London, 1. 59 Willy Maley, “Rich, Barnaby (1542–​1617), soldier and author,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. September 23, 2004; accessed June 9, 2021. https://​www-​oxford​dnb-​com.ezpr​ oxy.bu.edu/​view/​10.1093/​ref:odnb/​978019​8614​128.001.0001/​odnb-​978019​8614​128-​e-​23481.

418 Roldán-Figueroa stately Thebes, delicate Tyre, learned Athens, holy Ierusalem, contentious Carthage, mightie Rome, and now lastly wealthy Antwerpe.” These cities, he continued, “haue bene sacked, spoyled, robbed, defaced, and sometime layde waste and desolate.”60 Thomas Churchyard was a soldier with ample experience in the Low Countries. In 1567, for instance, he led a Protestant uprising in Antwerp and, in 1577, he served as letter-​bearer at the service of Sir Francis Walsingham (c.1532–​1590) and the English ambassador to Flanders.61 In 1578, he published A lamentable, and pitifull description, of the wofull warres in Flaunders, which he dedicated to Walsingham.62 Churchyard described the sack of Antwerp in poignant terms. “Thus Antwerpe,” he remarked, “was throughlye spoyled, and in manye places burnte and defaced.” The Spaniards were driven by greed and they “founde suche a deale of golde and treasure, as hath not bin possessed by one spoile in anye two townes these manye hundreth yeares.” Echoing Norris, he stressed that Antwerp was “a warning”: […] to all wanton cities, hereafter to giue and kéepe better watche of their libertie and wealth, and to cause the inhabitants of euerye towne and corporation, to haue suche regarde of God, and the leading of their liues, that they come not into the indignation of the highest, who often doth visite the base conditions of the people, with sword, fire and pestilence, and manye other punishementes and plagues, that oure present daies doeth present vs, and the worldes wickednesse cannot shunne.63 Memory of the sack of Antwerp, coupled with concerns for the larger conflict in the Low Countries, remained quite vivid in the 1580s. If anything, fears were on the rise with the prospect of the union of Spain and Portugal under 60

Barnaby Rich, Allarme to England foreshewing what perilles are procured, where the people liue without regarde of martiall lawe. With a short discourse conteyning the decay of warlike discipline, conuenient to be perused by gentlemen, such as are desirous by seruice, to seeke their owne deserued prayse, and the preseruation of their countrey (London: By Henrie Middleton, for C. B[arker] Perused and allowed, 1578), no pagination. 61 Raphael Lyne, “Churchyard, Thomas (1523?–​1604), writer and soldier.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. September 23, 2004; accessed June 9, 2021. https://​www-​oxford​ dnb-​com.ezpr​oxy.bu.edu/​view/​10.1093/​ref:odnb/​978019​8614​128.001.0001/​odnb-​978019​ 8614​128-​e-​5407. 62 Thomas Churchyard, A lamentable, and pitifull description, of the wofull warres in Flaunders, since the foure last yeares of the Emperor Charles the fifth his raigne With a briefe rehearsall of many things done since that season, vntill this present yeare, and death of Don Iohn (London: by [Henry Bynneman for] Ralph Nevvberie, 1578). 63 Churchyard, A lamentable, 60.

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the Spanish Habsburgs. While the union was formalized at the Portuguese Cortes of Tomar in 1581, in reality, as Fernando Bouza has argued, it involved “inheritance, conquest, and purchase.”64 The sentiment was well reflected in the translator’s preface to A tragicall historie of the troubles and ciuile warres of the lowe Countries, a work that Thomas Dawson published the same year he issued The Spanish colonie.65 The work was based on Histoire des troubles, a French translation of Chronyc. historie der Nederlandtscher oorlogen, troublen enn oproeren oorspronck, attributed to Philips van Marnix van St. Aldegonde and to Carolus Rijckewaert.66 A tragicall historie of the troubles was typical of the literature related to the Low Countries published at the time in London. Thomas Stocker was the translator of A tragicall historie of the troubles. In the dedicatory letter, Stocker explained that before the start of the “troubles” in 1559, the Low Countries were regarded as the “Paragon, or rather, earthly paradise, of all the countries in Europe.” He went on to describe “the Spaniardes, and certaine other Hispaniolized low Countrey men” as God’s “scourges” and “roddes of corrections.” Stocker attributed the situation in the Low Countries to “greate disobedience, and woonderfull vnthankefulnesse,” especially for their “contempte of the glorious Gospell.” In that sense, he continued, the English nation should “throughly consider” God’s “fatherlike dealyng” because—​in a clear reference to Spain—​“our staffe standeth next the dore.”67 64

65

66

67

Fernando Bouza drawing on Diego de Silva y Mendoza (1564–​1630). Fernando Bouza, “María, ‘Planeta de Lusitania’. Felipe ii y Portugal,” in Felipe ii, un monarca y su época. La monarquía hispánica: Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 1 de junio, 10 de octubre, 1998 ([Madrid]: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, D.L., 1998), 105–​115. Bradley describes this process as “Spain’s conquest of Portugal.” Cf. Bradley, “Pamphlet Literature,” 18. Philips van Marnix van St. Aldegonde and Carolus Rijckewaert, A tragicall historie of the troubles and ciuile warres of the lowe Countries, otherwise called Flanders Wherein, is sett forthe the originall and full proceedyng of the saied troubles and ciuile warres, with all the stratagemes, sieges, forceble takynges, and manlike defenses, of diuers and sondrie cities, tounes, and fortresses of the same, together, the barbarous crueltie and tyrannie of the Spaniard, and trecherous hispaniolized Wallons, [and] others of the saied lowe Countreis. And there withall, the estate and cause of religion, especially, from the yere 1559. vnto the yere 1581. Besides many letters, commissions, contractes of peace, unions, articles and agrementes, published and proclaimed in the saied prouinces (London: By Ihon Kyngston [and Thomas Dawson] for Tobie Smith, 1583). “Document Note,” Early English Books, 1475–​1640 (stc), stc (2nd ed.) /​17450.3, accessed June 12, 2021, https://​ezpr​oxy.bu.edu/​login?qurl=​https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proqu​est.com %2Fbo​oks%2Ftr​agic​all-​histo​rie-​troub​les- ​ciu​ile-​war​res-​lowe%2Fdocv​iew%2F226​4203​ 806%2Fse-​2%3Fac​coun​tid%3D9​676. Thomas Stocker, “To the right honorable, the Lorde Robert Dudley,” in A tragicall historie of the troubles, no pagination.

420 Roldán-Figueroa As such, The Spanish colonie had special relevance in 1580s England. Las Casas’s Brevísima described the vicious severity with which Spanish colonizers spoiled the peoples of the New World. These were the same military forces now spoiling the Low Countries and that stood to be God’s “scourge” and “rod of correction” for England. If the The Spanish colonie became a propagandistic success—​not because of who authored it, but because what Las Casas was describing was imaginable—​the atrocities he described made sense, especially in light of the sack of Antwerp and other military developments in the Low Countries.68 The propagandistic success of the Brevísima in England was not a matter of the author’s “objectivity” but of existing opinion and perception. So, why was it translated to English in the first place? Why was it published with few or no alterations from the French translation? Arguably, the answer to these questions is that it confirmed existing fears and concerns that were buttressed by the sack of Antwerp. Moreover, what he plausibly described gave credence to everything else Las Casas did and wrote, and gave him an authority that was bound only to increase over time. 3

More Than the Brevísima: Reassessing Las Casas’s Footprint in English Intellectual History

Exclusive focus on the nexus between Las Casas’s Brevísima and the Black Legend has eclipsed other questions related to the long-​term reception and appropriation of his thought in late sixteenth-​century England. Moreover, that footprint is not limited to the first English translation of the Brevísima published in 1583, nor can his influence be limited to the spread of negative attitudes towards Spain. As will be shown below, a larger canon of Lascasian texts was available to English readers than just the Brevísima. In addition, his ideas were also disseminated by what can be described as “intellectual micro-​ transfers.” Lastly, Las Casas’s impact in various fields of thought was already evident in the closing decades of the sixteenth century. 3.1 An Expansive Pre-​critical Canon of Lascasian Texts The early translation history of the Brevísima runs parallel to the early dissemination of his other writings. The aim of this section is to establish the importance of The Spanish colonie in furnishing a selection of Lascasian sources in English translation as early as 1583. Indeed, interest in other Lascasian writings 68

Cf. Bradley, “Pamphlet Literature,” 18.

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besides the Brevísima was already evident in the first foreign translations. The Brabantic version published in 1578 included an abridged version of Aquí se contiene una disputa from the Seville edition of 1552.69 The second part of the Seville version of Aquí se contiene una disputa gathered Las Casas’s responses to Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1494–​1573) in a series of twelve responses or “replicas.” The 1578 Brabantic version offered abbreviated versions of the “Undécima réplica” and “Duodecima réplica.”70 In addition, the Brabantic version included an abridged version of Entre los remedios. The Seville edition of Entre los remedios was organized into twenty “Reasons” (“Razones”) and closed with a “Protestation” by Las Casas.71 The Brabantic version supplied the reader with abbreviated versions of the “Second” through the “Eighth Reason,” the “Tenth” and “Eleventh Reason,” the “Thirteenth Reason,” and Las Casas’s “Protestation.”72 If the Brevísima suited the Dutch rebels’ “verbal offensive against Spain,” as Schmidt argues, then the same can be said of the other Lascasian selections that were translated into Brabantic and French.73 Miggrode’s French edition was not merely a translation of the Brabantic, but added new texts in its own right, extending the pre-​critical canon of Lascasian texts available outside Spain. In addition to the Brevísima, this new French “canon” included selections from four distinctive Lascasian texts that appeared in the Seville edition of 1552. Among these were Lo que se sigue es un pedazo de una carta, an abridged version of Entre los remedios, the prologue of Tractado comprobatorio, and an abridged version of Aquí se contiene una disputa.74 Miggrode’s translation of Entre los remedios followed the same arrangement as the Brabantic edition. His selection from Tractado comprobatorio was limited to the prologue.75 Lastly, Miggrode furnished a still limited set of selections from Las Casas’s Aquí se 69

Bartolomé de las Casas, Aquí se contiene una disputa, in Tratados, ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela Bueso (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1965), 1:217–​460. 70 “[E]‌lffte replique,” Casas, Seer cort verhael, Diir; “Inde leste num. 12 replique …” Casas, Seer cort verhael, Diir–​Diiv; Casas, Tratados, 1:395–​460. 71 Casas, Entre los remedios, in Tratados, 2:643–​851. 72 “Order de remedien …” Casas, Seer cort verhael, Diiv–​G[iir]. 73 Schmidt, Innocence Abroad, 86. 74 Ce qvi s’ensvuit est vne partie de missive, in Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez, 130–​141; Entre les remedes qve don frere Bartholemy de las Casas, in Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez, 145–​ 170; [Traicté probatoire de l’Empire souuerain], in Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez, 171–​ 175; Sommaire de la dispvte entre l’evesque Don Frere Barthelemi de las Casas, in Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez, 176–​184. Cf. André Saint-​Lu, who mentions only Entre los remedios, Tractado comprobatorio, and Aquí se contiene una disputa. Saint-​Lu, “Les premières traductions,” 442–​443. 75 Casas, Tratado comprobatorio del imperio soberano, in Casas, Tratados, 2:915–​1233.

422 Roldán-Figueroa contiene una disputa, but one that was more extensive than what was included in the Brabantic version; specifically, “Argumento de la presente obra,” the opening paragraph of “Prólogo del doctor Sepúlveda,” a full version of “Prólogo del Obispo de Chiapa,” and abstracts of “Undécima réplica,” and “Duodécima réplica.” The Spanish colonie, in turn, also introduced a short canon of Lascasian texts and not just the Brevísima. The English version of 1583 followed the same arrangement as Miggrode’s translation. The new anthology included Lo que se sigue es un pedazo de una carta, the abridged version of Entre los remedios, the prologue of Tractado comprobatorio, and the abridged version of Aquí se contiene una disputa.76 Moreover, the English version reproduced without variation the arrangement of each of these texts as found in Miggrode’s translation (see Table 18.1). Once the growing canon of Lascasian texts available in translation is taken into consideration, the unsoundness of reducing the question of Las Casas’s reception in the Low Countries, France, England, and beyond to just the translation of the Brevísima and its nexus to the origins of the Black Legend becomes clear. The fact that Las Casas wrote as a Catholic contributed to the propagandistic effectiveness of the Brevísima as an instrument of anti-​Spanish Habsburg propaganda. The excoriating critique of a faithful Catholic could potentially serve to undermine the confidence of Catholic supporters of the Spanish crown in the Low Countries (in the case of the Brabantic) or help sharpen dividing lines between France and Spain (in the case of the French edition). Readers of the Brabantic edition or Miggrode’s translation would encounter more than mere anti-​Spanish invective. These selections, now available for the first time in foreign translation, were replete with references that were fully in line with the spirit of the Catholic Reformation. For Las Casas, the destruction of the Indies was unchristian, and therefore uncatholic. So, by extension, was the sack of Antwerp. For instance, the Brabantic, French, and English translations all included a selection from Las Casas’s Entre los remedios.77 Also known as Octavo remedio, this Lascasian text was first published in 1552. However, it was written between December 1, 1541 and May 1542, at a point when Las Casas was entering a

76

“The Authour his wordes farder to king Philip,” in The Spanish colonie, M4v–​N4v; “Among divers the remedies,” in The Spanish colonie, O[1r]–​Q[1v]; [“A probatori tretise …”], in The Spanish colonie, Q[1r]–​Q[2v]; “The summe of the disputation,” in The Spanish colonie, Q3r–​R2r. 77 Casas, Entre los remedios, in Tratados, 2:643–​851.

