by Hugh Thomas
The Dominican Domingo de Soto put the question: “The purpose for which your lordships are gathered together … is in general to discuss and determine what form of government and what laws may best ensure the preaching of and extension of our Catholic faith in the new world … and to investigate what organisation is needed to keep the peoples of the new world in obedience to the Emperor, without damage to his royal conscience and in conformity with the bull of [Pope] Alexander [VI].” The central issue was the justice of making war against the Indians.
Then Sepúlveda spoke for three hours, essentially summarizing his work Demócrates alter. In that book, he had indirectly accused Las Casas of heresy, for his character Leopoldo was a German “considerably tainted with Lutheran errors.” The character Demócrates was represented as taking the opposing view.
Sepúlveda’s arguments for the legality of the conquests were, first, on account of the gravity of the sins committed by the Indians, especially their idolatries and their sins against nature; second, on account of the rudeness of the Indians’ nature which obliged them to serve the Spaniards. Here Aristotle could be cited, recalling his observation that some people are inferior by nature. The Indians were as different from Spaniards as monkeys are from men.
Sepúlveda then quoted from Demócrates alter:
Compare then those blessings enjoyed by Spaniards, of prudence, genius, magnanimity, temperance, humanity and religion, with those of the “hombrecillos” among whom you will scarcely find even a vestige of humanity, who not only possess no science but who also lack letters and preserve no monument of their history except certain vague and obscure reminiscences in some paintings. Neither do they have written laws, but barbaric institutions and customs. They do not even have private property.
As to the Spaniards, did not Lucan, Seneca, Isidore, Averroes and Alfonso the Wise testify to their intelligence and bravery from the days of Numantia onwards? Did not the brave Cortés subdue Montezuma and his hordes in his own capital? How can we doubt that those people—so uncivilised, so barbaric, so contaminated with so many impieties and obscenities—have been justly conquered by such an excellent, pious and just king as was Fernando the Catholic and he who is now Emperor Charles and by a most humane nation and excellent in every kind of virtue?
The third reason for the conquest was in order to spread the faith, which would be more easily done if the natives were first subdued.
Finally, the conquest was to protect the weak among the natives themselves. Here Sepúlveda denounced human sacrifice and cannibalism.
There followed a discussion of the injunction in Luke 14:23 that had so impressed Pope Paul: “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”
Sepúlveda argued that the passage justified the prosecution of war to bring Indians into the fold. Las Casas could not say that that was wrong, for many emperors, and indeed popes, had fought for just causes, as they supposed.
When no danger threatened, preachers should go into new lands alone. In dangerous places, fortresses should first be built on borders and then the people would be slowly won over.
Sepúlveda added:
In prudence, virtue, and humanity, the Indians are as inferior to the Spaniards as children are to adults, women to men, as the wild and cruel to the most meek, as the prodigiously intemperate to the continent and temperate, and, as I nearly said, as monkeys to men.2
And don’t think that, before the arrival of the Christians, the Indians were living quietly and in the Saturnian peace of the poets. On the contrary, they were making war continuously and ferociously against each other with such rage that they considered their victory worthless if they did not satisfy their monstrous hunger with the flesh of their enemies. Their inhumanity was so much more monstrous since they were so distant from the unconquered and wild Scythians, who also fed on human flesh, for these Indians were so cowardly and timid that they scarcely withstood the appearance of our soldiers and often many thousands of them have given ground, fleeing like women before a very few Spaniards who did not even number a hundred.3
Sepúlveda argued that, “though some of them [the Indians] show a talent for certain handicrafts, this is not an argument to take seriously … since we see that some small animals, both birds and spiders, make things which no human industry can imitate completely.” This was an argument later much used by Sepúlveda’s friends. We may remember that Burckhardt would write that “insect societies … are far more perfect than the human state, but they are not free.”4
Las Casas appeared on the second day of the debate. His speech was intolerably long and wearied his audience. He read in full his Argumentum apologiae (defense), which ran to 550 pages in Latin, in sixty-three sections.5 He attacked the historian Oviedo almost as fiercely as he attacked Sepúlveda. This speech lasted no fewer than five days.6 Sepúlveda said that Las Casas only stopped because the jury could bear to hear no more.
