SOURCE: "Bartolomé 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, University Press of America, Inc., 1994, pp. 167–89.

In the following excerpt, Traboulay examines Las Casas's arguments in favor of the rights of native Americans and the reception of his ideas in Europe and the colonies.

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. This debate encapsulated the often conflicting Spanish responses to the conquest. Sepulveda himself never came to America, but relied for his information on historians like Oviedo who had taken a dim view of Indian rights. In light of the tense political situation...