423

The Reception History of Las Casas table 18.1 A growing pre-​critical canon of Lascasian texts

Casas, Seer cort verhael Casas, Tyrannies et (1578) crvavtez (1579)

The Spanish colonie (1583)

–​ Brevísima –​ Aquí se contiene una disputa [Abridged selections] –​ Entre los remedios [Abridged selections]

–​ Brevísima –​ Lo que se sigue es un pedazo de una carta –​ Entre los remedies [Abridged selections] –​ Tractado comprobatorio [Abridged selections] –​ Aquí se contiene una disputa [Abridged selections, but more material than the Brabantic edition]

–​ Brevísima –​ Lo que se sigue es un pedazo de una carta –​ Entre los remedies [Abridged selections] –​ Tractado comprobatorio [Abridged selections] –​ Aquí se contiene una disputa [Abridged selections, but more material than the Brabantic edition]

period of deep reform-​oriented theological reflection that would include his reexamination of the power and authority of bishops.78 Las Casas’s contention in Entre los remedios/​Octavo remedio was twofold. First, he demanded that the encomienda be abolished. Second, he insisted that the American Indigenous peoples be incorporated (“encorporen”) as direct subjects of the Spanish crown.79 Entre los remedios was subdivided into “reasons” (“razones”) and all three translations offered a version of the “Third Reason” (“Razón tercera”) that very closely followed the original Spanish text. In the “Third Reason,” Las Casas advocated the idea that the American indigenes should be properly catechized

78

79

Isacio Pérez Fernández, Inventario documentado de los escritos de fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 1981), 299; Casas, Entre los remedios, in Tratados, 2:643–​849; Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, “Bartolomé de las Casas, his Theory of the Power of Bishops, and the Early Transatlantic Episcopacy,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, OP: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 99–​126. Pérez Fernández, Inventario, 299; Casas, Entre los remedios, 645.

424 Roldán-Figueroa and that their instruction should include the Ten Commandments and the Apostles’ Creed. Proper use of the catechism and its different components, such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Ten Commandments, was a common staple of Catholic reform movements at the diocesan level throughout Spain in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century.80 Writing a few years before the opening of the Council of Trent, Las Casas complained that the Spanish colonizers were in no position to teach the catechism because they did not know it, and, more importantly, their actions were contrary to its teachings. Miggrode faithfully translated this passage, and his translation was closely reproduced in The Spanish colonie: Casas (1552): ¿Qué curas de aquellas ánimas serán todos los españoles seglares que allá van, por muy estirados y ahidalgados que sean, que apenas saben muchos el Credo y los Diez Mandamientos, y los más no los saben, ni las cosas de su salvación, y que no van allá sino con ansia y sospiro de la cubdicia, y que por la mayor parte son hombres viciosos y que por incorrupta y deshonesta y desordenada vida son los indios en su comparación muy virtuosos y sanctos?81 Miggrode (1579): Comment pouroyent les Espagnols qui vont aux Indes, tant soyent ils braues et nobles, soigner des ames? Plusieurs d’entre eux ne sachans point le Credo, ny les dix commandem[ent]s; et la plus grande part d’eux ne sachant point les choses appertenantes à leur salut; et n’allans point aux Indes pour autre chose que pour satisfaire à leur desir et cupidité, estans tous gens vitieux, corrompus, deshonnestes et desordonnez; de maniere que qui voudroit balancer et paragonner avec eux les Indiens, il trouveroit sans comparaison les Indiens plus vertueux, et plus saincts qu’eux.82 The Spanish Colonie (1583): Howe can the Spaniardes that trauaile to the Indies, howe noble or valiant so euer they bee, haue any care of the soules, when the most of them are ignorant of their Creede and ten commandements, & know not the matters perteining to their owne

80

Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, “Literacy, Spirituality of Reading, and Catholic Literary Culture in Sixteenth-​Century Spain,” Journal of Early Modern Christianity 2.2 (2015): 159–​188. Proper use of the catechism was also one of the reforms introduced by the Council of Trent, see Guy Bedouelle, The Reform of Catholicism, 1480–​1620 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2008), 80–​87. 81 Casas, Entre los remedios, in Tratados, 2:671. 82 Casas, Tyrannies et crvavtez, 149.

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saluation, neither doe trauaile to the Indies for any other purpose but to satisfie their owne desires and couetous affections, being for the most Parte vicious, corrupt, vnhonest, and disordinate persons: so as he that would way them in an equal ballance, & compare them with the Indians, shoulde finde the Indians without comparison, more vertuous and holy then them.83 The consistency between the three translations was quite remarkable. However, this was a selection that was likely to be read along confessional lines in the late sixteenth century. Proper use of the catechism was one of the reforms introduced by the Council of Trent, a subject that was discussed during the third period of the council and led to the publication of the Catechismus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini, ad parochos in 1566.84 Thus, Las Casas’s calls for the proper catechizing of the American indigenes would have appeared as sound and reasonable to reform-​minded Catholics across Europe. However, for many Protestants the arguments made by Las Casas could have only reinforced not their perception of the inherent evil of the Spaniards, but the fundamental corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, assessing how the pre-​critical canon of Lascasian writings was read, or could have been read, risks running into perilous speculation. However, there can be little doubt that these writings had an impact in other areas and did not just contribute to spreading negative ideas about the putative inherent corruption of the Spaniards. Las Casas and Intellectual Micro-​transfers in Early Seventeenth Century England English readers could also acquire an indirect knowledge of Las Casas, his writings, and his ideas through sources other than the 1583 translation of the Brevísima and its accompanying Lascasian texts. Indeed, English translations of books originally published in Dutch, French, and Spanish served as vehicles of what can be described as intellectual micro-​transfers. In general, intellectual micro-​transfers took on the form of succinct bibliographical references, quotations from the original language, literary attributions, and/​or fragments of translated material, among other bits of information. These intellectual micro-​transfers show how authors writing in those languages valued Las Casas, and they also served to pass on snippets of his ideas. These intellectual 3.2

83 The Spanish colonie, O2v. 84 Bedouelle, The Reform, 82–​84.

426 Roldán-Figueroa micro-​transfers were indicators of the ways that Las Casas was read, interpreted, and classified in English print culture. From very early on, Las Casas found a home in what became known as travel literature. Information about Las Casas found a steady conduit in books that belonged in this category from early on in their own publication history. Thus, Juan González de Mendoza (1545–​1618) drew upon Las Casas’s Brevísima for his own Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (1585).85 Born in the region of La Rioja (Spain), González de Mendoza became an Augustinian in Mexico in 1564.86 He returned to his homeland in 1574, and in 1580, when he was known at court as a confessor of repute, Philip ii commissioned him, along with two Augustinian confreres, to travel to China. The delegation made it to Mexico in 1581 but did not proceed to its intended destination in Asia. González de Mendoza returned to Spain the next year and embarked on the writing of what became one of the most important books of Spanish travel literature, his Historia de las cosas más notables de la China. At the time of his death, he was bishop of Popayán (modern-​day Colombia).87 According to José María Santos Rovira, González de Mendoza’s contemporaries saw his work as “the perfect travel book” due to its realism.88 The first edition of Historia de las cosas más notables de la China was published in Rome in 1585, followed by an edition from Barcelona.89 However, the one published in Madrid in 1586 is regarded as the definitive version.90 Of those published in London, both the 85

86 87 88 89

90

Juan González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China sabidas assi por los libros delos mesmos Chinas, como por relación de religiosos, y otras personas que an estado en el dicho reyno (Rome: A costa de B. Grassi, en la stampa de V. Accolti, 1585). Juan José Vallejo Penedo, “González de Mendoza, Juan,” in Diccionario biográfico electrónico, Real Academia de la Historia, accessed July 1, 2021, http://​dbe.rah.es/​bio​graf​ias/​ 19457/​juan-​gonza​lez-​de-​mend​oza. Vallejo Penedo, “González de Mendoza, Juan,” in Diccionario biográfico. José María Santos Rovira, “Aproximación a la Historia del Gran Reino de la China, de Fray Juan González de Mendoza,” Espéculo: Revista de Estudios Literarios, no. 31 (2005), accessed July 1, 2021, http://​webs.ucm.es/​info/​espec​ulo/​numer​o31/​vch​ina.html. Juan González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables, ritos, y costumbres, del gran Reyno dela China, sabidas assi por los libros delos mesmos Chinas, como por relación de religiosos y otras personas que an estado en el dicho reyno (Rome: Stampa de Vincentio Accolti, 1585); idem, Historia de las cosas mas notaables, ritos, y costumbres del gran Reyno dela China, sabidas assi por los libros delos mesmos Chinas, como por relación de Religiosos, y otras personas que han estado enel dicho Reyno (Barcelona: Ioan Pablo Manescal, 1586). Juan González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables, ritos y costumbres del gran Reyno dela China, sabidas assi por los libros delos mesmos Chinas, como por relacion de Religiosos, y otras personas que han estado enel dicho Reyno (Madrid: en casa de Querino Gerardo Flamenco: a costa de Blas de Robles librero, 1586).

The Reception History of Las Casas

427

Italian translation of 1587 as well as the English translation of 1588 were issued by J. Wolfe.91 A significant difference between the Roman edition of 1585 and the Madrid version of 1586 is the amount of Lascasian material that González de Mendoza added to the latter. Clearly, he had access to the writings of Las Casas when he was preparing the Madrilenian edition of 1586, writings that he seemingly did not have recourse to before. The reason for these additions may be due to the fact that in the 1570s, Las Casas’s writings were gathered by royal initiative. In 1571, Philip ii ordered that all “books and papers” written by Las Casas and kept at the Colegio de San Gregorio of Valladolid be gathered and placed under the care of the Consejo de Indias. In 1579, the historian and cosmographer Juan López de Velasco (1534–​1598) was made custodian of these holdings.92 González de Mendoza must have had the opportunity to work with López de Velasco’s collection of these Lascasian “books and papers.” The new Lascasian material that he added eventually became available to English readers as his work was translated and published in London. The original design of Historia de las cosas más notables de la China consisted of two parts. González de Mendoza dedicated the first part to providing a comprehensive description of the geography, institutions, and ceremonies of Ming China. The second part consisted of three independent travel accounts that described the experiences of Augustinians and Franciscan missionaries who traveled throughout Asia.93 Some of the newly incorporated Lascasian material can be found in this second part of the book. In the Roman edition, this section of the book was described as the account of Fray Martín Ignacio de Loyola: “Itinerary of the Custodian Father, Fray Martín Ignacio, of the Order

91

92 93

Juan González de Mendoza, L’historia del gran regno della China, composta primieramente in ispagnuolo d[a]‌maestro Giouanni Gonzalez di Mendozza, monaco dell’ordine di S. Agostino: et poi fatta vulgare da Francesco Auanzi cittadino Vinetiano. Stampata la terza volta, & molto più dell’altre emendata. Con due tauole l’una de’ Capitoli, & l’altra delle cose piu notabili (In Vinegia [i.e., London]: per Andrea Muschio [i.e., J. Wolfe], [1587]); idem, The historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China, and the situation thereof togither with the great riches, huge citties, politike gouernement, and rare inuentions in the same (London: Printed by I. Wolfe for Edward White, and are to be sold at the little north doore of Paules, at the signe of the Gun, 1588). Isacio Pérez Fernández, Inventario documentado de los escritos de fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Bayamón: Centro de Estudios de los Dominicos del Caribe, 1981), 10. Ismael Artiga, “La empresa de China, profecías, mesianismo monárquico y expansión en el Pacífico en Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres, del gran Reyno de la China, de Juan González de Mendoza,” Romance Quarterly 58.3 (2011): 165–​182, doi: 10.1080/​08831157.2011.576908.

428 Roldán-Figueroa of the Blessed Saint Francis, Who Went to China with Other Religious of the Same Order.”94 However, in the Madrid edition this section was heavily edited and it now appeared under the heading “Itinerary and short account of all the noteworthy things to be found from Spain to the Kingdom of China, and from China to Spain.”95 In this augmented edition, González de Mendoza relied on Las Casas for geographic descriptions and commentary on Spanish colonial settlements in the Caribbean (see Table 18.2). For example, in Chapter 2 of the “Itinerary,” he drew on Las Casas for a description of the conditions in the island of San Juan de Puerto Rico. In this case, he treated Las Casas as a source for specific facts about the island. He cites Las Casas indicating that Spaniards first colonized the island in 1509. Beyond these mere facts, González de Mendoza echoed Las Casas’s contention that the island was at present time thoroughly depopulated of its pre-​Hispanic Indigenous inhabitants. González de Mendoza’s description of the island of Santo Domingo furnishes another example of his use of Las Casas as a factual source. In the Madrid edition, González de Mendoza added an entirely new Chapter 3 to the “Itinerary” devoted to a description of Santo Domingo.96 He cites Las Casas’s claim that most of the rivers of the island were “very rich with gold.”97 Furthermore, he added Las Casas’s assertion that gold was so abundant in the island that it was common to find gold nuggets of unimaginable size in them.98 Lastly, González de Mendoza again made his narrative a conduit of Las Casas’s claim that the Spanish colonizers had a detrimental impact on the local population. Santo Domingo, states the Augustinian friar, citing Las Casas, was generously populated with pre-​Hispanic inhabitants. At present, however, there were only “two-​hundred” of them left and most were “mestizos.”99 94 95 96 97 98 99

“Ytinerario del padre custodio fray Martín Ignacio, de la Orden del bienaventurado Sant Francisco, que paso ala China en compañía de otros religiosos de la misma Orden,” in González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables (Rome, 1585), 341. “Itinerario y epitome de todas las cosas notables que ay desde España, hasta el Reyno de la China, y dela China a España.” González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (Madrid, 1586), 268r. González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (Madrid, 1586), fols. 274r–​276r. “Y dize el sobredicho Obispo otra grandeza, que la mayor parte destos rios, que son los que corren de la sierra que està al Poniente, son riquissimos de oro …” González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (Madrid, 1586), fol. 274v. González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (Madrid, 1586), fol. 275r. González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (Madrid, 1586), fol. 275v.

