After learning of many atrocities committed at the hands of the Spanish, this week’s reading attempted to cover up those mistakes with logic and Christian philosophy of the 16th century as found in the excerpts from Silvio Zavala's book The Defence of Human Rights in Latin America (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries).
Scholastics, “who based their arguments on the idea of Christian freedom, pleaded for a more generous and pacific treatment of the Indians” (35). It was interesting to see the development of liberal doctrines in the 1500s. Interests and concerns, even among the Scholastics varied greatly. Their main focus was weighing the idea if Indians were able to receive the Christian faith and virtue that came with it. According to Mesa, […] although Indians were capable of receiving the Faith, it was nevertheless necessary to keep them in some form of servitude, so as to make them of better disposition and constrain them to perseverance; and this was consonant with God’s goodness” (36). Mesa's main argument was cut short when he ran into the dilemma from Genesis that states that God made man is his own image, thus in contradiction with his proposed hierarchical model of master and servant.
Bartolomé de las Casas came to the scene loaded with ideological arguments that proved difficult to challenge. He argued that the Indians “were not irrational or barbarian, as was imagined by those who called them serfs by nature” and believe that “that was a calumny born of ignorance or of bad faith and interested motives on the part of the informants” (37). He, on the contrary, believed that they were of good disposition, had great potential in matters of politics and economics, possessed reason, etc… Servitude was always an issue and was discussed in Aristotle’s Politics. I found it interesting that they would include a “pagan” philosopher in their heavily scriptural-based arguments, but nonetheless he found a way into their discourses. Sepulveda thought Aristotle “would be found among the blessed,” while Las Casas fervently believed that the philosopher was “burning in hell” (39). If Las Casas’ ideology could be summed up in one principle, it would have to be this one: “‘Our Christian religion is equal and adaptable to all nations of the world; it receives all men equally and takes from no one his freedom or his possessions, or places him in servitude’” (39).
In the 18th century, philosophers and ethicists were still pondering the writings of Las Casas, however, in the context of slavery of the Africans. de Pauw alleged Las Casas “of having written ‘a large number of reports intended to prove that the conquest of America was a colossal injustice and at the same time aimed at destroying the Africans, by means of slavery’” (57). During the scholarly discussions a small part was left out that the author kindly points out to the reader. “Las Casas explained that he did, in fact, propose the introduction of Negroes to alleviate the bad condition of the Indians, but later repented when he became aware of the unjust methods used by the Portuguese in capturing and enslaving Negroes, concluding that ‘they have the same reasoning powers as the Indians’” (58).
Reading a lot of these philosophers in Silvio Zavala's book, it felt like they were almost trying to justify slavery or break it down logically to establish moral high ground, instead of outright condemning it. Perhaps that was how people were convinced in the Age of Enlightenment– by logical thought-provoking discourse.
