Las Casas’s Use of Legal Interpretive Rules at Valladolid

Abstract

Who was Bartolomé de Las Casas as a legal reformer? A forefather of human rights, champion of indigenous peoples, and radical critic of Spanish imperialism. But comparatively little scholarship has “systematically addressed how Las Casas functioned as a [lawyer] throughout his life.” I want to do so in micro form by considering how he read one key legal text at one key moment. I will show how Las Casas reworked Pope Alexander VI's 1493 bull Inter caetera in support of his critique of conquest. I look to his arguments concerning Inter caetera at the 1550–1551 imperial deliberations (junta) held at Valladolid, exploring four interpretive rules Las Casas used: (1) “the will of a ruler is always to be judged in conformity with the law”; (2) the Church’s jurisdiction over non-Christians is strictly limited; (3) legal texts must be interpreted to avoid “inhumanity or absurdity”; and (4) factual recitations matter.

Keywords: Bartolome de Las Casas, legal history, canon law, imperialism, Spanish Empire, colonialism, pope, legal method, jurisprudence, Inter caetera, doctrine of discovery, Indigenous