The Reception History of Las Casas

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table 18.2 Intellectual micro-​transfers: The case of González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables de la China

González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables de la China (Rome, 1585) (Barcelona, 1586)

González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables de la China (Madrid, 1586)

González de Mendoza, The historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China (London, 1588)

“Cerca desta isla al Norueste, esta otra isla llamada Santiago, y otra la Barbuda, y mas adelante sant Ioan de Puerto Rico, la qual tiene quarenta leguas de longitud, y solamente doze de latitud. Todas estas islas por la mayor parte estan pobladas de Españoles, y governadas por orden de su magestad. Criasse en las mas de ellas mucho ganado bacuno, y ay grandes ingenios de açucar, y mucha cantidad de caña fistola. Ay en toda esta mar muchas vallenas que las veen cada dia desde los navios, y aun las temen algunas vezes, pero sobre todo ay un peçe muy grande llamado por nombre Tyburon (de los qualesn andan grandes manadas, y es el indicio mas cierto para entender los marineros estan cerca de tierra, verlas). Son afficionadissimos a carne humana, y siguen un navio quinientas leguas,

“Cerca desta isla Dominica al Nordueste est[a]‌la de Sant Iuan de puerto Rico, la qual est[a] en diez y ocho grados, tiene de largo quarenta y seys legua, y de ancho veyute y cinco, y de contorno cerca de ciento y cinquenta: ay en ella mucho ganado vacuno, y mucho açucar, y gingibre y dase muy bien el trigo. Es tierra de mucho oro, y no se saca por falta de gente. Tiene lindos puertos dela banda del Sur, y de la del Norte uno tan seguro y bueno, que por serlo tanto pusieron los Españoles a toda la isla Puerto Rico, denominandola del puerto. Ay en toda ella quatro pueblos de Españoles, y Obispo, [e]‌ Yglesia Cathedral, en la qual el dia de oy es perlado el Reverendissimo Don

“Nigh vnto this Ilande Dominica towardes the northwest is the Ilande of S. Iohn de Puerto rico the which is in eightéene degrées: it is fortie and sixe leagues long and fiue & twentie leagues brode, and in compasse about an hundred and fiftie leagues. There is in it great store of kyne, verie much sugar, and ginger, and yéeldeth very much wheate. It is a lande of verie much golde, and is not laboured nor taken out of the earth for lacke of people, it hath verie good hauens and portes towardes the south, and towardes the north onely one, the which is sure and good, in respect whereof the Spaniardes did giue the name vnto the whole Ilande, Puerto rico, taking the name of the port or hauen. In it there is foure townes of Spaniardes, a bishoppe and a cathedrall church, and he that is prelat at this day, is the reuerend

430 Roldán-Figueroa table 18.2 Intellectual micro-​transfers: The case of González de Mendoza (cont.)

González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables de la China (Rome, 1585) (Barcelona, 1586)

González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas mas notables de la China (Madrid, 1586)

González de Mendoza, The historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China (London, 1588)

sin dexarse de ver dia ninguno, y a acaecido muchas vezes pescar este peçe, y hallarle en el buche todas las cosas que dende la nao se han hechado en muchos dias de navegación. Si a caso cojen aun hombre, en el agua parado, se lo comen todo, o alo menos le cortan a cercen todo lo que pueden alcanzar, sea pierna, o braço, o el medio cuerpo como muchas vezes se a visto. Desde la isla Desseada se va a la de S. Domingo que son ciento noventa leguas, y esta en diez y ocho grados […]”a

fray Diego de Salamanca, Religioso Augustino. Quando fueron la primera vez los Españoles a ella, que segun dize el Reverendissimo de las Casas, Obispo de Chiapa, fue el año de mil y quinientos y nueve, estava toda esta isla tan llena de arboledas y frutales, que le pusieron por nombre las Huertas, y que avia en ella seyscientos mil Indios, de los quales el dia de oy no ha quedado ninguno. Desta isla a la de Santo Domingo ay ochenta leguas, digo de puerto a puerto, y de punta a punta solas doze […]”b

father don fryer Diego de Salamanca of the order of S. Austin. When the Spaniardes went first vnto this Ilande, according vnto ye report of the reuerende father de Las Casas bishop of Chiapa, was in the yeare 1509. This Iland was so full of trées and fruite that they gaue it the name of the Guertas, and there were in it sixe hundreth thousande Indios of the which at this day there remaineth not one. From this Ilande vnto the Ilande of Santo Domingo, is foure score leagues, I say from one port vnto another and from poynt to point but twelue leagues […]”c

a   González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (Rome, 1585), 346; idem, Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (Barcelona, 1586), 405. There are slight spelling differences between the Rome and Barcelona editions. b  González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables de la China (Madrid, 1586), fols. 273v–​274r. c  González de Mendoza, The historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China, 310.

The Reception History of Las Casas

431

In 1588, the London-​based printer J. Wolfe issued an English translation of Historia de las cosas más notables de la China. The translator, R. Parke (fl. 1588), worked from a copy of the Madrilenian edition of 1586; the title page claimed the translation was done “out of Spanish.” Parke’s translation conveys González de Mendoza’s usage of Las Casas, introducing English readers in this way to information about the Dominican. The intellectual micro-​transfer conveyed the regard that González de Mendoza had for Las Casas as a factual source as well as information about the geography and demography of the regions in question. To an English readership, the passages that made reference to Las Casas may have reinforced a negative image of Spain. However, just as likely, they communicated a mythical image of the Caribbean as an empty land, poorly governed, full of lost souls, and rich with gold. The English translation seems to have made a splash. Las Casas, according to the “englished” González de Mendoza, was eyewitness to the “rivers of gold” running through the islands of the Caribbean: The foresaide bishop doth also speake of another maruaile, which is, that the most part of these riuers, those which do distil and run from the mountaines which is towardes the west, are very rich of gold, and some of it very fine, as is that which is takē out of the mynes of Cibao, which is very well knowen in that kingdome, & also in spaine, by reason of the great perfectiō therof: out of ye which myne hath béene taken out a péece of virgin golde so bigge as a twopennie wheaten loafe, and did weigh three thousand and sixe hundred Castillianos, the which was sonke and lost in the sea, in carrying of it into Spaine, as doth testifie the aforesaid reuerend bishop.100 Such descriptions sparked covetousness for Spanish possessions in the Caribbean. By echoing Las Casas’s complaints about the decimation of the pre-​ Hispanic population of the Caribbean, the “englished” González de Mendoza inadvertently furnished reasons why the Spaniards were undeserving of those islands: “In this Ilande (as saith the reuerende bishop of Chiapa in his booke) there were when as the Spaniards came first thether thrée millions of men

100 González de Mendoza, The historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China, 311.

432 Roldán-Figueroa naturall Indians, of the which at this day there is not two hundred left.”101 The “englished” voice of González de Mendoza, wrapped in the authority of the bishop of Chiapa, may have fueled the expansionist aspirations of many—​ contrasting the current mismanagement with the fact that “It is a holsome countrie vnto them that dwell therein.”102 4

Conclusion

The reception history of Las Casas in late sixteenth-​century England was more complex than an exclusive focus on the English translation of the Brevísima would lead us to believe. Unfettering the historical treatment of the circulation of his ideas from diachronic discussions of the Black Legend opens the door for a wider and more synchronic consideration of his footprint in English intellectual history. This chapter demonstrates that a growing canon of Lascasian texts was available to English readers in late sixteenth-​century England. This canon made his perspective as a Catholic reformer of the Spanish colonial system more widely accessible. It also contributed to the dissemination of a mythical idea of the Caribbean. 1 01 González de Mendoza, The historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China, 312. 102 González de Mendoza, The historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China, 312.

­c hapter 19

Enlightenment and Revolutionary Uses of Las Casas from Charlesvoix to Pancho Villa Andrew L. Wilson 1

La Controverse

The 1991 French television drama La Controverse de Valladolid reenacted the confrontation between Las Casas and Sepúlveda.1 In the famous courtroom scene, the earthy and impassioned Dominican friar outshined the smug, effete humanist Sepúlveda. It was self-​evident to us, the watching jury, that universal humanity—​and the rights that ought to be upheld by any member of it—​were, or ought to be, the victor. The film was a hit and won many awards in that year of preparation for the quincentenary commemorations.2 A jarring, poignant scene concluded the film. The notables took their leave; the lights dimmed; the heavy doors boomed shut. But the camera remained. Into the vacant chamber shuffled, hesitantly, a shadowy figure—​an African—​ his dark body loosely robed with a muslin tunic. He was the sole exemplar of his race that we have seen so far. He carried a bucket and a broom. He was a servant, or rather, a slave. Better put, he was the embodied foreshadowing of the reprehensible institution so high-​mindedly and detachedly discussed in this room. The cleaning man looked briefly about the hall, contemplating the power and riches and tradition that fill it; his own mean figure was dwarfed by its grandeur. He softly set his bucket down and started to sweep. Did the high-​ minded discourse just now so passionately enacted apply to him? The specter of black slavery, soon to flourish bloodily in the lands administered in this

1 Dir. Jean-​ Daniel Verhaege, screenplay by Jean-​ Claude Carrière (France: Bakti/​ France3 Marseille, 1992). Available on YouTube: https://​youtu.be/​OvNV​_​k5E​Eyk; accessed October 14, 2019. 2 See Michel Cadé, “Le jeu du passé et du présent dans La Controverse de Valladolid,” in Bartolomé de Las Casas: Face à l’esclavage des Noires en Amériques/​Caraïbes. L’aberration du Onzième Remède (1516), ed. Victorien Lavou Zoungbo (Perpignan: Presses universitaires de Perpignan, 2011), 287–​290; http://​books.open​edit​ion.org/​pupvd/​2943; accessed July 6, 2019.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004515918_021

434 Wilson place, was shockingly evoked. The Indians had been defended. But what of this as-​yet unseen victim? What would be his fate? This provocative fiction appropriately captured much of the ambiguity—​ not just of the Las Casas figure, but of history in general—​and of our ever-​ present problems with it. Looking back with hindsight, we want another past. We want the idea of universal humanity to have been universally applied. We want things to have worked out differently. “What I have written, I have written,” said Pontius Pilate, an unwitting prophet (John 19:22). What was done was done. The past could not be changed. I have been puzzling over this problem ever since I started to study Las Casas. Coming from theology, I had only heard good things about the man—​ mostly from Gustavo Gutierrez.3 So, it was quite a jolt when I stumbled across David Walker’s Appeal, which described Las Casas as “that very notoriously avaricious Catholic priest or preacher … [who] proposed to his countrymen … to import the Africans from the Portuguese …, to dig up gold and silver, and work their plantations for them.”4 An hour’s research revealed this black slavery canard to be a flourishing topos of Lascasiana. In fact, I had chanced upon the perfect thematic introduction to the man, for not only did it expose the whole history of ­interpretation but touched upon so many aspects of the past three centuries’ dialectics: colonialism and autonomy, democracy and tyranny, freedom and slavery, church and state, race and universal human rights.5 And so down the rabbit hole I went, hunting for despisers of Las Casas—​and champions as well. What a strange wonderland I found, far removed from Las Casas’s sixteenth-​century debates—​somewhat confused by his terms, and yet intent on making him a demon or a hero.

3 Gustavo Gutierrez, Las Casas, in Search of the Poor in Jesus Christ, trans. Robert Barr (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993). 4 David Walker, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, ed. Sean Wilentz (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 35–​36. See Rady Roldán-​Figueroa’s chapter in this volume. 5 “Addressing the African slavery attribution is probably the most effective preamble to any classroom presentation of Las Casas’s works … it provides an immediate, hands-​on exercise in textual interpretation that can reveal how historical fact and literary interpretation are generated, repeated, and transformed (and how historical errors are perpetuated).” Rolena Adorno, “The Intellectual Life of Bartolomé de Las Casas: Framing the Literature Classroom,” in Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas, ed. Santa Arias and Eyda M. Merediz (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008), 24.

