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| Philosophical and Political History of the Two Indies | |
|---|---|
| Title | Philosophical and Political History of the Two Indies |
| Period | Early modern period to 19th century |
| Region | Iberian Peninsula, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Americas, Asia |
Philosophical and Political History of the Two Indies
The study surveys the intersection of Sovereignty debates, Natural law doctrines, and imperial practice across the Spanish Empire, Portuguese Empire, Habsburg Spain, Castile, Aragon, Lisbon, and colonial polities in the Americas, Philippines, Brazil, and East Indies from the late 15th century through the 19th century; it traces influences among thinkers such as Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Bartolomé de las Casas, Francisco de Vitoria, Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, Thomas Hobbes, and institutions like the Council of the Indies, Casa de Contratación, Padroado, and the Spanish Inquisition. The narrative connects events including the Treaty of Tordesillas, Treaty of Zaragoza, Reconquista, Age of Discovery, Conquest of Mexico, and Conquest of the Inca Empire with legal instruments such as the Laws of Burgos, New Laws (1542), and the Recopilación de las Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, and with controversies involving figures like Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Philip II of Spain, Manuel I of Portugal, and Pedro Álvares Cabral.
Early modern imperial expansion by Spain and Portugal followed navigational and diplomatic milestones—Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, Alonso de Hojeda—and treaties negotiated by diplomats connected to courts of Isabella I of Castile, Ferdinand II of Aragon, João II of Portugal, and Pope Alexander VI; those actors shaped the juridical geography that named the West Indies and the East Indies while administrative bodies such as the Viceroyalty of New Spain, Viceroyalty of Peru, Viceroyalty of Brazil, Audiencia of Mexico, Real Audiencia of Lima, and the Casa de la Contratación governed commerce and jurisdiction. Encounters with polities like the Aztec Empire, Inca Empire, Taíno, Tupi–Guarani, Ming dynasty, and Sultanate of Malacca produced litigation in tribunals influenced by doctrines developed at the University of Salamanca, debated in the courts of Toledo Cathedral and invoked in papal bulls such as Inter caetera.
Philosophical debates pivoted on texts and authors including Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Dionysius Exiguus, Bartolus de Saxoferrato, Francisco Suárez, Francisco de Vitoria, Hugo Grotius, Alberico Gentili, Sebastian Castellio, and Juan Luis Vives as jurists and theologians addressed sovereignty, dominion, and the criteria for just conquest in dialogues linking concepts to precedents like the Donation of Constantine and the Papal States; scholastic disputations at the University of Salamanca, pamphlets circulated in Seville, Lisbon, and Antwerp, and treatises by Sepúlveda and Las Casas framed the contested application of Just war theory, obligations under Natural law, and principles later invoked by Enlightenment figures such as John Locke and Montesquieu. These arguments intersected with diplomatic practice exemplified by the Treaty of Tordesillas and legal instruments like the Recopilación as colonial officials and missionaries sought normative foundations for policies ranging from conversion campaigns of the Jesuits to mercantile privileges granted by the Casa da Índia.
Imperial governance relied on layered institutions: royal councils such as the Council of the Indies, viceroys in New Spain and Peru, Audiencias, corregidores, and municipal cabildos; they operated under legal codes including the Laws of Burgos, the New Laws (1542), and the Recopilación while interacting with ecclesiastical jurisdictions like the Spanish Inquisition, the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Portugal, and episcopal synods involving bishops such as Bartolomé de las Casas (bishop). Economic and regulatory frameworks tied to charters like the Asiento de Negros, licenses from the Casa de Contratación, and monopolies enforced by royal decrees shaped colonial practice implemented by conquistadors, encomenderos, and colonial magistrates, producing case law recorded in the Archivo General de Indias and litigated in appeals to monarchs such as Philip V of Spain and Maria I of Portugal.
Responses by Indigenous polities and actors—rulers of the Aztec Empire such as Moctezuma II, leaders of the Inca Empire like Atahualpa, communities of the Taino, Mapuche, Guaraní, and indigenous intellectuals who engaged with missionaries and jurists—generated legal petitions, theological defenses, and syncretic practices recorded in chronicles by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, legal pleas presented to the Casa de Contratación, and theological defenses championed by Las Casas and contested by Sepúlveda. Cross-cultural exchanges occurred through translators, missionaries from the Dominican Order, Franciscan Order, and Jesuit order, and through colonial institutions such as missions, cabildos, and royal courts, leading to hybrid literatures and juridical arguments preserved in archives like the Archivo General de la Nación (Argentina), Archivo General de Indias, and missionary records in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu.
Moral controversies pitted defenders of conquest like Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda against critics such as Bartolomé de las Casas and jurists like Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, while economic disputes over treasure fleets, the Asiento de Negros, mercantile regulation by the Casa de Contratación, and smuggling through ports like Portobelo and Cartagena de Indias engaged financiers in Seville, Lisbon, Antwerp, and later Bristol and Liverpool. Political arguments about sovereignty and independence involved actors and events including the Bourbon Reforms, Criollo elites, revolutions inspired by the American Revolution, the French Revolution, leaders like Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, and constitutional experiments such as the 1812 Constitution of Cádiz, the Constitution of Cádiz (1812), and subsequent nineteenth-century nation-building in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Chile.
The debates generated doctrines that informed later legal and political developments—international law precedents by Hugo Grotius and Emer de Vattel, republican theories appropriated by John Locke and Montesquieu, anti-slavery campaigns linked to abolitionists like Gran Colombia activists and reformers in Britain and France, and constitutionalism manifest in the Constitution of Cádiz, Latin American constitutions, and debates in the Cortes of Cádiz and postcolonial legislatures. Archives, treatises, and judicial records preserved in repositories such as the Archivo General de Indias, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Torre do Tombo National Archive, and university collections continue to inform scholarship by historians and legal theorists at institutions like University of Salamanca, Complutense University of Madrid, University of Coimbra, Harvard University, Oxford University, and University of Cambridge on sovereignty, human rights, and the genealogy of modern statehood.