The Thomism of Bartolomé De Las Casas and the Indians of the New World
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2016 The Thomism of Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Indians of the New World Thomas Francis Xavier Varacalli Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Varacalli, Thomas Francis Xavier, "The Thomism of Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Indians of the New World" (2016). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1664. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1664 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE THOMISM OF BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS AND THE INDIANS OF THE NEW WORLD A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Political Science by Thomas Francis Xavier Varacalli B.A., Belmont Abbey College, 2011 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2014 May 2016 © Copyright 2016 Thomas Francis Xavier Varacalli All rights reserved ii This dissertation is dedicated, humbly, to my parents Joseph Anthony and Lillian Elizabeth Varacalli and to my two alma maters Belmont Abbey College and Louisiana State University iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Words cannot express the gratitude that I have for the many people who have helped me with this project. I would first like to thank my parents, to whom this dissertation is dedicated, and my brother, John Paul, and my sister, Theresa Elizabeth. It would be a crime to neglect the generosity of my chair, James Stoner, who patiently read each chapter as I was writing. He provided me with the encouragement and enthusiasm to take up this project. I have benefited greatly from the wisdom and patience of my committee members – James Stoner, Cecil Eubanks, Kathleen Bratton, Christine Kooi, and Charles Pence. Lezlie Haynes and Katherine Surek have helped me with several bureaucratic details. I would also like to thank the great Ellis Sandoz, who served on my committee until his retirement in May 2015. There are many people who deserve recognition, but I specifically want to recognize my professors at Belmont Abbey College for encouraging me to pursue graduate school. In particular, I want to mention Eugene Thuot, Travis Cook, Gerald Malsbary, Troy Feay, Michael Hood, David Williams, Grattan Brown, Ronald Thomas, and Anne Carson Daly. I also want to thank my friends - John Kitch, Sarah Beth Kitch, Christine Basil, Brian Watson, Stephen Savage, Eric Schmidt, Forrest Gordon, Stephen Wolfe, James Gilley, Joseph Patrick Yodzis, Patrick Jacobeen, Robert Franer, and the very supportive Ana Leija. I would like to express my gratitude to Louisiana State University’s Political Science Department, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the Witherspoon Institute, and the Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies for the various grants, scholarships, and conferences with which they provided me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………..………vii INTRODUCTION: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF THE AMERICAS……………………………………………………………………………………….1 The Political Questions of the Spanish Conquest………………………………………….7 Thomism and the Defense of the Amerindians………………………………………...…17 The Uniqueness of Bartolomé de Las Casas………………………………………...……24 The Structure of the Dissertation………………………………...……………………….28 CHAPTER 1: BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS IN SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT…...….31 The Review of Literature: The Many Interpretations of Las Casas……………………….52 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….…………72 CHAPTER 2: THE THOMISTIC RESPONSE TO THE AMERINDIAN QUESTION BEFORE LAS CASAS………………………………………………………………………….………….74 The Elements of Thomism…………………………………………………….…………77 Tommaso de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan……………………………………………..……….84 Paul III…………………………………………………………………………….……...88 Francisco de Vitoria……………………………………………………..………….……95 Domingo de Soto…………………………………………………………………….….110 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...116 CHAPTER 3: LAS CASAS’ PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY…………………….…119 Justice and Creation…………………………………………………………………..…122 Imago Dei and the Natural Law ………………………………………………………...129 The Rational Soul and the Senses…………………………………………………….…134 The Naturalness of Human Liberty……………………………………………………...141 Toward a Theology of Preaching: Christian Evangelization Befitting Human Nature….146 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...159 CHAPTER 4: THE LEGITIMACY OF AMERINDIAN GOVERNMENT…………….……..161 The Alternative Conceptions……………………………………………………….…...163 Las Casas and the Classical Tradition of the City……………………………………….178 Thomism, Law, and the Limits of Jurisdiction…………………………………….……199 Las Casas’ Response to the Franciscans and the Imperial Defenders……………..…….210 CHAPTER 5: THE JUST WAR AND THE LAW OF NATIONS………………………..……214 The Development of the Just War Theory………………………………………………215 The Just War and the Law of Nations in Vitoria and Sepúlveda…………………………220 Las Casas’ Restoration of the Just War Tradition……………………………………….233 Las Casas’ Application of the Just War to the New World………………………………237 Las Casas’ Various Solutions to the Unjust Wars of the Spanish………………………..247 v Las Casas’ Response to Vitoria and Sepúlveda………………………………………....258 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...262 CHAPTER 6: THE SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH AND THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE PAPACY…………………………………...……………………………….266 St. Thomas………………………………………………………………...…………….268 Vitoria and the Indirecta Potestas…………………………………………...………….278 Las Casas and Contentious Jurisdiction…………………………………………………284 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..…….294 CONCLUSION: THE IMPORTANCE OF THOMISM IN THE DEFENSE OF THE AMERINDIANS…………………………………………………………………………..……297 The Limits of Montaigne’s Philosophy………………………………………………....300 The Case for Las Casas’ Thomism…………………………………………………..….307 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………311 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………327 vi ABSTRACT This dissertation examines Bartolomé de Las Casas as a Thomistic political philosopher. It argues that Las Casas intentionally drew upon the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas in order to provide a robust philosophical anthropology that was able to defend Amerindian rationality and self-rule. He uses Thomas and the Classical tradition to disprove the notion that the Amerindians are natural slaves, to uphold the inherent goodness of politics, to protect Amerindian kingdoms from imperial claims and the direct power of the papacy, and to condemn the unjust wars of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas. Las Casas’ Thomism is particularly important because he provides an alternative to his great contemporary, Francisco de Vitoria. Whereas Vitoria’s Thomism defends certain aspects of the Conquest through the ius gentium, Las Casas’ Thomism leads to a more comprehensive condemnation of the Conquest. vii INTRODUCTION: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF THE AMERICAS The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the political thought of Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566), a Spanish Dominican who defended the self-rule of the Amerindians and condemned many aspects of the Conquest of the Americas. The central argument of this dissertation is that Las Casas used the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas in order to provide an account of the human person, to explicate the relationship between God and humankind, to defend the goodness of politics, and to reiterate the importance of the constitutional principles of the consent of the governed and jurisdictional boundaries. His Thomistic philosophical anthropology equipped Las Casas with the necessary theoretical grounding to condemn many of the intellectual arguments that the Spanish used in support of the Conquest, such as Aristotelian natural slavery, the desire for a universal empire, the notion that dominium (dominion) comes only from grace or faith in Christ, the temporal power of the papacy, and a particular misunderstanding of the just war theory that allowed wars to be waged for conversion. Instead, Las Casas posited that the idea of Aristotelian natural slavery is incompatible with the goodness of God’s creation, that the vision of universal empire threatens the common good of particular regimes, that dominium comes from nature, that the papacy has no temporal authority regarding worldly ends, and that the just war tradition cannot be used in order to legitimize the Conquest. Although there is a significant amount of literature on Las Casas, scholars have not adequately addressed his political thought. Many commentators are often baffled by his perceived scholarly digressions on the importance of writing history, his stories of ancient Greek and Roman figures, his analysis of the nature of good governance, and his strong emphasis on the character of jurisdiction. Las Casas was well-versed in the writings of the ancient and medieval thinkers. His writings are full of citations to Aristotle, the Greek historians, Scripture, 1 the Church Fathers, the scholastics, canon law, and Thomas Aquinas. Las Casas invokes the tradition of Western thought not out of vanity or sophistry, but out of a sincere desire to address and to answer the