Las Casas drew heavily on his Historia apologética, in which he argued that American Indians compared very favorably with the European people of antiquity; were in some ways superior to the Romans, being more religious; were better at raising their children (the educational system in ancient Mexico was certainly remarkable); provided a better education for the good life; and had more reasonable marriage arrangements. Indian women were devout and hardworking, and the temples in Yucatán were comparable to those of Egypt. He quoted Aristotle frequently, to outmaneuver Sepúlveda, who, we recall, had translated that philosopher. Evidently, Las Casas agreed with Aristotle that some men were born slaves, just as some men were born with six toes or only one eye; but he did not think that the Indians were in that category. Indeed, he thought, “All the peoples of the world are men … all have understanding and will, all have five exterior senses, and four interior ones. All take satisfaction in goodness and feel pleasure with happy and delicious things, all regret and abhor evil … No nation exists today nor could exist, no matter how barbarous, fierce or depraved its customs may be, which is not attracted and converted to all political virtues and to all the humanity of domestic, political and rational man.”
Las Casas spoke as if the Indians, Mexica, and Peruvians, as well as Tainos and Maya, were all one people. In his Historia apologética, Las Casas did, in his universalism, anticipate Rousseau: “Thus we see how they have important kingdoms, numbers of persons who live settled in a society, great cities, Kings, judges, and laws, persons who engage in commerce, buying, selling, lending and the other contracts of the law of nations. So will it not stand proven that Dr. Sepúlveda has spoken wrongly and viciously against peoples like these, either out of malice or in ignorance of Aristotle’s real teaching? … Even if the Indians are barbarians, it does not follow that they are incapable of government and have to be ruled by others, except to be taught about the Christian faith and be admitted to the sacraments. They are not ignorant, nor inhuman, nor bestial … They cultivate friendship and are used to living in populous cities in which they wisely administered the affairs of both peace and war … [They were] truly governed by laws which at very many points surpass ours and could have won the admiration of the sages of Athens.”
Las Casas then talked of Indians’ wonderful “concern about their salvation and their soul.” He insisted that the indigenous people had a simple sincerity and were “moderate and meek.” He also argued that it had been implied that God had become careless in creating so immense a number of rational souls and had let human nature (“which He so largely determined and provided for”) go astray in an almost infinitesimal part of the human race.
Las Casas also declared that even those who lived in highly developed states, such as the Greeks and Romans, could be called barbarians when their conduct was savage. Were the American Indians barbarian because they had no written language? Spanish missionaries had attested to the beauty of the Indian languages. Nahuatl, the tongue spoken by the Mexica, had much grace as a language.
Barbarians were so e
ither because of their wicked character or because of the barrenness of the region in which they lived. They lacked the reasoning and the way of life suited to human beings. They had no laws to live by … they lived a life very much like that of brute animals … Barbarians of this kind were rarely found in any part of the world and were few in comparison with the rest of mankind.7
Human sacrifice? Las Casas almost made a defense of that practice: “Strabo reminds us that our own Spanish people, who reproach the poor Indian people for human sacrifice, used to sacrifice both captives and their horses … There is no greater or more arduous step than for man to abandon the religion which he has once embraced … There is no better way to worship God than through sacrifice.” Thus Las Casas recognized the good faith of the pagan in his religion—even if it was idolatrous and justified his activity of sacrifice—because he was offering his most valuable possession, his life, to God.8 He added: “That it is not altogether detestable to sacrifice human beings to God is shown by the fact that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice to Him his only son.”9
After absorbing this remarkable declaration, the judges talked to the two disputants and then asked Fray Domingo de Soto to condense the arguments into a résumé.10 This he did well, and the text was submitted to Sepúlveda, who replied to the objections of Las Casas. The judges then left, agreeing to meet again on January 20, 1551, after having studied the résumé.
