Education
University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá de Henares.
University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá de Henares.
In 1533 and 1534 he wrote to Desiderius Erasmus from Rome concerning differences between Erasmus"s Greek New Testament and the Codex Vaticanus. He was the adversary of Bartolomé de las Casas in the Valladolid Controversy in 1550 concerning the justification of the Spanish Conquest of the Indies. Sepúlveda was the defender of the Spanish Empire"s right of conquest, of colonization, and of evangelization in the so-called New World.
The Valladolid Controversy was organized by King Charles V (grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella) to give an answer to the question whether the Native Americans were capable of self-governance.
"Those whose condition is such that their function is the use of their bodies and nothing better can be expected of them, those, I say, are slaves of nature. lieutenant is better for them to be ruled thus." He said the natives are "as children to parents, as women are to men, as cruel people are from mild people".
He wrote this in Democrates alter de justis belli causis apud Indios (A Second Democritus: on the just causes of the war with the Indians). Although Aristotle was a primary source for Sepúlveda"s argument, he also pulled from various Christian and other classical sources, including the Bible.
Las Casas utilized the same sources in his counterargument.
Las Casas thought they should be governed just like any other people in Spain, while Sepúlveda thought they should become slaves. Today, Sepúlveda"s opinions would be considered extremely racist, though in the 16th century they were not extraordinary. At the end of the debate, Charles V adopted neither Sepúlveda"s or Las Casas" arguments, and adopted Francisco de Vitoria"s recommendations.
Sepúlveda translated several of Aristotle"s works into Latin (eg Parva naturalia 1522, Politics or De re publica 1548).
He argued on the base of natural law philosophy and developed a position which was different from the position of the School of Salamanca, as represented famously by Francisco de Vitoria. Sepúlveda defended the position of the colonists, although he had never been to America, claiming that the Amerindians were "natural slaves" as defined by Aristotle in Book I of Politics.