Enlightenment and Revolutionary Uses of Las Casas

2

435

Black Legend, and White

Prophets are never loved in their hometowns, and so it was not surprising that Las Casas was first loved outside of Spain. But it was strange to discover that the first Europeans to truly rejoice en masse in what this Dominican bishop wrote were Protestants. Las Casas’s nauseating tales of Spanish barbarity were full of useful ammunition for their wars with Habsburg Spain and that dynasty’s ever-​evolving penumbra of allies. The Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies went through dozens of reprints and translations; from France to Poland, England to Italy, it was continually reprinted into the nineteenth century—​and to this day has been tainted with like prejudice.6 In many ways we have not really left that stage: we still cannot help but read Las Casas as the chronicler of colonialism—​of modern Europe’s original sin.7 In response to this blunt instrumentalization, not surprisingly, counter-​ arguments arose. The crudest rebuffs came from the pens of exiled Catalan Jesuits, writing from their Italian refuge. Ramon Diosdado Caballero, S.J. (1740–​ 1829?), blamed Las Casas for the anti-​Spanish sentiment found throughout Europe (later named the “Black Legend”) and labeled the Dominican friar’s genocidal statistics as fantastical and exaggerated.8 Juan Nuix de Perpiña, S.J. (1740–​1783) equaled Caballero’s disdain and added a so-​called “White Legend” to it, thus lifting up Spanish—​ particularly Jesuit—​ benevolence toward the Indians.9 He dared any other nation to produce a similar record of such 6

7

8

9

See, most recently, Rolena Adorno, “The Not-​so-​Brief Story of the Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias,” in Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, ed. David T. Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 29–​57. Also Benjamin Keen, “The Black Legend Revisited: Assumptions and Realities,” Hispanic American Historical Review 49 (1969), 704–​705; Rolena Adorno, “The Politics of Publication,” review of The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account by Bartolomé de las Casas, trans. Herma Briffault, ed. Bill M. Donovan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), in New West Indian Guide 67.3/​4 (1993): 285–​292 (291). “Clearly much of the ongoing appeal of Las Casas’ interpretation of the Indians’ calamity, which stressed the conquerors’ brutality, comes from its foreshadowing of modern agonies over race relations and western treatment of other colonialized [sic] peoples.” Paul J. Hauben, “White Legend against Black: Nationalism and Enlightenment in a Spanish Context,” The Americas 34 (1977): 1–​19 (1). Santa Arias, “Equal Rights and Individual Freedom Enlightenment Intellectuals and the Lascasian Apology for Black African Slavery,” Romance Quarterly 55 (2008): 279–​ 291 (281); Lewis Hanke, Bartolomé de Las Casas: Bookman, Scholar and Propagandist (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952), 50; María Amparo López Aranda, “La forja de la leyenda blanca: la imagen de la Compañia de Jesús a través de sus crónicas,” Historia Social 65 (2009): 125–​146. Hauben, “White Legend against Black,” 8–​9. See also Benjamin Keen, “The Black Legend Revisited,” and the rejoinder, Lewis Hanke, “A Modest Proposal for a Moratorium on

436 Wilson admirable ongoing scruples. This latter argument was echoed more subtly in the twentieth century in Marxist and other literature. For Roberto Fernández Retamar, both the Black Legend and the counter-​attacks on Las Casas were conspiratorial cover-​ups executed to bolster capital and its international tool: colonialism.10 The aims of these objections were refreshingly transparent. They wrote to vindicate the Jesuits—​then under global censure, and to defend their Spanish (particularly Catalan) patria from calumny and international embarrassment—​ especially that coming from French liberals.11 The Philosophes, in both atheist and ecclesiastical garb, took a particular whiggish joy in pillorying benighted Iberia and her sclerotic overseas domains. “As one important revolutionary leader declared,” writes Lewis Hanke, “‘the best way to combat Spain is to broadcast throughout the entire world the books of Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas.’”12 For Voltaire (1694–​1778), for Cornelius De Pauw (1739–​1799), for the abbés Guillaume Raynal (1713–​1776) and Henri Grégoire (1750–​1831), there was no greater saint striving for their beloved liberty than Las Casas, and no greater villain than the arch-​colonizer of the era, Spain.13 Broad strokes for big battles. In this roundabout way, Las Casas became the guiding light and shining star around whom gathered Les Amis des Noirs, questioners of colonialism, friends of all humanity and, not least of all, of the criollo revolutionaries from whose ranks an independent Latin America would be born and led.14 Las Casas was,

10

11

12 13

14

Grand Generalizations: Some Thoughts on the Black Legend,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 51 (1971): 112–​127. Roberto Fernández Retamar, “Contra la Leyenda Negra” in Bartolomé de Las Casas, ed. Lavou Zoungbo, 99–​120; available at http://​books.open​edit​ion.org/​pupvd/​2925; accessed July 10, 2019. Originally in Casa de las Américas, no. 99 (1976). See online edition, para. 6, para. 10. “Las Casas, therefore, was the ultimate source of much of the ‘snappy stuff’ written on the Spanish colonies in the eighteenth century, at least according to Ramon Caballero.” Lewis Hanke, “Dos Palabras on Antonio de Ulloa and the Noticias Secretas,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 16.4 (1936): 479–​514 (490). Hanke, “Dos Palabras,” 503, citing Padre B. Martínez, “Injustificadas censuras. España en la Conquista de América,” España y América 26 (1910), 337. Silvio Zavala, “Tres acercamientos de la ilustración francesa a nuestra historia,” La revolución francesa en México, ed. Solange Alberro, Alicia Hernández Chávez, Elías Trabulse (Mexico City: Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, 1991), 32. On the invention of Latin America as both against U.S. expansion and Indigenous democracy, see Walter Mignolo, The Idea of Latin America (Malden and Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2005), and later, Michael Gobat, “The Invention of Latin America: A Transnational History of Anti-​Imperialism, Democracy, and Race,” The American Historical Review 118 (2013): 1345–​1375.

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437

in short, their hero—​a word broadly and ambiguously used by these campaigners. Las Casas, according to Arnulf Moser, “was made into the protagonist of Hispanic-​American independence.”15 Some of Las Casas’s most colorful supporters belonged to this revolutionary class. Antonio Llorente (1756–​1823), former general secretary of the Spanish Inquisition, after siding with Bonaparte, wrote in exile the first great exposé of his former institution, L’histoire critique de l’inquisition espagnole. He felt the need to sow into the Spanish mind something more than Jesuit reactionaries crying, “French Atheist, French Atheist.” And since so little of Las Casas was then known, he felt a more complete oeuvre would rescue this faithful cleric from the charges that he was both a bad Spaniard and a bad Catholic. In 1822, Llorente assembled and published a collection in two volumes in both French and Spanish.16 His purpose was frank: “The grounds upon which Las Casas based his demands for individual liberty of the Indians can be applied to other, more or less analogous, political situations as those in which he found the people he endeavored to defend.”17 This “other, more or less analogous political situation” would be, of course, that of Llorente’s own contemporaneous Europe and revolutionary Hispanic America. Llorente’s colleague and contributor to the 1822 anthology, José Servando Teresa de Mier (1765–​1827), was a sometime Dominican, preacher of pre-​ Colombian Aztec apparitions of the Virgin, partisan of Mexican Independence, entrepreneur of a Paris language school, and, for all these achievements, was imprisoned and escaped at least three times. He was also an indefatigable promoter of Las Casas. Mier read his own criollo class into Las Casas’s New Laws and so found an ecclesiastical pedigree for his own revolutionary ambitions.18 He re-​edited and published the Brief Account in London, Philadelphia, and 15

16

17

18

“Con Mier y Juan Antonio Llorente, el primer editor moderno de las obras de Las Casas, empieza una nueva discusión política. Las Casas es hecho protagonista de la independencia hispano-​americana.” Arnulf Moser, “Las Casas und die französische Revolution von 1789,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas/​Anuario de Historia de America Latina 7 (1970): 225–​238 (238). Œvres de Don Barthélémy de Las Casas évêque de Chiapa, défenseur de la liberté des naturels de l’Amérique, précédées de sa vie, et accompagnées d’additions, de notes historiques, d ́eveloppements, etc. etc. etc. avec portrait, 2 vols., ed. Juan Antonio Llorente (Paris: A. Emery, 1822). Emphasis mine. “Les motifs sur lesquels Las Casas fondait ses réclamations en favor de la liberté individuelle des Indiens peuvent s’appliquer à d’autres situations politiques plus ou moins analogues aux circonstances où les peuples se trouvaient lorsque il entreprit de les défendre.” Llorente, “Preface” to Œvres de Don Barthélémy de Las Casas, vol. 1, j. (I.a.). Begoña Pulido Herráez, “Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas en la obra y el pensamiento de Fray Servando Teresa de Mier,” Historia Mexicana 61.2 (2011): 429–​475 (468).

438 Wilson Mexico, for which his purpose was explicitly political: “One of the motives that causes us to ever esteem the works of Bishop Las Casas is the projection of the rights of sixteenth-​century Americans into the present residents of European stock; for it matters not that the bishop qualified Europeans as tyrants, supposing that the present inhabitants have already acquired in favor of themselves those rights that the writer held in defense of the Indians.”19 These enthusiasms were nicely summed up in Simon Bolívar’s Jamaica Letter, in which he proposed the capital of a hoped-​for united republic of New Granada and Venezuela be named after Las Casas, “that humane hero.”20 For Bolívar, “every person has admitted the zeal, sincerity, and high character of that friend of humanity, who so fervently and so steadfastly denounced to his government and to his contemporaries the most horrible acts of sanguinary frenzy” committed by the conquistadors.21 In fact, this style of eponymic honor went back to the great architect of anti-​colonial disposition, the Abbé Raynal, who was the first of many to propose a monument to Las Casas (a long-​lasting urge which merits its own study!): “If it should happen in future centuries,” says Raynal, “that these unfortunate, invaded lands be repopulated, and that there be there laws, morals, justice, and liberty, the first statue that we raise shall be of [Las Casas]. We shall see you placed between the American and the Spaniard; to save the one, you present your breast before the dagger of the other. We shall read upon the foot of this moment, ‘In a century of ferocity, Las Casas, whom you now see, was a beneficent man.’”22 Raynal’s proposal was 19

20

21 22

“Esta representación de derechos de los Americanos del siglo decimoquinto en los habitantes actuales de castas Europeas es uno de los motivos que harán estimar siempre las obras del obispo Casas; porque nada importa ya que fuesen europeos los que calificó de tiranos el señor obispo, supuesto que los habitantes actuales tengan adquirido ya en favor de sí mismos aquellos derechos que sostenía el escritor en defensa de los Indios.” As quoted in Moser, “Las Casas und die französische Revolution,” 237. Moser comments, “Die Motive seiner Publikation allerdings sind die gleichen, die der politischen Aktivität Μiers und seinen Veröffentlichungen der Breve Relación de la destrucción de las Indias Occidentales in London, Philadelphia und in Mexiko zugrundelagen. Sie sollten die südamerikanische Unabhängigkeitsbewegung unterstützen … Damit beginnt ein neues Kapitel der Politisierung des Nachruhms von Las Casas.” Moser, “Las Casas und die französische Revolution,” 237. Simón Bolívar, “Reply of a South American to a Gentleman of this Island [1815],” in Selected Writings of Simón Bolívar, ed. Vincente Lecuna and Harold A. Bierck, Jr. (New York: Colonial Press, 1951), 119; for more on postcolonial readings of Simón Bolívar, see Diego A. von Vacano, The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity, and Latin America /​ Hispanic Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 56–​82. Bolívar, “Reply of a South American to a Gentleman of this Island [1815],” 104. “S’il arrivoit, dans les siècles à venir, que les infortunées contrées qu’ils ont envahis se repeuplassent, & qu’il y eût des lois, des moeurs, de la justice, de la liberté, la première statue

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bettered by Bolivar’s revolutionary generation, who proposed not just a statue but a colossus—​holding protective pedagogical vigil at some prominent point upon the isthmus of Panama: Las Casas, the man who bridged North and South America.23

23

qu’on y élèveroit seroit la tienne. On te verroit t’interposer entre l’Américain & l’Espagnol, & présenter, pour sauver l’un, ta poitrine au poignard de l’autre. On liroit sur le pied de ce monument: ‘Dans un siècle de férocité, Las-​Casas, que tu vois, fut un homme bienfaisant.’ En attendant, ton nom restera gravé dans toutes les âmes sensibles; & lorsque tes compatriotes rougiront de la barbarie de leurs prétendus héros, ils se glorifieront de tes virtues.” Guillaume-​Thomas Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes (Geneva: Jean-​Léonard Pellet, 1881 [Amsterdam, 1770]), 4:307. Also quoted in Hanke, “Dos Palabras,” 496. Servando Teresa de Mier also wanted a statue erected, with the following motto: “En fin, si exterminada esta [la guerra civil] fuereis libres, la gratitud exige que el primer monumento erigido por manos libres sea al hombre celeste que tanto pugnó por la libertad de los antiguos americanos contra los furores de la conquista, a nuestro abogado infatigable, a nuestro verdadero apóstol, modelo acabado de la caridad evangélica y digno de estar sobre los altares por el voto del universo, menos de algunos español ‘¡Extranjero!, si amares la virtud, detente y venera. Este es Casas, el padre de los indios!’” Servando Teresa de Mier, Ideario Político, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman (Barcelona: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1978), 199. Quoted in Pulido Herraez, “Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas,” 467–​468; also, O. Carlos Stoetzer, “The Importance of Classical Influences During the Spanish-​American Revolutions,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas 30 (1993): 183–​226 (222). Stoetzer adds: “This was obviously a reference to Leonid and the Thermopylae (485–​480 bc), the valiant struggle of the 300 Spartans against Xerxes and his 10.000 Persians, and to the inscription which for much time could be seen and which showed the names of the warriors with the statement: ‘Traveller, go and tell Sparta that here we died obeying its laws!’.” Stoetzer, “The Importance,” 223. The desire for a Las Casas monument was repeated by Pablo Mendibil in the revolutionary periodical El Reepertorio Americano in 1827, in the course of a long review of Las Casas’s writings: “Las-​Casas, el ornamento de ambos mundos, reclama todavía un testimonio de la gratitud americana, una recompensa eminente i proporcionada, si es posible, a los grandes benefizios que hizo a los naturales de aquellas hermosas rejiones, I en dársela ¿quien ganaría más que la misma América? … La estatua del de Chiapa, /​210/​colocada en un punto prominente como el ismo de Panamá, que señorea los dos continentes i las islas, donde aquel héroe de la humanidad dejó a los americanos tanto qué admirar, qué imitar i qué agradezer, seria un monumento tan digno de su gloria como de las naziones, cuya futura dicha está librada en la observancia de los principios que el padre de los oprimidos enseñó, defendió i practicó.” Pablo Mendibil, “Noticia de la vida i escritos de D. fr. Bartolmé de Las-​Casas, obispo de Chiapa,” in El Repertorio Americano, Londres 1826–​1827, ed. Pedro Grases (Caracas: Edición de la Presidencia de la República, 1973), 2:209–​210. Hanke summarizes: “A writer in the pro-​ revolutionary journal El Repertorio Americano, published in London, supported an even more interesting proposal. He wished to see an immense statue of Las Casas erected on the Isthmus of Panama so that it would dominate the two continents and the islands where that hero of humanity had left so much for the Americans to admire and to emulate.” Hanke, “Dos Palabras,” 504.