In January 1551, there turned out to be difficulties among the judges. Bishop Ponce de León, for example, found that he had precisely at that time to visit his diocese. Fray Domingo de Soto, advised by the long-lasting council member Samano, wanted to abbreviate the session, and the presence of Fray Melchor Cano and Fray Bartolomé de Carranza was doubtful because they both had to be at the Council of Trent. They wanted to give their opinions by letter.11
In early 1551, the judges decided that they needed more time in order to make their judgments. Lent intervened. Soto continued to try to avoid coming at all. Cano and Carranza, as well as Miranda, bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo, remained at Trent.12 Cano seemed to have the matter of the dispute on his mind there when—on the urging of the Jesuits, led by Fray Diego Lainez, the powerful second general of that order—he supported a resolution at the congress stating that all men, regardless of the color of their skin, have souls capable of salvation.
In mid-April 1551, the second session of the debate at Valladolid finally began. Much of the discussion revolved around the interpretation of the papal bulls of gift to the Catholic Kings. Las Casas had written a considered reply to Sepúlveda in the interim, but the junta had not read it. Sepúlveda, for his part, prepared a paper on the issue of Alexander VI’s donation: “Against those who deprecate, or contradict, the bull and decree of Pope Alexander VI which gives the Catholic Kings and their successors the authority to conquer the Indies and subject those barbarians, and by this means convert them, to the Christian religion and submit them to their empire and jurisdiction.”
The judges fell into confusion. Las Casas said that the judges had made a decision “favourable to the opinions of the bishop [himself], though unfortunately the measures decreed by the council were not well articulated.” Sepúlveda wrote to a friend that the judges “thought it right and lawful that the barbarians of the new world should be brought under the dominion of the Christians, only one theologian dissenting [presumably Soto].” Many of the last session’s records seem lost or “at least have not come to light.”13 Both sides claimed victory. Yet it would seem that most of the council approved the Las Casasian rules. So Las Casas seemed to have won.14
For months afterward, the Council of the Indies strove to secure the judgments of the judges in writing. None of the written opinions seem to have been preserved except for that of Dr. Bernardino de Anaya, who approved conquest in order to spread the faith and to stop the Indians’ sins against nature—provided, though, that the expeditions were financed by the Crown and led by men “zealous in the service of the King, who would act as a good example to the Indians and set off for the good of the Indians, not for gold.” He wanted a modern version of the Requerimiento.
What Las Casas plainly wanted from the judges was a declaration that “when no danger threatened, preachers alone should be sent to the new world.” That is what the Catalan theologian and poet Ramón Llull had thought desirable in respect of the Muslims in the thirteenth century and what Las Casas had tried to encourage in Alvarado’s Guatemala—much as what the Jesuits would do in Paraguay or the missions later sent by Spain to California, New Mexico, and Texas. Sepúlveda’s doctrine was less clear. He was never satisfied that he was understood.
The Council of the Indies waited for the written statements of the advisers. They waited forever. Perhaps the Crown did not want a clear-cut decision. A compromise might be better.
What happened in practice was that in Spain the benign friars won the intellectual argument but in the Indies, “on the ground,” the settlers triumphed. Perhaps no one observed that at the time, since all was subsumed in the quarrels of Europe, the mother continent.
46
The Knight of the Black Eagle
If there is no way to avoid an engagement before I arrive, I cannot enjoin you too strongly to inform me post haste.
