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Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda
Sepúlveda, a distinguished scholar of Aristotle, was official historian of the Spanish crown. In 1547 he wrote The Second Democrates to defend the Spanish Conquest of the Americas. He used the substance of that argument when he debated Bartolomé de Las Casas three years later.

The man rules over the woman, the adult over the child, the father over his children. That is to say, the most powerful and most perfect rule over the weakest and most imperfect. The same relationship exists among men, there being some who by nature are masters and others who by nature are slaves.

Those who surpass the rest in prudence and intelligence, although not in physical strength, are by nature the masters. On the other hand, those who are dim-witted and mentally lazy, although they may be physically strong enough to fulfill all the necessary tasks, are by nature slaves.

It is just and useful that it be this way. We even see it sanctioned in the divine law itself, for it is written in the Book of Proverbs: “He who is stupid will serve the wise man” [11:29].

And so it is with the barbarous and inhumane peoples [the Indians] who have no civil life and peaceful customs. It will always be just and in conformity with natural law that such people submit to the rule of more cultured and humane princes and nations. Thanks to their virtues and the practical wisdom of their laws, the latter [the Spanish] can destroy barbarism and educate these people to a more humane and virtuous life. And if the latter [the Indians] reject such rule, it can be imposed upon them by force of arms. Such a war will be just, according to natural law.…

Until now we have not mentioned their impious religion and their abominable sacrifices, in which they worship the Devil as God, to whom they thought of offering no better tribute than human hearts … They placed these hearts on their abominable altars. With this ritual they believed that they had appeased their gods. They also ate the flesh of sacrificed men.

War against these barbarians can be justified not only on the basis of their paganism but even more so because of their abominable licentiousness, their prodigious sacrifice of human victims, the extreme harm that they inflicted on innocent persons, their horrible banquets of human flesh, and the impious cult of their idols.…

Since the evangelical law of the New Testament is more perfect and more gentle than the Mosaic law of the Old Testament, so also wars are now waged with more mercy and clemency. Their purpose is not so much to punish as to correct evils.

What is more appropriate and beneficial for these barbarians than to become subject to the rule of those whose wisdom, virtue, and religion have converted them from barbarians into civilized men (insofar as they are capable of becoming so), from being torpid and licentious to becoming upright and moral, from being impious servants of the Devil to becoming believers of the true God?

For these barbarians, our rule ought to be even more advantageous than for Spaniards, since virtue, humanity, and the true religion are more valuable than gold or silver. And if they refuse our rule, they may be compelled by force of arms to accept it. Such a war will be just according to natural law.

Bartolomé de Las Casas
The Dominican friar was his era’s most outspoken critic of the Conquest.

There are no races in the world, however rude, uncultivated, barbarous, gross, or almost brutal they may be, who cannot be persuaded and brought to a good order and way of life.…

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