440 Wilson The theme of Las-​Casas-​as-​bridge grew through the nineteenth century as criollo elites worked to forge a Caribbean identity. Reading Las Casas turned Cuba’s José Antonio Saco (1797–​1879) from his support of slavery and also offered him “a model of Hispanism that was perfectly digestible to the white criollo national project.”24 In the Dominican Republic, Manual de Jesús Galvàn (1834–​1910) picked up the civilizing aspects of Las Casas’s plans as perfect for his own aims of nation-​building.25 In the twentieth century the Afro-​Cuban ethnographer Fernando Ortiz was known to have kept a bust of Las Casas on his desk. “Las Casas allows Caribbean intellectuals to resolve the criollo predicament,” write Meridez and Salles-​Reese. “They can embrace blackness, hibridez, mulatez, and transculturation, as well as Hispanism and the colonial l­ egacy of Spain—​as long as it is embodied by Bartolomé de Las Casas.”26 Because of his peculiar location as both critic of the colonial project and as well as prophet of its new incarnation, “Las Casas is the keystone of a Caribbean discourse on race.”27 3

Las Casas: Cause of Black Slavery?

But the use of Las Casas positively in matters racial and revolutionary remained problematic. In the far-​reaching jurisdiction of Enlightenment anthropology, a man three centuries in advance was not enough. For Las Casas was possessed of the most vulnerable Achilles’s heel of any “lover of freedom”: he had, for a time, supported slavery. And not just any slavery, but the big one: the transatlantic slave trade.28 And not only supported it but, if the logic of Raynal’s

24 25 26 27 28

Eyda M. Merediz and Verónica Salles-​Reese, “Addressing the Atlantic Slave Trade: Las Casas and the Legend of the Blacks,” in Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas, 183. Merediz and Salles-​Reese, “Addressing the Atlantic Slave Trade,” 182. Merediz and Salles-​Reese, “Addressing the Atlantic Slave Trade,” 184. Merediz and Salles-​Reese, “Addressing the Atlantic Slave Trade,” 182. It seems we are caught in what amounts to disappointment. Our hero has a flaw; in the “consistent” court of useful politics, our defendant has a fatal flaw: “Il semble, par contre, indéniable qu’il n’engagea point les mêmes démarches ‘politiques’ en leur faveur qu’au profit des Indiens; il n’engagea pas non plus un débat philosophico-​théologique visant à établir leur humanité.” Victorien Lavou Zoungbo, “Préface à la seconde édition,” in Bartolomé de Las Casas: Face à l’esclavage des Noires en Amériques/​Caraïbes. L’aberration du Onzième Remède (1516), ed. Lavou Zoungbo (Perpignan: Presses universitaires de Perpignan, 2011); available at http://​books.open​edit​ion.org/​pupvd/​2912 para 7; accessed June 24, 2020.

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Histoire des Deux Indes was to be followed, Las Casas would be found at the font of that still ongoing and diabolical institution: The new world was hardly discovered when, in 1503, black slaves were brought. Eight years later, more were introduced, as experience had proved them infinitely more suited to the work than the natives of the land. Soon the authorities proscribed them, in fear that they would corrupt the Americans, and push them to revolt. Las Casas, who lacked the correct concept of human rights, but who was tirelessly occupied with the relief of his dear Indians, obtained the revocation of the law he believed harmful to their conservation …29 Raynal then traced the ensuing “grant” to buy slaves, issued by Charles i, sold to the Genoese, then to the Portuguese, the French, Dutch, English, and finally down to the cursed commerce of his very day.30 As such, for Raynal, in this genealogy of horror, Las Casas was the first—​if unwitting—​cause. De Pauw’s rambling Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains seemed to be the source of the worst slander.31 This Dutch Enlightenment philosopher, Diderot’s colleague and courtier to Prussia’s Frederick the Great, was considered an expert in ethnology. In his work on the Indigenous Americans, he accused Las Casas of “the ultimate peculiarity of which the human spirit is capable, [who, while he] wrote a great number of memorials to prove that the conquest of the Americas was an unjust atrocity, imagined at the same time to reduce the Africans into servitude to make them labor in this unjustly conquered land.”32 But De Pauw was not merely disappointed in Las Casas’s want of prescience. The philosophe evoked a legion of corrupting antiquated moral influences, relegating Las Casas to the clichéd role of greedy priest, angling like other rough colonists for his slice of the colonial pie. “This churchman,” reported that De 29 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 4:296–​297. For the actual letters, see Las Casas, “Memorial de Remedios para Las Indias (1516),” Obras Completas de Bartolomé de Las Casas, ed. Paulino Castañeda Delgado, vol. 13, “Cartas y Memoriales” (Madrid: Alianza, 1995), 28, 36; see also “Memorial de Remedios para Tierra Firme (1518),” idem, 53. 30 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 4:297–​300. 31 Cornelius de Pauw, Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains, ou, Mémoires intéressants pour servir à l’histoire de l’espèce humaine (Berlin: Georges Jacques Decker, 1768) For more on Las Casas in the French Enlightenment, see Daniel R. Brunstetter, Tensions of Modernity: Las Casas and His Legacy in the French Enlightenment (London and New York: Routledge, 2014). 32 De Pauw, Recherches philosophiques, ii (r).

442 Wilson Pauw, with a sneer, “besides scheming” was also possessed with “immense pride,” which he hid “under a plan designed to appear humane and modest.” The friar’s project to settle (the now Venezuelan coast of) Cumaná was but a play “to make himself sovereign in the Indies.”33 And so, through a game of textbook telephone, we come to David Walker’s “avaricious priest.” Walker’s pamphlet—​more activism than scholarship—​ cited the popular historian Frederick Butler’s Complete History of the United States of America (1821).34 Butler in turn cited no one, although from his details, De Pauw as well as William Robertson’s 1778 History of America seemed to be the source. “While [Las Casas] contended earnestly for the liberty of the people born in one quarter of the globe, he laboured to enslave the inhabitants of another region.”35 But these disappointed divines seem less driven by a quest for understanding past events than in tracing the prominent evil of their own day. And for this instrumental task, Las Casas certainly lacked ideological consistency. They recognized in Las Casas the seed of their own doctrine of liberty, but the lingering specter of black slavery in Las Casas, with the hint of ecclesiastical—​ and Spanish—​excess, indicated just how far there was to go. They themselves were completing what Las Casas had begun by applying his doctrine not just to Indians, but to all people. The swelling anger against this distant forebear was curious and long-​ lasting. Through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the battle lines between “Indianistas” and “Hispanistas” raged, with continued scruples about how “Hispanic” it remained. The charged political discourses made difficult a nuanced view of events already 400 years old. As late as 1914, the great Mexican revolutionary general Pancho Villa learned from his lieutenant, the licenciado Miguel Diáz Lombardo, that there was a painting in Chihuahua’s capital of “Bartolomé de Las Casas, famous defender of the Indians, who, to free them from slavery, introduced the slavery of blacks.”36 Villa is reported to have replied: “I’m not strong in my catechism, but it seems to me that Jesus 33 34 35 36

De Pauw, Recherches philosophiques, 120–​121. Frederick Butler, Complete History of the United States of America, 3 vols. (Hartford: Roberts and Burr, 1821), 1:24–​25. William Robertson, History of America, 2nd ed. (London: W. Strahan, 1778), 1:226. Diáz Lombardo is not well known. He spent time as ambassador in Paris and was later Villa’s ambassador to the United States. See https://​www.geni.com/​peo​ple/​Mig​uel -​Diaz-​Lomba​rdo/​6000​0000​0073​3049​960; accessed July 9, 2019. Also see Friederich Katz, Life and Times of Pancho Villa (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1998), 281; Heribert von Feilitzsch, Felix A. Sommerfeld and the Mexican Front in the Great War (Amissville: Henselstone Verlag, 2015), 133.

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Christ came into the world just as much for blacks as for Indians … Take this friar down and burn him.”37 4

To Las Casas’s Defense

The response to these various assaults upon Las Casas’s humanitarian credentials came in several forms, each fit to its particular courtroom. The French revolutionary bishop Henri Grégoire simply denied the charges outright—​ applying the “consistency” argument in his favor: “The works of Las Casas, far from showing any evidence against him, resound throughout with the laws of liberty, and charge [us] with the duty of doing good for all men [and women], without regard to color or country; thus the principles he always professes and his invariable conduct contradict the accusation.”38 How could a man so evidently committed to human freedom have committed such an injury against his own integrity?39 Grégoire was aided in his cause by a lack of concrete firsthand evidence. Seemingly, the French drew their version of Las Casas’s story from the Jesuit

37 As articulated in Pérez Fernández, Bartolomé de Las Casas, ¿Contra los negros?, 9. Frustratingly, no sources are cited. He seems to have drawn from a similar citation in Toribio Esquivel Obregón, Hernán Cortés y el derecho internacional en el siglo xvi (Mexico City: Polis, 1939; Mexico City: Porrúa, 1985), 90. 38 “Les ouvrages de Las Casas, loin de présenter aucune indication contre lui, réclament partout les droits de la liberté, et inculpent les devoirs de la bienveillance en faveur de tous les hommes, sans distinction de couleur ni de pays; ainsi les principes qu’il professa toujours et sa conduite invariable démentent une accusation dont les esprits impartiaux peuvent actuellement apprécier la valeur. Très peu d’hommes ont eu l’avantage de remplir une vie aussi longue que la sienne par des services aussi éclatants envers leurs semblables. Les amis de la religion, des mœurs, de la liberté et des lettres, doivent un tribut de respect à la mémoire de celui qu’Eguiara nommait l’ornement de l Amérique, et qui, appartenant à l’Espagne par sa naissance, à la France par son origine, peut être nommé à juste titre l’ornement des deux mondes.” Henri Grégoire, “Apologie de Don Barthlémy de Las Casas, évêque de Chiapas,” lecture delivered for the French Academy on 22 floréal, an viii-​12; May 1804 (sic: 1800), found in Œvres de Don Barthélémy de Las Casas, 2:336–​367. Llorente’s version introduced a dating error, stating that it was delivered in 1804; the revolutionary dating is correct, and corresponds to 1800. See Jean-​Daniel Piquet, “Controversies sur l’Apologie de Las Casas lue par l’abbé ́ Grégoire,” Revue d’histoire et philosophie religieuses 82 (2002): 283–​306 (285 n. 15). 39 For the Société des Amis des Noirs, Las Casas was a simple logical analogy: as he was to the Spanish, so they were to their own colonies. “Die Societe des Amis des Noirs habe den Colons genauso gegenübergestanden wie Las Casas den Spaniern.” Moser, “Las Casas und die französische Revolution,” 231.

444 Wilson missionary Pierre-​François-​Xavier de Charlesvoix’s Histoire de l’isle d’Espagnole ou de Saint Domingue, possibly via Georges Louis Leclerc, Compte de Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle.40 But none of the scholars of the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century drew their story from Las Casas himself. The earliest and most easily available witness for all these writers was the early seventeenth-​ century Spanish court chronicler Antonio Herrera y Tordesillas’s Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos.41 In point of fact, Herrera’s own source for nearly everything from that early colonial period, including the story of Las Casas as a slave advocate, was, in fact, Las Casas himself—​whom Herrera liberally mined and transcribed (without citation) at length. In lieu of textual evidence, the linchpin of Grégoire’s defense was none other than Teresa de Mier, already mentioned above. Mier assured Grégoire that he had “read the three volumes in folio, written in the bishop’s own hand, without finding anything that inculpated him relative to blacks.”42 Seemingly Teresa de Mier skimmed rather than studied Las Casas’s still unpublished Historia de las Indias. But in light of this “savant américain,” as he was called, Grégoire simply asserted that Herrera was wrong.43 5

A Priori, a Posteriori, a Finiori

In a captivating essay on Las Casas and the question of black slavery, Nestor Capdevila bluntly asked: “Is his defense of the Indians really humanist, or is it stained by anti-​black prejudice?”44 Capdevila then pointed to two obvious but often unperceived errors plaguing the long train of Las Casas’s champions and detractors. For Grégoire, for Raynal, for Montesquieu, and for their heirs, there was a simple contradiction between the Christian “principle” of equality and 40

41 42 43 44

Pierre-​François-​Xavier de Charlesvoix, Histoire de l’isle d’Espagnole ou de Saint Domingue (Paris: Hippolyte-​Louis Guerin, 1730), 1:346–​347 (353); Georges Louis Leclerc, Compte de Buffon, Histoire Naturelle générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi, 36 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1749–​1789). Nicole Giroud, Une mosaïque de Fr. Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–​1566): Histoire de la réception dans l’histoire, la the ́ologie, la société, l’art et la littérature, Studia Friburgensia 93 (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 2002), 148. Grégoire, “Apologie de Don Barthlémy de Las Casas, évêque de Chiapas,” 345. “Un savant américain, docteur de l’université de Mexico.” Grégoire, “Apologie,” 345. “Sa défense de l’Indien est-​elle réellement humaniste ou est-​elle entachée par des préjugés antinoirs?” Nestor Capdevila, “Las Casas et les Noirs: quels problèmes?” in Bartolomé de Las Casas: Face à l’esclavage des Noires en Amériques/​Caraïbes. L’aberration du Onzième Remède (1516), ed. Lavou Zoungbo (Perpignan: Presses universitaires de Perpignan, 2011); available at http://​books.open​edit​ion.org/​pupvd/​2912 para. 39; accessed July 24, 2020.

