441. Lambs to the Slaughter: Debating the New World

Bartholomé De las Casas argues against opponents, like Sepúlveda, who believed that Europeans had a legal and moral right to rule over and exploit the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

• N. Griffin (trans.), Bartolomé de las Casas: A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Penguin: 1992).

• D.M. Lantingua and L.A. Clayton (trans.), Bartolomé de las Casas and the Defense of Amerindian rights : a Brief History with Documents (Tuscaloosa: 2020).

• G. Sanderlin, Bartolomé de las Casas: A Selection of His Writings (New York: 1971).

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• E. Andujar, “Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda: Moral Theology versus Political Philosophy,” in K. White (ed.), Hispanic Philosophy in the Age of Discovery (Washington DC: 1997), 69-87.

• M. Beuchot, Los fundamentos de los derechos humanos en Bartolomé de las Casas (Barcelona: 1994). 

• D.R. Brunstetter, “Sepúlveda, Las Casas, and the Other: Exploring the Tension between Moral Universalism and Alterity,” Review of Politics 72 (2010), 409-35.

• D. Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham NC: 2007).

• L.A. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas and the Conquest of the Americas (Chichester: 2011).

• L.A. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas: a Biography (Cambridge: 2012).

• S. Davis, “Humanist Ethics and Political Justice: Soto, Sepúlveda, and the ‘Affair of the Indies’,” Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 19 (1999), 193-212.

• J. Friede and B. Keen (eds), Bartolomé de las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work (DeKalb: 1971).

• A. Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World: The History of a Polemic, 1750-1900 (Pittsburgh: 1973).

L. Hanke, Bartolomé de las Casas: an Interpretation of his Life and Writings (The Hague: 1951).

• L. Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians: a Study of Race Prejudice in the Modern World (Bloomington: 1959).

• L. 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 (De Kalb: 1994).

• G. L. Huxley, “Aristotle, Las Casas and the American Indians,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 80 (1980), 57-68.

• D.T. Orique and R. Roldán-Figueroa (eds), Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion (Brill: 2018).

• A. Pagden, “The ‘School of Salamanca’ and the ‘Affair of the Indies’,” History of Universities 1 (1981), 71-112.

• A. Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: the American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge: 1982).

• K.J. Pennington, Jr., “Bartolome de Las Casas and the Tradition of Medieval Law,” Church History 39 (1970), 149-61.

• S. Poole, Bartolomé de las Casas: In Defense of the Indians (DeKalb: 1974).

• T. Todorov, The Conquest of America: the Question of the Other, trans. R. Howard (New York: 1984) 

• X. Tubau, “Canon Law in Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda’s Democrates Secundus,” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 73 (2011), 265-77.

• D. von Vacano, “Las Casas and the Birth of Race,” History of Political Thought 33 (2012), 401-26.

Online bibliography on the encounter with the Americas: www.lascasas.org