SOURCE: Traboulay, David M. “Bartolome de las Casas and the Issues of the Great Debate of 1550-1551.” In Columbus and Las Casas: The Conquest and Christianization of America, 1492-1566, pp. 167-90. Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1994.

In the following essay, Traboulay analyzes the famous 1550-51 debate between Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda over the nature and rights of Native Americans; unfortunately, Traboulay concludes, subsequent laws to protect Indians did little to slow Spanish greed and cruelty or the near extinction of aboriginal Americans.

In late 1550, an assembly of jurists and four theologians met with the council of the Indies in Valladolid at the request of the king to hear the opposing views of Bartolome de Las Casas and the noted Spanish Aristotelian scholar, Gines de Sepulveda, on the conquest of America.¹ This debate encapsulated the often conflicting Spanish responses to the...