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that of slavery. Therefore, in light of his Indian activism, Las Casas was a priori innocent.45 A more subtle, a posteriori line of reasoning was found in an essay by Gregorio Funes, Argentine priest and revolutionary, whose essay on the subject was also published in Llorente’s 1822 collection. Thanks to his neo-​scholastic education, Funes understood better than Grégoire the canons and natural law rationales with which Las Casas worked,46 and clearly allowed for slavery in circumscribed conditions47—​conclusions any student of Las Casas would surely recognize. Because Las Casas urged caution with regard to the Indians, he simply must have been misinformed or uninformed about the nature of Africans’ enslavement. Las Casas did not yet see the injustice; but when he did see it, he changed his mind.48 This was precisely what Las Casas himself reported in Book 3 of the Historia de las Indias.49 For Capdevila, both of these explanations were unsatisfying: the one false, the other too apologetic. “It is, in fact, much simpler to suppose that since so many Christians did not ‘see’ this injustice for such a long time, that there is no ‘evidence’ for Christianity’s” foundational anti-​slavery position.50 Instead, there was a contradiction that contemporary global citizens must simply live with.51 A naive modernity might believe in the humanist principle’s “incapacity

45

Grégoire here is simply parroting the logic of Montesquieu: “Il est impossible que nous supposions que ces gens-​là soient des hommes; parce que, si nous les supposions des hommes, on commencerait à croire que nous ne sommes pas nous-​mêmes chrétiens.” Esprit Esprit des Lois, in Oevres Completes de Montequieu, ed. Dupin et al. (Paris: Fermin Didot, 1857 [1748]), 309. 46 Both Grégoire and his source, the “savant méxicain” Teresa de Mier, were more Jansenist than traditional. See Arias, “Equal Rights and Individual Freedom,” 286; Christopher Domínguez Michael, Vida de fray Servando Teresa de Mier (Mexico City: Era; Conaculta: inah, 2004), 182–​186. 47 Capdevila, “Las Casas et les Noirs,” para 14. 48 This is the basic argument of Isacio Pérez-​Fernandez, Bartolomé de Las Casas, ¿Contra los negros? 49 Casas, Historia de las Indias, O.C., 3:2191 [ch. 102]; 3:2323–​2324 [ch. 129]. 50 Capdevila, “Las Casas et les Noirs,” para. 21 “En fait, il est beaucoup plus simple de supposer que si tant de chrétiens n’ont pas ‘vu’ cette injustice pendant si longtemps, c’est qu’il n’y a pas d’ ‘évidence’ pour le christianisme.” 51 Something still done. André Saint-​Lu praises above all, universal, timeless law—​of which Las Casas is happy to provide evidence: “Tant il est vrai que la défense de ces droits et de la liberté des peuples reste la plus authentique leçon de cette vie de combat solennellement proclamée dans l’Histoire des Indes et ailleurs en ces termes d’une permanente actualité: ‘Toutes les nations du monde sont composées d’êtres humains, et de tous les hommes quels qu’ils soient il n’est qu’une seule définition’.” André Saint-​Lu, “Bartolomé de Las Casas et la traite des nègres,” in Bartolomé de Las Casas: Face à l’esclavage des Noires

446 Wilson to legitimate evil” but, at the same time, we also must “recog[nize] its capacity to do it.”52 For Capdevila, then, the evidence on Las Casas’s behalf cannot be found in the “simple application of universal principles to a particular case, but a critical and self-​critical process,”53 a “new form of conscience that produces a rigorous and audacious ‘ideological praxis.’”54 A 1991 article by Anthony Pagden said the same thing as Capdevila, albeit in a different register.55 As Pagden claimed, Las Casas was caught between the “facts” that he had witnessed—​either firsthand or secondhand—​and the law, which was being violated and for which he was the judge. As such, Las Casas’s Historia fell short of both the classical ideals that he evoked at its outset and the genealogical search for causes demanded by Enlightenment historiography. Las Casas’s history, in other words, was evidence for a courtroom but not “scientific fact” as we now think of it. Capdevila’s dialectical solution was, on the one hand, obvious and, on the other, unsatisfying, for it proposed a kind of updated theodicy; rather than justifying God, he justified the historical process itself. Capdevila would have to somehow give thanks for the tragedy by proposing the birth of a “new consciousness.” Consequently, Las Casas, while defending his good intentions and insurmountable innocence in the black slave affair, was not interested in justifying his own past in this dialectical way. In fact, Las Casas openly admitted his wrongdoing. Instead of a theodicy, he offered an a finiori perspective—​an eschatology: “he was not certain that the ignorance and good intentions he

52

53 54 55

en Amériques/​Caraïbes. L’aberration du Onzième Remède (1516), ed. Lavou Zoungbo (2011) para. 15. “Maintenant, l’interrogation sur les limites de l’humanisme de Las Casas n’est plus réductible au problème de l’évaluation morale de son action. Elle est la traduction d’une contradiction interne au christianisme. D’un côté, on soutient qu’il y a une incompatibilité radicale entre les principes chrétiens et l’esclavage. De l’autre, on reconnaît que ces principes ont pu le légitimer. Par ce questionnement, on exprime à la fois notre croyance en la pureté du principe, c’est-​à-​dire son incapacité à légitimer le mal, et la reconnaissance de sa capacité à le faire.” Capdevila,“Las Casas et les Noirs,” para. 24. Capdevila’s charity is not extended by Voltaire: “Voltaire rejected Las Casas’s hyperbolic rhetoric but shared his humanitarian ideology” Arias, “Equal Rights and Individual Freedom,” 280. “La défense des Indiens chez Las Casas n’est pas la simple application de principes universels à un cas particulier, mais un processus critique et autocritique.” Capdevila, “Las Casas et les Noirs,” para. 35. “l’idée que l’humanisme lascasien ne présente aucune évidence pour le catholicisme. Il s’agit bien d’une nouvelle forme de conscience que produit une ‘pratique idéologique’ rigoureuse et audacieuse.” Capdevila, “Las Casas et les Noirs,” para. 35. Anthony Pagden, “Ius et Factum: Text and Experience in the Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas,” Representations 33, Special Issue: The New World (1991), 153.

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had in this would excuse him before divine judgement.”56 We must not forget that Las Casas, in his time, was referred to mostly as licenciado or licenciado en leyes. He was “representing [the Indians] quite literally, as parties in a lawsuit in which he takes the role of attorney for the defense.”57 And the laws to which he referred were not primarily civil but canon law.58 If we keep the courtroom context in mind, the churning conundrums of the Enlightenment and revolutionary period would be more easily resolved. But whose courtroom? And which audience? Confused by Las Casas’s own this-​worldly activism, we often forget that the final audience of his work was God, and the stage on which it played the final judgment. Interpreters and fans alike will forever misunderstand and be disappointed if they do not take this apocalyptic setting into account. As Luis Rivera-​Pagán says: An eschatological viewpoint is, ultimately, necessary. For only from the end, when all the folly of wrought action has come to conclusion, when the powerful have lost their power before death, can they bear to have revealed their past blindness. It is the “revelation” of all things that shall make injustice visible to all. And Las Casas, the Dominican, for whom God was above all truth, will stand vindicated.59 To return to my initial puzzlement when I ran across that condemnatory passage in David Walker’s Appeal: why are we so interested in whether Las Casas had a pure “liberatory” doctrine? Or whether he acted with such perfect consistency? Las Casas, in the final analysis, was not interested in defending himself before the philosophes of the Enlightenment or before us; nor was he interested in how well he would inspire (or not) future liberation movements. It is we who seem to demand a robotic application of pre-​existing principles; we who require vatic gifts of time-​bound humans. In the absence of historical compassion, we unwittingly condemn ourselves to a similar fate. What errors, ignorance, and horrors do we now commit that, 500 years hence, will be equally offensive?

56 57 58 59

Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, O.C., 3:2324. Adorno, “The Intellectual Life of Bartolomé de Las Casas,” 30. Adorno, “The Intellectual Life of Bartolomé de Las Casas,” 26. Luis N. Rivera-​Pagán, “A Prophetic Challenge to the Church: The Last Word of Bartolomé de las Casas,” Inaugural lecture as Henry Winters Luce Professor in Ecumenics and Mission, delivered on April 9, 2003, at Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton Seminary Bulletin 23 (n.s.) (2003): 216–​240.

448 Wilson We should keep in mind what Rolena Adorno says about Las Casas’s own treatment of Columbus, for whom the Dominican had a complex appreciation: “Christopher Columbus turns out to be neither Las Casas’s hero nor the villain of his history but rather the exemplary case of a man who, like almost any other, fails to understand the gravity of the stakes of the enterprise in which he is engaged or to anticipate the large consequences and implications of his most mundane decisions.”60 Would that we, too, had such compassionate descendants. The past—​our own personal histories included—​cannot be changed. But it may perhaps be redeemed. For this, however, it must be thrown before God’s mercy to await the final judgment. 60

Adorno, “The Intellectual Life of Bartolomé de Las Casas,” 30.

Lascasian Bibliography This cumulative bibliography represents the first installment of the Lascasian Bibliography, a long-​ term bibliographic project meant to facilitate research on Bartolomé de las Casas and promote general interest in his life and work. The bibliography incorporates and updates the one published in David T. Orique, O.P., and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, eds., Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion (Brill, 2019). Items included are directly related to Las Casas’s life, labor, legacy, and thought, as well as the larger context of European expansion and colonialism in the Americas. Abreu y Galindo, Juan de. Historia de la conquista de las siete Islas de Canarias. Edited by Alejandro Cioranescu. Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain: Goya, 1977. Abril Stoffels, Miguel. J. “La Apologética Historia Sumaria: claves para su interpretación.” In Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética Historia Sumaria. Obras completas. Vol. 6, 185–​199. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1992. Acosta, José de. De procuranda indorum salute. Edited and translated by Luciano Pereña, Vidal Abril, Carlos Baciero, Antonio García, Demetrio Ramos, José Barrientos, and Francisco Maseda. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1984–​1987. Acosta, José de. Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Edited by Jane E. Mangan, with an introduction and commentary by Walter Mignolo. Translated by Frances López-​ Morillas. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002. Acosta, José de. Obras del P. José de Acosta. Edited by Francisco Mateos. Madrid: Atlas, 1954. Acuña, René, ed. Domingo de Basseta: Vocabulario de lengua quiché. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005 [1698]. Acuña, René. “Introducción.” In Thesavrus Verborum … Thomas de Coto. Edited by René Acuña. Mexico City: unam, 1983 [1650]. Acuña, René. Relaciones geográficas del siglo xvi: Nueva Galicia. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma de México, 1988. Adorno, Rolena. “Bartolomé de las Casas y Domingo de Santo Tomás en la obra de Felipe Waman Puma.” Revista iberoamericana 68, no. 200 (2002): 769–​774. Adorno, Rolena. “Censorship and Its Evasion: The Case of Fray Jerónimo Román y Zamora’s Repúblicas del mundo [1575, 1595].” Hispania 75 (1992): 812–​827. Adorno, Rolena. “El arte de la persuasión: El padre Las Casas y fray Luis de Granada en la obra de Waman Puma.” Escritura 4, no. 8 (1979): 167–​189. Adorno, Rolena. Guaman Poma and His Illustrated Chronicle from Colonial Peru: from a Century of Scholarship to a New Era of Reading. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen & the Royal Library, 2001.

450 

Lascasian Bibliography

Adorno, Rolena. Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. Adorno, Rolena. “La resonancia de las obras de Las Casas en la de Guarman Poma.” In Las Casas entre dos mundos. Edited by [Gustavo Gutiérrez?], 210–​223. Lima: Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas: cep, 1993. Adorno, Rolena. “Las otras fuentes de Guaman Poma: sus lecturas castellanas.” Historica 2, no. 2 (1978): 137–​158. Adorno, Rolena. “Literary Production and Suppression: Reading and Writing About Amerindians in Colonial Spanish America.” Dispositio 11 (1986): 1–​25. Adorno, Rolena. “Los debates sobre la naturaleza del indio en el siglo xvi: Textos y contextos.” Revista de estudios hispánicos 19 (1992): 47–​66. Adorno, Rolena. “The Intellectual Life of Bartolomé de las Casas.” The Andrew W. Mellon Lecture, Fall 1992. New Orleans: The Graduate School of Tulane University, 1992. Adorno, Rolena. The Intellectual Life of Bartolomé Las Casas. New Orleans: Graduate School of Tulane University, 1992. Adorno, Rolena. “The Intellectual Life of Bartolomé de Las Casas: Framing the Literature Classroom.” In Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas. Edited by Santa Arias and Eyda M. Merediz, 21–​32. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Adorno, Rolena. “The Not-​so-​Brief Story of the Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias.” In Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion. Edited by David T. Orique and Rady Roldán-​Figueroa, 29–​57. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Adorno, Rolena. The Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Adorno, Rolena. “The Politics of Publication.” Review of The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account by Bartolomé de las Casas. Edited by Bill M. Donovan. Translated by Herma Briffault. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. New West Indian Guide 67, nos. 3–​4 (1993): 285–​292. Adorno, Rolena. Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. Adorno, Rolena and Patrick Charles Pautz. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez. 3 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Afanasiev, V. “The Literary Heritage of Bartolomé de Las Casas.” In Bartolomé de Las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work. Edited by Juan Friede and Benjamin Keen, 539–​578. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971. Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1998. Aguirre de Riojas, Regina and Elfriede de Pöll. Trees in the Life of the Maya World. Fort Worth: Botanical Research Institute of Texas, 2007.