PHILIP II ON THE EVE OF THE BATTLE OF SAINT QUENTIN
War marked Europe in the late 1540s. It was the first time that a major European war had been fought in Germany. On the one side was a Catholic emperor standing not only for the unity of Christendom but for universal Christian power and, on the other, the Protestant states articulating special particularism. Charles, now a widower1 and usually melancholy in time of peace, was happy to be in an army again: “There goes the happiest man in the world,” his brother Ferdinand’s ambassador Martín de Salinas had written in 1536 about Charles and the war in Provence.2 (It was Salinas who ensured that Ferdinand received so much information about the Indies.)3
On June 26, 1546, the Farnese pope, Paul III, signed a treaty agreeing to support Charles against the Protestants. But France and England on June 6 had concluded a treaty at Guînes, in the Pas de Calais, then, of course, an English possession, which freed them both from obligations to Charles. On July 26, an army of Protestant princes reached the Danube and threatened to cut off Charles, who, in his litter, marched to the river Inn, and on August 13, joined with papal troops. Next day, the Protestant Schmalkaldic League formally challenged him, sending him a herald in the traditional manner. Charles assembled his army of thirty thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry. He then amalgamated these forces with those of the Dutch count Egmont, who had five thousand cavalry. The first battle was on August 31 at Ingolstadt, Charles taking part at the head of his men, supported by Alba and Egmont. Through his victory there, Charles won control of south Germany by the end of 1546. This was the victory of Alba, then at his best as a commander.
At Christmas 1546, Charles was at Heilbronn in Württemberg. He was then weary, having slept in forty different places since August. Next spring, in April—supported by his brother, Ferdinand, with his son Maximilian, and by the treacherous Maurice of Saxony—he defeated the elector John Frederick of Saxony at Mühlberg, near Leipzig, on the Elbe. Charles commented “Vine, vi y Dios conquistó.” John Frederick was not aware that Charles could cross the Elbe at Mühlberg. Alba brought the elector as a prisoner to Charles, who treated him scornfully. The Emperor then continued north to Wittenberg, the scene of Luther’s first challenge, which John Frederick surrendered on June 4 to avoid a siege. This marked Charles’s greatest triumph and enabled him to summon a diet at Augsburg. The Battle of Mühlberg is known as the occasion for Titian’s masterpiece; it is a unique example of a great victory inspiring a great picture.
Early in 1548, Charles wrote to his son and regent, Philip, who was then just twenty-one: “Seeing that human affairs are beset with doubt, I can give you no general rules save to trust in God. You will show this by defending the faith … I have come to the conclusion that a ge
neral council [of the Church] is the only way ahead … Peace will depend not so much on your actions as on those of others. It will be a difficult task for you to preserve it, seeing that God has bestowed so many great kingdoms and principalities on you … You know yourself how unreliable Pope Paul III [Farnese] is in all his treaties, how, sadly, he lacks all [real] zeal for Christendom, and how badly he has acted in this affair of the council [of the Church] above all. Nevertheless, honour his position. He is old [he had been born in 1468, so he was eighty]. Therefore, take careful heed to the instructions which I have given my ambassador [the clever Diego Hurtado de Mendoza] in case of a [papal] election … France has never kept faith and has always sought to do me harm … Never yield to them so much as an inch … Defend Milan with good artillery, Naples with a good fleet. Remember that the French are always discouraged if they do not succeed immediately in anything which they undertake. The Neapolitans, remember, are much given to revolt. Let them be constantly reminded how the French once sacked their city … You can never manage without Spanish troops in Italy … To preserve peace, I have allowed my demands for our ancient hereditary land, for the duchy of Burgundy, to lapse. But do not altogether forget your rights there … And do not at any time be persuaded to renounce Piedmont.”
It was an emperor who wrote and one who did not forget his more remote possessions. For he went on to advise Philip to keep a watch over his fleet. It was his best defense against pirates in the Mediterranean, and it would also keep the French from interfering in the Indies. Philip should cultivate Portugal for the same reason: “Do not cease to keep yourself well informed of the state of those distant lands, for the honour of God and the care of justice. Combat the abuses which have risen in them.” Charles also urged Philip to marry again soon, since he would need more children. (His first wife, María, had died.) He suggested Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of the new king Henry of France, or Jeanne d’Albret, daughter of King Henry of Navarre, who was “very attractive and clever.”
