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What was the great debate in America around using Native people as slaves?  Who won?

What was the great debate in America around using Native people as slaves?  Who won?

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What was the great debate in America around using Native people as slaves? 
Who won?

The problem with this formulation in the long run was that savages could be civilized and heathens could be Christianized. In 1519, Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican priest who had been in the New World since 1502, told Emperor Charles V that the "cruelties more atrocious and unnatural than any recorded" were taking place in America. He argued that the policy of enslavement, which had been developed to deal with Muslims who refused Christianity, should not be applied to Native Americans who had never heard the gospel. (Fredrickson, 1981, p 8) Las Casas received support from Pope Paul III who in 1537 proclaimed that the Indians were "true men," capable of conversion, and entitled to "liberty and dominion." On no account should they be reduced to slavery. (Davies, 1988, p 9) Charles finally moved to abolish Indian slavery in 1542 but there was such a storm of protest in the colonies that the law was repealed the following year. In 1550 Las Casas squared off with the Spanish jurist Sepulveda on the Indian question, in a great debate in the city of Valladolid. Sepulveda maintained that the Indians were "Ilittle men" and quoted Aristotle to suggest that some people were "natural slaves." Aristotle however had been referring to individual character, not the supposed character of groups. In his attempt to justify Indian slavery Sepulveda was developing something new. He was laying the foundations of modern racism, the idea that some groups of people were naturally different, naturally inferior. (Williams, 1984, p 36) (Montagu, 1971, p 179-185) Las Casas won the battle with classical Christian arguments that said the Indians had to be converted, not enslaved. Although the atrocities continued, laws protecting the surviving Indians gradually were put in place in the Spanish dominions. But Sepulveda's arguments, and the needs of the colonial economy for slave labour, in the long run won the war. Silver and gold from America (180 tons of gold and 17,000 tons of silver reached Europe from America by 1640) had jump-started the European economy and had allowed European merchants to begin to dominate the traditional trading routes from the Far East to Africa. (Blaut, 1993, p 189-190) A new source of labour was necessary to maintain this flOw. of wealth And such
Transcribed Image Text:The problem with this formulation in the long run was that savages could be civilized and heathens could be Christianized. In 1519, Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican priest who had been in the New World since 1502, told Emperor Charles V that the "cruelties more atrocious and unnatural than any recorded" were taking place in America. He argued that the policy of enslavement, which had been developed to deal with Muslims who refused Christianity, should not be applied to Native Americans who had never heard the gospel. (Fredrickson, 1981, p 8) Las Casas received support from Pope Paul III who in 1537 proclaimed that the Indians were "true men," capable of conversion, and entitled to "liberty and dominion." On no account should they be reduced to slavery. (Davies, 1988, p 9) Charles finally moved to abolish Indian slavery in 1542 but there was such a storm of protest in the colonies that the law was repealed the following year. In 1550 Las Casas squared off with the Spanish jurist Sepulveda on the Indian question, in a great debate in the city of Valladolid. Sepulveda maintained that the Indians were "Ilittle men" and quoted Aristotle to suggest that some people were "natural slaves." Aristotle however had been referring to individual character, not the supposed character of groups. In his attempt to justify Indian slavery Sepulveda was developing something new. He was laying the foundations of modern racism, the idea that some groups of people were naturally different, naturally inferior. (Williams, 1984, p 36) (Montagu, 1971, p 179-185) Las Casas won the battle with classical Christian arguments that said the Indians had to be converted, not enslaved. Although the atrocities continued, laws protecting the surviving Indians gradually were put in place in the Spanish dominions. But Sepulveda's arguments, and the needs of the colonial economy for slave labour, in the long run won the war. Silver and gold from America (180 tons of gold and 17,000 tons of silver reached Europe from America by 1640) had jump-started the European economy and had allowed European merchants to begin to dominate the traditional trading routes from the Far East to Africa. (Blaut, 1993, p 189-190) A new source of labour was necessary to maintain this flOw. of wealth And such
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