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Aínsa, Fernando. Necesidad de la utopía. Buenos Aires-​ Montevideo: Nordam Comunidad, 1990. Akkeren, Ruud van. “Authors of the Popol Vuh.” Ancient Mesoamerica 14, no. 2 (2003): 237–​256. Akkeren, Ruud van. “Título de los Indios de Santa Clara La Laguna.” In Crónica Mesoamericanas ii. Edited by Horacio Cabezas Carcache, 69–​86. Guatemala City: Universidad Mesoamericana, 2009. Albergio, Giuseppe et al., eds. Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta. Bologna: Istituto per le scienze religiose di Bologna, 1972. Albertini, Quilicus. L’oeuvre de Francisco de Vitorica et la doctrine canonique du droit de la guerre. Paris: A. Chevalier-​Marescq & Cie, 1903. Alden, John and Dennis C. Landis, eds. European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493–​1776. 6 vols. New York: Readex, 1980–​1997. Alfonso X. Las Siete Partidas. Madrid: Atlas, 1972. Alfonso X. Las Siete Partidas (El libro del fuero de las leyes). Edited by José Sánchez Arcilla. Madrid: Reus, 2004. Alonso, María Rosa. El poema de Viana. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1952. Altamira, Rafael. “El texto de las leyes de Burgos.” Revista de Historia de América, no. 4 (1938): 5–​79. Alvar Ezguerra, Manuel. Vocabulario de indigenismos en las crónicas de indias. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1997. Álvarez, Salvador. “Conquista y encomienda en la Nueva Galicia durante la primera mitad del siglo xvi: ‘Bárbaros’ y ‘Civilizados’ en las fronteras americanas.” Relaciones 116 (2008): 135–​188. Álvarez, Salvador. “La guerra Chichimeca.” In Historia del Reino de la Nueva Galicia. Edited by Thomas Calvo y Aristarco Regalado Pinedo, 211–​ 259. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2016. Álvarez, Salvador. “La primera regionalización (1530–​1570).” In Historia del Reino de la Nueva Galicia. Edited by Thomas Calvo y Aristarco Regalado Pinedo, 165–​210. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 2016. Amaya Topete, Jesús. Ameca, Protofundación Mexicana. México City: Lumen, 1951. Ammon, Laura. “José de Acosta and Bernardino de Sahagun and the Sixteenth-​Century Theology of Sacrifice in New Spain.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 12, no. 2 (2011). Ammon, Laura. Work Useful to Religion and the Humanities: A History of the Comparative Method in the Study of Religion from Las Casas to Tylor. Pickwick Studies in the History of Religions 1. Eugene: Pickwick Press, 2012. Andrés de Isernia. Commentaria in usus et consuetudines feudorum. Frankfurt: Wechel, 1629.

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Index Abraham, Hebrew Patriarch 233, 237, 369n29 Abrahamic Religions 245 Acosta, José de (1540–​1600) 62, 64, 72, 234, 235n42, 451 De procuranda indorum salute (1576/​ 1588) 449 Adorno, Rolena (1942–​) 4, 4n9, 8, 38n6, 40n18, 56–​59, 262, 404, 413–​414, 434–​ 435, 447–​48, 449–​450, 460, 480, 496 Adrian of Utrecht (1459–​1523) 172, 182, 224, 363n14, 389n13, 464 Alexander vi, Pope (r. 1492–​1503) 187, 192, 301–​302, 315, 327 Alexandrine Bulls (Bulls of Donation) 11, 172, 173, 179, 180, 189, 194, 302 Alvarado, Pedro de (c. 1485–​1541) 90, 108, 148, 152 Amerindians 12, 15, 96, 236–​238, 241, 288–​289, 309, 315, 317, 321, 365, 387, 391, 394–​395, 400, 402, 450 Anacaona 413–​14, Figure 18.2 Antilles 289, 385, 392–​393 Antwerp 10, 15, 76–​77, 80, 363n14, 389, 406–​ 408, 410–​415, 417–​418, 420, 422 Aquinas, Thomas (1224/​25–​1274) 11, 113, 115, 117, 120–​122, 135, 139n86, 176, 189, 192, 197–​210, 216n12, 222, 223n30, 226, 245–​ 247, 249–​250, 253, 254n35, 259, 262n62, 273, 287, 291, 296n33, 297, 306n79, 330, 334, 335n19, 377, 452–​453, 457, 460, 466, 469, 472, 473, 487, 488, 494, 496, 501, 505 Aragon 175, 179, 312, 361 Arias, Santa 2n2, 6n19, 7, 38, 62, 63n8, 404n6, 434n5, 435n8, 445n46, 446n52, 449, 450, 453, 467, 482, 493 Aristotle (384–​22 bce) 11, 184, 192, 198, 199, 199n12, 200–​202, 207–​208, 210, 213, 214n8, 223, 226, 237, 244–​246, 250, 253, 262–​263, 267n2, 268n3, 272, 285, 290–​ 291, 293–​294, 296, 300n52, 317, 319, 324, 330, 332–​334, 335n18, 337–​338, 349, 366, 379, 453–​454, 481, 504 Asunción 45

Augustine of Hippo (354–​430) 69, 75, 182n39, 199n12, 215, 226, 227n2, 273–​274, 454, 476 Aztec(s) xvi, xix, 157, 161n41, 340n38, 341n43, 345, 356n3, 378, 437, 460, 486, 510 Baptism, Sacrament of 53, 90, 107, 190, 304, 320, 467 Bataillon, Marcel (1895–​1977) 8, 135n75, 283n1, 288, 455, 486, 491 Berlanga, Tomás de (1487–​1551) 197n4, 472 Bible 114n3, 115–​116, 120n20, 121, 123n31, 146, 174, 246, 262, 267n1, 368 biopolitics 9, 36–​37, 59n104, 60, 172n4, 360–​ 361, 400n42 Black Legend 5, 14, 15, 283, 403–​432, 435–​ 436, 440, 477, 480, 481, 482, 486, 487, 491, 493, 496 Bry, Theodor de (1528–​98) Cover illustration 404, 413, Figure 18.2, 464, 465, 472 Burgos (Junta de, Laws of) 39, 177–​180, 182–​183, 194, 294–​295, 319, 359, 395n28, 451, 505, 513 Cajetan, Tomasso de Vio (1469–​ 1534) 178n23, 287, 301, 376–​377, 459 Calancha, Antonio de la (1584–​1654) xxi, 9–​10, 61–​83, 453, 458, 459, 490, 504 Canary Islands 188, 449, 473, 493, 506, 513, 514, 515, 518 Cano, Melchor (c. 1509–​1560) 268n6, 277, 459 Casas, Bartolomé de las (1484–​1566)  cited works: Apologética historia sumaria (1527–​ 1554) 11, 12, 14, 72, 96–​99, 134n67, 148–​ 151, 154, 159, 167, 197–​201, 205, 209–​210, 235n43, 238n56, 242n75, 245, 247–​248, 250, 253n33, 254, 260–​262, 290–​291, 296n35, 299n49, 300n49, 301n56, 301n57, 305, 330–​351, 471, 458, 461, 488, 489, 497, 503, 505 Aquí se contienen unos avisos (c. 1546, 1552) 186

520 Index Casas, Bartolomé de las (1484–​1566) (cont.) Brevísima relación (1552) xx, 2, 5n17, 6, 8, 13, 15, 44–​45, 58, 64–​66, 68–​70, 74, 78, 96, 102, 104n47, 182n38, 186, 262, 277n47, 283n1, 284, 286n11, 289n21, 290, 292, 293, 295, 298, 299–​305, 317n20, 328n40, 403–​419, 412–​416, 420–​423, 425–​426, 432, 435n6, 450, 461, 462, 498, 500, 507 Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (English trans.) 68n29, 240, 262n63, 437, 461 De thesauris (1563?) 97n31, 275n39, 276n40, 279n55, 299n46, 300n52, 462 De unico vocationis modo (c. 1537) xi, 185, 195, 232, 279, 303, 314, 320, 322, 402, 454, 484 Doce dudas 4, 54, 57, 59, 217, 268n4, 460, 465 Historia de las Indias (1527–​1564) 2, 3, 14, 70, 71, 72n38, 96, 104n47, 171, 178n23, 179n25, 180n29, 181n37, 197, 198n6, 238n56, 245n1 n. 1–​n2, 256, 257n44, 259n50, 294n28, 307n80, 308, 310n2, 311n5, 316, 317n21, 318n24, 389n14, 395–​ 396, 444–​445, 447n56, 463 Memorial de remedios (1516, 1518) xi, 9, 14, 35, 37, 39, 183n43, 301, 320n30, 323n34, 355, 357n4, 363n14, 373n36, 375n41, 385, 389n15, 390n16, 392n19 n. 19–​n20, 393n22, 396n30, 398n35, 400n40, 400n43, 401n44, 441n29, 463, 464 Catechism(s) 115, 121, 424, 424n80, 425, 442, 468 Charles v (King of Spain; Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, inclusive of Carlos v and Carlos i) (1500–​ 1558) 78, 185, 240, 242, 296, 304, 389n13, 394, 409 Chiapa 4n8, 9, 10, 61, 65, 65n20, 66, 67, 70, 70n34, 71, 71n36 n. 36–​n37, 76, 77, 79, 83, 87, 88, 94, 96, 97n31, 98–​100, 119, 133, 134n66, 137n79, 149n6, 153n21, 186, 193, 197, 289, 299n46, 305, 307, 342, 422, 430, 432, 437n16, 439n23, 443n38, 444n42, 458, 462, 463, 470, 474, 480, 488, 489, 493, 504, 517

Chichimecas xix, 23, 31, 32, 89n1, 94n22, 103n40, 104, 105n50, 451, 461, 467 Chile 2n3, 3n7, 28n24, 386n5, 482, 493 China 280, 426–​429, 431, 432n101, 454, 478, 479, 494, 508 Cholula, Massacre of 71, 71n36, 413 Cicero (106–​43 bce) 226–​230, 232, 234, 237, 262, 273, 273n26, 457, 458, 486 Clayton, Larry (1938–​) 2n2, 288n19, 290n22, 467 Confession  Sacrament of xvii, xix, xxi, 54, 54n88, 77, 182n39, 186, 211, 305, 311, 341–​342, 369n30, 425, 458, 478, 482, 487, 513 conversion xi, 12, 62, 64, 68–​69, 74, 75, 79, 81, 83, 95n24, 163–​164, 166, 171–​172, 180, 185, 187, 189, 195, 226–​243, 288, 302–​303, 306–​307, 311, 312, 337–​339, 350, 370–​ 371, 371n32, 401, 478, 484, 490, 495 Córdoba, Pedro de (c. 1460–​1525) 178, 184, 295, 295n31, 397, 467, 493 Cortés, Hernán (1485–​1547) xix, 20, 317, 341n43, 356n3, 361, 443n37, 468, 472, 483, 486, 495, 496 Council of Trent 115, 120n20, 211, 424, 424n80, 425, 513 Cuba 89n1, 171, 180n33, 188n60, 288, 289, 311, 357, 365, 367, 386n5, 440, 466, 478, 498 Cumaná 183n44, 287n13, 289, 358, 388n10, 397, 401, 442, 477 doctrinero 24, 172, 195, 288–​89 Dominicans (Order of Preachers) xi, 10, 62, 64, 69, 74, 76, 83, 114, 117, 120, 121n22, 123, 124, 125, 132, 133–​136, 138, 139n86, 143n99, 146, 149, 153, 165–​166, 178, 184, 192, 286, 295, 484 Dominican Republic, also see Hispaniola 440, 467, 473 Dussel, Enrique (1934–​) 309, 311n6, 316n17 n. 17–​n19, 319, 319n27, 331, 331n3 n. 3–​ n6, 361n11, 364, 364n18, 365, 365n19 n. 19–​n20, 370n31, 460, 471, 472, 506 Ecuador 356, 367n24 Eliot, John (1604–​90) 467, 472, 473 England 4, 15, 19, 188, 333, 369, 373, 403–​432, 435, 457, 472, 491, 505, 516, 517

