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The Great Debate: Las Casas vs Sepúlveda on Indigenous Rights
Season 4
Episode 175
Published 3 weeks, 1 day ago
Description
In 1550, at the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid, Spain, two men clashed over the moral and legal status of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican friar and former encomendero, argued that the Indians were rational beings fully capable of self-governance. On the other side, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, a humanist scholar, championed the Aristotelian concept of 'natural slavery' to justify conquest and forced conversion. The debate, convened by Emperor Charles V, produced no clear verdict but shaped Spanish colonial policy for decades. This episode examines the arguments, the context, and the legacy of the first major European debate on human rights.