Index encomienda 13, 20, 21, 27, 34, 39, 44, 90, 96, 97n33, 100n40, 107, 108, 112, 152, 172, 178, 182, 191n72, 192, 244, 288, 289, 294, 299, 311, 359, 359n7, 361, 364, 364n16, 365n21, 368, 376, 383, 384, 385, 389, 390, 392, 393, 400, 423, 451, 518 episcopacy (ecclesiastical office) 166, 166n60, 179n26, 423n78, 506 Erasmus, Desiderius (1469–​1536) 363n14, 388, 388n11, 389, 497 evangelization xi, xxi, 7n22, 10, 13, 15, 24, 39, 62, 70, 72–​77, 79–​83, 133, 149, 172, 184, 186, 190, 284, 289, 294, 301–​303, 305, 314, 359n7, 363, 364, 369, 384, 387, 393, 395, 397, 398, 402, 486, 505, 506 Fabié Escudero, Antonio María (1832–​ 99) 4–​5, 474 Ferdinand (King of Spain and Aragon) (c. 1452–​1516) 172, 178–​180, 183, 183n44, 184, 239n64, 304, 312, 363n14, 389n13, 502 Fernández de Oviedo, Gonzalo (1478–​1557)  Historia general y natural de las Indias (1535, 1547) xx, 182n41, 250, 250n20, 288, 291n24, 315, 385n1, 387n7, 474 Foucault, Michel (1926–​1984) 37, 59n104, 99, 99n36, 360, 360n10, 466, 475 Franciscans 10, 24, 69, 73–​74, 90, 93, 115, 117, 120, 132–​136, 138, 146, 165–​166, 166n59, 166n61, 241, 294–​295, 360, 468, 501, 505 Friede, Juan (1901–​90) 130n56, 135n74, 148n3, 403, 442n36, 450, 456, 476, 478, 485, 486 Giménez Fernández, Manuel (1896–​ 1968) 3n7, 4n8, 8, 135n75, 183, 183n42, 183n44, 285n5, 287n13, 287n15, 388, 477, 478, 482 Gómara, Francisco de (1511–​1566) 2, 70, 82, 505 Gratian (d. before 1159)  Decretum Gratiani 226, 273, 285n7, 286, 296, 296n32, 296n34, 297n39, 302, 458, 478, 479, 487 Grotius, Hugo (1583–​1645) 13, 269, 280, 281n67, 480, 513

521 Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe (c. 1534–​ 1615) xxi, 4n9, 9, 35–​60, 72, 449, 450, 460, 489, 513 Guatemala xix, 10, 11, 113, 115, 118n13, 119, 126n39, 128, 128n50, 129, 129n53, 131n61, 132, 133, 133n65, 134, 134n66, 134n68, 135n75, 136, 137n79, 138n81, 143n99, 148, 149, 149n5, 149n6, 150n8, 151–​154, 156n26, 158n33, 161–​162, 165, 165n53, 166, 166n56, 167, 226, 289, 460, 462, 466, 475, 476, 477, 490, 498, 504, 506, 507, 514, 517 Gutiérrez, Gustavo (1928–​) 8, 242n76, 283n1, 294n27, 434, 450, 480, 481 Hanke, Lewis (1905–​93) 3n7, 4n8, 8, 22n6 n. 6–​n8, 23n9 n. 9–​n10, 24n11 n. 11–​n12, 32n35, 89n1, 95, 95n24, 212n4, 236n44, 237n51, 252n27, 283n1, 303n68, 303n71, 330n1, 359n6, 379n53, 388, 388n10, 393n23, 398n36, 435n8 n. 8–​n9, 436, 436n11 n. 11–​n12, 438n22, 439n23, 463, 481, 482, 486, 498 Hispaniola xi, 171, 183, 194, 199, 244, 288–​289, 291, 294–​295, 303, 330, 332n7, 333, 359, 390, 392, 393, 395, 397, 401, 413, 416n52 hospital(s) 14, 49, 49n62, 50, 50n63, 52, 248, 363–​364, 367–​370, 374, 375–​376, 379, 380, 383, 483, 503 human rights, modern notion of 1, 12, 96, 242, 256, 257, 258n48, 271n15, 283, 319n27, 434, 441, 470, 484, 487, 499, 512, 513, 517 human sacrifice 76, 218, 221n26, 227, 233, 234–​237, 288n19, 297, 318, 324, 339–​341, 343, 369n29, 451, 460, 490 humanitarianism 9, 19–​34, 268n4, 466, 494, 510, 517 idolatry, imputed to the Amerindians 59, 74, 117, 119–​121, 123–​124, 132, 134, 136, 143n99, 146, 188, 301, 339, 371n32, 510, 511 Inca(s) 46, 62, 64, 345, 490 Innocent iv, Pope (c. 1195–​1254) 300, 484 Isabella (Queen of Spain) (1451–​1504) 301, 484, 502 ius gentium 193n83, 268, 299, 300

522 Index Jaraguá, Massacre of 413 Jews (Jewish People) 65, 175, 176, 238, 329, 339, 344, 349, 377n46 Just War (theory of) xvii, xix, xxii, 19n1, 218, 242n76, 268n4, 279, 289n21, 315, 317n20, 458, 467, 485, 497, 499 Keen, Benjamin (1913–​2002) 135n74, 136n75, 144n102, 148n3, 403, 403n1 n. 1–​n3, 410n29, 435n6, 435n9, 450, 456, 476, 478, 485, 486 Lactantius, L. Caecilius Firmianus (250–​ 325) 12, 226–​243, 470, 476, 484, 486, 493, 516 Laws of Burgos 39, 179, 183, 294–​295, 319 Llorente, Juan Antonio (1756–​1823) 4, 437, 437n15 n. 15–​n17, 471, 480, 488, 489 López de Gómara, Francisco (1511–​1566?) 2, 70, 505 López de Palacios Rubios, Juan (1450–​ 1524) 179n26 n. 26–​n28, 180n30 n. 30–​n32, 181n36, 294, 294n27, 385, 489 Low Countries 4, 15, 406, 408n22, 409, 410n32, 413, 415, 416n53, 417–​420, 422, 474, 489, 490 Marroquín, Francisco (1499–​1563) 123n28, 134–​135, 491 Maya xix, xx, 10, 11, 113–​147, 148–​167, 450, 457, 460, 466, 467, 472, 475, 476, 477, 479, 482, 483, 484, 485, 487, 490, 491, 494, 501, 507, 510, 511, 514, 516 Medina, Bartolomé de (c. 1528–​1580) 211–​225 Mendieta, Gerónimo de (1525–​1604) 24–​31, 33, 295n29, 361n11, 476, 478, 501 Mendoza, Antonio de (1495–​1552) 91n6, 92, 94n22, 97, 109n59, 110, 500 Merediz, Eyda M. (1964–​) 2n2, 6n19, 404n6, 434n5, 440n24 n. 24–​n27, 450, 453, 467, 482, 493, 494 Mexica 91n7, 100, 120, 128, 157, 236, 237, 338n30, 371n32, 512 Miggrode, Jacques de (1531–​1627) 404, 407–​ 409, 412–​16, 421–​422, 424, 463, 465, 483 mission(s), Christian 79, 143n99, 197n4, 359n6, 388, 467, 472, 486

Montesinos, Antonio (c. 1475–​1545) 171, 178, 180, 184, 244–​245, 295, 311, 359, 385 More, Thomas (1478–​1535) 14, 15, 355–​384, 389, 399n38 n. 38–​n39 Motolinía, Toribio de Benavente (1482–​ 1568) 165n53, 455, 470, 491, 495, 497, 501 New Laws of the Indies (1542) 9, 19–​21, 34, 66, 78, 96, 185–​186, 226, 305, 319, 383, 437, 498 Nicaragua 135n75, 136n75, 289 Ondegardo, Juan Polo de (d. 1575) 48, 51, 58–​59, 477, 497 Paraguay 366n22, 452, 460, 469 Paris, University of 312, 315 Parish, Helen Rand (1913–​2005) 8, 181, 182n38, 232n30, 263n64, 283n1, 286n9, 320, 465, 499, 516 patronato 480, 509 Paul iii, Pope (r. 1534–​1549) 4n56, 320, 325 Paul vi, Pope (r. 1963–​78) 500 Peñafort, Raymond of (c. 1175–​1275) 500 Pérez de Tudela Bueso, Juan (1922–​ 2004) xvi, 462, 463–​465 Pérez Fernández, Isacio (1922–​2001) 3n7, 4n8, 95, 95n24, 97n31, 199n6, 283n1, 290n20 n. 20–​n21, 302n59, 304n67, 404, 423n78 n. 78–​n79, 427n92, 443n37, 461, 500, 501, 506 Peru vii, 4, 9, 20, 32, 35, 40n18, 43, 43n33, 48n55, 58, 62n2, 63n8, 65, 65n20, 68, 70, 72, 72n41, 74, 75, 75n51, 76, 80, 80n61, 81, 82, 82n64, 83, 92n11, 117, 121n22, 192, 453, 459, 476, 516 Philip ii (King of Spain) (1527–​98) 58, 192, 227, 240, 305, 312, 410, 411, 426, 427 Plato (428/​427–​348/​347 bce) 230, 253, 272, 272n20, 272n24, 368, 501 Popol Wuj (Popol Vuh) 113–​147, 148–​167 Potosí 41n24, 487 Prescott, William H. (1796–​1859) 502 Puerto Rico 397, 428, 429, 501, 505 Pufendorf, Samuel (1632–​1694) 13, 269, 279, 279n58, 280, 280n59 n. 59–​n60, 502, 513

Index

523

Quiroga, Vasco de (1477/​78–​1565) ix, 14, 320, 355, 357, 357n4, 359n6, 361, 366n23, 367n25, 368n26 n. 26–​n27, 371n33, 379n53, 380n57, 384, 497, 503, 507, 517, 518

Soto, Domingo de (1495–​1560) 191, 191n76, 224, 277, 277n48, 278n52, 456, 458, 461, 477, 508 Suárez, Francisco (1548–​1617) 222n27, 277, 278, 278n51, 511

Remesal, Antonio de (1570–​1619) 97n31, 133, 134n66, 135n75, 149n6, 151n11, 504 Restall, Matthew (1964–​) 347n74, 504 Restitution 10–​12, 88, 97, 102, 102n43, 103, 111, 148, 152, 153, 159, 166, 181, 182, 186, 185, 211, 212, 216, 217, 225, 300, 305, 369, 379 revelation 73, 228, 247, 253, 292, 293, 297, 447 ritual 124, 126, 128, 132, 142, 163, 167, 229, 233–​235, 237, 238, 340, 342, 368, 499 Rivera–​Pagán, Luis (1942–​) 7, 447, 505

Taino(s) 100, 244, 288, 310 Tenamaztle, Francisco (fl. 1540s–​1550s) 10, 87–​112, 487, 488, 512 Tlaxcala 24–​25, 27, 32, 103n46, 320, 341, 341n43, 477, 501 Toledo 59n105, 476, 512 Tóxcatl, Massacre at 413

sacrifice, human  concept of 218, 221n26, 233–​237, 236n45, 236n49, 273n42, 297, 317, 324, 340, 341, 343, 460, 490 Saint–​Lu, André (1916–​2009) 8, 244n1, 283n1, 307n80, 408n21, 421n74, 445n51, 455, 461, 463, 507 Salamanca, University of xvi, 114, 133, 320n28 Santo Tómas, Domingo de (1499–​1570) 48, 58, 58n97 n. 97–​n101, 59, 64, 449, 489 Segovia, Juan de (1393–​1458) 490, 491, 509 Sepúlveda, Juan Ginés de (1489–​1573) 177, 198, 236n44, 252, 260n56, 309, 315n16, 421, 452, 466, 475, 481, 509 Democrates segundo (1548) 478, 509 Seville xxi, 65, 171n1 Siete partidas (legal code) 173n6, 175n11, 306n79, 451 slavery  African xix, xxii, 433, 434, 434n5, 435n8, 440, 442, 444–​445, 453, 457 as a consequence of war 379, 467 natural slavery 11, 194, 212, 217–​219, 225, 242n76, 296, 316–​322, 325, 328, 362, 454, 458, 460, 497, 508, 511 of Amerindians xvii, 28, 172, 221–​222, 233, 336, 342n47, 348, 378, 382, 383, 389, 392, 496

Utopia, Thomas More’s, see More, Thomas xx, 14, 15, 38, 43, 226, 230, 271n18, 316, 350, 355–​384, 385–​402, 451, 454, 457, 469, 471, 491, 495, 503, 507, 515, 518 Valladolid 3, 89, 96, 105, 120, 150, 151, 152, 179, 184, 186, 188n60, 192, 195, 198, 212n4, 252, 286, 294, 315, 328, 330, 365, 365n21, 384, 427, 433, 433n2, 456, 458, 459, 514 Velasco, Luis de (1511–​1564) 19–​34, 92, 101, 105, 110n62, 508 Vera Paz 135n75, 455 Veracruz 341n43 Vico, Domingo de (d. 1555) xx, 113–​147, 151, 507, 510, 515 Vitoria, Francisco de (1486–​1546) 11, 13, 19n1, 120, 180n33, 181, 185, 191, 211–​225, 268, 268n4 n. 4–​n5, 269, 269n7 n. 7–​n8, 270, 270n9 n. 9–​n14, 273, 273n29 n. 29–​n30, 274–​278, 280–​282, 307, 309, 312, 313, 317, 322–​327, 452, 454, 455, 460, 461, 466, 468, 472, 483, 492, 495, 498, 499, 502, 503, 506, 507, 509, 510, 512, 513, 515, 516, 517 De indis recenter inventis relectio prior (c. 1539) 212n3, 212n5, 213n6 n. 6–​n7, 515 De indis relectio posterior 11, 212, 214n8, 217, 268n5, 277n45, 322, 323, 515 Zumárraga, Juan de (1468–​1548) 136, 221n25, 320, 465